Happy Valentine's Day

Bob and I have a Valentine's tradition of not eating out. Instead, we take turns making a nice dinner for each other. It's a chance to try out dishes we might not otherwise make as we try to impress each other.

This year was my turn. We started out with a strawberry chop salad with a strawberry vinagrette dressing. You can find the recipe here. It was not only beautiful (which is not fully reflected in the photo), but even Bob, the non-strawberry eater in our family, gave it a big thumbs up.

Valentine's Salad

The main course was chicken in a basil cream sauce, which was one of our favorite culinary discoveries this year. Here's the recipe. And the photo showing Bob's very own hand!

Valentine's dinner featuring chicken with a basil cream sauce

Sides included a mushroom rice pilaf with red peppers instead of green (it's Valentine's Day!) and roasted asparagus with balsamic vinegar (our new favorite way to roast asparagus).

One of the highlights of the meal was the heart-shaped chocolate cake:

Heart-shaped Valentine's Cake

The cake was fairly simple, but won the title of Coolest Thing Ever from our teenage daughters (they also thought it tasted really good when we ate it later). I remember making this cake when I was 14 or 15 with a church group. But I think the advisor who helped us make them must have had miniature cake pans, because this cake turned out to be enormous. Seriously, the only thing we had that it would fit on was a cookie sheet (aka a jelly roll pan), and then it barely fit.

I used a chocolate cake mix and put half of the mix in a 9-inch square pan, and half in a 9-inch round pan. After it was baked and thoroughly cooled, I cut the round cake in half and placed each half along the side of the square cake (turned it diagonally) so that it formed a gigantic heart.

I debated whether to make the lattice on the cake out of whipped cream or frosting. I opted for frosting; we (we being the girls and I) also debated whether to make the frosting pink, cream-colored, or light chocolate. You cans see that plain cream won out, and I think it was a good choice given the visual intensity of the cake. I used this frosting recipe, doubled it, and barely had enough. The frosting turned out to be a good choice, as we didn't even come close to finishing the cake in one sitting, and the frosting will hold up much better than whipped cream would.

I've already reminded Bob that it's his turn next year. Good luck, Honey!

Kirkland Brand Mayonnaise

By now I'm sure you're convinced that we never shop anywhere but Costco. And you would be almost correct.

I've posted before about the  vast quantities of mayonnaise consumed at our house. Traditionally we have purchased the gallon-size Kraft brand at Costco because it was cheap. We have looked at the Best Foods brand right next to it with longing in our eyes, dreaming of the day when we would be rich and have fewer children to feed. Do we really think we'll be buying mayonnaise by the gallon when there are just two of us at home? If we do we'll have to also be buying some much bigger pants to wear.

Recently Bob spotted this dream come true in the mayonnaise aisle at Costco. It is a) of about the same quality and texture as the Best Foods brand and b) cheaper than Kraft. We are in Mayonnaise heaven.

Goodbye, Summer!

We all know that summer has been gone for quite a few weeks now. But last week brought the last of our beautiful warm weather, and as a special tribute, I made this salad. It's not a complicated recipe (and none of the items in the salad were grown in our garden). But it was so beautiful that I thought the photo alone was worth sharing.

The shrimp come frozen in a bag from Costco; I thawed them in water and then sauteed them in olive oil and garlic. I drizzled it with a mixture of vidalia onion dressing, also from Costco, mixed with a little bit of mayonnaise (which was intended to tone the dressing down a bit). But the photo with dressing drizzled hid some of the salad's true elegance.

Yesterday the snow flew for the first time. We're looking forward to lots of soup and comfort food, but we'll miss the beautiful and healthy vegetables, or at least the idea of finding them waiting for us in the back yard. But one thing we love about living in Utah is the four seasons. The fact that each one is fleeting helps us to enjoy the unique beauty of any time of year.

Goodbye, Summer! And maybe even Fall.

The First Annual Family Cook Off

We recently completed our first annual family cook off. We believe it's important for our kids to leave home knowing how to cook. They haven't always been thrilled about our formal cooking lessons; we thought this might be a more fun way to make sure that each of them had prepared a complete meal on their own.

We aren't completely insane; we only included the five kids who are twelve or older. We started by choosing five types of food and had each of them draw a category. The person who got sandwiches was thrilled; the person who chose Asian food was a little overwhelmed. They got to choose the menu within those constraints. We gave them five or six criteria against which to be judged (presentation, flavor, difficulty, cost, etc.) and asked them to use a five point rating scale--five is good, one is not good. The whole family voted on each person's meal each night. We posted the menu and a running total of the scores to date on the fridge.



The cost was something that obviously couldn't be judged objectively by the kids; having them judge difficulty of a meal was a stretch. We added a cost score in later by calculating the out-of-pocket expenses for that meal (we didn't include the cost of items we already had on hand). Katie, the winner, got to go to lunch with Mom and Dad.

We think the activity was a success. All of the kids did well, and even those who aren't all that interested in cooking took it seriously. The point spread between the high scorer and the low scorer was only five. Most of them agreed to participate again next summer.

Our Garden Grows

You can see that the girls' garden has grown quite a bit in the past couple of weeks. We've had a crazy life recently and didn't go over to see its progress as often as we wanted to. When we paid a visit on Monday night, we were surprised by how much had changed!

It's been unusually rainy here this month. Lou waters the garden by flood irrigation. For the girls, one of the best parts of having this garden is splashing around in the water (even though it's freezing cold and the weather hasn't really been hot enough to compensate yet). But Lou skipped this week's watering turn because there wasn't any need for it. It's rained almost every day, which is highly unusual for any time of year in Utah.

The girls were especially pleased because we actually had our first harvest of the summer from this garden. The radishes were ready! We also learned what happens when you don't thin enough; they mature, but don't grow very big. I don't think the girls even like radishes much, but they were very excited to reap their own harvest.

Here's Jenny with her radish bouquet.

Eating our way through Brazil

Last week my husband Bob and I were in Manaus, Brazil. Manaus is in the state of Amazonas, which, as the name would imply, is in the Amazon rain forest. Our oldest son, Robby, has been there for two years as a missionary for our church. We went to meet him as he finished his service. Our second oldest son, David, went with us. The trip was his high school graduation gift.

Of course, one of the most interesting elements of the trip for us was the food. We learned a lot of amazing things. A McDonald's combo meal was one of the most expensive meals we ate. One of the best meals was at a restaurant where we got meat, beans, rice and a beverage for about $4 per person.

This photo captures nicely some of the most fascinating aspects of Brazilian eating (although it unfortunately misrepresents the amount of fun we had; both Bob and David quite enjoyed this meal, their facial expressions notwithstanding). It was taken at a restaurant called Gauchos, one of the nicest churrascarias in Manaus. A churrascaria is a type of Brazilian barbecue place; you can see the spit with meat on it at the end of the table. The server cuts off as much meat as you desire, and leaves it on your plate. Servers come around frequently with a wide variety of meats (and, if you're lucky, grilled pineapple). We have a churrascaria in the city where we live. Bob and I thought it compared very favorably with the one in Manaus, in terms of both cost and quality.

Another unique element of Brazilian dining is the guarana. Guarana is a uniquely Brazilian soft drink that is based on the flavor of the guarana fruit. It's available in some other south American countries and, truth be told, can be purchased at our local grocery store. In Amazonas we sampled a wide range of brands, with each brand having its own unique flavor. I even discovered that there's an Antarctica Zero--sugar free guarana! It tastes the same as the regular kind.

It's Garden Time

We've found that a small garden in the back yard is vital to good summer cooking. I grew up with a father who was a psychologist, but who really wanted to be a farmer. We gardened endlessly; I admit that I didn't love it.

Bob, on the other hand, grew up in suburban LA. Gardening is new and somewhat exciting to him. And I confess that I have discovered it's in my blood. We have a back corner dedicated to tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, herbs and other adventurous vegetables. We celebrate the ripening of the first summer tomato. We already have great plans for roasting our own (hopefully abundant) red peppers.

Last week our neighbor, Lou, invited our kids to share part of his garden. Lou's gardening skills are legendary. He has a huge plot which is virtually weedless and is remarkably productive. He set aside a row for our girls. When we arrived to Tuesday afternoon to plant under his supervision, he even had it customized for us:

He brought out all kinds of seeds for the kids to choose from. They planted a little bit of everything, including items never allowed for in our garden. The girls were excited about planting a couple of kinds of squash, corn, pumpkins, gourds, and radishes. I don't think they even like radishes, but they were excited about the prospect of watching them grow. They also planted some cucumber seeds and will go back next week to plant some tiny tomatoes.

We're glad they can have the wonder and amazement of their own garden. We look forward to trying new things with the fruits of their labors. We're glad they can learn to raise food from an expert. We'll be learning right along side them.

My biggest life change ever

My biggest life change ever is represented by, of all things, a gallon jug of mayonaise.

Let me explain. Six years ago I was a 41-year-old, single, hard-working professional. I traveled a lot, cooked a little, and ate very little mayonaise. If I bought mayonaise at all, it was in 8-ounce jars. It was light mayonaise. And I usually threw the bottle away when it was still half full because it was long past its expiration date.

In 2003, everything changed. I quit my job, started my own business, and married Bob. Bob was no ordinary middle-aged single guy. He was a widower with seven children. And seven children (make that seven skinny children) eat a lot of mayonaise.

From a food perspective (as from almost all other perspectives), life for me is much richer these days. We are lucky that the seven children like food as much as we do. Food is a big part of our family's culture. Birthdays revolve around favorite breakfasts, dinners, desserts. We have a unique menu for our Christmas Eve appetizer parties. To my knowledge, we never dispose of expired mayonaise.

I was a good cook when I was single. I liked inviting friends and family over for a party or a meal. With nine of us around the dinner table, every night is like a party.

About This Blog

You don't have to look very far to realize that almost everyone has a food blog. Some of them list favorite restauarants (and others least favorite). Some tell you what the blogger is having for dinner tonight. Some list recipes that the blogger has never actually made before, but that sound like they would taste good. Others supply ideas for eating within the bounds of a specific diet or regimen.

For my family, food is art. We're snobs. We use very little Cream of Mushroom soup. Food is how we celebrate, why we congregate, and the one place where we all participate. We try to eat in ways that make us healthy, but it's even more important to eat in ways that make us happy.

There's nothing pathological about it, at least nothing that has been diagnosed so far by qualified professionals. We eat together almost every night. We try to make every meal a special occasion. We want our kids (along with the friends and family we invite to join our table) to find joy in the time together. It's a way for us to learn more about the world. It's a way for us to have extraordinary adventures right in our kitchen. There's a story for every meal, and this is where we intend to tell them.

We want to share that with you. We'll include recipes, restaurant experiences, cooking tips, and thoughts and feelings about food. And we invite you to plunge right in and talk with us.