Such Manners...

We're walking that fine line where the 'he's just a baby' isn't really applying anymore; in many ways including eating.  Let's just say I'm super excited to teach this one manners.  Oh, but you've never had such entertainment as watching this little piggy eat.  It literally makes me laugh out loud most days, and then sigh in frustration as I have to hose down the kitchen and the kid.  And by the way, I saw this on Weelicious, but if you take a banana and wrap it in a flour tortilla with peanut butter, it is delicious.  I add honey and raisins.  Kid, adult, any age, it is spectacular....

The Anti-McMuffin

I have a terrible secret. I have a huge weakness for Egg McMuffins from McDonald's. I could eat them literally every day. At only 300 calories, they are one of the least caloric offenders on the McDonald's menu, but they are full of fillers, hydrogenated this and artificial that, it's just a bad deal.  Plus, how do you not get a hash brown with it? Even though I skip the ham on it (meat from fast food places freaks me out), it's bad news. I like eating eggs in the morning because they keep me the full and can get me through until lunch. 



I bought these at my local box store.  Man, these are handy to have around.   Bought them for my breakfast sandwiches and have used them every day on other things



My assembly line.  Yes, that is American cheese, which is kind of a weird cheese, but there is not a better cheese with eggs. 

I started making these with regular English muffins, whole eggs, butter and cheese, but once I realized that I could eat these every day, I knew I had to change them up. I couldn't lose the cheese, so I changed to whole wheat English muffins, egg whites, and no butter. They are still very good but whoever says there is no difference between whole eggs and egg whites is bonkers. Now I take these to work every day. I can't eat for about an hour after I wake up, so when I get into work, I pop them into the toaster oven for a half hour or so on 400 degrees. If I'm not ready to eat, I just turn the timer on for another 20 minutes. You can't really over cook or mess these up.



Flipping delicious.  I could give or take the ham slice, but it's a good, low calorie protien booster

Nutrition Info

McDonalds McMuffin: 300 calories, 12 grams fat, 18 grams protien

add a hasbrown: 450 calories, 21 grams fat for both

See here for the never-ending fillers and ingredients that are in McDonald's Egg McMuffin

Anti-McMuffin: 231 calories 8 grams of fat, 17 grams protien

Plus, peice of mind because you use your own ingredients. 

Oatmeal Raisin Muffins

Another super healthy muffin that Charlie loves. But unlike these they are actually really good!

 

Can you tell it's a gloomy day out?  Everything looks yellow...

Oatmeal Raisin Muffins
Adapted from the lid of the Dannon Yogurt Tub

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 cup yogurt (any kind will do)
1/2 cup raisins, craisins or a mix of both
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tbsp of Olive Oil
Cinnamon and/or Nutmeg to taste

375 for 22-25 minutes.

The Well-Intentioned Chef - off for the day!




I wish I could say that I invented these, but I saw them in a magazine years ago and now they are all over pinterest.  You just stir in Chinese Rice Noodles into melted chocolate and make them into little nests and place the little chocolate eggs into them.  I put them on wax paper on cookie sheets.  I froze them for a bit to make them easier to handle.  But, amazingly they turned out great and even looked pretty!  The Well Intentioned Chef had the day off

 




maybe not......



Homemade Vinegar

How To Make Vinegar. 

Great for wine left on the counter too long. I can't tell you how many times I've pulled out a stopper from my wine and asked Matt 'did this turn to vinegar?', or took a sip only to pour out bottle because I just gave my body a mini-vinegar cleanse.

I knew it was easy, but it's nice to find a resource to tell me that yes, when your wine turns to vinegar, there are no other steps than to just wait.

I've had wine on the counter turn to vinegar a lot quicker than two weeks but that's probably a good time to wait, just to make sure and get the best flavor.

Directions: Pour the wine into a jar. Keep it partially covered with a lid or stopper, or cover it with cheesecloth and a rubber band to keep it in place. Leave the jar out in a warm place and let it sit there undisturbed for a couple of months. Check back now and then to see how it's going -- you'll be able to smell it when it's done. And, if you leave a little bit in the jar and top it off with more wine, you'll have vinegar again in about one week.

...or just leave it on your counter forever

Source

The Grossest, Healthiest Muffins my Son LOVES

These are NOT good, but Charlie can't get enough.  Matt & Bridgette were hovering and I told them, don't do it...trust me.  But they have good, whole ingredients, so it's a muffin I'm comfortable giving him.

This is a cake recipe, I made muffins.  Adjust as needed for whichever you make

Whole Wheat Carrot Cake
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup nonfat yogurt (it calls for plain, I had vanilla on hand, so I used that)
1/4 cup canola oil (I used olive oil)
2 egg whites
1 egg
1 tbl vanilla
2 cups grated carrot

400 degrees. Mix wet ingredients, fold in carrot. At low speed, beat in mixed dry ingredients until smooth. Bake about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I've never done so much cooking in my life

We have been spending too much money on food lately. We rarely go out to eat.  Actually, we never go out to eat. We've gotten take-out probably twice since the new year, but we never go to restaurants (not a real sacrifice in my book, for $40, I'd rather cook well at home and have some drinks) So, compared with others, we probably spend a lot less than most, but we could do better.  I can be extremely frugal if I need to, a quality I'm actually very proud of.  It's the farm girl in my genes I believe.  Yes, in my genes, I never lived on a farm but was raised around a lot of people who were.

I went and dropped a boat load of money at the grocery store and the local box-store I belong to and we'll see how this turns out. If I do this right, besides the fill-ins like milk and bread, I shouldn't have to buy food for like 3 months. Most of the stuff I made can be eaten for dinner and then eaten as leftovers either for lunch the next day or for the next night. We only have Matt's kids Tuesdays and Thursdays and every other weekend. Bridgette is around less and less with work and school, they don't eat as much food as they used to. Most of the time it's just Matt and me. I still make different food for Charlie because he eats so much earlier than us, but hopefully, he'll be able to eat some of this stuff too. As soon as he stays up a bit later, we can start eating together. I look forward to that time. But until he stops going to bed at 7, that's how it works. I just can't bring myself to eat at 5:15 and Matt usually isn't home anyway.

We keep trying to keep him up a little later, we thought of moving bedtime to 7:30, but if the kid is tired, the kid is tired. Who can argue with a kid that wants to go to sleep?  Just tonight, come 6:30, he was DONE and I put him down and he was happy to go, even after a 3 hour nap this afternoon.  I've said it before and I'll say it agian, God bless those McAuley sleeping genes.

I'm going to list the items I made, plus the items I still need to make and the tricks I've learned from Pinterest. Most that actually work believe it or not!! This is more for my records in case this works and I want to do this again. It'll be a while though.  As much as I love to cook, the last three days have been hell. A hell with lots and lots of dirty dishes. I ran the dishwasher three times today alone.






This is pretty cool.  I'm scared of cream of ____ soups.  All gel-ly and scary.  I can handle the mushroom because it's veggie, but cream of chicken?  ewwwwww  Found this here.  You mix dried milk, corn starch, bullion and some spices and stir it with some water and it makes 'cream of something' soup.  Good for when it's called for in a recipe.  I don't know about eating it outright, but who eats cream of chicken by itself?  Very handy and very cheap



I made 10 lbs of pulled pork in two batches in the crock pot.  Vacuum packed it in 1.5 lb bags

I poured the juices of the pulled pork into ice cube trays for when I reheat them.  (Home made baby food gear just keeps coming in handy) Easier than putting them in 8 little Tupperware

This is something I've been doing for a while.  When we butchered Matt's deer, we ground bacon in with it to add some fat because deer is so lean.  I had some leftover ground bacon that I bagged up and ever since, this is how I cook bacon.  I bought a 30 lb of bacon and ground it all up and separated it into little bags.  Cooks up as easy as sausage and is much less of a pain and less messy than cooking regular bacon.  Basically cooks into bacon bits.  It's a little temperamental, you have to cook it very even and if the heat gets too high, it pops like popcorn.  But other than that, I've loved this new technique of cooking bacon

My pureed cauliflower.  There is pureed cauliflower & carrots in almost every single dish I made.  This is another baby food crossover that I use often.  Especially since Matt's kids don't like their veggies very well. 
'Mollie, what is this orange stuff in here?"
"Uh, that's just cheese that didn't stir in well"
"oh, okay"
"he he he he he he"

I just taped the name of the dish and the cooking instructions on the top of each item.  Some have some extra steps to do before you put it in the oven, I write that on there too

We will see if this works- I read that if you clip green onions above the white, if you keep them in the sun and in clean water, they will regrow.  We shall see.....

These are great.  I make basically 'mini quiches' for Matt to bring to work for breakfast everyday.  I couldn't have him eating a granola bar for breakfast every day.  He's hungry 20 minutes later.  This gives him a good breakfast in his stomach the will last him through the morning.   In a frying pan I cook up any mix of bacon, sausage, mushrooms, onion, spinach, really anything you want.  Spoon a little in each muffin cup, add cheese. In a bowl, mix 12 eggs WELL (I use my immersion blender, hand mixing just doesn't do) add salt, pepper, thyme, whatever you want.  Cook on 350 for about 25 minutes.  Check them often, they turn quick if they are overcooked.  Throw the whole thing in the freezer and pop them out into a ziploc bag.  Matt takes 2 each day. 

Pinterest Tips:

Light a candle while you cut onions.  I thought that all 'do this and you won't cry when you cut onions' were wives tales, I've never found one that worked.  But, I tried it and it worked.  A lot of the recipes called for onion, so I had to cut up a bunch at once.  It seems to work.  It may have been a fluke, but as of today....it worked.

Use your paddle attachment on your kitchen-aid mixer for perfectly shredded chicken.  This was AWESEOME.  So many of the recipes called for chicken so I boiled ten chicken breasts in heavily salted water.  I put them in my kitchen aid bowl and mixed them on speed 3 with the paddle attachment and viola- shredded chicken.  Do you know how long it takes to shred chicken with two forks?  I was thrilled.  As they were shredding, I added some more salt and pepper to the chicken.  So uber handy.

What is in the freezer right now:

6 bags of ready to go spaghetti sauce with meat, mushrooms and all the spices (and hidden cauliflower, carrots and zucchini).  This was economical because I was able to use the big can of tomato sauce, plus paste, diced tomatoes and season it myself.  Much cheaper than store bought sauce

3 smaller pans of homemade macaroni and cheese using this recipe

2 pans meatloaf

3 big ziplocs of Black Bean & Chicken Chili

Chicken Bacon Vegetable Casserole

Chicken Broccoli Supreme Casserole

Broccoli & Chicken Casserole

All of the three above are different recipes, we'll see which is best.  I've never been a big casserole person, but I scoured the web for edible ones for this project, let's hope these are good

I still have quite a few more I can do, I'm taking a break because I can't cook anymore for right now.  Tomorrow, there is bunch of baking I'm going try to tackle.  Healthy muffins I can take to work and/or give to Charlie.  More on that later....

In addition to all the meat I used, there is also a surplus of just meat I was able to package up for grilling, general cooking etc.

We'll see how this all goes, I'll update more later.



My little helper

Update:  I don't think this is worth it.  All the meals were only so-so.  I can make a whole meal in less than 30 minutes that tastes much better.  I think I'm done with freezer meals

Hot Vinegar with Chili's from the Garden

This stuff is delicious.  We dried the chili's from our garden, we got about 6,786 of them.  You have to freeze them for two weeks (to kill everything that may be on them - ew) put them in an old soy sauce bottle and fill with plain white vinegar.  This is good on everything from eggs to salmon to popcorn.  Matt & I use this stuff on everything.

Grandma Kit's Stuffing

With Thanksgiving coming up, there are all sorts of stuffing recipes out there.  I had one blog I follow go on and on about how good their mother's stuffing was.  Ha!  I want to throw my head back and laugh.  There is only one stuffing that beats them all.  I've brought this stuffing to family's, friend's, acquaintance's, boyfriend's parent's- now in-law's houses for Thanksgiving and I've never met anyone who likes stuffing that doesn't say it's the greatest.  This recipe comes from Lucy's grandmother Kit.

Grandma Kit's Stuffing:

1 stalk celery
3-5 medium white onions
4-5 tubes Jimmy Dean Sausage - preferably sage flavored, but you can mix
4 bags seasoned bread cubes
3 sticks butter
3 boxes assorted stock (or 8-9 cans)

Simmer one stalk of celery in 2 cups water.  In another pan saute 4-5 white onions in 1 cup of water.  Simmer until glassy.  Combine and add 3 sticks of butter. 

Brown 4-5 Jimmy Dean Sage sausage packs-drain  (they were out of sage this year, grrrr....I bought 4 packs of reduced fat and added a sage seasoning.)

Take half the veggies (with liquids) and half the sausage and combine with 2 bags seasoned bread crumbs (I like pepperidge farms)

Stir in mixture of broths - I use 1 1/2 of the large boxes of broth.  I use a combo of no-salt added chicken and organic vegetable broth.  You can use mixture of chicken, beef or veggie.  My only tip would to make sure it's at least low-sodium.  This stuffing is plenty salty.  Stir until desired wetness - you can add more as needed, but I wouldn't use much less that that.  Now, do the same  with the other half. 

Spray pam in your casserole dishes and fill with stuffing.  This recipe fills all of my casserole dishes.  I make this stuffing for thanksgiving and then freeze some for Christmas.  I also usually make a little 2 person portion for a special surprise treat for Matt some time. 

To freeze: cover with plastic wrap, cover with foil and put casserole lid on. 

File under Freezes beautifully (catch the reference?  Anyone?) 

Bake at 350 uncovered for about an hour- make sure to at least partially thaw it before baking.  Stir occasionally.  Basically bake it until it's as yummy and crispy on the top as you like it. 

Good, now I can stop panicking because I can't find the recipe- it's officially on the blog

Catch up

I know I don't write up updates like I used to when he was younger, but the milestones are getting farther and farther apart as he gets older. Charlie is very busy. He babbles a lot, but there are no actual words besides 'hi'. I keep going back and forth on whether I'm worried about it but every time I get worried, everyone assures me he's fine. He is much more interested in mastering his motor skills. When I try to talk to him, sometimes he listens, but usually he is too focused on trying to find his truck to pay attention to me.

His favorite foods are... everything.  I'm still pretty crazy-pants about his food.  Still no juice, no crackers, trying to keep his foods very basic and whole. No gerber graduates for Charlie. He eats lots of veggies, lots of whole wheat pasta and loves any kind of fruit.  He eats meat almost every day at daycare, so I very rarely give him meat.  I use beans and cheeses as a protein source at home. 

Charlie's Favorite Pasta:
2-3 cloves roasted garlic(pre-roast garlic and keep a little in oil in the fridge)
Handful of feta cheese
Broccoli, peas, carrots, french beans, whatever veggies you have around
Olive oil
Butter
Dark Red Kidney Beans (for some reason, the dark reds have almost no sodium)
Mural of Flavor(a fantastic salt-free spice blend from Penzy spices)
Whole Wheat Pasta

Mash garlic with fork and mix with feta at bottom of bowl or tupperware you will be using.  Cook pasta, drain, melt a pat of butter and a drizzle of olive oil on pasta, add a little mural of flavor seasoning.  Steam or microwave veggies, stirring often - add a dash of olive oil and seasoning.  Heat beans up for 30 seconds in micro (tend to get mashed if you cook them with the veggies) and mix all together.  Taste- add butter or seasoning to taste.  I make 2-3 meals worth and stick in the fridge.  It heats up well.  I have substituted brown rice or cous-cous for the pasta, but pasta seems to be his favorite

He CAN'T GET ENOUGH of this stuff.

He is very attached to his blanket and his Curious George monkey. The monkey is a new development.  It's really cute how much he likes at bed time. He is still going to bed at 7pm. There are nights I want him to stay up later, even 7:15, but by 6:50 he's trying to crawl in his crib. How can you say no to a kid that wants to sleep!? I just get so little time with him in the evenings, I won't mind when he is up even until 8pm. But he sleeps through the entire night like a champ and still takes 2-3 hour naps every day.  We are down to just the night bottle.  I have no idea how I'm going to cut this thing out.  First of all, it's how he makes up his ounces of milk he requires throughout the day.  Second, it's such a part of our ritual.  Every night we take our bottle and read a book, lay him in his crib, turn on his turtle and his moon and say goodnight.

He's getting so big, he's hit a little spurt...I can tell he's taller.  I try very hard not to spoil him or let him turn into a mama's boy, but it's harder than it sounds!  I'm not so judgemental to over-indulgent parents as I used to be!  Matt gave me the lecture that I don't have to get him a toy every time we go somewhere.  And I don't have to pick him up every time he cries.  I know, I know....I have to get this under control NOW or I'm going to have one of those kids you politely want to smack at the grocery store. 

Did you vote?  We did!

We've been down to 2 pacifiers forever.  I always say when we move out of this house we are going to find 75 pacifiers.  I walk in this morning and he has THREE pacifiers. I change his sheets, which involves me tearing the whole crib apart, so where WERE these?!?  He has a secret pacifier stash and I really want to find it!

 

He loves all things with wheels right now.  He lines them up and pushes them across the coffee table.  There haven't been many milestones lately, but this is a big new thing, his ability to play with his toys.  It's so amazing to see him learning and changing.



We're trying to learn nose, ear and belly.  But every time I say "where's you belly button?" he thinks I'm going to tickle him, laughs and runs away.

This is such a fun age.  He's happy, funny, able and loving.  He's my amazing little man.  I asked Matt the other night 'does everyone love their kid this much?' 'Yep' he says.  Do you ever look at your kid and think there is no way other people love their kid this much? (and if you can tell, I got a wild hair and completely rearranged the furniture in this room, so now, it's backwards from where it was)

Line 'em up Charlie! (Finally got the new Adele album, Charlie and I LOVE it)

He's getting so much hair, it gets all spikey in the bath now

Pretty soon I'll be able to do a bath time mowhawk

tee-hee

The super duper cute PJs from his cousin Bishop

He really didn't want his picture taken, it was bedtime, he just wanted his bottle.  He had seen the bottle and once he has seen it, it's over.  He wants the bottle NOW

Daddy's hat

The Well-Intentioned Chef Strikes Again- Lego Cake

I just made a pound cake in a loaf pan and 6 cupcakes.  Made the top flat and cut the cupcakes in half and set them on top

It's pound cake so I used a dream whip frosting with a ton of yellow food coloring

I think it would have worked better with regular frosting, but you have to have dream whip with pound cake, but it made it much harder to spread.  Yet again, it looked horrible, but tasted delicious.  Most of the pretty things I make taste awful, so when it turned out ridiculous, I was pretty sure it would taste good

In honor of William & Kate's Royal Nuptuals....Prince William's Chocolate Biscuit Groom's Cake!

This refrigerator cake is simple and easy enough for common-folk like myself to whip up in no time flat. I'm not even sure why it's called a "cake". It's fairly dense, intensely chocolaty, and reminds me more of a candy bar.



I wasn't sure I'd be able to locate the McVities Rich Tea Biscuits called for in the recipe. My best option locally was World Market, and ten minutes later I was walking out of the store with McVities in hand



Chocolate Biscuit Cake

Lightly adapted recipe from Eating Royally by Darren McGrady


1/2 tsp. softened butter for greasing pan

8 oz. McVities rich tea biscuits, broken into pieces

1/2 stick (4 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup extra find granulated sugar

4 oz. (about 1/2 cup) chopped chocolate or chocolate chips

1 egg, beaten

8 oz. chocolate for icing

Cinnamon for dusting

Lightly grease a 6" spring form pan. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until mixture has lightened in color.

Melt 4 oz. chocolate in a double boiler. Add butter and sugar mixture to the chocolate stirring constantly. Add the egg and continue to stir. Fold in biscuit pieces until they are all coated with the chocolate mixture.

Spoon the chocolate coated biscuits into the cake pan. Press firm with the back of a spoon to fill in any gaps - the bottom of the cake will be the top when turned out. Chill the cake in the refrigerator for 3 hours.

Remove cake and unmold on a wire rack. Melt the 8 oz of chocolate (I did this in the microwave) and pour over the cake. Spread smooth with an off-set spatula. Allow chocolate coated cake to sit at room temperature until chocolate is set. When set, run a spatula under the cake to remove from wire rack (chocolate makes it stick a little). Transfer to a fancy serving platter, slice and serve.

Source

I should have named my blog 'The Well-Intentioned Chef' Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Eggs

I find all these lovely recipes online and I think...I can do that.  I decided we would skip the store bought candy and I'd try to make something from scratch for the kid's Easter baskets.  Here is what they were supposed to look like

Start with 2 1/2 cups Peanut Butter

Add 1 1/2 cup Powdered Sugar

Stir together, I had to use my hands at the end to really combine the ingredients

Recipe said that it would make about 20-25 eggs.  I made 30 and still had some left over.  I would have liked to make these smaller- that's a lot of peanut butter.  Next time, I would definitely cut the recipe in half

I got the toppings ready.  You have to put them on very quickly.  The candy melt hardens very quickly.  I used coconut, almonds and sprinkles

Well....the peanut butter eggs looked more like peanut butter rabbit poo.  I had to laugh because they were turning out so bad



Here is a real gem



This is probably the only one that I thought looked good- the ONLY ONE

I put them in cups and wrapped them in little bags.  Oh well, they are very tasty and that's all that matters really

Recipe and Source