Since last year, I have had a lot going on. Most importantly, I went through the major life change of becoming a mom. Here are some ramblings about that change, me, and food…

I was fortunate to have an uncomplicated pregnancy and I know good nutrition had a hand in that. Eating well was more important to me than it had ever been at any other point in my life. Staying well fed was one of the many ways I expressed my love for my growing daughter and I took it very seriously! Every day I was very focused (a tad obsessed?) with what I would be eating and when I would be eating it. Although I was often tired, I still found the time to cook. While going out was a treat in which I indulged frequently, there were times when only home cooking – my home cooking – would do. So I was on my feet a bit more than I expected to be, but it was worth it.

Having good bulk food recipes under my belt was especially handy in my final weeks of pregnancy. I made about three weeks worth of entrees to store in our freezer the weekend prior to my due date. Once the baby arrived, I was able to relax and just mother my child while my husband simply hit the freezer for home cooking for us. Absolute life saver. For my freezer store I made Red Beans & Sausage, Chicken Pot Pie filling, tons of roasted chicken breasts pieces to toss with quick sauces, and Beef Burgundy.

That was dinner, but what about the other meals you say? Hubby made breakfast each day. And every time someone wanting to visit asked “do you need anything?” or “can I help?” we asked for one of two things: diapers or lunch. They usually brought enough food for two days. This strategy worked very well and I highly suggest it. Do not turn away help – it’s easy for someone to bring you food.

How does food play a role in this new world order which now includes the cutest baby ever? My cooking and eating habits have changed in some major ways. First off, I now eat EVERYTHING! I am more hungry as a nursing mother than I ever was as a pregnant woman. There seems to be an unlimited number of calories I require and can consume each day. Things I didn’t like before are consumed with no abandon. I have never eaten like this before – it is amazing! (Still not on my list of likes: cantaloupes, honeydew melon, water chestnuts, baby corn, cubed mixed vegetables). But with limited time, the trick is making sure convenience meets quality. There is more takeout, yes, but there is still plenty home cooking. I’ll share as much as I can with you guys when I have time.

I’m looking forward to sharing again!

Kiesha G.

So my first phone post will be dedicated to sharing a pic if this year’s King Cake from this week. I ordered from Haydel’s again and it was goooood. I paired it with a big box o’ Joe from Dunkin and set it up at my office. We ate every morsel.

So I started with my regular recipe for mac & cheese and cut the recipe in half.  One difference to the basic recipe – I used half & half instead of milk (because we’re almost out).  At the point where I finished making the cheese sauce, egg & all, I added some different things than I normally would.  I threw the following into the cheese sauce:

• one crumbled piece of cooked turkey bacon
• 1/4 cup of crumbled goat cheese
• one half cup of frozen chopped spinach (really it was a fistful, but I’m estimating my fist holds about a half cup of frozen spinach

Then I moved onto step 6, combining the sauce with the cooked noodles. I poured it into a casserole dish and topped it with a few more crumbles of goat cheese.  Side note – since I’m pregnant, I’m not eating unpasteurized soft cheeses since it’s been said that they can carry disease-causing organisms like the bacteria listeria, so I made sure to use a pasteurized goat cheese .

Here is the finished product:

Macaroni with Spinach, Turkey Bacon, & Goat Cheese

I thoroughly enjoyed it and hubby’s plate was clean as a whistle.  I guess it was a success!

One of the things I’ve been loving has been sauteed spinach, but man cannot live on leafy greens alone (well, at least not this one).  One weekday when I wanted my spinach, I opened the freezer and stared in to see what I’d have with it and decided the boneless chicken thighs would win.  Without the bones, they would thaw faster than most other things I had on hand – great for afterwork cooking.  I did a little quick thaw with some water in a bowl & decided on a plan super quick.  Here’s what I gathered up after the chicken thawed:

• McCormick’s Roasted Garlic Montreal Chicken Seasoning
• Fresh Ginger Root
• Soy Sauce

This was one of the easiest things I’ve ever made.

1. I placed the thawed chicken breasts in a bowl and seasoned with the McCormick’s.
2. Then, using a micro plane grater, I grated about 1/3 of my fresh ginger root onto the chicken.
3. Next, I coated the chicken in soy sauce and massaged it all together.  You don’t need to put enough soy sauce in the chicken to drown it, just enough to make sure it’s all coated with the flavor.
4. Heat up a skillet with olive oil and place the seasoned chicken inside.  Be sure to pour all remaining soy sauce and ginger into to pan over the chicken as well.  Cook until it is nice and caramel colored on that side then flip it to cook through on the other side.  Depending on how big your pieces are, this shouldn’t take too long.  I had four really small ones, so it took about about 8 minutes to finish cooking the chicken.

Here is the finished product:

20-Minute Dinners from Better Homes & Gardens

Quick and Easy Meals from Recipe.com

More Quick & Easy from Martha

So as you gather your recipes, wouldn’t it be nice to have a tool that can gather all the recipe ingredients into one handy shopping list for you?  Well, I’ve got a suggestion for you.  It’s called Ziplist.com and it’s pretty neat.  Yep, I used the word neat .

It was launched last month and it’s part of a strategic relationship with Martha Stewart.  You can choose from the many recipes in the Ziplist database or you can add a bookmark to your browser that allows you to pick up a recipe from any site and drop it into your shopping list.  I find it awesome and I’d love for you to check it out and let me know if you find it useful.

Enjoy cooking & shopping!

Alex loves all things food: perfecting recipes, creating menus, exploring new tastes, searching for the best ingredients and of course, unwinding in the kitchen at the end of the day. She’s comfortable spouting cooking advice to whomever will listen, but she still calls her mom for help.

There will be more contributors to come this spring, for now, show our new friend Alex some love!

Yes, that is a field of bacon...

Easy Beef Burgundy

Ingredients

• 2 slices of bacon, chopped (doesn’t matter if it’s pork or turkey – as long as it’s smoky)
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup of baby carrots  - you’ll notice in the pic I used to illustrate I just made big rustic cuts of a regular sized carrot to substitute
• 1 cup frozen pearl onions, defrosted and drained (you can use fresh, but it requires boiling and peeling the fresh onions)
• Salt and pepper
• 2 pounds lean sirloin, trimmed and cubed into 1-inch pieces (I cut them smaller sometimes so they cook faster)
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 cup of red wine (for true beef burgundy, use burgundy wine. I’ve cheated and used other reds before)
• 1 1/2 cups beef stock or broth
• 1 bay leaf
• Bouquet of 3 or 4 sprigs each sage and thyme, tied with kitchen string
• Either potatoes or herbed egg noodles to serve over

Instructions

1. Season the beef cubes with salt and pepper and then coat them with the 2 tablespoons of flour. I use my sifter to make sure I don’t get any small flour clumps on the meat. Sit aside on a plate.
2. Heat a large deep skillet with a heavy bottom over medium high heat. Add bacon to the pan and brown. If you are using turkey bacon and it’s really lean, a little olive oil helps. Remove crisp bacon bits and sit aside.
3. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons butter to the pan and melt into the bacon fat. Add carrots to the pan, sprinkle with a little salt & pepper and turn to coat them evenly with butter and bacon fat. Cook for a minute then add onions to the pan. Continue cooking onions and carrots for about 2 to 3 minutes, then transfer them to a bowl to the side and return pan to the heat.
4. Add the rest of your butter to the pan and melt it, then add the floured meat to the hot pan and brown evenly on all sides.  The smaller you cut your meat, the faster you’ll have to move here turning the cubes to brown them.
5. After the meat is browned, add wine to the pan slowly while stirring. When the wine starts to simmer and you have loosened up all the yummy pan drippings that have stuck to the pan (I vote with a wooden spoon), add the stock, the bay leaf, and bouquet of fresh sage and thyme sprigs to the pan. Cover the pan. Bring it all to a boil then lower the heat to medium.
6. Cook covered 5 minutes, then and add carrots, onions and bacon back to the pan. Simmer uncovered until it thickens. Taste the stew and add salt, pepper, or other seasonings as you see fit.  Don’t forget to remove the herb bouquet & bay leaf before serving over the noodles or potatoes.
7. All done – enjoy!

Sorry it's a bit of a foggy, steamy pic

• Chinese Five Spice Powder
• Trinidad Lemon Garlic Marinade
• Szechuan Peppercorns
• Gateway to the North Maple Sugar Seasoning
• Baharat Spice Mixture
• Moroccan Spice Mixture
• Salmon Seasoning
• Pure Tomato Powder

Seriously?!  So happy.

Of course I had to get right down to business and make something from my box of goodies.  On Sunday, all I had to do is make a light sauce to accompany the Lobster Ravioli I got from the fresh pasta station at Whole Foods.   So I decided to go ahead and put a little bit of work in, use one of my new spices and cook in advance for Monday, the day when I have the least desire to cook after coming home from work.  (Side note:  since I am well aware of this, on Sunday I typically cook a large stew or pasta dish or roasted whole chicken that will last two days on Sunday).  I opened the treasure chest of spices and considered the thawed whole boneless, skinless chicken breast in the fridge.  I decided that the Moroccan Spice Mixture is the winner.  Per the Spice House site, this spice is “hand mixed from: Kosher flake salt, cumin, coriander, sugar, hot curry powder, ground cardamom, and Chinese cassia cinnamon.”  It’s smoky, ever so slightly sweet, and just divine.  I could imagine it tasting great with sweet potatoes or with lamb or with a rustic mixed root vegetable medley of some sort.  But today, it’s chicken time.  Here’s what I did:

1. Sliced one small onion and added the slices to a pan of 1 tbsp of melted butter and 1 tbsp of olive oil and sauteed until translucent
2. While the onion cooked, I cut the chicken breast in half.  It’s just a tad easier for me to handle two breast pieces than one huge whole breast.  I then seasoned the chicken breast with a touch of salt and pepper and a generous amount of Moroccan Spice Mixture.
3. I pushed the onions to the side of the pan and added the seasoned chicken breast pieces to the pan and sear on both sides
4. Poured 1 cup of chicken stock to the pan, stirred the onions around in it a bit, covered with a lid and cooked on a low fire for about 10-15 minutes.
5. I placed the chicken breasts and all the liquid in which they cooked into a container and let it cool before placing it in the fridge for the next day.

…then the next day…

When I got home from work, the only thing left to do was heat up the chicken and make a side dish.  I commissioned the hubby to make the side dish.  I decided that dish would be a fun couscous.  This is a great way to take a break from the usual potatoes or rice or pasta that people usually make on the side when cooking.  Cous cous is one of the easiest things to cook because it just is so quick! So here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cups of plain cous cous
• 1 cup of chicken stock
• 1/2 cup of golden raisins
• 1/2 cup of chopped pecans or blanched sliced almonds
• one scallion, chopped
• salt
• 1 tbsp of butter

Instructions:

1. Saute the raisins and nuts in the butter until the raisins are starting to become translucent
2. Add the cup of stock and salt (maybe 1 tsp would do the trick) and bring to a boil
3. Add the cous cou and scallions, stir until all the cous cous is wet, cover, and turn off the heat
4. Let the cous cous sit for 5 minutes, then fluff with a spoon or knife
5. Top with fresh sliced scallions.

You’re done!  How easy is that!

I heated the chicken in the microwave and sliced it up and let it soak up more of the juices it cooked in while the cous cous was cooking.  I served them together and the meal was totally satisfying without being heavy and just such a pleasure to make since it was already half done when I walked in the door.   The Moroccan Spice Mixture from The Spice House was indeed a hit and I can’t wait to try another one of my spice goodies.