I have a dream....a food dream, that is.

Since my last wordy post was about food, I thought I would continue the theme.

I currently do most of my grocery shopping at Wal Mart, something I am not very proud of. I hate how they put so many Mom and Pop stores out of business, and changed the face of small town Main Streets all across the country. But it is a convenient and affordable place to shop. They have also been adding organic products, and things like environmentally responsible cleaning supplies, which are also less expensive than other stores'. My dream used to be being able to shop at either Whole Foods or Central Market for everything, but those just aren't feasible options. Way too expensive.

So I have developed a new dream. Here's a working rough draft:

1. Purchase all produce and herbs from Farmer's Markets, where the food is preferably organic, and definitely seasonal. I would also love to one day purchase eggs, cheese and meat from a Farmer's Market.

2. Purchase bread, tortillas, etc.. from a bakery where they are made fresh daily.

3. Purchase fresh fish from a market.

4. Purchase spices, condiments, canned or jarred foods that aren't in season, snacks, and pantry items like olives and peanut butter from an organic grocery store.

5. Using all of these ingredients, SIMPLIFY SIMPLIFY SIMPLIFY meals.

All of this sounds good in theory. But in order to execute my dream I have several large obstacles to combat. I'll take each number one at a time:

1. The Farmer's Markets in our area are still quite expensive if you want seasonal, organic food from local farms. The one market we used to shop at regularly was affordable, but I found out that they have most of their inventory shipped in from other parts of the country and world just like most grocery store produce departments. FAIL on the seasonal. The Arlington Farmer's Market has a woman selling eggs, and I need to find out her prices. They also have one family farm selling beef, but it's really expensive also. I don't know of any local Farmer's Markets that have cheeses available. We're not really in dairy country!

2. We don't really have any bakeries in our area, other than the grocery store bakeries and a few Latino bakeries a little further away.

3. There is really no place to buy really good, safe fresh fish close by. Albertson's used to be ok, but has recently given in to area consumer demand and dropped almost all seafood except farmed salmon (mercury-filled) and catfish. Love catfish, but need some other healthier options. I want to try out the nicer Kroger that is up the highway, and therefore not as convenient.

4. Obviously, if 1 through 3 can't work, I can't afford 4 either.

5. Having two picky appetites in the house to feed would make this one challenging, to say the least, if not downright impossible.

Of course, I have an alternate dream of growing my own vegetables, planting some fruit trees, and have even read up a little on backyard chicken raising. My obstacles there are Lack of Time, Lack of Energy, City Laws and Not Being Able To Kill A Chicken if One Happens To Get Sick. That last one is a doozy.

Sigh. It's nice to at least have dreams. They give you something to work towards.

Sense of security

Last year sometime, my mom had told me about an article in Parade magazine linking food memories and smells with kids' sense of self. The article basically said that kids who grow up in a home where there are home-cooked meals and good smells of food being prepared can relate those things later in life to where they came from. It said that even if you make your kids a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, toast the bread a little to get those olfactory senses going.

I've written on this blog several times about how powerful my food memories are, and how even just thinking of certain foods can take me back to a time and place of long ago. And make my mouth water.

I figured out some time after we moved into this house that I love the smells from the kitchen wafting through the house. So much so that I have pretty much stopped burning scented candles of any kind. Because no matter how good they smell, they still don't smell half as good as a pot of soup cooking on the stove. Or a pork tenderloin, smothered in a honey mustard glaze, braising away in the slow cooker. Or yesterday's homemade spaghetti sauce slowly simmering for half of the day. The smell still lingered this morning. I hope I'm providing that feeling of security for my kids, even if they won't realize it for years to come.

I have a large bag of candles I need to give away, if anyone wants them.

Eating

Since I've been nursing Joel for the last year, I have never eaten so healthy. Originally it was just to make sure he wasn't getting junk food from me, and was getting all the nutrients I could eat. I've been eating more fruits and veggies than ever before. I have not been eating too many sweets, especially chocolate. If I wanted to eat something that wasn't too healthy, I made sure to only eat a little of it (like the Rotel we always consume tons of on our Girls' Weekends!) But Joel ended up being very sensitive to everything I eat, so a big list started growing of things I flat out have to stay away from as long as I am nursing. I'm not sure how much longer we will go. I'm hoping for at least six more months, but he is really slowing down now.

Whenever the day comes that he is completely weaned. I have compiled a list of foods that I have denied myself all this time. This doesn't include things that I couldn't eat because of possible food dangers, like goat cheese or sushi, even though I will enjoy those as well. These are things that I really wanted to eat, but couldn't because I would have been up all night with Joel. I will start tackling my list, and probably only get to one every two months or so since every thing on the list except one is NOT very good for you. And I will savor every single bite. Then I need to get back to trying to eat healthy. And start trying to consume much less than I have been for the last five years. Yikes, that's a long time to develop some bad habits!!

10. My homemade cole slaw, the only healthy thing you will find on this list.

9. Movie popcorn, slathered in butter

8. Pepperoni pizza

7. Jason's Deli muffaletta sandwich

6. Chopped BBQ sandwich, piled high with tons of pickles

5. Mexican Inn chips and salsa

4. Sonic coney and tots

3. Chicken fried steak

2. Fried catfish and hush puppies

And the number one thing?

Kincaid's onion rings. The biggest size they come in, with a Shiner Boch on the side.

Oh God how my mouth is watering right now.

Pizza night

Yesterday Gabriel had been in trouble after school because he wouldn't mind me AT ALL about rest time when we got home from school. First I threatened no visit to Mamaw and Poppy's that afternoon. Then I threatened to take away TV and computer. Then cars and trucks, and finally no music or instrument playing. None of them worked. So he was pretty much stuck with reading books or playing pretend games the rest of the day.

And as these things go, it ended up being such a fun afternoon. Gabriel had received a robot from our neighbors, George and Billie, for his birthday, and he and Joel crawled around on the floor after it. We played with the dinosaurs. Gabriel was funny because at first he was having the big dinosaurs eating some of the smaller ones, and when I said something about how sad that was, he started having the big ones spit them back out.

It got to be dinner time, and Joel gets to watch a half hour of either Tellytubbies or Baby Einstein. Gabriel decided to hang out with me in the kitchen, and started out reading some books. But then I asked if he wanted to help me make dinner, and he said yes! Thursday is pizza night at our house, and last night I was making turkey sausage, mushroom and black olive with Alfredo sauce and mozzarella cheese. I chopped and grated and he help me put things on the pizza. I've read somewhere that if kids help with dinner they are much more likely to try new foods and eat them.

And it was true! He ate an entire piece, mushrooms and all. Maybe it had to do with him going through a growth spurt, because he gets really hungry and will try just about anything! But it really warmed my heart. I will not push him to help again, but I will definitely ask every once in awhile because we both had a great time. I can't say that I hope he will get in trouble again soon, but maybe he'll keep wanting to help on pizza night. IF I can tear him away from the computer games.

Oh, and notice the President placemat sitting underneath his food in the picture above? Tia Sandie and Michael brought it back from DC for him. He has now learned half (22) of our Presidents by sight. First and last names. We play the President game every night at dinner. The way he remembers them varies. There's the one with crazy hair. And one with wet hair. There's the three in the "long beard" group. There's two named Franklin and two with the last name Johnson. But the reason the game got started was because of the really bald ones, which he calls "baby head Presidents". (John Quincy Adams, Eisenhower, and Ford). This seemed totally innocent until we were on vacation eating dinner one night and Gabriel pointed to man walking by and said (loudly, of course), "Look, that man has a baby head!" Oops. We're working on reversing that mistake.

One of my most embarrassing moments in life, ever,...

...was picking out this butternut squash and putting it in my grocery cart. It was in a big pile and they were all shaped pretty much like this one. And that's really all I need to say about that.

Kitchen zero to kitchen hero

I just finished watching "Worse Cooks in America" on The Food Network. It was a reality show in which two well-known chefs picked people who supposedly knew nothing about cooking (nominated by their friends and family) and put them on one of two teams for a 10-day immersion boot camp in the kitchen. The best candidates from each team made a three-course meal for three food critics. The winner they picked received $25,000. I was rooting for Jenny, a 21-year old waitress who decided during the course of the show that she wanted to be chef (everyone else on the show just wanted to go home and cook for their friends and family), but the girl on the other team beat her. I wasn't going to watch it, but I caught part of the 2nd episode and was immediately hooked. These people seemed real, and they REALLY didn't know anything about cooking. I think I was fascinated because I used to be one of them. It's kind of like how someone who lost lots of weight would be really into "The Biggest Loser".

But years of experience, reading cooking magazines and watching countless hours of The Food Network has greatly improved my skills. I think my best skill (this is making me think of Napoleon Dynamite) is putting foods together and knowing what flavors go well together. I'm pretty good at getting everything ready at the same time. One thing I still need some help with, though, is knife skills. I'm really sloppy, don't hold the knife right and cut myself pretty often. Central Market offers a class at least once a month on knife technique, but I think I'm too embarrassed and intimidated to take it. I've also never owned really good knives, which I'm sure would make a difference.

I've been able to make dinner most nights since Joel arrived, even though it's a real challenge. Joel has a tendency to eat very little in the morning, then he wants more and more as the day progresses. He eats at least once an hour from 5 until he goes to bed, around 8 or 9. I try to limit prep and cooking time to 30 minutes most nights. If I make something that takes longer, I have to get part of it ready earlier in the day, even on the weekend. Jav is also helping me by doing part of the cleaning up. He's told me we could do more take out, but I'm pretty stubborn about the cost and the not-so-healthy factors. Plus I want Gabriel (and later Joel) to experience simple, real flavors of food, (like how good and sweet a carrot can taste) and you just don't get that with take out. So I'll continue to work like crazy to put dinner on the table most nights, and hopefully continue to learn even more about cooking. One day I might even take that knife class.

Ode to the perfect tuna sandwich

When we were on our honeymoon in Scotland, we spent the second night of our trip on the island of Skye. I wish we would have had a little more time there to explore the place. It was a picture-perfect quaint fishing town. (I had to find this pic on Google. Our only pictures were taken on my non-digital camera at the time). Once you are in town, many of the buildings are painted in pastels along the main walkway. We had a terrific dinner in a little pub, where I ate the best fish and chips I've ever eaten. The next day we were off to Inverness, which involved half a day of driving and going right along Loch Ness. After leaving our bed and breakfast we decided to stop at the local bakery to pack up some sandwiches, chips and cookies to have a picnic somewhere along the way.

We ordered tuna salad sandwiches, and then forgot to say "crisps" instead of "chips", which of course means french fries anywhere in the UK. That caused a bit of confusion and several looks from the ladies behind the counter like they were used to dealing with rather slow Americans. We started our drive and eventually made it to Loch Ness, where there were several places to stop and take in the view, as it is much more enormous than you might think from watching those shows on Discovery. We found a nice spot, and even though it had started sprinkling, we opened up the hatchback and laid out our picnic. Those sandwiches were so delicious, I can't even put it into words. They had added red onion, and celery, and maybe cucumber, but I couldn't figure out anything else. While we were eating, a gentleman drove up, got out of his car in full kilt regalia, and began playing the bagpipes. I'm not making this up! It's a big tourist thing, and you are expected to leave some money in the hat he places in front of him. The whole experience was so surreal and special, but when we talk about it or tell the story to people to this day, the thing we rave on about the most are those tuna sandwiches.

I've tried to replicate the flavor. I've added the three ingredients I figured out that day, plus I play around with others, but I can never get them to taste as good. I know that some of this is location related. Things just taste better on vacation than they do back in normal, hum-drum life. But as I was planning how to mix it up and try again for dinner tonight, it hit me that the bakery may have had access to fresh tuna straight out of the ocean. Or even if they used canned tuna, a can of tuna from Scotland is probably a heck of alot better tasting than a can of Chicken of the Sea! So I think I will give up on my quest to taste the perfect tuna sandwich again, unless someday we find ourselves back on the Isle of Skye, where I will then flat out ask them what they do to them to get them to taste so good. And by the way, whoever thought of that name, Chicken of the Sea? Probably a rather slow American.

10 things I've learned from watching cooking shows

10.  Trust my sense of smell when it comes to figuring out when certain things are done.

9.  Bring all meats down to room temperature before cooking, and let them rest for at least 5-10 minutes before carving or slicing.

8.  If you add a little lemon zest or salt to certain dishes just before serving, they taste even fresher.

7.  Fresh herbs are worth the extra expense.

6.  Roasting vegetables makes them taste better than steaming.

5.  Garlic can burn really quickly.

4.  Make sure the pan is hot enough before you throw stuff in it.

3.  The better and fresher the ingredients, the less you have to add to them to have a great meal.

2.  Taste everything before you serve it.

1.  Don't be afraid to add salt while you are cooking, and in layers (meat, sauce etc..).  The food doesn't end up tasting more salty, just more flavorful.

Which type of person are you?

Fruit or Vegetable?

This is not meant to be a derogatory question in any way - I mean it literally.  I have a hard time eating fruit.  I have to make myself eat my 3 or so healthy servings a day.  My orange juice always tastes good in the morning, but I go down hill from there.  Summer is a little better, because I do love berries and melon, so I have a much larger selection to choose from.  Winter is rough.  The only way I'll eat apples or pears is if I can have cheese or peanut butter with them.  Otherwise they make me queasy.  Grapes also make me queasy.   I've never been fond of oranges, but I do like the much smaller and easier-to-peel tangerine.  In fact, I sometimes find myself craving tangerines in the wintertime, probably something to do with a vitamin C deficiency. 

I am definitely a vegetable person.  I LOVE them.  Raw celery, cucumber and celery chopped up in salads; roasted asparagus, sauteed Brussels sprouts, okra gumbo, different squashes, etc..  My mouth is watering thinking about it!  I grew up eating the standards:  green beans, peas and corn, and a few stranger ones like yellow squash and okra.  Somewhere around my late 20's I discovered there was a whole world of vegetables waiting for me to discover.  I'm currently trying to learn to love greens like Swiss chard and kale, but I've got a ways to go.  

My husband, on the other hand, is like an exact opposite of me.  He easily eats 4 or 5 pieces of fruit a day, and has since he was a kid.  He is SO a fruit person.  But vegetables don't come easy to him.  The great thing is he will try anything I put in front of him, and normally is surprised to find how much he likes it.  

I guess we were meant to be together.

Death of (or at least injury to) a neighborhood institution

It's tough to make it in the restaurant business anywhere, but it seems the challenges grow exponentially on our little Eastside.  Charlie's Pizza, owned by Charlie Langdon, was one of those rare instances where hard work, delicious food and owner charisma combined to form something magical.  It was like Cheers, but with added garlic.  You always saw someone you knew either waiting for their takeout, or sitting in a booth guiltily enjoying their garlic knots.  If you were really lucky, you hit a day when Charlie himself was there and could pull up a chair and chat for awhile.   

Charlie and his family moved hear from New York state in the early 80's.  The reason I first checked out the restaurant was because his son, Chris, was in my homeroom, and we became really good friends in high school.  Back then the restaurant was called Pizza Shack and was blocks from the high school, and it quickly became another hangout for our big group of friends.  I'm sure just the curiosity surrounding the new Northerners was enough to get people in the doors initially.  But once you met Charlie and Nancy, his equally endearing wife who was always there helping out at first, you didn't want to leave.  They also were great about employing high school kids, my brother being one of them.  They were so good to everybody who worked for them, and became like surrogate parents to lots of kids.

They moved to a different location in 92, but everybody still living in this neighborhood moved right with them.  That's about when my grandparents discovered them and started wanting to eat there on many Saturday nights.  Charlie and Nancy became even better friends to our whole family, and were very sad when my grandfather died and my grandmother decided to move back to Fredericksburg a year later.  I think for a long time it was too painful for my Mom or I to eat there.  

We started eating there again 5 or 6 years ago, and quickly grew to love the place all over again.  I introduced Jav to the place when we started dating, and he loved it too.  The first time we took my nephew Cade, he was so enchanted by Charlie he couldn't stop talking about him, and wanted to know when we could go back.  Charlie just has that effect on people.

We found out a couple of weeks ago that Charlie has decided to retire.  The neighborhood had become a tough place to exist, and business had been waxing and waning since the block became known as a bad panhandler area.  Nancy said he was just tired.  They've sold the business to a lawyer who wants to continue the restaurant in the same spirit, but there's just no way that place will be anything but bricks and mortar without Charlie's personality.  Jav and I are really sad, not just that another great neighborhood business is biting the dust, but that our area is losing such wonderful people.   

His last night is coming up, and it's looking like it might be a mini-reunion.  Chris is even coming into town from Atlanta.  We'll try to send them out with a bang!

Herb garden...again?

I've tried to grow herbs several times over the last few years.   Only a few have been successful for a long period - rosemary and oregano.  All the others, especially the ones I use most frequently, don't do very well after the first month I plant them.  I need basil, thyme, flat-leaf parsley, chives, dill and cilantro.  Those are the ones I find myself buying in the produce section over and over, and then throwing away the unused portion (which always gets me thinking about growing my own).  I'm pondering the option of  growing them indoors this time, but I'm not sure if we get enough light in our one Southern-facing window during the winter.  I read a tip of putting aluminum foil behind the plants to get them even more light.  I don't think I want to try a grow light.   That just seems like too much trouble and I don't know where I'd put it.  And I just read that basil won't work indoors, it needs too much sun.  I guess it won't hurt to try a few, other than being out the price of the herbs.  Again.

A new tradition is born

Jav and I had a house project we worked on Sunday morning while Tia Sandy took Gabriel for a wonderfully fun morning at the park.  We had some time when we finished so we decided to go have lunch, something that can be a little hard on the nerves with Gabriel lately.  We needed to run another errand in the TCU area, so Jav picked a sandwich place just across the street from the campus called Potbelly Sandwich Works.  I may have seen one, but wasn't really familiar with them at all.  As I started eating my fantastically good sandwich (The Italian), and sipping my Key Lime bottled soda, I asked him where he'd eaten at one before, and he said he dined at one at an airport before coming home from our friends Mark and Chey's wedding last year.  I started thinking, and realized it was exactly one year ago this past weekend.  So the weekend nearest August 18th (their actual anniversary), has now been deemed the Annual Potbelly Weekend, where we will venture out for our once a year sandwich feast. 

And it will be a happy weekend indeed.

I'll make my Tuesday a Fat one, thank you

Because I am giving up sweets for Lent (which starts tomorrow), I am having a very literal Fat Tuesday. I wasn't thinking about it starting so soon, so we have alot of sweets in the house. And I must eat them all up, today. Yes, I am becoming a good Catholic, and that means that I am not above a little cheating now and then. But if it's not here, I can't eat it. So along with regular food today, I must eat 6 peanut butter/chocolate cookies, 3 tapioca pudding cups, about a fourth of a carton of Breyer's Cookie Jar ice cream, and even less of a tub of Cool Whip (Light, of course). I'm making a pretty good dent and it's just barely 1:00 pm. (In fact, I better leave a little ice cream just in case Jav wants to have a little Fat Tuesday celebration tonight too.)

I never really understood the mystique about Mardi Gras, that is until today. I'm having a wonderful time!

Fine dining

Jav had given me a Central Market giftcard for my birthday way back in August. I couldn't decide on a class. I always thought I'd want to do a "hands-on" class, where the students actually cook with the teaching chef. But when it came down to brass tacks, this really made me nervous. I just don't think I'd enjoy myself. I'd be so concerned I was doing something wrong. I know that's silly, but that's just the way I am. Plus no matter how good the outcome, I'm a very sloppy cook.

So I decided to take a class where I could just watch, hopefully learn, and eat. I asked Jav to go with me once I found out there was a class scheduled with a chef we had both heard alot about. Donatella Trotti, the lovely owner of Nonna Tata (a tiny restaurant in the hospital district in Fort Worth), brought her authentic Northern Italian cuisine and sparkling personality last Monday night, and we were lucky enough to be there to enjoy it. She has been written up several times in the Star Telegram - once when the restaurant first opened, then a long piece where they told her very interesting story. She had lived in Italy until her early 30's, and had a career in the fashion industry. She came to the US and was offered a job opening up and managing several Versace stores across the country. One of those places was Dallas, where she lived for 8 years. She met her lawyer husband there, and decided instead of continuing to cook mounds of food for friends every weekend that she wanted to open a restaurant. They moved to Fort Worth, and Nonna Tata (Grandma Tata in Italian) was born two years ago. It has been a resounding success. There are only 10 tables in the whole restaurant, and there are lines to get in every night. On warm nights, people have been known to bring their own table and chairs and set up on the sidewalk, and they have even brought meals out to people tailgaiting in the back of their truck! Jav and I have been dying to eat there.

So we jumped at the chance to not only have her cook for us, but to explain everything while we were eating. Her husband, Gaylen Groce, came along and introduced the wines they served with our dinners (he is also a lovely, warm person). Donatella picked recipes that we could all actually make at home. There was nothing too hard or made with ridiculous specialty ingredients. Our appetizer plate was her trademark Foccacia, tiny roasted potatoes with gorgonzola, and fried sage leaves (which was Jav's favorite thing of the night). Then on to lentil soup, which was my favorite. It literally melted in my mouth. Our main course consisted of a lamb casserole with thinly sliced potatoes and carrots and tons of rosemary, and grilled radicchio on the side. I have never had lamb, and was a little worried I wouldn't like it. But I ate every bite. Then dessert was pannacotta (which translates literally to "cooked cream" - how can that not be good?). The whole meal was heavenly, but Donatella's charm and stories of her family back home made the evening twice as special. We found out that she and only one female assistant are IT at the restaurant. They make everything by hand, every night they are open. She even gave us her email in case we had questions about cooking any of the dishes. This woman truly loves to cook for people, and it comes out in her food. It was a wonderful evening.

Now we REALLY can't wait to eat there!!

Local eating isn't actually so local after all

We try to buy our produce from the Haltom City Farmers' Market whenever we have the time to get over there. It's been there forever, and seems to be a very efficiently run business. I have been slowly getting to know the ladies that ring up my produce over the last couple of months (they love flirting with Gabriel), and finally asked a question that's been on my mind for awhile now. I wanted to know if most of their inventory was produced locally. I made the assumption that if it didn't have a label or sticker on it saying, "made in Chile" or "California grown" or whatever that it was locally grown. Well, I was wrong. She said it just depends, and that during the winter alot of stuff is shipped in from all over, and it might not necessarily be labeled.

That truly bites! Here I am thinking I'm supporting local farmers and purchasing food that hasn't traveled very far, and I now feel like I've been duped. But the thing is, I LOVE shopping there. I guess I need to check out a couple of the other Farmers' Markets and ask my question again before I decide whether or not to go back.

The proof that I am a cooking geek

While my husband was getting his last steroid shot to (hopefully) relieve the pain from the herniated disc in his neck, I was browsing the nearby Half Price Books to spend one of my gift cards from Christmas. I got one used CD (Brazilian classical guitar - but I'm kicking myself for not getting the Best of Elvis Costello - the early years), two books for Gabriel that he absolutely loved from the get-go (go Mommy) and one cookbook. It's called "Best Ever Three and Four Ingredient Cookbook" by Jenny White and Joanna Farrow. I was so excited about finding this book. I've been looking for some simple, relatively healthy recipes that don't use a gazillion ingredients, to save both money and time. This book is exactly what I've been searching for. I stayed up late two nights in a row to read through the whole thing, and I don't give up my sleeping hours for many things. I knew this book wasn't published in the U.S. (it's from Australia) because they use "aubergine" instead of eggplant, and "rocket" instead of arugula. But that just made it all the more interesting. I can't wait to try some recipes out now.

I also bought the cheery little recipe box pictured above from the Children's Art Project at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. I know I will never have time to copy my favorite recipes onto 3 x 5 cards, so I'm using instead to plan dinners for the week. I changed the main index card titles to match my categories of dinners - Pastas, Sandwiches, Soups, Pizzas, Slow Cooker Favorites, etc... Then I sharpened my pencil and got to work adding my favorite recipe titles and what cookbook to find them in. There's plenty of room to add new ones, and extra index cards if I think of more titles. I have had such great pleasure in working on this little project. Anything that has to do with cooking doesn't seem like a chore to me.

The daily grind

Lately I am getting very burned out trying to figure out what to have for dinner every night. I love to cook, although my desire to spend a long time in the kitchen preparing anything is gone now that I am using up my energy chasing a toddler around. I try to spend around 30 minutes tops during the week, then one night out on Saturday, then a little more involved or special meal on Sunday.

But trying to eat healthy on a budget is taking it's toll on me. Sometimes I just stare into space when I'm supposed to be thinking of menus the night before my big grocery trip. I have a sectioned notebook where I try to jot down any recipe or meal combination that we like. And I have a great Betty Crocker quick meals cookbook, and a huge recipe binder filled with ones I've either tried and liked or would like to try someday. The last few months though, I don't even want to flip through them.

One thing I've gotten better about, though, is looking through my pantry, fridge and freezer before making my list to take full advantage of eating up stuff we already have. I've noticed a HUGE difference in the amount of food that gets thrown away. I've also done better about planning multiple meals using an ingredient if a recipe only calls for a small amount of it, like a jar of roasted red peppers or Kalamata olives, or a bag of spinach.

Last night we had a Cafe Madrid at home night. I attempted for the first time to make a Spanish omelet. I overcooked my potatoes (they were more like potato chips when I got through with them), so the result wasn't anything like the wonderful fluffy omelet from the restaurant. But I nailed the red peppers, goat cheese and capers, which almost made up for the crunchy omelet. Next time, along with knowing I need to cook my potatoes less than the recipe suggests, I also hope to find some white asparagus or saute some spinach. Or maybe we'll just head to Dallas for the real thing!

On a side note, Gabriel's appetite has become almost as unenthusiastic as my desire to plan menus. He just picks at his food, or plays with it. He's eating less than half what he used to, which I guess I'm glad to see. If he had kept going at the pace he's had up to this point, we would've had to start him on the South Beach Diet.

Food Glorious Food

Gabriel is doing wonderfully with his introduction to the world of food. Tonight I made tostadas with refried black beans and chicken and avacado, plus some Spanish rice with zucchini chopped up in it. The only difference between my meal and Gabriel's was that he had soft corn tortillas and alot less refried beans. If someone had told me that I could feed him what we eat at 10 months I would not have believed it.

On a soapbox, and with a mission

I am passionate about food, cooking and healthy eating. My passion is slowly turning to anger, however, since we decided to be a single-income family.

I think the idea of Whole Foods Market, with organically grown, safe food throughout, is a great idea. I also love the idea of the new small neighborhood markets popping up around the country which stock locally produced organic items (see Amy Culbertson's article in yesterday's Star Telegram). But to shop at these places on a regular basis is completely out of our budget.

Even at Wal-Mart, where I grudgingly shop due to their low prices, I have a hard time staying in our budget. I have determined that it costs less to purchase frozen dinners or the processed boxed kit-type meals than it does to buy each item to make the meal from scratch. It's also cheaper to run by a fast-food restaurant than it is to try to cook. No wonder we have a problem with obesity, high cholesterol and heart disease in this country!

My mission is to start exploring why this is so, and to somehow involve myself in a change. Healthy eating should not be a luxury item for the wealthy, but should be available to everybody as a choice.

Fresh

I'm trying to maintain an herb garden for about the 3rd year in a row. I really want to pay enough attention to them this year to keep them from dying out. I have chocolate mint, basil, lemony thyme, rosemary and oregano. I'd still like to add sage and dill to make it complete for this year. And I love the addition of my St. Francis statue in the middle of my herb garden. It makes it seem like a real garden. I used the basil and the thyme last night to make Provencal Chicken and Stuffed Provencal Tomatoes. (The small white pot was the basil, and I pretty much stripped it clean.) My kitchen still smells like La Madeline this morning! There's nothing more satisfying than going outside and clipping off herbs that you are growing yourself and using them to cook. And we sat outside for dinner in the wonderful cool weather. Since we will not be traveling to France anytime soon, why not imagine using food and atmosphere?