Meatless meals

Lent has begun. What are some of your favorite meatless meals to serve?

I love butternut squash in the Winter. It’s not something my family grew up with, and I don’t go for the Winter squash with brown sugar and cinnamon, so I’ve routed out some fabulous savory squash recipes. Garlic, rosemary, and sage are a wonderful complement to the sweet orange flesh of the squash. This casserole is so fabulous that it can stand on its own as a vegetarian dinner.

Butternut squash casserole
Serves 8

2 lb butternut squash, 1" cubes
1 garlic clove, minced
1 t salt
2 T butter
2 eggs
½ c cracker crumbs
2/3 c onion, chopped
¼ c evaporated milk
1 c Cheddar cheese, shredded
2 T butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine squash, garlic, onion, salt, and ½ c water; boil & simmer 20 minutes until squash is tender (can be done in microwave). Drain and mash with 2 T butter. Beat together eggs, milk, and beat into squash. Add all but 3 T cheese and ¼ c crumbs and melted butter to squash. Mix together. Mix together cheese, crumbs, melted butter and top casserole.

Bake in preheated 350° oven for 30-35 minutes.

Moo Shu Beef Lettuce Cups

1 lb lean ground beef

1 c  yellow onion, thinly sliced

2 tbsp ginger root, fresh, minced

2 med garlic clove, minced

2 cup bok choy, thinly sliced

1 med sweet red pepper, thinly sliced

2 cup button mushrooms, thinly sliced

2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce

8 leaf bibb lettuce

Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and cook beef, onion, ginger and garlic over med-high heat for 5-7 minutes. Add bok choy, pepper, mushrooms and soy sauce; cook about 305 minutes. Spook about 1/2 c beef into each lettuce leaf. Yields 2 filled leaves per serving. Serve with extra soy sauce if desired.

George and I love it in the lettuce, but usually serve to the kids with tortillas.

This is a recipe from WeightWatchers.com.

I wanted to make Whoopie Pies today to take away with us skiing, and couldn't find our family recipe. I used this recipe from allrecipes.com: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Whoopie-Pies-VIII/Detail.aspx, it came highly recommended. But the cakes came out so flat, I can't possibly fill them. They looked more like chocolate pancakes or cookies. (Glad I hadn't already make the filling.)

Sisters, does anyone have our childhood recipe on hand ... or can anyone see what might be wrong with this one?

A friend sent me an email today expressing frustration with feeding her kids at dinner time. She doesn't like to cook, they don't want to eat anything when she does go to the trouble. They have family dinner time, but dinner is often a bowl of cereal. It made me realize that we all have our own challenges when it comes to the dinner hour.

My challenge is generally time and/or scheduling. Our life is broken up by sports seasons, this season Thursday is the night we're all home for dinner together at a reasonable hour. Tuesday is generally something in the crockpot so everyone can eat when they're ready, before and/or after skiing, CCD, and/or basketball games.

My friend's family is still getting the benefit of family dinner: catching up with each other, bonding, and fostering strong, independent, well-adjusted young adults. But she'd like to take some of the food-related stress away from the meal time.

Now, my kids eat a lot of what I ask them to, but not everything, and they're getting worse as they get older. The school schedule doesn't help either. Too hurried and/or tired to have a decent (or sometimes any) breakfast, lunch at 10:30, when they get home, they're starved and have a sandwich or bowl of cereal (or if I'm not home, bag of cookies or chips or box of crackers).

When I get tired of the "I'm not hungry, I don't feel like this, I don't want to try this" merry-go-round, I give it back to them. What will you eat? And NOT complain about? I usually do this armed with a few index cards for each of them to write their top choices on, then I use those to shape the meals for the next few weeks. I know that some the things that never cause fights are chicken pot pie, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, hamburgers (as long as I don't do anything creative), hot dogs and baked beans (ditto on the creative), chili, Lebanese stuffed grape leaves (I know, but my husband is half Lebanese, and they've grown up with this one), pasta (depending on my sauce). The kids like mac & cheese, but my husband doesn't, so that falls into the category of what we eat when Dad's out: mac & cheese, tuna noodle casserole, breakfast-for-dinner, and salmon (he's allergic, but the kids love it).

My husband grew up in a house where Monday was chicken, Tuesday was steak, Wednesday was pasta, or something like that. I like more variety than that, but I think it may help to get kids eating if there's a pattern.

What's your trick?

My bi-weekly client loves shrimp, but she keeps requesting the same 2 or 3 things (Baked Stuffed Scampi, Szechwan Shrimp (Eileen’s favorite), and Cajun Shrimp). I’d like to do something new. What are your favorite shrimp recipes?

My youngest son had a sleepover last night. Usually his breakfast of choice is poached eggs, and he is usually the chef. But, he and his friend were involved in a videogame battle when I can downstairs, so breakfast wasn't yet a thought. I started the bacon, and asked what they'd like for breakfast, the friend asked for pancakes. Great! But, I had no pancake mix, not great. My friend, Lynne, and her family, always makes her pancakes from scratch (stems back to when her son had a milk allergy and this recipe worked for him). When her husband has made these for me, they were the lightest, fluffiest pancakes ever. But when I try them myself, they just don't work. So, I went (not too optimistically) to allrecipes.com this morning. I found a recipe that started with self-rising flour, which I don't keep in, so I searched for how to make my own self-rising flour (very easy, in fact, for each cup of all-purpose flour, add 1½ t baking powder and 1 t salt—thus the measurements below). Then I made a few pancakes, the batter was a little thick to work with, so I added a little more buttermilk (the original used just milk, but I love buttermilk pancakes). They also needed a little sugar. The resulting pancake recipe appears below. Really, it wasn't much more work than a traditional pancake mix (yes, more work than the "just add water" ones). I would usually add blueberries or chocolate chips while they're cooking, but I was out of blueberries and we used up the chocolate chips in cookies last night—gotta love the eating that goes on at sleepovers! Buttermilk pancakes

1 c flour
1½ t baking powder
1 t salt
1-2 t sugar
1-1¼ c buttermilk*
1 egg
2 T vegetable oil

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar, and set aside. Beat eggs, oil, and milk together, and add to flour. Stir until just combined, pancake batter should always be a little lumpy. Heat a greased griddle until drops of water sprinkled on it evaporate noisily. Pour 1/8 to 1/4 cup batter onto the griddle. Turn over with a metal spatula when bubbles begin to form on top. Cook second side to a golden brown color.

*If you do not have buttermilk available, you can combine 1 c milk and 1 T white vinegar and let stand for 10 minutes.

Snow Pudding with Custard Sauce

Did anyone's mother make this? I would sit at the table watching my mother make this delicious dessert with much anticipation. I always had to add more of the custard sauce. I think of this recipe often and it brings me right back to that kitchen.

SNOW PUDDING WITH CUSTARD SAUCE

PUDDING:
1 envelope plain gelatin
1/4 c. cold water
1 c. hot water
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
Juice of 1 lemon or 1/4 c. lemon juice

CUSTARD SAUCE:
1 egg yolk
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. cornstarch
1 c. scalded milk
Vanilla

Soak gelatin in water for 5 minutes. Add boiling water and sugar and stir until dissolved. Add strained lemon juice and chill until it begins to harden. Beat egg white until stiff and add to slightly thickened mixture. Beat whole mixture until spongy and chill until solid. Serve with Custard Sauce.

CUSTARD SAUCE: Beat together yolk, sugar and cornstarch. Add scalded milk to egg yolk mixture and heat until thickened, stirring all the time. Flavor with vanilla and let cool.

Car Bomb Cupcakes

This great recipe for cupcakes came across my e-mailbox on Saturday and I just had to make them for the Super Bowl. I love anything from the Smitten Kitten blog.

I shared the recipe with two friends at dinner on Saturday night and it got rave reviews.

Pam said: OK Ladies, I made these cupcakes and they are amazing. Pretty easy to make.....My sis is making them this weekend.

Thanks again for passing it on......

Another friend, who couldn't make the Super Bowl party due to a sick kid (pesky kids ;-) had one last night when she stopped at the host's house.

Lynne said: FORGET how was the weekend and Matt's health, do you have anymore of those cupcakes? OMG, Dawn gave me one after I dropped off the kids and I swallowed it whole. Wow, it was great!

Seriously, you have to try these cupcakes.

OK, so I’m a day late for Super Bowl Sunday, which, according to my two younger sons should be “National Chili Day”. While I was growing up, my dad was one of those cooks who had certain meals. He made pancakes & sausage on Saturdays and eggs & bacon on Sundays (PopPop still makes eggs & bacon for our kids whenever we visit Sleepy Hollow or he visits Newburyport). And Chili. Chili was our Sunday football game staple, our New Year’s Day open house centerpiece, and still has a place on every buffet table my parents ever set. My dad’s one of those cooks who doesn’t really measure anything, just makes it the same, by eye and taste, every single time.

A friend of mine, who love my dad’s chili and also loved to cook herself, once made her chili for my dad. She wanted him to say it was as good as his. He’s a hard-nosed Irish man who likes things made one way and one way only. He said, “You put garlic in it. You don’t put garlic in chili.” (His reaction was similar when my sister Bridget introduced us to her Vegetarian Chili, which is spectacular, and I promise to share it with you soon.)

When my sister Maureen first moved to San Francisco, one of her roommates was from Wisconsin. When Fred and I visited, they served chili over spaghetti. It didn’t taste much spicier than meat sauce to me. My sister Regina likes to put cheese and sour cream on her chili; I save those for my tacos and nachos. As far as my dad is concerned, once you find something you like, don’t mess with it. And when it comes to this basic ground beef and beans chili, I tend to agree wholeheartedly.

PopPop’s chili

2 lb ground beef (Dad never used lean, I do)
4 cans Progresso dark red kidney beans, drained
2 T chili powder
2 lg onion, chopped
2 green bell peppers, chopped
2 T Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco Sauce or Texas Pete’s Hot Sauce (a sentimental favorite because my dad’s name is Pete) to taste
2 lg cans whole tomatoes with juice
salt and pepper to taste

Brown beef, onions, and peppers in large stockpot. Drain fat from pot. Add chili powder, Worcestershire sauce, beans, tomatoes, hot sauce, and salt and pepper. Simmer for 2 hours. Taste and fix seasonings if needed. Serve over white rice with corn bread and a green salad (I suppose you could top with sour cream and cheese if you must).

Healthy Meals

My husband and I are trying to lose a little weight and get in better shape, and be healthier, in general. I have been adding extra fruits and veggies to every meal I can. 

I'd love some of your favorite healthy meals. If they are kid-friendly, all the better!

Yesterday I made a big pot of vegetarian chili. Added lots of mushrooms, peppers, onions, carrots, tomatoes, beans, and cilantro. We'll be having tonight, I like to let it sit a day, if I can. I will be foregoing my favorite toppings of cheese and sour cream. I think I'll toast some tortillas to serve alongside rather than a nice crusty roll.

Look forward to seeing your great ideas.