Muffin Tin Meals

Did anyone out there once imagine they would make wonderfully healthy cooked-from-scratch meals for their family every day? Oh, almost all of you? Well there's a surprise - NOT.

Melanie LaDue, who blogs at Reasons to skip the Housework, was one of us in this respect. Her mother even gave her a box of recipes when she got married, that showed her how to spend the whole afternoon in the kitchen making such meals. Hahahaha. As, like us, Melanie doesn't live in the 1950s, she needed fast, healthy meals that could be eaten, on the go if necessary or in a packed lunch, and stored in the freezer in single portion sizes (you don't want to defrost a whole shepherd's pie and be left eating it every day for a week).

One day she realized that a lot more could be done with a muffin tin than just bake muffins (or cupcakes). Super Quick Muffin Tin Meals - 70 Recipes for Perfectly Portioned Comfort Food in a Cup was the result. I was sent the book to review and I can honestly say that I've had a blast with it.

The genius is so simple - normal meals in muffin sizes that can be frozen and used as needed. There are spaghetti nests filled with a meatball, individual  lasagnes, shepherd's pie (you need cupcake holders for this one), chicken pot pies, deep pan pizzas, chilli in polenta nests, muffin tin meatloaf...

Melanie also makes desserts including individual cakes, pies, and s'mores.

I love that the base of your cup can be things other than dough or pastry. You can use a slice of ham or salami, slices of bread or pitta moulded into the muffin tray, or pancake batter, Another idea is to make shells from e.g. bread, pittas or wraps, and fill them with creamy chicken or vegetable salads.

I decided to start with cheesey hashbrowns, If you know me you'll also know that I'm almost incapable of sticking to the recipe as it's written. If I'm already grating potatoes I might as well add a couple of carrots and a chunk of cabbage, right? I actually just put all three in the processor and then added some eggs, milk, grated cheese, salt, pepper, oregano and zhuzhed (why mess up a mixing bowl aswell?). I added a tablespoon of flour for extra binding and some onion soup powder because I realized that an onion would have been good but I didn't have one. So basically, I made it up as I went along and it came out delicious.

Really that was quite enough for one day week, and I am trying to eat through the food in my freezer rather than feeding it more food. However, I'd already cooked some broccoli and defrosted a few cubes of chopped spinach so I had to press on. I was going to make frittatas in brown bread cups but I decided that was a waste of bread. I changed the plan to broccoli, spinach and cheese frittatas. Each muffin cup received a generous spoonful of chopped broccoli, spinach and grated cheese mixture. On top of this I spooned a custard of eggs, milk, a bit of flour for binding as I'm always scared it won't set, salt and pepper.

I've also already defrosted a packet of blackcurrents (or they may be blueberries, who knows) so I'm going to make blueberry oven pancakes as soon as the frittatas come out.

Muffin Tin Meals is published by Race Point Publishing, New York, NY (2015) and costs $21.99 US/12.99 GBP/$25.99 CAN. Perfect for a post-Christmas present as there is ample opportunity to use up the leftovers from Christmas dinner, for example, turkey stuffing bites and turkey cheddar melts.

Turning Seven Tidbits #37

1
I send DD to Young Scientists' Club once a week after school because girls don't have to do only ballet, art, and piano, right? The first week she came home with a windmill they'd contstructed themselves with a perpetual motion device made with a weight on a string that wound and unwound itself on a stick that the arms were fixed to. The srting was held to the stick with a bead. 
DD: Do I really need to keep this windmill? I mean what do I need it for?
Me: It's interesting to see how it works but you don't have to keep it.
DD: Good, so I can take it apart and throw it away?
Me: Yes if you want to.
DD: I want to because I need that bead to make a necklace.

Birthday doughnuts instead of a cake

2
Me (In a deep southern drawl): Well lookee here
DD: You're exactly like Apple Jack except that you don't like moving very much. Well actually you're more like Granny Smith.

Cake for school birthday party

3
Me: Happy Birthday!
DD: Finally I'm not the youngest in my class anymore.

Hours of imaginative play with Barbie-type dolls

4
DD (Holding up her new Barbie doll): I must go to the mall I need some new shoes.

Reasons 2B Cheerful When You Turn Seven

1. DD's school have made a herb garden on an old previously plain wall. It makes me happy every time I see it. I'm hoping we will be able to use some of the herbs when they've grown.

2. Make it a Habit has lasted six weeks for me and I've lost a steady 2lbs a week making it 12lbs in total. 

3. It's DD's birthday tomorrow. There'll be two parties, one at school in the morning and one at home in the afternoon. The school party is just a cake, a present for the classroom (ususally a book) and a small activity for the children to do. When I say small, I mean really small - last week they had had a photocopied wordsearch of words about the birthday boy. 

I'm no baker so the birthday cake for school went like this: 

First go shopping

Next unwrap the cakes and place them in a baking tray

Finally cover with a sugar glaze and decorate with marshmellows and sprinkles
(I made the sugar glaze myself out of icing sugar and water and DD didn't want the M&Ms on it)

The activity is a bookmark for each child to colour in, with their name on it in Hebrew and English. 

Cut strips of card, write the names and punch a hole in each card

Make tassles from leftover crochet cotton wrapped round a Pink Level Reader

They came out very nicely I think

For the party at home we'll be having lunch followed by fancy [shop bought] doughnuts instead of cake and each of the five children and five mothers will get plain bookmarks (tassles but no names) to decorate with stickers and colours in order to make Hanuka presents for themselves and whoever else they want to make for. 

I'm feeling pretty cheerful about all this and linking up to R2BC over at Lakes Single Mum.

Make It A Habit 2, R2BCheerful, And Loose Ends.

Here are my Reasons 2B Cheerful, again hosted by Ojo's World.

1. Since starting my own Make It A Habit facebook group at the beginning of the month (after being expelled from the original one), we have 12 members, some more active than others, and some very real success stories.

My own first habit was to eat three modest meals a day with no snacking in between. After the intial four weeks (including the week in the other group) it had indeed become a habit and I lost 8lbs.

Last Friday I decided to rev up the health factor and my new habit is to eat an apple and a carrot (I am not a carrot person), and drink two large glasses of herbal tea every day. So far I've stuck to it except for Wednesday and Thursday this week when I ran out of apples - two days short of shopping day. 10lbs lost since October 23rd and feeling good.

Jerusalem Cokkbook Club cooks Ottolenghi

2. The first Jerusalem Cookbook Club dinner was a lot of fun and a great success. I'm very bad at going out in the evenings these days as it usually has to involve a babysitter. This time it was at my next door neighbour's I took DD along, armed with her tablet, and she watched videos for the duration. However, as I enjoyed the evening so much, next time I will invest in a babysitter and not have to be the first to leave at the end.

In other news, the College Summer Course that I tried to close in the middle of October would not stay dead. I was asked nicely if I could re-open it for select students who had almost finished. Tbh, it behooves me to comply as I'd rather let them finish a few tasks now than have them reappear next year and have to grade all thier papers again.

This last week, he's looking a bit stronger now.

Our baby lettuce plant is still alive and looking a bit more sturdy. As of yet no new growth though. I was so inpsired by the whole composting thing, and having set up my own composting station behind the kitchen taps, I continued to collect all our vegetable waste in the 'golden' glass jar.

The compost centre in the golden glass jar behind the taps.

Turns out the compost collection at school was a one off and hereonafter we have to find our own composting centres (as most of us in this neighbourhood live in apartments rather than houses). I know there is a composter in a community garden in our local park but it's kept locked. I was intending to find out the hours that you can take your compost along but I never got round to it. When the bag inside the golden glass was full I threw it out with the rest of the rubbish. *sigh* In my next life, I promise.

So there you have it, the end of a good week (apart from the composting). Shabbat Shalom Ya'll and have a great weekend, xxx

The Cookbook Club

Actually it's Jerusalem Cookbook Club but it can be done anywhere of course. It all started with this article about why cookbook clubs should be the new way we entertain. One friend sent it to another and within a month Jeruselem Cookbook Club had it's inaugural dinner party at the home of Aviva, who conveniently lives next door to me.

Some of the gang before everyone had arrived.

Our cookbook of choice was Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. A fitting choice as Ottolenghi is a local lad after all. We soon expanded the cookbook choice to include Plenty More and even then there was a flurry of sharing recipes online and popping over to Aviva's house to peruse the actual book. We decided next time to choose a chef or cookery author rather than limit ourselves to one cookbook.

As I looked through the recipes I was torn between the easy option of a dish with ingredients I have in the house or could easily get, and something more exotic and complicated. In the end I took the middle ground - uncomplicated ingredients but an unusual dish. I chose to make the Aubergine Cheesecake. It's more of a flan than a cake and definitely savoury.

Most of the ingredients were in my local supermarket but not the 10 fresh oregano leaves to tear over the roasted aubergine slices and tomato base. I waivered between buying fresh basil leaves instead or dried oregano flakes. In the end I opted for half and half and bought both. There were also no baby plum tomatoes but as they were to be chopped up anyway I sneakily used the left over ordinary tomatoes at the bottom of my fridge. (Btw, I peeled them even though the recipe doesn't say to do that as I hate the plasticky bits of peel you get when you cook tomatoes with the peel on.) There was feta cheese in the supermarket but at a cost I decided I wasn't willing to go to for one dish so I substituted goat cheese lebane instead, seeing as the feta was to be creamed anyway.

The slippery slope of altering the recipe had began before I'd even paid for the ingredients but that's me. I can't change my cooking style of over 40 years and that's why I don't bake.

On my way home from work on the bus on the evening of the dinner, I suddenly panicked that the recipe would tell me to salt the aubergine and leave it to stand for several hours. If so I was screwed as I only had two hours to collect my daughter from school, cook, supervise homework, shower and change, make a few phonecalls, put on a wash... Did I remember to say cook?

The Aubergine Cheesecake was surprisingly easy to make. The aubergine slices didn't need prepping hours in advance and I cut out the step where you roast them on a baking tray and then tranfer them to the oven dish. I roasted straight in the oven dish. At the end you are supposed to brush it with more olive oil and sprinkle with za'atar. I decided that roasting the aubergine had taken in quite enough olive oil thank you and we didn't need any more. I sprinkled with za'atar and called it a day. The ladies thanked me for this later.

Aubergine Cake

Basically the Aubergine Cake is roast aubergine slices and tomatoes covered in a cream, feta, and cream cheese custard (3 eggs added) and baked in the oven. I thought it looked a bit anemic when it came out the oven but maybe if you do brush with more olive oil it won't.

We had a rule that we made the recipe from the book with no doubling or trebling the amounts. This turned out to be a good rule as the recipe says it feeds 4, or 6 for a starter. Mine fed 12 and I brought half of it home with me. Even with generous portions, and I admit that we were taking small portions of each dish as we had over 12 different dishes to sample, this was for way more than 4 - 6 people. Also it's very rich so you wouldn't want to eat big portions.

And so we convened in Jerusalem on a mild November evening to celebrate Jerusalem Cookbook Club and Yotam Ottolenghi. The table looked amazing. Positively groaning with fabulous dishes.

More dishes arrived after this photo!

It was a great success with each diner introducing her dish as it was passed around. There was wine to keep it all flowing and conversation during which we got to know each other better and discover mutual friends, shared histories, and a common love of good food and fine dining (although some of us don't get to do the last one so often :~P ).

My personal favourite was the cauliflower cake and I will definitely be trying this one at home. We also had roast fennel salad, rice with red currants, a noodle and soy bean dish, majadara, shakshuka, sweet potato salad, and, and, and.... it seemed to go on forever. It took us over two hours to even get to the delicious desserts which were a cherry in cream syllabub (although Ottolenghi doesn't call it syllabub as that would be very 1970s) and tiramisu (also very 1970s strangely enough).

We enjoyed it all so much we're doing it again in January when we will cook Ina Garten, The Barefoot Contessa. I'd not heard of her before so it'll be a culninary adventure for me. Jerusalem/Israel people (we already have one member from Carmiel) you can find us on facebook here.

Tuesday Tidbits #36

1
DD (playing with plasticine): Whats your most favourite thing in the world?
Me: Sandwiches.
DD: Hmmm I don't think I can make a sandwich. What's your second most favourite thing in the word?
Me: You are.
DD: Well I can't make me, I'm too hard. HEY! Aren't I supposed to be your first most favourite thing?

2
DD went to play with her friend whose 2yo brother kept hitting them.
DD: It's exhausting at x's house.
Me: Why?
DD: You know, because of... what's it called?
Me: What?
DD: You know, that hitting thing.

3
After hearing Jon Pritikin speaking at school
Me (thinking about Jon's inpsiring message): Wasn't he fantastic?
DD: Yes. Were all those things that he broke in half real?
Me: Yes, but what about the important message he told you?
DD: Yes I remember it: You must never do these things at home!
Me: Not that message. What about no child eats alone or plays by herself in the breaks?
DD; Oh yes he did say that but the most important message was never never never do those things at home.

4
We were asked to bring all our vegetable waste into school for the new composter. There were two 6th Grade girls taking the names of everyone who brought a bag of waste. 
DD: Why do they need our names?
Me: Everyone who brings some waste for the composter gets a baby lettuce to plant and gets to take part in a prize draw.
DD: Really? We give them our stinky rubbish and they give us prizes? Hilarious.

Reasons 2B Cheerful 21/11/15

As has been said, there's not much to be cheerful about in the world this week. However, we are all trying to keep our own little corner of it comfortable and safe. There are more Reasons 2B cheerful posts on the linky over at Ojo's World. In that vein here are my reasons to be cheerful this week.

1. I got so into repurposing pretty dishes that live year in year out at the back of a cupboard, that I did some more.

Before 

After

2. It was International Compost Day on Friday (apparently although I can't find anything about it online). There were posters about it all over our neighbourhood and DD's school officially opened its new composter. The idea is to use the compost on the school vegetable garden next spring. We all collected our pips and peelings for a week and took them into school. In return we were given a baby lettuce to plant. So we did.

Looking a bit sorry but we're keeping it well watered and the sun's out...

3. Also at the school they had their annual Heath Robinson style flyng egg competition. Children build contraptions that are supposed to gently float an uncooked egg down to the ground when it's thrown off the roof (by a few parents and teachers - no children on the roof). Obvioulsy there are rules e.g. it has to be a flying machine or parachute style, not an egg so embedded in bubble wrap that it could survive anything. Lots of fun.

4. My shy daughter who won't speak to anyone until she's been in the same room as them for about a day, told me how you get up on the roof. "Do you know how I know that? I asked Etti." Etti is the Headmistress. I was astonished. "What, you just went up to her and asked her?" I never spoke to my Headmistress when I was in primary school unless she spoke to me first. I'm delighted that our Head is so approachable and that DD feels comfortable to go and ask her a question.