stuffed

i love bread bowl soups. my first one was at disneyland, in anaheim, california. i thought it was the most amazing soup ever. every time we went to disneyland, and we went often (hello southern california resident discount!) i would crave the new england clam chowder soup in the sourdough bread bowl, served only at the stand right outside the pirates of the caribbean ride, in new orleans square. even in the middle of summer i would still want it. that bread bowl soup beat out the monte cristo sandwich, served in the blue bayou restaurant- the one you can see when you're on the pirates of the caribbean ride, as best disneyland food. except for the frozen lemonade and churros. those are in a category all their own.

blue bayou restaurant at disneyland, anaheim, california

many moons later, i finally made a bread bowl soup. i don't know why it took me so long to make this. it's the easiest thing to make and i love it. although, instead of new england clam chowder soup, i made my hubby's preferred cream of broccoli soup. equally as delicious and far less expensive.

 

the ingredient list is short and if you know how to make a roux and bechamel sauce, you can make this. i used sourdough bread because sourdough bread is manna from heaven, but you can use any bread you want, as long as it's a circular shape.

for the soup-

3 tablespoons of butter or margarine
3 tablespoons of all purpose flour
2 cups of preferred milk- i used 1% lactose free because i'm lactose intolerant and on a d-i-e-t
2 cups of chicken broth- i cheat here and use bouillon cubes- if i had fresh broth i would use it
4 cups of uncooked broccoli florets

if you're using bouillon cubes, make the broth according to the instruction on the package and set aside.
in a nonstick pot and over medium high heat, melt the butter or margarine. add the flour and stir until combined and the roux is a light golden brown.

                           

add the milk and stir until roux has dissolved into the milk. bring to a simmer and keep stirring until the sauce has thickened- it will coat the back of a wooden spoon. add the chicken broth.

stir gently to combine. bring to a simmer and add the broccoli. simmer together until the broccoli is at desired tenderness. 

sorry for the bad pic! steam is not a good filter

set aside and prep the bread bowl. 

for the bread- 

1 loaf of sourdough bread- or preferred bread in a shape resembling a circle. mine was an oval.

following the circumference of the bread, about 2 inches away from the edge, cut about an inch into the top of the bread and remove the top.

hollow out the inside. my kids like to help with this part because they get to eat the leftover bread. tada! your bread bowl is ready for soup!

pour the cream of broccoli soup into the bread bowl and serve with preferred shredded cheese. we like ours with cheddar cheese. lots and lots of cheddar cheese. 

this was meant for dinner tonight, but once the soup and bread bowl were ready, we couldn't wait. hubby and i ate it for lunch. a gloriously delicious creamy lunch. 

now i'm so stuffed with goodness i can barely move. 

until next post- maggie

kid friendly

unless i'm cooking in the evening, which never happens, i always have a helper or two or three in the kitchen. have five kids? that's five times the amount of help. i love when the kids help. they learn how to measure, cook, mix, bake, stir, sift, saute - all the kitchen fundamentals. they love helping because they get to be my "taste testers" which is a very popular job in our home when any sort of baked good is involved. using mommy's "cha-chine"- my kitchen aid mixer- is also a popular activity.

my kids also help when we grocery shop. the produce area is a wonderful classroom to learn colors, numbers, and letters. as the munchkins have grown older, they've started to ask how i choose my fruits and vegetables. it also helps that they get free samples of cookies at the bakery.

do i ever tell my kids no to helping? unless i'm deep frying, i let them help because there will be a day when none of them want to help. and at some horrible point in time, they will all move out and need to feed themselves. my hope is that they will have learned to make some basic dishes, or at least their favorite dishes, and avoid the college student diet of cereal, kraft dinner, and bacon.

life lessons from mommy's kitchen.

until next post- maggie

time is on your side

the question i get most often is "how do you find the time?" well, my friends, time is on your side. it's no big secret- i menu plan and it has kept me sane and happy and saved me a ton on grocery bills. there's never a question of "what's for dinner," or emergency trips to the store, and i can prep ahead of time. the majority of my meals don't take longer than half an hour to make. plus, then i only cook three times a week and i can bake treats more, which makes my family happy. everyone wins. only good can come from menu planning.

so what is menu planning? it starts with me checking my grocery store flyer every week. then, based upon what is on sale, i plan what i'll make throughout the week. i write down all the items i need for each meal, making sure to check what i have in my food storage pantry, and then any items that need refilling- ketchup, mayo, kids' lunch things. my list is crucial. if i lose it, i lose my brain. i always shop saturday morning and i only shop once a week. saturday morning shopping, or as my kids call it "breakfast at fortinos," means i get the pick of the produce and not the leftovers, and everything that is on sale is in the store and not sold out.  i start menu planning by selecting my main dishes, based on what meat is on sale and then move on to produce and select which vegetables will accompany my main dishes. for example, if ground beef is on sale, then i know i can make spaghetti, hamburgers, taco soup, chili, tacos, enchiladas- anything where ground beef is the meat. then i plan my side dishes. what will go well with the main? i have a continuing list of my family's favorite dinners and i'll often have the kids chose meals. this guarantees that they will actually eat what is put in front of them. i also make enough to last two evenings. yep, we eat the leftovers. i cook mondays, wednesdays, and saturdays, and we eat the leftovers on tuesdays, thursdays, and sundays. fridays are what we call "fun fridays" in our home, where we eat something fun, usually breakfast for dinner. this came out of necessity since my fridge is always bare by friday.

do i use any fancy programs? nope. it's just me, my calender, and my trusty sharpie. i'm old school. and too lazy to use a computer for something as easy as this.

i block off the cook days with arrows and write in the meal for those two nights. it's not set in stone. it's flexible. if i have spaghetti down for dinner monday/ tuesday evening and roast beef down for wednesday/ thursday evenings' dinner, and there's an appointment monday morning that will cut into my cook time, then i'll pop the roast in the slow cooker overnight on sunday and only make the sides monday. side dishes take no time at all. i cook in the mornings and reheat dinner in the afternoons, before dinnertime. with the after school rush, there's no point in even attempting cooking right before dinner time.

what else has helped me with having more time? knowing kitchen vernacular and having basic knife skills are essential to spending less time in the kitchen. if a recipe calls for julienned vegetables, knowing how to do that and not needing to look it up cuts back on time. knowing what sear, caramelize, broil, and other basic cooking terms mean will help you cook faster and not have to deal with the hassle of a dictionary or wonder if the meal is going to turn out all right. 

what else is there? oh, having a basic knowledge of herbs and spices and knowing what you tastes you prefer helps too. i don't cook from a cookbook, unless i'm baking but that's more for the flour to baking soda/ powder ratio, and i don't measure my seasonings. i use my fingers. i pinch in my seasonings, and i season each ingredient when it's added to the pan, building the layers of flavor. i know which herbs i love and which i cannot stand the taste of- fennel i'm looking at you. this means i don't need to pull out measuring spoons every time and make absolutely sure everything is exactly how it is in the recipe. once again, baking is different; there's a chemical reaction there and something else science-y that my brother and alton brown could explain far better than me. 

i'm also a huge fan of my slow cooker. i bought my professional grade slow cooker a couple years ago and it has simplified my menu planning and made my life so much easier. i always use it overnight for two reasons- #1- dinner is ready when i wake up- the house smells amazing- and i don't have to do much other than make a side dish, and #2- i don't have that much counter space, so i can't keep it out all day. my kingdom for more counter space.

that's pretty much it. are you tired of reading yet? sorry this was so long. i think i covered everything i do for menu planning. it's different for everyone. what works for me may not work for you, and you might want to use a program or app, but i know this...menu planning will help you use time to your advantage and that free time can then be used for something really important, like making chocolate chip cookies, which is my preferred way of spending free time. because, as everyone knows, dessert is truly the whole point of a meal.

thanks for reading! comment below if you have any questions or need me to clarify or if you just want to tell me that i'm a blabbermouth:)

until next post- maggie

mommies need to food, too

i don't know about other stay at home mommies, but sometimes, finding time to eat lunch is difficult. between getting the kids' lunches and cleaning up spills, washing dishes, and mediating arguments, lunch can often be non-existent. i'm all about quick lunches, but satisfying and healthy, too. yesterday, i came up with this for lunch

and it was delicious. simple and quick, just what a mommy needs to refuel. it's a tuna fish salad on romaine leaves and here's the recipe-

for the tuna fish salad- 

1 can of flaked tuna in water

1 1/2 tablespoons of mayo

1 can of corn- i use peaches and cream canned corn because i loathe celery in my tuna fish salad

1 tablespoon of sweet pickle relish

3 romaine leaves

optional- cheddar cheese, salt and pepper

drain the liquid from the tuna. combine the tuna, mayo, corn, and relish together. season with salt and pepper. spoon into the inside of each romaine leaf. if desired, add shredded cheddar cheese on top. enjoy!

*this recipe made enough for two servings. i ate the leftovers for lunch today.

until next post- maggie

culinary influences

i am not a professional chef. i might be one day, but not currently. however, the world is my classroom and i have been blessed with many wonderful teachers. growing up in southern california, i was surrounded by the ocean and the beach. which meant seafood and lots of it. this also means that every time i smell salt in the air i get homesick. you can take the girl away from the ocean, but you can't take the ocean out of the girl. salmon sashimi is one of my favorite meals and i will never turn down seafood or anything mexican or a burger from In-n-Out.

my mom was, and still is, an amazing chinese cook. i used to watch her in the kitchen as she furiously prepped, chopped, sauteed, steamed, seasoned, and plated dinner. that woman could wield a butcher knife like no other. she did the work of an entire kitchen staff on her own and i learned how to season food from her. she used to taste every sauce before it went into the pan and then after it had simmered with whatever meat was that evening's dinner. she would re- season if needed until it was to her liking.

then came my sophmore year at nyu. i went abroad that fall semester and spent a glorious four months in florence, italy, where i visited a new city every weekend. i ate my way through 7 countries and 17 different cities. italy is where i learned to love the early morning markets and how to make marinara sauce and how pizza is not supposed to be smothered in cheese. i learned how to pick apart what i was eating and recognize certain flavors, how to chop, mince, and chiffonade my herbs, and how a meal was meant to be enjoyed and savored, not just scarfed down.

paris was one of the many places i visited and i ate my weight in soup, brie, baguettes, and crepes. crepe stands in paris are as frequent as coffee stands in new york. i was only there for seven days, but those seven days were a mouthwatering, gastronomical delight. french onion soup still reminds me of fall in paris.

after i graduated and my husband and i got married, i started to cook. for real. not just helping my mom prep and getting grossed out by the raw meat. i had never actually cooked for myself before, preferring to eat out and explore new restaurants during my nyu years and then being the happy observer in my mom's kitchen, and it was a happy surprise for my husband when i made our first meal in our first apartment- egg friend rice. after that, i frequently watched ina garten, nigella lawson, giada de laurentiis, laura calder in "french food at home," and iron chef. i had actually grown up watching iron chef on the chinese cable station. my grandmother was a huge fan and we would sit there salivating over the dishes. then, at nyu, my roommates and i would watch and laugh at this magic kitchen that had everything in the world, including a bottle of 500 year old balsamic vinegar. who would need that? after each show, i would practice my knife skills and at the grocery store, i would buy different herbs and spices to try throughout the week. i learned how to refine my method of seasoning and the season each ingredient after it went into the pan. i learned how helpful a mise en place was and how essential it was to keep my blades honed and ready. i learned how to know when meat was fully cooked without having to cut into it and release the juices. i learned how to fillet and stuff a chicken breast. above all, i learned how to hone my senses so i could fully enjoy the art of cooking.

in the words of Auguste Gusteau from Ratatouille, "anyone can cook." even me.

until next post- maggie

authentic chinese

sometimes the chinese in me rears its head and i have to eat something authentic. well, my version of authentic chinese. does being chinese automatically make every chinese dish i cook authentic? chow mein is one of those dishes that i could eat my weight in. tonight i'm pairing it with a maggie version of kalbi steak- which has been marinating overnight in the fridge. the chow mein is quick and filling, includes lots of vegetables, and uses the same sauce that i made to marinate the steaks in.

for the sauce-

soy sauce- i only use kikoman because everything else tastes wrong
hoisin sauce
sesame oil
honey
brown sugar
1 stalk of green onion, finely chopped- i use kitchen shears
garlic powder
ground ginger
ground black pepper
sesame seeds

combine 3 parts soy sauce to 1 part hoisin sauce. add about 1 tablespoon of honey, 1 tsp of sesame oil, and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. start with a 1/2 teaspoon each of the garlic powder, ground ginger, and black pepper. add the green onion and mix everything together. taste and re-season if necessary. the sauce should taste balanced, with equal notes of salt, sweet, and savory. remember to make enough for the steaks and noodles!

for the steak-

place steak in a large freezer bag and cover it in sauce. marinade overnight.
preheat oven to 350⁰F. when ready to cook, remove from marinade, drain off excess liquid, and let it come to room temperature. heat a large nonstick skillet on high. when the pan is smoking, sear both sides of the steak. put steak onto a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, until the insides are pink and the juices run clear. remove from oven and let the steak sit covered, on the baking sheet, for about 10 minutes before serving. slice and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

for the noodles-

1 package of chow mein noodles
a bag of carrot coleslaw- you could just shred carrots, but this is where my lazy kicks in
a dinner plate full of cabbage, sliced in half moons
half a red onion, finely sliced in half moons
1 stalk of green onion, finely chopped
four eggs
salt, pepper, garlic powder, granulated sugar

prepare the noodles according to the instructions on the package. drain and pour into serving dish. coat the noodles with some of the sauce and set aside.

beat eggs with salt, pepper, and the green onions.

in a nonstick wok, heat about 1 tablespoon of oil. add the onions and season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and about 1/2 tsp of white sugar. once the onions are caramelized, add the eggs and scramble. add the carrots and cabbage. season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. saute until the veggies are soft and add some sauce. cover the pan and simmer for about 10 minutes on medium heat. pour over the noodles and toss to combine. before serving, sprinkle with sesame seeds.

you can make the chow mein ahead of time. if you are, reserve some sauce to pour over the combined noodles and vegetables when you reheat them.

thanks for reading! feel free to comment below if you have questions!

until next post- maggie

kitchen MVPs- knives

my kitchen is not that big, but it functions well and i have everything i need. my absolute kitchen essentials are my chef's knife- a japanese one courtesy of my mommy- a paring knife, a serrated knife, and kitchen shears. i used to have a knife block full of fancy knives until i realized that i never used any of them. so i saved the serrated and paring knives and tossed the rest. my kitchen shears are by far my most used utensil. i also have a whetstone to hone my blades and that will last me into the eternities. i love my bamboo cutting board and have a glass one for when i'm working with raw meat. the glass board is also great when i'm working with puff pastry. i can put it to cool in the fridge and it helps keep my puff pastry cold while i'm rolling it out. this works until i can one day have a marble slab:)

i wasn't always great with a blade. after i cut myself for the umpteenth time, my husband insisted i learn some kitchen safety techniques since i was so terrifying. everything i learned, i learned from the tutorial videos i googled. isn't the internet wonderful?

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/mac-and-cheese-recipe2/how-to-slice-chop-and-mince-0154932.html

http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/knife-basics-0152221.html

http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/how-to-julienne-and-dice-0154931.html

http://allrecipes.com/video/38/how-to-master-basic-knife-skills/detail.aspx

thanks for reading! please post any comments or questions below!

until next post- maggie

i cook when i'm bored

that doesn't mean i'm not busy. i have five very adorable kids. however, there are days when the older ones are at school and the younger ones are playing nicely- ie no major fighting- where i find i have some free time. so i cook. or bake. or a combination of both depending on the day. i turn on the music and sing and dance my way while i'm in the kitchen. it's my happy place. 

i love to cook. i am in no way a professional chef, although i would love to attend culinary school. however, i love to eat and my love of cooking originated with my love of eating. i want to eat scrumptious food, delicious food, healthy food, and i want my family to eat the freshest ingredients possible. i love trying new recipes, revisiting and tweaking old ones, learning new techniques and trying new flavors. as i tell my kids, cooking is the only activity that stimulates all of your five senses in the most delectable of ways.

and so my dear readers, enjoy the blog! i hope to whet your appetites and motivate you to enjoy your time in the kitchen! see you soon!

*quickside note- i don't use measurements unless i'm baking. i season according to taste, meaning i season each ingredient as it's added to the pan with whichever seasonings i'm using- salt, ground black pepper, usually garlic powder. i pinch the salt and pepper in with my fingers. i will include the seasonings when posting recipes and estimate the initial measurement. season away until the food tastes the way you like!

until next post- maggie

ps- click on the bold words for hyperlinks!