Food Co-op July 2010

Farmer's market share-local and organic-$13.50 for about a 1/2 bushel. We received 4 corn, 2 summer squash, 1 red leaf lettuce, 1 bunch green onions, 1 parsley plant, 1 large yellow onion, 3 bulbs of garlic, and a bag of what I think are Italian Flat Beans. (If they are something else please let me know in the comments and I'll make a correction if necessary.)

Produce share-$10-some local. We received six corn, four tomatoes, five peaches, three yellow summer squash, four zucchini, one romaine lettuce, one honeydew melon, and five bananas.

Order by Friday, August 13th for pick-up on Saturday August 28th. Find out more info about the food co-op at www.foodco-op.net It's a great way to support local farmers (at this time of year with the Farmer's Market share) and eat a little healthier at the same time.

Author 52: Paula Deen cooking with kids

We made the peanut butter balls from Paula Deen's My First Cookbook by Paula Deen. Only four ingredients: powdered milk, peanut butter, honey and roasted peanuts. We added some more powdered milk to cut down on the sticky factor. They were a good little snack and we'll probably make them again.

Authors 50 and 51: Two for One! Rosenbaum and Jacques

October Ale was the recipe Sarah made from The Redwall Cookbook by Brian Jacques. It's just two ingredients: 2 cups ginger ale and 1 cup grape juice. Mix and serve chilled. It was a cool refresher for July. She's mixed up several batches already.


We tried the Cheese Pizza from Williams-Sonoma Fun Food cookbook by Stephanie Rosenbaum.
It doesn't look pretty but it tasted good. We added pineapple and Canadian bacon and pepperoni and even some marinated artichoke hearts. Eva picked the recipe and helped mix and roll the dough.


Picking out cookbooks from the library has been a good exercise for helping the girls get more interested in making food and trying new things. Even though we have not enjoyed all the recipes, we've learned along the way and I think that cooking is an art that requires practice. If you don't repeat cooking, doing some of the same things and doing new things, then you're not going to learn what works for you without practice. I've reminded my children that I probably have at least 10,000 to 20,000 hours of practice for cooking and baking and related arts and I still make plenty of mistakes but I also know what works in some situations. I want them to learn what works for them. This includes goals that they won't just heat up a frozen dinner or go out every night, but rather that they will have at least a few recipes that they know they like and that they can make on their own by the time they reach college if not before then.

Country Fried Steak

This was delicious! The recipe can be found at www.food.com and the recipe number is 36023 by Sue Lau.

In the first picture to the top left is the three pie tins with milk, then the flour mixture, then beaten eggs.

First you dip the cube steak in milk, then the flour mixture, then the egg mixture, and then back into the flour mixture. I found it forms a better crust if you let the excess liquid drip off a little before the flour and then press in the flour mixture on the final dip before frying.

Next picture shows the breaded cube steak in the flour mixture after being dipped in milk, then flour mixture, then egg and now it's back in the flour mixture.

Following is the steak frying in oil in a heavy aluminum pan.

A fried steak-all alone.

A fried steak with friends-mashed potatoes and gravy!

The gravy was made in the same pan after I finished frying the steaks. I kept them warm in the oven on a cookie sheet. Put them on the cookie sheet, place in oven and start preheating to 400 degrees F. Our oven only reached 372 degrees F by the time the gravy was done and we could take out the cooked steaks to complete dinner. These steaks turned out as good as some country fried steaks that I've had in restaurants! (We did have some green veggies like cucumber and salad-they're just not showing in the picture.)

Author 49: Ree Drummond-Pioneer Woman

Mmmmm...........The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond


We made the Egg-in-the-hole. I browned one side of the toast first and flipped it over before cracking in the egg.


Here's the other side after I flipped the toast a second time. They were delicious with lots of butter in the pan.

And how could I leave out the wonderful chocolate sheet cake that Eva made (with a little help from mom)? Chocolate gooey yumminess. Eva says: "it was quite yummy, especially the frosting! It's pretty much chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with pecans in the frosting. I suggest you make it!"

I'm sorry the cake picture is so washed out-we're having camera issues again-now the camera spontaneously turns itself off even with fresh batteries. Hurumph!

I'm not sure how many recipes we'll try, but the cookbook is certainly a lot of fun with full color pictures of steps for each recipe and pictures of ranch life. But I don't think I'll take up ranching any time soon. (Although I'd still love to build a chicken coop and run.... just for a few backyard chickens of course! Who knows when I'd ever get to that project!)

Recent adventures with cake

Chocolate cake from cake mix with homemade marshmallow frosting and red and blue sugar crystals for the Fourth of July. Made through a collaborative effort from multiple family members. (Mom cake, Jessica frosting, Sarah decorating sprinkles.)


Jessica made a pound cake base and then buttercream frosting and marshmallow fondant for the sun and ribbon cakes. She colored the fondant a light green with color assistance from Sarah. She then proceeded to frost and decorate the cakes and took the sun cake to a young womans activity. Find the marshmallow fondant recipe (yum-edible fondant!) at: http://whatscookingamerica.net/PegW/Fondant.htm
I think Peggy Weaver was one of the first to post this recipe with instructions. Reasoning?, because now one finds many copycats. But go back about four or five years ago and it was hard to find a homemade cake fondant recipe. Most sites recommended buying a certain commercial brand which really lacked in both the taste and workability categories.

After some searching I was pleased to again find Peggy's recipe which is easy to use and actually tastes edible. Now Jessica is learning about cake decorating with fondant, along with hundreds if not thousands of others, through the magic of sharing knowledge via the internet. Thank you Peggy!

And here's Eva's entry: She picked out the chocolate sheet cake from the Pioneer Woman's Cookbook the first night we had the book. The very next day she helped make the cake and frosting. I was surprised at how much she knew about cooking. She even washed most of the dishes afterward!


All three styles and kinds of cake were delicious in their own right and fun to make and decorate!

Author 48: Appetizers from Good Housekeeping

(More cookbooks from the library.)

Sigh. We made the Mini Corn Dogs and the Soft Pretzels. We were not impressed with either recipe. The pretzels tasted strongly of baking soda on the outside and the corn dogs were crunchy inside and out. Maybe we should have tried a non-bread like appetizer.


You just don't know sometimes how a recipe will turn out. We'll keep trying. The kids have made some great cakes that I hope to feature in an upcoming post.

Author 47 : (Disney) What's Cooking? (from Ratatouille)

And now for a month of cookbooks! Continuing right along with the theme of "C", this month we're chosen a collection of cookbooks.

First is What's Cooking? A Cookbook For Kids from the makers of Ratatouille. We tried the French Breakfast Muffins made by Sarah and they were delicious!
Easy, ingredients already on hand, and fast. Sarah made fluffy little muffins coated in cinnamon sugar for a tasty breakfast treat from this colorful cookbook.

The recipes are not complex, don't use a bunch of pre-made ingredients (although there are a few such as English muffins for the Pizza Rats) and the recipes are actually simple and appealing enough for children to want to make them.

The full color pictures really help with some techniques and the pictures are realistic of the finished product. Our muffins looked like the picture without the slight blurriness. I wish the book had a general index either in the front or the back. At the beginning of each section, such as "Bon Matin Breakfast" and "Dinner is Served", there are individual indexes.