This is one of the pictures of the cake I made for my nephew Brian's birthday party yesterday. In case you're wondering it's supposed to look wonky like that. It's called a topsy turvey cake. They're really very stable despite their look although not quite stable enough to handle Ethan's curiosity. He knocked the top two tiers off, but it's not too bad off considering; just a few lumps and wrinkles.
We’ve gotten tired of the boys breaking everything they look at, so we’re trying something new now. We emptied their rooms of everything-we even took apart their beds-and put it all in a storage unit. They’re sleeping on the floor with a blanket, pillow and stuffed animal each for the next month. They have no toys or books so they’re going to have to entertain themselves some other way. I did keep a few books out for them to use during ‘quiet time’ each day though. I keep those in my room and get them for them when it’s time. They’re learning to appreciate what they have and that’s good. They play a lot of games using their hands as puppets now and I'm glad it's helping them use their imaginations more. We’ll leave it that way for a month (we paid for the storage unit right?) and slowly phase most of their stuff back in after that, but I think we’ll donate quite a bit too.
Due to this new arrangement, Christopher and Ethan are in one room and Ryan and Timothy are sharing a room. Timothy’s sleeping through the night now, so Ryan is getting way more sleep as his roommate than he did as Ethan's. Timothy doesn’t wake up until about 6:30 usually and that’s so nice because Ethan is up by then normally anyway. This morning Timothy woke up first though and it was hilarious. I went in the nursery to feed Timothy and closed the door so we didn’t wake up Christopher or Ethan. Ethan woke up a little bit after I started nursing Timothy and went into my room as usual to ask for a snack. When he saw that I wasn’t there he freaked out and started screaming and crying and ran in their room to wake up Christopher. The funniest thing is how Christopher reacted. He checked my room and when I wasn’t there he decided that he was in charge now and they were going to watch movies. He wasn’t even concerned. I was in the nursery cracking up but trying to be quiet about it. They only found me because"Grand Czar" Christopher decided Ryan could watch movies with them and he was coming to get him out of his crib. You should have seen their faces when they found me in there. Ethan’s face was pure relief and Christopher looked like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Poor guy; I ruined his little coup.
The recipes this week were: Healthy Country Fried Steak with Mushroom Gravy, Asparagus Primavera with Couscous (47), Spicy Shrimp over Rice, and Crème Brûlée (both vanilla and dark chocolate). The first two are from the Clean Eating magazine I wrote about before and the other two are my own recipes. The dark chocolate Crème Brûlée doesn't have exactly the same mouth feel as the vanilla. Judging by what I've read online at various sites that seems to be the case across the board when chocolate is added to it. Still it was very good if you like dark chocolate (which I do). Even my 3 year old niece liked and and I'm including it in this weeks blog at the behest of my nephew Brian who also loved it. Even if you don't like dark chocolate, the vanilla recipe is really the best one I've used and it's a good base for whatever flavor you want to go with. Don't be afraid to give it a try because-even though it seems intimidating to a lot of people-great Crème Brûlée is almost as easy to make as instant pudding it just tastes SO much better. My evil plan to sabotage Jon is working because he can't resist Crème Brûlée and I made him several for Father's Day. Waahh Haaah Hahhh (<--evil genius laugh). Hey, he REQUESTED for me to make it. So I'm not THAT evil.
For the recipes and a few more pictures...
Here are some more pictures of the cake form the back and the side and a close-up of the little surfing Brian. The surfboard says B-MONEY; it's a nickname Nathan gave Brian when he was little.
Here's a picture of Christopher at his Kindergarten graduation. I'm going to try to load some video from it next week.
Here are a couple of pictures of Christopher and Ethan helping make kebabs for dinner one night.
And here's a sweet picture of our skinny little Timothy.
Healthy Chicken Fried Steak with Mushroom Gravy serves 4
I know it sounds like a misnomer using 'healthy' and 'fried' in the same title but it really is. The average Chicken Fried Steak recipe has 893 calories, 67 grams of fat (31 g saturated) and 238 miligrams of cholesterol per serving. This recipe has 313 calories, 9 grams of fat (3 g saturated) and 52 miligrams of cholesterol per serving. On top of that Jonathan-who is really a meat and potatoes kind of guy if ever there was one-REALLY liked it. On top of that, it only takes about 30 min to make!
1/2 oz dried porcini or shitake mushrooms
1/2 c boiling water
1 lb extra lean round steak divided into 4 equal pieces (or 4 4-oz chicken breasts)
salt and pepper to taste
3 T whole wheat flour
2 large egg whites
4 slices whole wheat toast
1T dried minced onion
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp garlic powder
3 tsp olive oil, divided
6 oz cremini mushrooms (also called baby bella mushrooms), thinly sliced or rough chopped as desired
1 c low sodium beef broth (or chicken broth if you're using chicken)
1 c 1% milk (I actually used water and it was still good)
Pour boiling water over dried mushrooms and let sit 10-15 min. Pound your meat thin and season with salt and pepper. In a food processor, blend toast, onions, herbs and garlic powder until you have bread crumbs. Place 2 T flour in a shallow dish, egg whites in a separate shallow dish and bread crumb mixture in a third shallow dish. Heat 2 tsps oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. Dredge meat in flour, then egg whites, then bread crumbs. Cook meat 2-3 min per side and set aside to rest while you make the gravy. For the gravy: drain the mushrooms reserving the soaking liquid. Heat remaining 1 tsp of oil in a saucepan and add all the mushrooms. Cook 3-5 min until the mushrooms soften and release liquid. Add remaining 1 tsp of flour and cook 30 seconds. Slowly add reserved soaking liquid while whisking. Add broth and milk continuing to whisk until it thickens (about 3-5 min). Serve over steaks with mashed potatoes and green beans. YUM!
Asparagus Primavera with Couscous, White Beans and Apple Cider vinegar
1 ½ c dry whole-grain couscous
1 lb asparagus, rinsed and bottoms snapped off and remainder cut to 2 inch pieces
8 oz peeled carrots cut into matchsticks
4 oz baby corn (we left this out because I don’t like it)
1 15 oz can northern beans, drained and rinsed
2 c fresh baby spinach cut into strips
2 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T apple cider vinegar
2 T fresh orange juice
1 tsp dry dill or 1 T fresh dill
Salt and pepper to taste
¼ c fresh grated parmesan cheese
Cook couscous according to package directions. Fill a pot with about 1 inch of water and bring to a boil. Throw in asparagus and carrots, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5 min. Remove from heat and drain immediately. In a large salad bowl toss corn with remaining ingredients (except parmesan). Add the asparagus and carrots and toss some more. Serve over couscous and garnish with parmesan and additional dill if desired.
Spicy Shrimp over Rice
*disclaimer* Okay, I actually made this about 3 weeks ago and Jon said I should blog it but I didn't actually write down what I did that day so this is from memory and probably needs tweeking
1 Poblano pepper, seeded and diced (keep the seeds if you like it spicier)
1 onion
1 stalk celery
2 T butter
1 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
1/2 lb shrimp
2 T flour
1 c milk
Saute pepper, onion, celery, butter and seasoning until veggies are translucent. Add the shrimp and saute just until it starts to turn pink (1-2 minutes). Add the flour and cook 30-45 seconds or so and then whisk in the milk. Add more or less milk to get the consistency you want and serve over rice.
Crème Brûlée
8-9 large egg yolks
2/3 c whole milk
1 1/3 c cream
1/3 c sugar plus more for caramel topping
1 1/2 tsp vanilla or 1 whole vanilla bean
Preheat oven to 300. Mix everything together thoroughly. (If using a whole vanilla bean slit the bean down the center and scrape all the center out and mix into the cream. Reserve the pod for another use.) Divide evenly among 6 ramekins. Put the ramekins in a 9x13x3 pan. Put the pan in the oven and fill it with water equal to the height of the crème brûlée in the ramekins. Close the oven and cook for 50-60 min. When done, the crème brûlée will move a little bit in the center (like set jello) but will not be liquid looking when you tap the side of the ramekin. Cover with seran wrap and cool in the fridge. You can keep it for several days at this point. No more than 1 hour before serving, take them out of the fridge and pour 1 T or so of sugar on the top of each crème brûlée. Using a kitchen torch, heat the sugar until it's a nice caramel color. Pop it back in the fridge to cool and serve when ready. You can (if you MUST) use a broiler if you don't have a torch, but-quite frankly-it just doesn't work nearly as well. In the broiler the whole thing (as opposed to just the top) is heated all over again and it can really ruin the texture. If you don't have a kitchen torch, I suggest putting 2 T water and 1/4 c of sugar in a saucepan and boiling it to hard crack stage on a candy thermometer and then pouring a bit over each crème brûlée and tipping the ramekins around while you do it to distribute the caramel evenly. Pop it in the fridge to harden up and voila! Deliciousness delivered.
For Dark Chocolate Crème Brûlée: Proceed as with recipe above, except set aside 1/2 c of the milk and heat it in the microwave or on the stovetop until almost boiling. Add 6 oz chocolate and stir until chocolate has completely melted. Cool until lukewarm and whisk into bowl with the rest of the crème brûlée mixture the cook as described above.
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