A better choice

Yesterday I showed my little assistant's favorite pasta, but here's mine and Hungry Dad's preference - Whole wheat penne with vegetables and ground beef, sprinkled with mozzarella.
Little assistant is not too excited about this dinner, but he knows he must eat it. We're just working on him eating it faster - whenever he doesn't sit in front of his favorite pasta, he can take up to 2 hours to have his dinner.
On that note, I find it funny that I grew up with my Dad always telling me "Eat slow. Eating slow is good for you. There's no rush, take your time." And now I tell my son "Please hurry and eat faster! Hurry up and eat! Chew and swallow, c'mon, faster!"

My assistant's favorite food right now

I have always tried to introduce my son to many different flavors and foods. He has eaten, aside from portuguese food and all-american food, japanese food, indian, chinese, korean, mexican and many other foods that we want to make sure at least he tries. But he's a simple guy and would be happy eating just bread and drinking milk.
For the past year he has been into phases and for months all he wanted to eat was "white rice with meat". And for more that I tried to vary the types of meat or how I cooked the rice, it pretty much had to fit within his description or it was a constant fight for him to eat at all (have I ever mentioned he's a picky eater?).
The current phase we're on is the "pasta that I like" category. That means a pasta made with a white sauce. However I make the sauce it doesn't matter, with cheese or not is indifferent, as long as it's white and creamy. And whatever goes with the pasta can be or not or his approval. His very favorite, though, is scrambled egg and ham with his white pasta.

ThanksGiving dinner preparations

Pumpkin jam cookies


Fresh cranberries


Cooking the cranberries to make cranberry sauce


Cranberry sauce with Port wine


Letting the bread dry out to use in stuffing


Turkey Stuffing made with bread, sausage and bacon


Making bread


My assistant working the bread dough


Plain bread, chouriço bread and olive bread


Bread, cheese, olives... the meal could end right here that we'd be happy


herbs for the turkey


Turkey broth to make the gravy.


Stuffed turkey with herb butter.
It came out perfect. The meat was very moist, cooked perfectly until it reached 165ºF and then I let it rest for half hour before slicing it. While it rested, I made the gravy, which is not pictured, unfortunately.


Glazed carrots


Simple green beans

Not pictured there was also creamy mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with maple syrup, and mushrooms with garlic. The traditional pies and ice cream for dessert couldn't be missing from this traditional american dinner.

Pumpkin Jam

Every year around this time, I like to make pumpkin jam. It's something that my mom used to make and I feel it's a little bit of my childhood. I love the flavor of this jam and my little assistant does too, which makes me very happy. We eat it with bread or crackers with cheese, as seen below.
I only used about half of the pumpkin to make the jam and have frozen the rest for soups.

A Fall Sunday dinner

Butternut squash soup and open-fire-roasted chestnuts that we made on our firepit.

The kid doesn't like hot soup, so couple ice cubes and a piece of bread make the soup more appealing to him.


Served with cayenne pepper for an extra kick and sesame seeds for some texture.

Asian inspired

Shiitake mushrooms are probably one of the most nutritious mushroom. It contains high amounts of vitamin D, and since the part of the world where we live is not as sunny as my native Portugal, I feel I should cook with them more often. Shiitakes are used in vietnamese, chinese, japanese, and korean cuisines and I wish I knew how to cook them better, but nonetheless, here's an improvised dish made with clear noodles and ginger and sesame sauce.

Salads of color

Homemade bread

Making bread is so easy. Or lets rephrase that - once I found an easy way to make bread that I have been making my own. It's called no-knead bread and that's because it doesn't need any kneading. We let time do the work. So instead of working on the dough until it's smooth and elastic, we let it sit in a bowl long enough until it rises on its own, about 12 to 18 hours. It's a brilliant method and makes it so accessible to people that don't have the patience to be kneading bread on a saturday afternoon.
The No-Knead bread recipe is not a new method. The technic of letting bread rise on its own over time without needing to be knead, has been used for centuries. But this recipe seems to have been introduced to the US, or at least made popular, after The New York Times published the recipe in 2006. It was since then that I tried baking my own bread and haven't stopped since.
The final result is a rustic loaf, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.

Strawberry Champagne Cocktail

This year me and Hungry Dad celebrated our 10th anniversary with this beautiful and delicious cocktail.
It's so good that I could have it every weekend.
Here's the recipe that I used.

Tapas

Whenever we have people over I always like to make couple small side dishes for people to pick on. As a good rule of thumb, anything sautéed with olive oil makes it to the table and disappears paired with a good bread and wine or beer.
In this picture I have starting from the left, roasted red peppers in a thick tomato sauce, shrimp with garlic, mushrooms with bacon, and mussels in a spicy red sauce.
I seriously can live off of eating just this type of small dishes with bread and wine or a beer, cheese and olives.

Spinach and avocado salad

Baby spinach leaves, shredded carrots, sliced onions, chick peas, and avocado dressed with olive oil and vinegar, salt and pepper.

Blueberry Scones

I fell in love with the blueberry scones I used to buy at Trader Joe's. They looked and tasted so natural and home-made that I decided to search for a recipe for me to start making them at home. They are quite easy to make and the whole thing is done pretty fast. I use a recipe that is similar to Martha Stewart's recipe, except I use milk instead of heavy cream.
They have been for a while my favorite breakfast and I make them quite often.

Italian sandwiches

I have always liked ham but since I've met Hungry Dad that I rarely buy it because he's not that crazy about it. This summer that changed.
On this last pregnancy I craved ham so much that I couldn't wait for the baby to be born just so I could eat as much ham as I wanted. And so I did - I've been buying a lot of ham and other cold cut meats and eat it on sandwiches.
I was never a sandwich kind of person - "too much bread and too messy to eat" I always thought - so it's no surprised that I have been living in this country for 12 years without knowing what an italian sandwich was. It was only this summer that I ate one at someone's house and loved the combination of all different cold cuts in one sandwich.
The Italian sandwiches that I have been making at home for myself have 1 slice of ham, 1 slice of turkey breast, 1 slice of bologna, 1 slice of salami, 1 slice of provolone cheese, 1 slice of a tomato and 2 cucumber pickles in between an english muffin with maionese. Yum!

A Fall lunch

Fall is here and the weather is cooling. Warmer and richer foods are now comforting and warm our hearts.
This weekend we had a friend coming to visit us from California. And for a lighter lunch I made a clam, mussels, and corn chowder. The soup was amazing and so much more interesting than to have a chowder with just corn or just clams. I should call it the Ménage-à-trois Chowder. It's rich and creamy, slightly sweet, very savory, and truly satisfying.
I served on the side shrimp with garlic, mushrooms, and a heirloom tomato salad. A beautifully simple lunch.

Swiss Chard

Swiss Chard is another powerful element. It is such a rich vegetable, high in vitamin A, K, and C, minerals, dietary fiber, and protein. Also, in some research studies it was proven to help regulate the blood sugar.
I like to cook it very simply in olive oil and garlic and particularly love the red chard and its vibrant color after it's cooked. I remember to have read somewhere that the color of the chard is also full of antioxidants and it's a great anti-inflammatory and detoxification support. Look it up, I'm not making this up!
With all the goodness aside, knowing me, I would cook it just because it's pretty and has a beautiful color. I think its strong taste goes perfectly with cooked quinoa.

Avocado salad

Avocados have been part of our daily menu for a long time. We simply can't get enough of them and they are so good for us and so filling, making any salad a meal.
I make all kinds of salads with avocados but I particularly like tomatoes with them.
Here's a sherry tomato, mozzarella, and avocado salad.

Elephant cookies

We are very fond of elephants around here. It was a very meaningful animal to a boy that is very close and special to us, whom sometimes comes to help us in our kitchen; and our older assistant's special friend that he takes everywhere is an elephant called Louie (actually, given to him by the special boy).
Louie has been going to school everyday with our older assistant and in his honor we baked Elephant cookies on the week older assistant was learning the letter "E" and took it to his class to share with all his classmates and school friends.
They are sugar cookies with colored glaze.

Chickpea salad

Chickpeas are so healthy and good for you. They are filling and I use them a lot as a great substitute to any other carbs.
To the organic chickpeas I added 1 can of tuna, 1 avocado, a touch of maionese, salt and pepper and a string of olive oil. Very simple and very yummy!

Lunch wheel

It has been way too long since I posted here mostly because of a lack of time, however, I have continued to take pictures of my food and have a big collection of food pictures on my computer by now. I will be uploading them on my spare time, hopefully a little more frequent now.

Hungry Dad works for many hours and it is more often than not that I eat by myself with the kids. Many times, when I have something already cooked for my older assistant (yes, we now have hired a new cook assistant in training!), I make something lighter for me to eat. Usually salads or soups and complements to have on the side.
Sometimes I get inspired by shapes and colors, rather than foods itself.
Here I have meat croquettes with tomato salad and green beans.