Mama's Gonna Preach

So today's post is going to be a little different.

Sorry in advance to all you closed-minded sheep out there. I am all about putting good food and good drinks into my body, and my family's bodies. Today I found out that according to our wonderful government, it's okay for companies NOT to label their products as using genetically engineered things or genetically modified things. REALLY? No...REEEEALLY???

Here are some companies, which I admit, I buy products from (strike that...USED to buy products from), that use GE foods. Kellogs, Kraft, Morningstar Farms, M&M and Mars, and Coca Cola. Honestly, I don't care that I've accidentally eaten a few GE things here and there over the years, but how dare they not label things that I might possibly give my child?

I think it's extraordinarily screwed up that to be healthy and eat healthily in America you have to spend oodles and oodles of money. I love organic food, but why can't it all be organic? Why can't everything cost as little as the non-organic, cheap, bad-for-you, and not-so-good-for-you foods cost? The government. That's why.

Because the government pays farmers to produce soy and corn and they put it in everything. High fructose CORN syrup. They feed corn to the cows, which isn't the best thing they could be feeding them, which in-turn, makes the products you buy from those cows not the best products you could be buying and eating.

I know I sound like one of those weird old hippie moms that breast-feed in public, don't shave their under-arms, and smell like patchouli, but...maybe I am. Maybe in my quest to better myself and my family I've turn into something and someone I would have made fun of in the past. And honestly, if that means that my son is going to be healthier and live longer than other children who are being fed happy meals and easy mac every night, then I think I'm okay with that. If eating organic, local food that's never even heard of hormones or antibiotics makes me someone to be made fun of, then laugh away America. I'll still be here munching on my delicious, flavorful, good-for-me food while the fast-foodies are 6-feet under after suffering massive coronaries.

Okay, now that's over. It might not have made the most sense, because I tend to be non-sensical when I'm this wound up. But hopefully, somewhere out there, one of you is making a decision. Maybe instead of going and getting those chips out of the pantry, or having another grease-trap burger and fries tonight, you'll check out your local organic store. Maybe you'll suddenly find that meat CAN taste better. (Mmmm, tasty, tasty meat...) Or that an organic cucumber is about the tastiest damn vegetable you can put into your tummy (in my opinion.) And that's good enough for me. If you're just angry that I yelled about organic food and how the government is trying to screw us all into an early grave, then that's okay too. I'll just make sure to dumb the wording down on my next post for you.

Until next time, enjoy your loved ones, and your life with a Spoonful of Sugar. (Or honey, or Stevia, or Truvia, or date sugar, or whatever non-processed sweetener you choose.)

If you would like to learn more about GE foods and how to avoid them, please visit these websites:

http://organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm

http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/

http://www.foe.org/

http://www.organicconsumers.org/gelink.cfm

It's All Greek to Me

Hello all! I thought I'd share one of my favorite weeknight dinners with you all. My husband was kind of dubious about this the first time I described it to him. In fact, it took me 2 weeks to convince him it would be a good, affordable dinner since all we would need to get from the grocery store would be chicken and lemons. (We tend to be unable to keep meat in the house for too long, since we're both such voracious carnivores.)

Finally, he conceded and off to the store I went. Now, we used boneless breasts because our favorite grocery store which is literally across the street from our house has recently changed into a much lesser entity. What was amazing and fantastic before is now mediocre...if that.

We used to be able to find many cuts of lamb and veal, now there is none. Where we used to find delicious, fatty chicken thighs, there are now only chicken tenders and breast. (And about that...what body part exactly is the damn tender? Like, seriously, we needed to make up a chicken part to serve to our children? Really...REALLY? Parents, let's get off our asses and broaden our children's food horizons.)

Anyway, the recipe is basically a Mediterranean style chicken "casserole" with rice. It's very delicious and flavorful, and you get a lot for what you spend. Especially if you're anything like my husband and you think that buying a HUGE bag of rice from a buy-in-bulk store is a good idea. (We don't have to buy rice ever again. EVER.)

You can also use pasta for this, but i like the flavor that the rice can lend to the dish, especially if you use Jasmine rice. (And just think, if you make too much rice, you can always make rice pudding!)

To make this dish you will need:

Boneless, skinless chicken (we like the thighs, but please use any cut you prefer)

Olive oil

Kalamata olives

Capers

2 cloves garlic

Half an onion

2 lemons

1/2 cup white wine (We tend to make recipes that call for white wine after my mother has made a visit. She loves the stuff, but no one else drinks it, so we use it for cooking. Last visit we made viener schnitzel with the leftover Pinot Grigio!)

Your favorite Mediterranean spices

Rice

So, in a skillet, lightly brown your chicken and then place the pieces in a glass or metal casserole pan. (We used a brownie pan...)

Heat your oven to about 350 or 400 Fahrenheit.

Into your casserole dish, add some capers and olives. If you wish, you may sweat the onions and garlic together in your skillet and then add it to the dish, but it's not necessary. Over the delicious heap of olives, capers, garlic, and onion, squeeze one of the lemons. I also slice the lemons and add a few on top. (It's kind of a to-taste thing. If you like lemon, use 2, if you aren't especially fond of it, just use one.)

Drizzle a bit of olive oil and white wine over top, then sprinkle with your herbs. (I tend to be a bit heavy handed when it comes to oregano. It's one of my favorites.) I also poured a bit of the juice from the olive jar over top, but that's purely up to you.

Place your delicious chicken dish into the oven for about 15-20 minutes, long enough for you to make your rice. Now, I'm going to assume if you're reading this, you know how to make rice. I won't bore you with those steps, because if you don't know how to make rice, you probably shouldn't attempt any great feat in the kitchen... Stick to peanut butter and jelly...

When the timer goes off, you're ready to serve. Place the chicken and some of the juices over the top of your rice, and enjoy!

That's it for now lovelies! Until next time, enjoy your loved ones, and your life, with a Spoonful of Sugar!

Homemade Lox (Cured Salmon)

Good evening all! I hope this evening all finds you well. We've had a long day at our house, and a longer afternoon.

After buying an organic brand of vegetable beef stew for my son to try, I figured out that he's not quite ready for it yet (even though the package and the doctor both said 8 months and up is fine for beef). Not only was I thrown up on, but while trying to clean us both off, the little guy decided to pee on me as well.

So, sufficed to say, this night is going to be laid back in the kitchen. (Don't tell, but I'm even considering ordering in a pizza...)

But, before I pass out and am dead to the world, I thought I'd post this little gem for you all to ponder.

LOX! That's right, it's finally ready! After 72 hours in our fridge, our GORGEOUS flank of home-cured salmon was ready to come out and fill our bellies full of salty, dill-iciousness!

Now, if you too would like to cure your own salmon instead of dropping $13 for only 4oz. of "lox", then read on my friend!

Things you will need:

2 lbs. salmon with the skin ON (we always buy wild-caught!)

1/4 cup salt of your choice (regular table salt is fine, but I adore the pretty pink color of the Hawaiian salt)

1/4 cup sugar

fresh dill (we bought two of the fresh herb containers you can find in grocery stores)

fresh ground white or black pepper to taste (I stopped turning the pepper mill when I started sneezing...)

a container that your salmon will fit in

plastic wrap

something to weigh your fish down with (we used canned things we'd had in our pantry for quite a while, but wine bottles work fine, as do ceramic dishes filled with dry beans)

To start, check your salmon for bones. Place a layer of salt, sugar, dill, and pepper on your plastic wrap. Lay your salmon on top and cover with the rest of your seasonings. I gently massaged the salt into the fish and whispered sweet nothings to it, but who's to say if it helped?

Once your salmon is thoroughly seasoned, wrap it up super tight in plastic wrap and place it in your container, then stick your weights on top and ta-dah! Stick it in the fridge and 24 hours later, go back and drain the liquid out.

Drain the liquid in the container for 2-4 days (we did 3). You can start tasting your lox after 48 hours (because it'll be safe by that point).

When you've decided your lox has cured long enough, take it out and rinse all the seasonings off of it.

Slice it thin and you can store it in your freezer for about a month or so (or eat it all right away with lox-loving-friends!)

I ate mine with my homemade cream cheese and some plain bagels. Sprinkle a little sea salt and pepper over the top, or if you're one of those capers, tomatoes, and onion likers, go for that too! I hope you'll all go try this out, because in the long run, you save SO much money making your own. 2 lbs. of fish for about $18, or 4 oz. for about $12? Which will you choose?

That's it for now! So until next time, enjoy your loved ones, and your life with a Spoonful Of Sugar!

Homemade Cream Cheese

Hello and welcome! For the inaugural post on Spoonful of Sugar, I've decided to (try to) make cream cheese at home.

It all started when I was watching the Cooking Channel and saw that a chef in a New Orleans restaurant made his own lox. Now, before you say anything, let me explain a little bit about my secret obsession. In the restaurant business, there is a well known game that chefs play called The Last Meal. You go around the table (or bar as it is most times) and ask what you would eat for your last meal.

For my last meal there'd be quite a few courses, most of which would include sugar, but the head-liner would be a fresh, hand-crafted bagel with delicious cream cheese and lox. Lox is salmon, NOT SMOKED SALMON. I repeat: lox is NOT smoked salmon. In fact, lox is raw. Don't freak out, raw isn't always bad!

Anyway, back to New Orleans. This chef was curing his own salmon on sight, which was inspirational. The basic method is to get yourself a big ol' slab of fresh (wild-caught if possible) salmon. We chose a 2 lbs. slab of Keta Salmon from Whole Foods. Next step, slap that baby on a big roll of plastic wrap and begin to bury it in equal parts sugar (yes, sugar) and salt (we used Hawaiian Pink Sea Salt.) Next, grind some fresh cracked pepper on top, black or white, and then lay on some beautifully green, fresh dill sprigs. Wrap it all up in plastic wrap really tight, put it in a plastic or glass dish, weight it down with canned goods or wine bottles (because you know you've got a few bottles of Pinot Grigio in that fridge gal pal...) and wait.

Now, you know about the lox, but this is about cream cheese. And as a warning, you should know that in this blog, there will be many tangents.

So! There are many ways to make cream cheese, but we're going to focus on the simplest way, the one that I chose. You need 1 ingredient. Seriously! One ingredient. Ready? Yogurt. Now, I used "The Greek Gods" brand Greek yogurt from Whole Foods, which I probably won't do again because when tasted, it was a bit too tangy in my opinion.

To make Cream Cheese you will need the following:

1 container plain yogurt

1 bowl

1 dish-towel or cheese cloth (either will work, so don't worry about going out and hunting down cheese cloth.)

some twine, string, rubber band, duct tape, wire, etc., etc. (Basically, anything with which you can tie a knot.)

Now, find a space in your house that's relatively cool, and has something from which you can hang your cheese.

Unfold your dish towel and plop a bit of yogurt into the center. We're not talking the whole container, just enough for a test-batch. I used about 1/2 a cup or so.

Now, wrap the yogurt up in a ball shape and twist the towel to secure. Liquid WILL drain out. Don't worry, that's what's supposed to happen. This liquid is whey, which, if you're very daring, you may save to make ginger-ale and numerous other goodies.

Tie your little cheese bundle up and hang over your bowl to let the whey drip out.

Wait 7-10 hours. (Overnight is fine too.)

Now, when you wake up or your timer goes off you'll have fresh, homemade cream cheese to spread on anything you want. Hell, eat it with a spoon if that's your thing. We don't judge here.

I hope you all thoroughly enjoyed your cream cheese tutorial, and all of the ramblings that went with it. Think of them as your side salad, or for those of us who aren't very worried about carbs, your fries! :)

Next time, we'll start talking about that salmon again! It went in the fridge last night, so hopefully in a day or two, the Murphy household will be feastin' on fish!

That's it for now! So until next time, enjoy your loved ones, and your life with a Spoonful Of Sugar!