Halloween Preview

Our town does store trick or treating on the Friday before Halloween. Here are the kids before we head down there this afternoon:

Candy overload, here we come...

Spaghetti & Meatballs: new Recipe

With Fall weather comes the urge for roasts, pasta, braises, and LOTS of vegetables. Molly Wizenburg's writing in Bon Appetit makes me want to try everything she does. In this months issue, she writes about spaghetti and meatballs. I usually make my mom's version. For the sauce it's garlic, basil, tomatoes, and salt. We are of the no-onion sauce camp. For the meatballs it's all beef, progresso Italian bread crumbs (just a little), egg, and they are cooked stovetop in a pan, not in the sauce. This is the way I've always done it and I love it this way...it brings me to the memory of waking up to garlic and sauce on a Sunday morning. However, I also like a spongier meatball and it drives me nuts that my meatballs come out triangular from the pan fry and not round.

I decided to try Molly's version which is a sauce with not only onion but butter! I seriously don't need ANY more butter in my diet so I secretly hoped I wouldn't like the sauce. Her meatballs have an enormous amount of breadcrumbs and parmesean and more egg than I would normally use and they are a mix of beef and pork. You can see all the breadcrumb/parmesean in the raw meatballs below. This was a sure sign that they would be too bready. Actually, I was so scared of overmixing them (she said that was the key) that I probably erred on the side of less combining so I would say the bread is not as distributed as it could have been.

Anyway, final result is that I did like the sauce, but not as much as my usual which is ok with me. The meatballs were not distributed enough, but I do like the cooking of them in the sauce instead of frying...some of the meat moves into the sauce and makes a nice robust version. Finally, I do not usually eat spaghetti...the shape annoys me - all that splattering of sauce (you CANNOT cut your long pasta so it flies everywhere. just my opinion). With meatballs I like a penne type of noodle. I went with Rigatoni which was perfect.

Kelly & Rory

Rory and Kelly get lots of time together since they are home with me during the week on my 2 non-work days while Shelagh is in school. They love to hug and wrestle and roll around. Look how big she looks standing up proud next to him. He wanted a series of pictures of him holding his ski helmet like Luke holds his orange jumpsuit helmet (Luke as Red 5 from Star Wars 4). Kelly siddled in at the end. The next one is Kelly adoring her big brother as he SMOTHERS her in kisses, which he likes to do. This is very cool if you are on the receiving end of his love (caveat: if he does this first thing in the morning, but after you've showered you now have his bad morning breath smeared all over your face).

Kelly LOVES going potty. She is happy to cheese during the act (I've helped her with some modesty). Rory, while Kelly naps, sometimes likes to watch a show on TV. With that comes being completely wrapped up in The Boat (a favorite couch blanket at our house).

Pasta with Artichokes and Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

Needed a quick side to go with leftover ham and had no fresh vegetables. I pulled out a bag of frozen artichokes I had grabbed at Trader Joe's along with some of my slow roasted tomatoes that I hadn't preserved. Basically I put the frozen artichokes in the pan with a small bit of water, brought it to a boil and then lowered the heat to fully defrost the artichokes. Then I added some olive oil and crushed garlic for a few minutes. Then I added the tomatoes and cooked it together until most of the tomato liquid was cooked off before adding some chicken broth to make a sauce. Added salt and the cooked pasta and that was that!

Kids Snuggling

All but the last picture are from last night when the kids watched a DVD I picked up at the library that contained 5 shorts made from Eric Carle books: The Very Hungry Caterpillar (our fave), Papa Please Get the Moon for Me (Kelly's favorite), The Very Quiet Cricket, The Mixed-Up Chameleon, and I See a Song. It was awesome.

I love these pics of Shelagh and Rory. They look so happy and gorgeous!

Lots of forts and peek-a-boo going on in our house.

Annoyed at me b/c I kept snapping pics while they were trying to watch. The 2nd pic of the 3 of them was from last week. After bath they came into our bedroom to watch Little Einsteins which Kelly loves. She sings and claps along. Big kids insist they don't like it anymore, but they look pretty mesmerized to me. Also, they are all wearing footies. Love it.

Painting

While Kelly napped, the big kids painted outside. It was a gorgeous day and Shelagh didn't have school, so we hung around and didn't do much. Fun day!

Brown Sugar Baked Apples & Cinnamon Applesauce

Cinnamon applesauce made in the slow cooker. Can't find the actual recipe, but it was something like this...

14 apples
2 Tbl cinnamon
2 Tbl lemon juice
1 cup of water

Slow cook on low for 4 hours or until soft and broken up after stirring. When done, mix in 1/2 cp brown sugar or to taste. Eating most of this over the last few days. Will probably make this again for freezing along with some raw apple crisps for the winter. 2 full bags of apples left!

I also made Brown Sugar Baked Apples for dessert the other night. Delicious! It called for Granny Smith apples, but I had huge Cortlands and McIntosh from apple picking. Maybe the Granny Smiths would have held together a bit more, but it didn't matter...the syrup it made mixed with the hot apple was yummy.

Red Cabbage Braised with Maple Syrup and Ginger

I don't think I've used Red Cabbage for anything other than salad. The ginger and maple syrup worked together nicely. This made a lot...I'll be eating this for lunch all week. It's purple so maybe I'll see if the kids will eat it.

Soy Braised Collards with Five Spice Powder

Also from "Vegetables Every Day" by Jack Bishop. This one was a bit salty. I think I didn't have enough collards and should have reduced the sauce. It tasted good though. I might try it again...it was easy enough to do.

1/4 cup rice wine or sherry
3 Tbl soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp Five-Spice Powder
2 1/2 lbs collard greens, tough stems discarded, washed, skaken dry to remove excess water, and coarsely chopped

1. Bring rice wine, soy sauce, sugar, five-spice powder, and 1/4 cupwater to a boil in a large pot. Add the damp grees. Cover, redce the heat, and simmer, stirring once or twice, until the greens are very tender, about 15 minutes.
2. Remove the cover and simmer until the greens are no longer soupy, 3 to 4 minutes. Adjust the seasonings, adding rice vinegar to taste. Serve immediately.

Memorable Outfit

She put this getup together all on her own! Under that thigh-length sweater are bicycle shorts and a Valentines Day t-shirt. I think the leg warmers are my fave though.

Garlicky Kale with White Beans

From "Vegetables Every Day" by Jack Bishop...

1 1/2 lbs Kale
Salt
2 Tbl extra virgin olive oil
4 medim garlic cloves, minced
2 15oz cans cannellini, drained and rinsed
2/3 cup chicken or vegetable stock

1. Bring 4 quarts o water to a boil in a large pot
2. Wash the kale in several changes of cold water, stripping off of the leafy green portion from both sides of the touch central vein. Discard the veins and tear the leafy portions into small pieces. Add the kale and and 1 tsp salt to the boiling water. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, unntil the kale is tender, about 8 minutes. Drain well.
3. Heat the oil and garlic in a large skillet set over medium heat. When the garlic is golden (this will take about 2 minutes), add the kale and cook, tossing well, until heated through and evenly flavored with the garlic; 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Add the beans and stock and simmer just u ntil the beans are heated through, about 5 minutes. Add pepper to taste. Adjust the seasonings and serve immediately.

Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

My second attempt at slow-roasting tomatoes worked out much better! This time I used a recipe I found online for Slow Roasted Tomatoes Kalyn's Way. I did 2 trays at once and it ended up taking about 8 hours. They had such a rich, deep flavor. They shrunk down to nothing and I ended up with 4 half-pint jars. I sealed them with a water bath for 85 minutes so they should last months now. Good thing they shrink down b/c I have a good 15 more huge tomatoes to preserve. I could try whole tomatoes I guess.

Beginning After 2 hrs

After 6 hrs At end after 8 hrs

Simplest Potato & Leek Braise and Leek Confit

Instead of making Potato & Leek soup, I decided to try the Simplest Potato & Leek Braise from Molly Stevens All About Braising (might be my favorite cookbook). I found this typed up in someones random cooking blog (see link). It came out WONDERFUL! Rory, Joe and I all liked it. Shelagh, not so much. Kelly through it (but that doesn't mean anything, she throws everything).

With the leftover leeks, I made Leek Confit from Molly Wizenburg who writes for Bon Appetit and writes an awesome blog, Orangette. SUPER-easy. Not sure what I'll use it for...maybe I'll take this with the Jammy tomato-onion sauce and make a bruschetta variety dish for me and Joe one night. Hmmm. I also still have lots of mushrooms duxelles (hopefully it's still good). Maybe I'll make a variety of egg dishes or pastas.

Flashback to the End of the Summer

A few end of summer pics...What a summer!

Shelagh joins the swim team, kicks ass in the pool, and learns to dive.

Rory, after a summer of insisting he can't, swims without a bubble! And, is doing a full freestyle!

What a nut. She is 1 1/2 and thinks she can swim by herself. I bet she will be by next summer. Seriously. She loves her vest and googles! She likes to hang on the side of the pool there and just dunk over and over.

Movie: The Town

Joe and I snuck out Saturday night for a quick bite and a movie. We ended up at Flemings, the steakhouse, to sit at the bar for a steak and salad. We've been eating at the bar lately when we've been out. It's nice to get served fast and hang there when you're sans kids.

The movie was very good. On the way home, though, I started to find some things that didn't sit right with me about it. Overall, I think Ben Affleck is a great storyteller as director morseo than as actor. He was pretty good in this as was Jeremy Renner (from Hurt Locker) as his best friend and accomplice. The pencil-thin moustache alone gets you. They filmed the bank robbery scene in my town, but honestly I forgot about that until after the movie was over...I don't think it would matter...the outside of the bank was filmed in Cambridge anyway so I don't think I would have recognized anything. Great Boston/Charlestown shots overall.

It's been compared to The Departed which I think is a stretch. It was action-packed but not quite so involved. I will say that none of the accents were overdone or way off base. Kobayashi from Usual Suspects played "the florist" well. Rebecca Hall was good as Ben's love interest and victim - I just looked her up and she's English - that always throws me off when you have no idea someone is not American. Blake Lively was really good as his ex-girlfriend - I've not seen her in anything else. Jon Hamm was awesome to see outside of Mad Men, but I have to say he didn't quite get there for me. Something was not 100% believable. It's going to be hard for him to shake Don Draper. He did it on 30 Rock, I thought, but in drama you are always looking for serious and hard Don.

SPOILER:
There was a lack of originality - I don't think I like that the sister/town girl gives them up, but the new girlfriend that's not from the town keeps the secret. It was a little too reminiscient of a similar scene with Ashley Judd and Val Kilmer in Heat. It was predictable in that you had a feeling that Ben Affleck would not let Jon Hamm have the last word as Jon Hamm had indicated he would. Further, you knew he'd be back for the Florist. The scene of them robbing Fenway was awesome.

Anyway, it was still good and worth seeing.

Me & Rory

I could just eat him up...I think I'll start straightening my hair again. My curls aren't working lately and it looks so nice and neat when it's straight. Plus, I don't have to wash it so much when it's straight. Bonus!

Food Sunday

What a day...I cooked up a storm and relieved some of my food stress...Look for pictures and posts documenting...

• Simplest Potato & Leek Braise
• Leek Confit
• Jammy Tomato-Onion Sauce
• Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
• Red Cabbage Braised with Maple and Ginger
• Soy-Braised Collards with Five-Spice Powder
• Garlicky Kale with White Beans
• Roasted Cauliflower
• Roasted Red Peppers for pasta sauce

Exhausted...I love Fall...it's cool out and I spent the day in and out of the kitchen.

Jammy Tomato-Onion Sauce

I have a 20lb case of tomatoes to preserve. What to do, what to do...
I started with the Jammy Tomato-Onion Sauce from the Kitchn blog. Very easy and quick (compared with the 8 hr roasted tomatoes cooking at the same time). It didn't specify how many tomatoes to use...I used the ones that were about to get overripe - probably 6 or so beefsteaks? Not sure what I'll use it for - pasta sauce, crostini, something like that I guess.

the Phone

Kelly loves to talk on the phone (she calls it the "soam"). Uncle Mike came to visit and they had some couch time and chatted.

Life is Good Festival Air Guitar

Rory getting down to Guster at Life is Good...he plays a mean air guitar.

Life is Good Festival

The Life is Good Festival was great! It was a couple of weeks ago (I just caught up with my pictures!) and we had such a wonderful day. We arrived at around 1 just in time for They Might be Giants, we played around and ate, met Wally the Green Monster (thrill of Kelly's life so far!), saw Laurie Berkner play, ate some more, and finished off with Guster!

Shelagh in her concert outfit (yes, she picked the all black outfit - including boots - completely on her own!). Kelly posing at the concert.

Kelly was obsessed with Wally while we were waiting on line and then was a deer in headlights.

The family watching Guster (except for Kelly who passed out on my by then) and Rory cheering on his band.

Kids Put on a Show

The classic and creative stylings of Shelagh with side-kick Rory inserting his rendition of a favorite Guster song mixed in with some Sheryl Crow. We take our performances very seriously. Enjoy.

Pumpkin Nipple

That's what Rory came out with for the Pumpernickel pretzels we were just munching on. Classic.