Cooking Tip: Degreasing Chicken Stock

19 01 2011

I used to buy canned chicken broth with nary a thought. Then a friend made some black bean soup with homemade stock and I realized how much better my own soups would be if I chucked the cans. (I also became increasingly concerned about the chemicals in the lining of the cans, but that’s another story.) So for a few years now I’ve been freezing my own stock to use when I want to make soup.

But over the holidays I used up my stash of frozen stock, so last week when I made chicken soup I had to start from scratch. What I’d forgotten, however, was the little problem of de-greasing it. The best way to do this is to make it one day and let it cool overnight in the fridge. The fat will congeal on the top in a yellowish, Crisco-like layer (yummy, I know). Then it can be quickly and easily lifted off for a soup that tastes better and is healthier for your heart.

What to do if you run out of time and don’t have hours to let the soup cool in the fridge? As my kids and I learned last week, a snow drift works fine, too. We put the stock pot (uncovered) in the snow on our patio, moving its position as the snow around it melted. In about 30 minutes, the fat had risen and could be skimmed off the top!


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Categories : In Winter, Kids in the Kitchen, Recipes, Uncategorized

Grape Pie

26 09 2010

The family that lived in the house before us planted concord grapes, with dark purple skins, squishy green pulp, and an intense grape flavor associated more with Jolly Ranchers than fruit. Only problem is, the grapes are full of seeds. Eating them is tricky; imagine the seediest watermelon you’ve ever eaten, then shrink it to one-one thousandth the size, and you get the idea. For this reason, my three kids and I always monitor their growth, pick a few, then leave them to the squirrels.

But this morning, my 8-year-old and I woke up early, donned boots, and went out to harvest the grapes. I say this like we live on a farm, but really we own a tiny, urban lot in the heart of the city. The walk from house to back fence is barely 50 feet, but we might as well have been at a vineyard, so far away did we feel once our heads were tucked under leafy grapevines to search out the hidden fruit. We managed to fill the colander with eight cups, just what we needed for two grape pies, which are, as luck would have it, my husband’s childhood favorite.

This is not a fast recipe. Rather, this is a project, something to do with your kids or just by yourself simply because the end result is worth it. It’s like making applesauce. Yes, you could buy it at the store, but when you make it at home you get more than the food. You get the memories, too. Someday, I hope my kids are in Napa tasting wine or at a wedding at a vineyard and see the grapes hanging on the vines and remember the grape pies we made once a year when they were little. What follows is a photo journey through the steps.

After picking the grapes, we stemmed them and popped off the skins, a fun activity for all three kids. My aunt (who is visiting from Minnesota), was helping in the kitchen too, and when she tasted a grape she sighed, remembering the concord grapes from her own childhood on a farm in Ohio — and long-forgotten recipes that her mother used to make with them.

After separating the pulp from the skins, we cooked the pulp over low heat for 15 minutes to soften it up.

So far, the cooking project was just what we wanted. Then it came time to press the pulp through a fine strainer to remove the seeds. This step took what felt like forever, and more than once I felt myself getting impatient. (“Surely there’s a faster way to do this!” I kept thinking.) I had to force my mind to slow down, and I invited my son to leave his matchbox cars and help. It was while my kindergartener took a turn pressing the softened grapes with a big wooden spoon that he looked up at me and said, “Mommy, I LOVE this!” It was a moment I would’ve missed if I had succumbed to my normal mode of “get this done fast” and done it myself.

Next we combined the pulp, skins, lemon juice, orange zest, sugar and tapioca and let the filling sit for 15 minutes. Then I filled the waiting pie crusts and covered them with lattice tops. In the oven they went. To pass the time until the timer went off, my son rolled out the scraps of dough and sprinkled his “cookies” with cinnamon and sugar for a little treat. I could tell by his face that he liked these even more than Oreos. Don’t we always get more out of something when we work for it?

Right when the pies came out of the oven, we raced to a soccer game. By the time we got home, the pies were cool and ready to eat. Delicious!


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Categories : In Autumn, Kids in the Kitchen, Uncategorized

Pasta with Summer Vegetables

11 07 2010

For a summer project, my oldest daughter decided to study cooking around the world. Every week, she chooses a country and makes a recipe that represents its cuisine. Like most kids, she loves pasta so it’s no wonder that her first country was Italy and the first dish involved noodles.

This being her project, I tried to keep quiet while she flipped through cookbooks, chose the recipe and prepped ingredients. Even if I’d wanted to talk I wouldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise. She narrated the whole time, talking into a non-existent camera in imitation of her favorite Food Network stars. The dish she settled on was Pasta with Spring Vegetables from The International Cookbook for Kids by Michael Locricchio, and in honor of the big night she invited good family friends over for dinner. (You know they’re good friends when they agree to come over for dinner cooked by an 8-year-old!)

According to the cookbook, this cooking technique originated in Florence during the Renaissance; if your child is so inclined, you could always incorporate a little geography and art history into your own cooking project. Mine was too wrapped up in narration to care!

When dinner was served, we all took a bite and decided the pasta was not only edible but delicious. I’ve since made it again, upping the carrots, zucchini and tomatoes, omitting the celery and asparagus since it’s not in season and adding some white wine for flavor. The altered version appears here; feel free to substitute vegetables at will. P.S. If you’re part of a CSA, you’ll love this recipe not just for its taste, but because it uses up much of what you’re probably getting now.

Pasta with Summer Vegetables

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 pound of greens such as chard, washed and coarsely chopped
2-3 large squash or zucchini, halved and thinly sliced
1 28-oz can of diced organic tomatoes, or the fresh equivalent
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano or more
1/2 pound whole wheat noodles (capellini, linguini, spaghetti, etc.)
handful of fresh basil, chopped
1 pound Italian sausage, grilled and sliced into bite-sized pieces, if desired

Heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and add the onion, garlic and carrots. Saute for a few minutes, then turn heat to low and cook for 7-8 minutes. Add chard, zucchini, tomatoes, salt, wine, oregano and 1/4 cup water (more if necessary, depending on quantity of vegetables). Stir well, then cover loosely and cook over low heat for 25-30 minutes. Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water and remove when al dente. Drain and toss with a splash of extra virgin olive oil to prevent sticking. When the zucchini is tender, add sausage (if desired) to the sauce and stir, then add more salt, pepper and/or oregano. Put noodles in a large bowl, spoon sauce over noodles and serve with chopped fresh basil and plenty of parmesan.


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Kid-Friendly Spinach Tart

8 05 2010

The preschool that my kids attend is outfitted with a miniature kitchen so they can learn “practical life.” My youngest spends the bulk of her time there, making lemonade and then cleaning her own cup, spooning her own yogurt for snack, and one on spectacular day, grating nutmeg. After all my years in the kitchen, I’d never seen a whole nutmeg until I saw her pick one up and begin to scrape it against the diminutive grater. All winter they’ve been asking to repeat this project at home. This week, I finally let them. I needed nutmeg for a spinach tart. I also needed to occupy them while I got the rest of dinner ready. Grating nutmeg happily solved both.

Parents might wonder about the safety of little hands using a box grater. I know I did. (And obviously trust your instinct with your own children – this is not Fisher Price, and accidents can happen.) I reminded them how to hold the nutmeg so their knuckles wouldn’t accidentally hit, told them to go slowly, and did a quick demo. If my son had been older, he would’ve rolled his eyes. Instead, he said “I knowww, mom. We do this at school,” in a voice much older than his five years. At school, they use a clean (i.e. never-painted-with) paintbrush and sweep the fragrant powder into a thimble-sized bowl. We scooped it into my measuring spoon and dumped it into the bowl, me delighting in the extra flavor the freshly-ground spice would impart, them in the pride at being allowed to help in such a grown-up way.

There are other ways for kids to help with this recipe. Washing spinach is always a favorite. They can crack eggs and measure cottage cheese and stir. After all this helping, they might be so invested in the recipe, they’ll actually eat the tart.

Speaking of which, I make this in spring and early summer with fresh spinach, and substitute beet greens in the fall and winter. This one was made with beet greens from a huge crop of beets I picked at last fall’s CSA harvest festival. I blanched and froze them in 10-ounce packages specifically for this recipe. I opted to use the whole leaf, stem and all, but if you’re serving it to friends or have picky kids, I’d suggest chopping off all but the green leaves. The stems, like the beet to which they used to be attached, turn everything they touch red.

Spinach Tart

1 9-inch pie shell, unbaked (I make one with 100% whole-wheat flour)
10 ounces of chopped cooked spinach or other greens (weight after cooking)
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/16 tsp grated nutmeg

Preheat oven to 425. Make pie crust using your favorite recipe, prick all over and bake for 12 minutes. Remove and set aside. Turn heat to 375. Cook spinach (or thaw a package of frozen) and press out all the water. Mix eggs, cheeses, buttermilk and spices. Add spinach and mix well. Pour into pie shell and bake 40 minutes or until filling is set.


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Categories : In Spring, Kids in the Kitchen, Recipes, Uncategorized

Grilled Artichokes

23 04 2010

I’m not the kind of mom who fashions sculptures out of vegetables so my little people will eat their greens. (If you’re able to do this, bravo. Maybe you could share a tip or two?) But that’s not to say we don’t have fun with our food. We do, just in other ways.

We eat artichokes, for example. Ever seen a three-year-old tackle one? It’s a preschooler’s dream. She uses her fingers to rip off the leaves. She slurps as she scrapes the “meat” off with her teeth. She pushes away the thistles as we dig out the heart. Nothing tame about this stuff!

Artichokes are in season in California and the prices are low, so last week we bought more than I needed for dinner, knowing the extra hearts would be put to good use on pizza or in salads another night. Then I remembered how good the grilled artichokes are at Houston’s, and decided to recreate them at home. Because the chokes were already cooked, all I had to do was brush them with Annie’s organic Red Wine and Olive Oil Vinaigrette, sprinkle them with kosher salt, and toss them on the grill. Delish.

I know there are fancier ways of creating this dish. You can quarter and clean the artichokes prior to grilling. You can make your own vinaigrette and while you’re at it, you can whip up a garlic aioli for dipping. Normally I would take this route, and if you want directions along those lines, click here for a recipe from Bon Appetit.

But this blog isn’t a magazine; it’s real life. Sometimes I have time for fancy, sometimes I don’t. This time, I chose fast instead of fancy. You know what? The kids didn’t know the difference, and yours won’t either. They’ll be having too much fun eating.


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Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

26 03 2010

Last week I wrote about my husband’s birthday dinner and included a picture of his cake. Several people have since asked for the recipe, including one lovely reader who wants to make it for her father-in-law’s birthday tomorrow! I’ve made it more times than I can count — baptisms, surprise parties, Mother’s Day, birthdays — and it always turns out great. Every once in a while I try a new recipe, but in the end all the fussing over double boilers and unsweetened chocolate squares leaves me wishing I’d stuck with this exquisitely simple, utterly delicious cake. Note that if you’re at altitude, as I am here in Denver, you should reduce the baking soda slightly.

P.S. Kid’s in the Kitchen Tip — Because this cake doesn’t have eggs, you can let your kids lick the beaters or the bowl without fear of salmonella.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
Adapted from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

1 2/3 cups white flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (not kosher)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (Ghiradelli’s is especially good)
1 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk*
1/2 cup olive oil (you can use vegetable oil, too, but olive is healthier)
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350. Take two 8-inch cake pans and trace them on aluminum foil. Cut out the circles and put them in each pan shiny side up, then grease and flour like normal. This makes the cakes very easy to remove. Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together, then add the cocoa and sugar and mix well. Add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla and beat well. The batter will be very thick. Spread in pans and bake 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes, then put on a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

* If I remember correctly, the reader who wanted this recipe has a dairy-free family member. I don’t know if buttermilk will be an issue. I do know, though, that if you don’t have buttermilk you can make your own sour milk by adding 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to 1 cup of milk and letting it sit on the counter for 15 minutes. The acid is necessary to activate the baking soda.

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting
This frosting uses a different technique than most frosting recipes. It may look strange, but trust me, it works! The fluffing is very fluffy and much less sweet than frostings made with powdered sugar.

1 cup milk or cream
1/3 cup white flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla

Whisk milk and flour in a small saucepan over medium heat until mixture is very thick. You may need to whisk hard to remove the lumps. Remove from heat and let cool. Cream sugar and butter for several minutes, then add milk-flour mixture in spoonfuls, beating well after each addition. When frosting is very fluffy, add vanilla. There will be enough to fill and frost a two-layer 8-inch cake. I like to dot it with chocolate chips, as you can see in the picture. (This frosting can sit out the day it’s made, but any leftovers should be refrigerated. Doing so will change the texture of the frosting, however. It’s never as fluffy as the day it’s made.)


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Tarragon Chicken with Biscuits

22 03 2010

I was at a retreat this weekend and someone brought along a pack of mini cereals (Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, etc.). The sight of those little rectangular boxes triggered memories for LOTS of folks. As I listened to them laugh about how they only got those cereals on vacation, I started thinking about my own food memories.

One of my earliest is of chicken pot pie, the kind that came in a little box. Never mind that the crust was as tough as the box surrounding it. I loved the creamy white sauce and the way the steam poured out when I first poked my fork through. I was probably seven, too young to notice the rubbery carrots or the extreme saltiness.

Now I make my own chicken pot pie with homemade stock, a whole wheat crust and freshly cooked organic vegetables. But when I have less time, I make Tarragon Chicken with Biscuits. The filling is the same, but instead of baking it in a pie crust I spoon it over a biscuit. By skipping the crust, I cut out at least 45 minutes of crust-making and baking time. Leftover biscuits can be used for dessert, drizzled with honey.

Chicken with Biscuits can be made quickly with canned broth and rotisserie chicken, but it tastes much better — and is much better for you — if you plan ahead. Buy a whole chicken or a mixture of bone-in chicken breasts, drumsticks and thighs and make your own stock. (If you need a recipe, click here and follow the first half.) Shred the chicken and save it until you’re ready to make dinner. If you don’t need it that day or the next, you can also wrap the chicken tightly in plastic bags and freeze it for up to a few months.

And who knows, if you let your kids help peel the carrots, smell the tarragon and knead the biscuits, you might even be creating a food memory they’ll recall fondly years from now.

Tarragon Chicken with Biscuits
Like many recipes on my blog, this recipe isn’t as precise as what you’d find in a cookbook. That’s to encourage you to use what you like and what you have on hand, and also to let you follow your own palate.

10-12 ounces of vegetables, such as 2 carrots, a potato, and a handful of broccoli florets, washed and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup white flour
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon dried tarragon, or more
Pepper to taste
1 3/4 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
2/3 cup whole milk (pour it short and add a few tablespoons of heavy cream for extra deliciousness)
2-3 cups shredded chicken
6-8 biscuits*

Boil a pot of water and add vegetables in order of cooking time, potatoes first, carrots soon after, and broccoli with just a few minutes to go. When done, drain and set aside. Melt butter in a large saute pan and add flour, onion, salt and pepper. Stir rapidly until the sauce bubbles, and don’t worry about the lumps. Turn off the heat and add the chicken stock and milk, whisking well until lumps disappear. Turn the heat back on and cook, stirring, until sauce comes to a boil. When bubbles first appear, set the timer for one minute and cook, stirring constantly. The sauce should now be thick.

Remove from heat and taste, adding more tarragon, salt or pepper as necessary. Stir in most of the vegetables and 2 cups of chicken, then see if you want more vegetables or more chicken and adjust accordingly. Tip for Moms: Make the filling up to this point during naptime or when your kids are at school, then reheat it and make the biscuits at dinner.

*Speaking of biscuits, you can make your own with this recipe for Buttermilk Biscuits. If you don’t have buttermilk or want a faster version, use Bisquick.


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Instant Banana Pudding

9 02 2010

What I’m writing about today is something for folks too young to diagram a sentence, drive a car, or cook over a double-boiler. It’s also for the grown-ups who hang out with them.

Last week I shared a recipe for blancmange, an eggless pudding thickened with cornstarch instead of the who-knows-what in boxed instant puddings. Here’s a pudding recipe that my kids like just as much, mostly because they make it all by themselves. Note that this is not something I would ever make for me. I think my kids know this, and that’s part of the appeal.

To start, grab a banana. Sorry that it requires a banana, since bananas don’t grow anyplace local and I’m usually an avid proponent of local food. This is one area where I make an exception, especially in winter when the fresh fruit isn’t local anyway. Let your little one peel it, then mash it in a bowl with a fork or a masher. Then give them a tablespoon and let them measure and stir in 3-4 tablespoons of applesauce (preferably unsweetened organic) and 1 or 2 tablespoons of organic vanilla yogurt. Plain works well, too; you can always add a drop of vanilla extract. I know a friend who makes a similar dessert with her kids, only she adds crushed graham crackers.

Remember this recipe/project A) on snow days when you don’t know how you’re going to get through the next few hours until dinner; B) you have extra bananas, but not enough for banana bread; or C) you want to see your children grin proudly as they devour their oh-so-healthy dessert.


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Categories : In Winter, Kids in the Kitchen, Recipes, Uncategorized

Kids in the Kitchen: Soup

4 02 2010

The more kids help in the kitchen, the more likely they are to eat well. Vegetables won’t seem so weird once they’ve been selected, scrubbed and nibbled. Flavors won’t seem so foreign if they’ve been sampled far from the high-stakes dinner table. When kids are allowed to help, meals stop being cause for suspicion and turn into an object of pride. (As in, “Look what I made, Mommy!”)

Still, it’s hard to let kids help. Flour ends up on the floor. Eggshells wind up in the batter. When we do let them sit on the counter, we often give them bit parts like dumping in the sugar. But last night, my kids and I reversed roles. They were in charge and I helped. My five-year-old declared the dinner that followed to be “the best dinner ever, by a million, trillion, billion!”

What was the object of such raves? Nothing other than — get this — stone soup.

If you’re a teacher, librarian or parent of young kids, you might know Marcia Brown’s Stone Soup about three soldiers and the war-weary French peasants who are reluctant to share their food. One by one, the villagers hide their goods and then lie to the hungry soldiers, telling them they have nothing to eat. So the soldiers offer to make stone soup, and command a kettle to be filled with water and a few stones. If only there were some carrots, they say, then this good soup would be even better. Mysteriously, one villager finds a few carrots. Then another finds cabbage, then potatoes, beef and barley, until the soup is fit for a king. Soldiers and villagers end up feasting together well into the night, a classic case of generosity, of something from nothing.

My son loves this story. So when he discovered a turnip and two carrots we’d overlooked in our tiny garden, he excitedly asked if we could make stone soup. Why not? The littlest one scrubbed potatoes. The middle one cut them with a butter knife. The oldest grabbed the peeler and the sharper knife.


My five-year-old, hard at work scrubbing the stone.

The pot eventually got so full it was more like thick stew than soup, but the kids didn’t notice. They were too proud of their new scrubbing, peeling and chopping skills to care that the potatoes were overcooked, that the broth was under salted. I didn’t care, either. All I saw were their huge smiles and their pride at being the Big Kids Who Cooked Dinner for Mommy.

Stone Soup

First, find a smooth stone and wash it well. We let ours boil for 15 minutes, too, just to make sure it was clean. Put at least 32 ounces of chicken broth in a saucepan, and add the stone. Then, depending on their age, let your children wash, peel and cut a variety of vegetables and add them to the pot. An onion, carrots and potatoes make a good base. The rest is up to you: turnips, cabbage, spinach, zucchini, green beans, whatever you have. Cook until tender, season to taste, and add parmesan cheese at the table for extra flavor. You can make this project even more fun by letting kids choose their own Stone Soup vegetables at the grocery store.


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