Archives for January 2015

KIKn it week one: You mean macaroni and cheese doesn’t come from a box??!

January 27, 2015 by jen ·

Let me preface this by saying, I am no Julia Childs. I am a down home, traditional meat and potatoes type of gal. I know how to cook… I just haven’t ever been one of those people who finds nirvana over steaming victuals.

In fact, true story: our first Thanksgiving together, I woke up that morning, got the turkey out of the freezer (yep… I heard that collective gasp!), then called my mom to ask how to cook a turkey. She wasn’t there (uh oh!) So I dialed up my mother in law and asked her. She gave me some great tips (that I still use to this day! thanks, Gramma Sue!!). I may or may not have broken a few health code violations in trying to get the bird thawed first (really?? who knew you had to actually prepare some parts of the meal ahead of time??!), and then cooked.

Turns out, it was one of the best turkeys we had ever had. (Yup, those tips really did pay off! Good thing because we were hosting quite the crowd for dinner!). I started to realize that cooking good food didn’t have to mean using ingredients that you couldn’t pronounce.

Fast forward many years, many trials and errors (let’s just say, our kids have become brutally honest when my ‘experiments’ aren’t quite up to eating standards!), and I have kind of gotten a little routine down of quick, yet somewhat healthy meals to prepare the family. I patted myself on the back that we only broke out the mac n cheese a few times a year (so the kids viewed it as a ‘super special treat’ to have it for a meal!).

Enter week one of our KIK program.

I sat down the kids, dusted off the menu planner, and told them they could each pick whatever dish they wanted to do for their designated day.

7 yo son immediately chimed up “Mac n Cheese!!”

“awesome! pop open a few boxes, that is easy enough” was my first thought. Before it even came out… my Bon-Appetite-loving hubby chimed in from the peanut gallery… “so… are you going to teach him how to do the REAL version??”

And suddenly it hit me. I had spent years studying the fine art of nutrition. I had worked in a campus cafeteria, and then managed that cafeteria. I had taken food chemistry classes. My entire college education centered around food. My entire dietetic career has been spent teaching people to eat close to the farm… to try to stay away from processed foods as much as possible. And here I was about to teach my child that to cook a dinner, you first need to open a box of processed food.

Of course, I couldn’t admit this to my eyebrows raised hubby, so I nonchalantly glanced over and said,

“yes, of course I am.”

And just like that, my whole outlook on this program changed. I realized that I could do so much more for my kids than merely teach them how to get food-like-substances into their bodies. I could really teach them how to COOK (and probably learn some things myself along the way!), and truly NOURISH their bodies.

So began our night number one:

lesson 1: butter can burn.

Moving on:

Real lesson number 1: how to make a roux (and in full disclosure, I just had to look up how to spell that!)

(I remember when I had baby #3, a dear friend brought dinner that contained the yummiest soup ever. I called her for the recipe, and she started off with “oh, it’s so easy!” major red flag when said friend is a gourmet cook, I later learned! “you just start with a roux… ” she went on to explain this “super easy” recipe, but truth be told, she lost me at roux. I had never made one before and thought that if I couldn’t even define the word, then making it would be even harder!).

Turns out, it really IS quite easy!

You simply melt some butter (careful not to let it cook too long… see picture above, ahem…), whisk in some flour, then add milk (while whisking like crazy!). Suddenly you have yourself a super yummy-looking roux!

Next, you stir in some cheese

Pour it over some noodles (that you have already boiled!)

Cover with some bread crumbs:

And bake in ‘that hot thing over there!’ (as quoted from 5 yo… hmmm, maybe we’ll need to incorporate some kitchen vocabulary into her KIKn night!)

Then you sit and watch the magic happen as all of the ooey, gooey goodness melts together.

All in all, this recipe was a double thumbs up from all the kiddos… who were just as surprised as I was that mac n cheese could come from a place other than the little blue box :).

Here’s the recipe (from Alana Spillman – a girl I have never met. She is found in the family recipe book given by my dear friend… which book also contains the recipes for frogs legs, mutton, and head cheese. First of all, I am suddenly rethinking your family lineage, Sue 😉 and second of all… I don’t think those recipes will be making their way into the kitchen any time soon! But this one was a keeper!)

1 (12 oz) box macaroni noodles (cooked and drained)

6 tbsp. butter

6 tbsp. flour

1 1/2 cup whole milk (we used skim milk)

1 1/2 cup cream (we used fat free half and half)

3/4 tsp salt

pepper to taste

3 cups shredded cheese (we used part milk and part sharp cheddar)

3/4 cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray bottom of 9×13 pan. Melt butter in sauce pan, then whisk in flour (mixed with salt and pepper). Slowly pour in milk and half and half while whisking. Bring to boil while stirring constantly and boil 2 min. Reduce heat and simmer additional 10 min (declaimer – we were short on time, so didn’t wait the whole 10 min). Stir in cheese until melted and simmer another 5 min (again short on time, so just stirred until melted). Pour in noodles and stir until coated. Pour into pan, top with bread crumbs, and bake for about 20 min (until top is golden).

Serve and “make sure to tell everyone that I made it, okay mom?”

Long live KIK!!!

Join me in the journey… what’s cooken in your kitchen??

Filed Under: Uncategorized

KIKn it! Part one: the conception.

January 25, 2015 by jen ·

I’ve been waiting to publish this post… mostly because I needed to make sure that it was something that I would keep doing beyond the initial “weeee!” phase of new ideas.

But since I outlasted any record that I have set in the past 15 years of marriage and 12 years of mommy hood, I thought it was a pretty good indication that I might just be on to something. Well that, and the kids have now adopted KIK as set-in-stone-tablets commandments of the home so I know they won’t let me brush it off anytime soon.

Here’s how it all started… and how I turned (well, how I’m trying really hard to turn) my mess into my message:

If I were in charge of a standardized test and one of the sections was on synonyms, my question would be:

bamboo shoots under fingernails are to torture like:

meal planning is to Jen

Seriously. Hate everything about it. In the twelve years that I have had children, I have done it for exactly 2 weeks. Those two weeks were great after the planning and shopping were done, but the planning and shopping part… well… there are just other things that I would much rather do than actually sit down to do it. Things like clean my toilets. With a toothbrush.

Many a new year have come and gone with “Plan meals!” as one of my goals.

I even made a cutsie menu display to hang in the kitchen, complete with designs that could be changed for different holidays.

(Which, in hindsight was a really bad idea… if I didn’t even change the menu week to week, what made me think I would change the background for different seasons??!)

With all of my efforts from year to year, our menu planning/carrying out ratio was about 2 days tops.

And year after year, my frustration with dinner time grew and grew.

I mean, sure, anyone can cook a great meal – if all of the ingredients are just laid out before them, and there is oodles of free time, and there are no babies crying to be nursed, or toddlers leaching onto their legs, or other children asking for help with homework, or to play x-box (which requires you checking on said homework), or fighting with other children who are asking similar questions. Add all of these into the mix, and dinner time has become something that I absolutely dread.

Or at least used to.

As the afternoon hours ticked by, I inevitably had the dreaded ‘what’s for dinner?!’ question pop into my head (or asked by one of the kiddos), and more times than not, ended up with ‘quick and easy’ being the two main ingredients.

But this has been a problem for me. Because I spent years studying the fine art of nutrition.

seriously.

Got my degree in dietetics.

And as I was thinking about what to study in college, this thought actually helped me make my decision: “well, I love nutrition. I would really love to be a stay at home mom, which means I am going to be cooking a lot of meals, so why not combine studying what I love to be able to make nutritious, yummy meals for my family.” I seriously had visions of sautéing exotic vegetables while my children played peacefully around me, or stood next to me donned in mini chef hats. Then they would eagerly gobble up everything that was set in front of them, singing my praises.

Yeah… you can stop laughing now. Never happened.

Until now.

Really. (okay, minus the chef’s hats).

We are really going on three weeks of planned, prepared, nutritious (well, for the most part… I’ll get to that in another post!) meals.

THREE WEEKS, folks! I know for many of you, that is nothing.

But for this throw-something-on-and-call-it-good mama, it’s a WORLD RECORD!!

It all started with the realization that winter break was over, and our crazy run around everywhere schedule was about to resume, and the thought of going through all of that and having to do dinners day in and day out was enough to almost bring me to tears.

We were all sitting around on Sunday and I looked up at the menu sign (which still had the summer motif background, ahem. Did I mention we had just finished Christmas??!). And something snapped.

I realized that I have been failing my children. They were going to go out into the world not knowing how to cook. Many of them had expressed interested in helping me in the kitchen before, but I have always been too rushed to really take the time to teach them the little things that would truly serve them their whole life through (I have yet to meet someone who has never had to cook for themselves for at least some points in their life).

I got the menu chart down, and announced that we would be doing something different this year. Each week the kids would pick a day, and they were in charge of dinner. They could pick whatever they wanted to cook, and I would have the ingredients ready for them, and be here to help them through, but they were ultimately in charge of at least the main course of dinner.

They jumped at the idea. And KIK (Kids in the Kitchen) was born!

Filed Under: Featured Posts, KIK (Kids in the Kitchen), Recipes

Good Morning Mamma!

January 22, 2015 by jen ·

I’ve spent many-a-year in mommyhood now. A dozen and 6 months to be exact. I know by some standards that is a drop in the pan and some of you more experienced, expert mommies are laughing, saying, “honey, you ain’t seen nothen yet!!” and I quite agree – I’m sure there is MUCH more on this mommy boat that I have yet to learn.

But there is one thing that I have learned. One little secret that saved my sanity. and my happiness. and quite a lot of money not spent on years of therapy to come to the same conclusion.

Here is the secret: there is no ONE way through this path that we call mommy hood. There is no ONE perfect way to be a mommy. There is NO pinterest perfect mommy. I don’t have to bury my own quirks in some vain attempt to become the perfect mommy mold. My quirks are what make me uniquily qualified to mother my children.

When I started on the baby train, I loaded up on the mountain of mommy books that everyone recommended. I did the checklist preparation. I read. I planned. I prepared.

And then they came.

And I realized that I was anything but prepared.

In fact, the more children that came, the less and less prepared I felt.

And I started to feel like maybe I wasn’t cut out for this whole mommy gig after all.

So often, I felt like I wasn’t fitting the mold of the good night tubs, the hours spent on the floor playing candy land, the cutsie-faced (healthy!) food arranged decadently on plates for them to gingerly consume as we smile and giggle and point at the birds singing sweetly in the trees.

And everything I read just heaped on more guilt.

For me it was particularly about the night time routine. People went on and on about how their night time moments were treasures to them – how they loved to do the bath-time and read to the kids, then how much they loved and cherished that snuggle time as their children drifted slowly into slumberland and their mommy hearts burst at the time that they devoted to these activities, knowing full well that all to soon the bed time snuggles would vanish.

Songs were even written about ‘letting them sleep in the middle’ (it’s actually a really good song, even though it did infuse guilt for quite some time!)

You see – the reason that I had a hard time with this is because I am NOT a night time person. Never have been. Never will be. My cinderella clock chimes WAY before midnight, and instead of the sweet cinderella hum, my children more often than not got some version of the step mother character begging, then pleading, then threatening them will all sorts of not-so-well wishes if they didn’t GET TO BED RIGHT NOW!!!

As much as I hate to admit it, even the sweet, innocent face, puppy eyed plea of ‘can I snuggle with you?’ would send shivers down my spine. Yes, I did all of those night time things. But I didn’t cherish them. I didn’t relish them. I counted down the minutes until I could finally fall into my own semi-coma toast state of slumber.

And while doing so, man did I pour on the guilt. What kind of mom don’t like to snuggle in bed with her children?? What kind of mom gets super mad and even yells at her kids to get out of her room so she can have some (ever-so-selfish) alone time? What kind of mom will purposely plan a meeting right about bed time… and then even drive around the block a few times to make sure that they are all in bed and for just one night give herself a by on this dreaded routine??

THIS mom – that’s who!

Now don’t get me wrong – I have stayed up late, and I will stay up late when need be. On vacation, I love late night talks.

But just as a routine, daily occurrence, I’m all about sleep.

Sweet slumbering silent sleep. For this mama…

it is literally my ‘zen’

true story: I used to tell my dates to not be offended – that if we went to a movie I would most likely be asleep before it reached the plot twist. Some of them didn’t believe me. they were wrong.

Nope – never been a night owl.

Now… give me a bright, early morning??? I’m your gal!!!

I LOVE mornings. Crazy. Weird. Even a little sadistic. I know. But I LOVE them. Don’t get me wrong – that first moment of dragging myself out of bed is rough – not gonna lie. But once I’m up, I feel so energized. I can get so many things done in those wee hours of the morning.

including mommy hood moments. Oh how I love those early morning snuggles! I love looking over the stirring baby and soaking in their reaction when they open their eyes for the first time, focus in on my face, and break into that huge unadulterated smile. THESE moments are the ones that I treasure.

Yep – I am a morning mommy ROCKSTAR!!

I love to hear all of the stirring and tiny feet plodding down the stairs to join me in the kitchen as I cook breakfast. I love to listen to their excitement for the day that lies ahead, aid in the last minute studying for the quiz or test, put the last touches on the homework, and listen to the description of dreams, both night time and life-long.

Then one day it hit me. I can do tubby time in the morning! I can do reading time in the morning!

Once I unleashed myself from the ‘perfect pinterest recipe’ of what a ‘good mom’ routine looked like, I came to realize that I could do this mommy hood gig, because I could do it on MY terms.

Some mommies get on the floor and play candy land for hours. This mommy puts on some music and zumbas with her kids for hours (okay, not for hours… but I had to keep up the literary consistency!). Some mommies make gourmet meals for birthday breakfast. This mommy brings home donuts and chocolate milk for birthday mornings. Some moms do night time readings. This mom does morning math.

The point that I came to understand is that there isn’t one right way or time to make mommy moments. We just need to make sure that they get made.

An interesting side effect of this discovery not only freed me from my own guilt, but it also freed me from judging other peoples journey of mommy hood. As I have come to not only accept, but more importantly cherish my unique mothering methods I have also been able to openly cherish and relish other mothers in their mommy hood moments (without feeling the urgent rush to abandon my own ways and jump on her bandwagon).

I am not anywhere near perfect in my mothering moments. In fact, there are many, many times that I would love to call ‘do over!’ so I can go back and get it right.

But I am learning

and growing.

and releasing the guilt as I help my children experience this world through the use of my individual strengths… that perhaps they were even sent to me because they would benefit from my particular set of strengths, not my trying to morph my motherhood into someone else’s set of strengths.

And THAT, my friends, has made all the difference.

So what are YOUR mommy hood strengthening moments?? C’mon by, let’s chat. I’d love to hear them! (just not during the midnight hour…).

Filed Under: Deep Thoughts, Featured Posts, Motherhood

I’m baaaaack (said in the weird poltergeist voice!)

January 18, 2015 by jen ·

wowza – what a ride this life is! I have taken a HUGE hiatus from the blogging world for a while as I have been working on focusing in on what my top priorities are. I made a big shift as to things that were essential and things that were nice to have. The blog… well, that got put on the ‘nice to have’ list and as such, got moved down on the ‘to-do’ list further and further.

Don’t get me wrong – I have different blog post ideas swirling around in my head constantly… right next to the book ideas that are also swirling… which are right by the Facebook posts that are swirling..

Is it any wonder why I am frequently feeling dizzy??

Here’s the bullet point update on life, love, and the pursuit of happiness… or at least the pursuit of sane-ness ;).

— new baby born (wahoo!)

— book sales and speaking gigs going well (wahoo!)

— started masters program in school and community gardens (wah… what??! yep.. after years of teaching people to eat closer to the farm, I decided I should take the leap and add that last piece to teach people how to grow the farm. Only problem was – I didn’t know a THING about gardening. So I jumped in with both feet and have been working in our elementary school and YMCA gardens with the kids. it is AWESOME!!)

— shifted the masters program (I know, I know, I just started it one bullet point ago!) to include international gardening efforts

— oh yea… the pregnant part – had ANOTHER baby (wow – I really have been in a blogging hiatus for a LONG time!). Total kids in family now = 7. Total alone minutes I get on a ~~daily~~, ~~weekly~~, monthly basis = 0. (seriously, folks, not even a trip to the ‘potty’ warrants the coveted alone time! I tell you, you have not lived until you have had to fight your two year old who is wanting desperately to help you ‘wipe’! We are living the glamorous life around here – I tell you what!)

— birthed another book (well, almost – my part is done… now it’s just waiting in line at the publishers – release date set for August – double WAHOO!!).

— almost moved to the country to give kids more space (5 acre plot!)… but couldn’t stomach the huge house and price tag that came along with it, so stayed put. (how many toilets can I realistically keep clean, even with the help of the little ones??!)

— almost moved across the country (well, I think ‘almost’ is a bit of an exaggeration… my dream location tried to whew hubby away from his job. It was right in the middle of my beloved western mountains. I could almost taste the endless weekends of skiing with the kids in the winter and hiking/camping in the summer, not to mention being SO close to family!! But when hubby spends 8+hours a day at work, and knowing that the job itself would even hold a match next to his current job… aka dream job of the universe… I knew it was kind of a pipe dream.)

— took a trip out of the country. We took the olders on a humanitarian aid trip to Guatemala (my hearts home!!) I headed up the agriculture committee to help them learn how to grow community and household gardens while hubby spent all day, every day doing surgeries (in the craziest of surroundings! on top of tables, in tents, in dark corners of steaming hot building, etc). Almost died a few times. Got stranded on a mountain road. Took a ride on a motorcycle with a total stranger as I tried to get to little city to get some requerdos of Guatemala for the kiddos. Not one of my smartest moves, but did make it through the whole ordeal unscathed (perhaps being 6 months pregnant and looking completely desperate helped a little??)

we got to tour the inside of one of the homes – a bamboo hut!

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yes, we rode in the back of cattle trucks to get around!

— added yet another to the family (in the canine version). All I can say is, don’t ask me what I was thinking on this matter. He’s cute, and sassy, and BIG. Fun addition. But again, don’t ask me what I was thinking when I agreed to this addition!!

— started a new cooking program with the kids (will expand on this in later blog posts) now going on three weeks and still going on! That is a huge accomplishment for me on this type of program – I have started this many years in a row and have never made it through the first few days. I’m feeling a new trend come and it is awesome!!