Bans on chocolate milk in schools?

Now, if the rest of a school lunch menu was healthy and tasty and calorie conscious, then perhaps I could see chocolate milk getting targeted.

But, if 60 extra calories a day is going to be the make or break for a kid’s weight, maybe something bigger is wrong – and it gets kids to drink milk. Let them have the 60 calories and send them out to play afterwards instead of letting them live their lives in front of the TV set.

When we lived in Japan, chocolate milk was the only way my brother and I would drink milk. There was something…wrong…with the regular milk. (It wasn’t Japanese milk, it was some reconsituted stuff that the commissary sold.)

Kids like chocolate milk. It is a simple fact of life. Why take away a small joy at lunchtime?

I was making up some packet pasta for lunch today (I know, I know – but I like it. I’m the anti-foodie in many ways) and I noticed it didn’t call for 1/2 cup of milk – it specified 2% milk. My Kraft Singles proclaim that they’re made with 2% milk. Whole milk mozzarella cheese is a big deal in the shredded-cause-I’m-too-lazy-and-like-my-knuckles-intact section of the grocery store.

Now, me being me, anything short of whole milk simply doesn’t make it into my kitchen. Since Starbucks went to 2% milk being it’s standard milk, I’ve had to become “that woman” who can’t just order a latte, cause now I have to say, “Large latte with whole milk.” (No, I don’t use their made up sizes. More than once I’ve just ordered a Bigassed latte and gotten just what I needed.)

I hate that whole milk has become so demonized over the years. It was all that was ever in our house growing up and neither my brother or myself are any the worse for wear. I remember going to friends houses and dreading seeing skim milk come out of the fridge. It looked like water that had some milk mixed into it, and frankly, tasted about the same.

But whole milk is awesome. It hasn’t made me fat. It’s made my recipes wonderful. And I will stick with it until the day I die.

Now I am going to go have a glass of milk with a couple pieces of leftover Halloween candy.

And that is your health food diatribe for the day.

With the Amateur Gourmet’s trip to Barcelona to dine at El Bulli, I had to wonder: How many people out there would plan a trip soley around a dinner?

Now, I’ll fully admit that one of the reasons I love going to the beach is the abundance of great places to eat with tons of seafood. (And chefs that know how to properly prepare grits.) But it’s not the reason I go in the first place. I can’t say that I’ve ever really gone anywhere in search of food. I also have to suspect that I am not alone in that.

I did dine at Morimoto’s in Philly when I went up there for the flower show one year. But I will even admit that was a bit of a fluke – I was poking through OpenTable to find restaurants around where I was staying and actually noticed the cuisine before I noticed the name, and thought, “Hey, a Japanese restaurant not too far from where I’ll be!” and got a reservation. And yes, it was spectacular.

But when I travel, it’s destination first, then figure out the food. Mind you, I love finding good places to eat wherever I am – I just look for them after I’ve figured out where I’m going in the first place. I suppose this knocks me down a couple notches in foodie status, and I’m certainly OK with that.

But I do hope Adam has a great time in Barcelona and that the meal is epic.

Now, why on earth would someone who is just about 3 weeks into a weight management project have anything other than utter hatred and contempt for fast food?  Because I love McGriddles, that’s why.  This morning I had to drop the dog off for a grooming and there is a McD’s right next door, and I was hungry and they were still having breakfast, and well, you can guess the rest. :)

Fast food has it’s place.  There are few in our society that are really able to live at a slow pace – I can only think of two groups – the retired and the unemployed.  And fast food even has it’s place for those folks, too.  You’re out running errands, you get hungry, you’re nowhere near home – why not stop in and get a snack?  That’s exactly where I was this morning.

Sure, a McGriddle isn’t exactly what you’d call a “healthy” breakfast.  It has 420 calories.  But for crying out loud, it’s sausage and pancakes and syrup all together in a wonderful little sandwich!!!!!!  How could it be MORE perfect??!??  Only if they sold it all day!  (Did I mention I REALLY love these little fat grenades?)

But let’s stop and take a look at how often I have them.  Not very often.  Honestly, it’s probably been about 6 months since I had one.  And it will probably be another 6 months before I have another one.  How often do I have fast food in general?  Maybe every couple of weeks.  It’s not a staple of my diet.

I think the fast food industry has been unfairly demonized because consumers *choose* to make their food a staple of their diets.  The last time I checked, McD’s didn’t have people standing out in parking lots dragging people into their stores and forcing them to buy Big Macs.  Little Wendy isn’t knocking on people’s doors begging them to buy chili and a Frosty, lest she end up homeless.  Chihuahuas don’t end up in the animal shelter because you didn’t buy enough tacos and bean burritos.

Fast food does have it’s place.  Grab a Happy Meal every now and again if you like.  But don’t blame the industry for your food choices.

Lots of produce. Green onions, radishes, new potatoes, mixed greens, fresh herbs, asparagus and new potatoes.

I looked at all of this lovely stuff and couldn’t come up with a single idea of what to do with it. And, I tend to not buy produce unless I know what I am going to do with it. So, today I left almost empty handed (couldn’t pass up the chive cheddar cheese!) but making a mental note of “come up with something to use all that good stuff!”

Best part was finding two new meat suppliers – Smith Family Farms for Angus Beef and Cibola Farms for buffalo meat. (Links in sidebar under Suppliers.) Both have free range pork as well. I didn’t expect this at all, but I grabbed both of their brochures and I will pick something out to try next week.

Seriously, if I were on Iron Chef, I’d be done before I even started. :)

*In years past, the thought of going by only occured to me on Saturday afternoons, afterкомпютри they were closed. I’m trying to do better this season.

The problem being that you don’t know exactly how it was made, you might not have a written recipe, and your memory may fail you.  Even if it’s tasty, it may not be “what Mom made” – and when it’s your brother that’s made the request, well, you can’t help but feel like you’ve failed just a bit.

Last week I attempted goulash – my Mom made it all the time, but I never *saw* her make it, and there were no written instructions left behind.  I figured I could modify my Goulaschuppe recipe and come fairly close.  It did taste very good, but I forgot until halfway through that my Mom never put carrots or potatoes in it – just straight meat, sauce & noodles.  Ah well, I’ll remember next time.

Tonigh I am attempting pot roast.  Another one of those “Mom” dinners.  It always just “appeared” – mainly because it takes a fair amount of time to cook, so again, I have NO actual idea how she did it.  I know it DID have carrots & potatoes at least. :)  There are no less than 100 variations on pot roast in allrecipes.com, so it looks like I’ll be winging it.

I’m thinking lightly score it, S&P, and sear it.  Then into the dutch oven with the carrots, potatoes and onions.  Beer, beef & chicken stock to cover the veggies.  (I like to cut beef stock a bit, otherwise things get too “heavy” tasting for me.)  Into the oven at 350 until the thermometer says it’s done…

We shall see!

My cold came back for revenge, and I decided today that I really need to suck it up and make proper soup. I went through my notebook of tried and true goodies and on tap for this evening is Chicken Chili (which really has more of a soup consistency), so I dragged my sniffly scary looking self up to the market to get the goods.

I do have to say that my pantry is in slightly better shape than it was when I first moved into this house. No longer does every recipe need to have every single solitary ingredient purchased! (I basically have restocked the spice cabinets from nothing.) Today just needed the chicken, beans, a couple white potatoes, an onion and garlic. I’ve got all the spices and stock for a change. :) Perfect world I would have had chicken in the freezer and beans in the cupboard, but this is still an improvement.

The recipe is an easy one, thank goodness. The mice en place will take the longest – gotta chop the onions, garlic, potatoes and chicken. Then it’s just brown the chicken, onion and garlic and basically dump everything else in and let the house smell wonderful for a while. Took the lazy route and picked up some jalepeno cornbread from the bakery to go with it.

When shopping with a cold, I tend to overshop. For me it’s worse than doing the marketing while hungry. But I did stumble upon this:

I am fairly certain this is the same mix my Mom used for potato pancakes. Yes, a good German girl would know how to make them from scratch, but it was a comfort food from my younger years, so I had to pick up a box.

But the important thing is that there will be real, from scratch food tonight and pics and a recipe to go with it!

So, two books have recently come out that are causing quite the talk around the food sections of newspapers and blogs across the internet. Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld and The Sneaky Chef by Missy Chase Lapine. Basically all about hiding “good” food in the kids meals to get them to eat better.

The big question seems to be – does it really benefit your kids down the road if you’re hiding the veggies now? In my mind – no.

I’m not talking about when they’re itty-bitty and everything is pureed and the delivery system is a spoon making airplane noises. Besides, it’s not really disguising it if they have no idea what is actually on said spoon. But when they’re old enough to start identifying things (which isn’t really that old), I just don’t see any good reason for hiding or disguising things.

I don’t remember my mother ever hiding vegetables or other healthy foods from us. She wasn’t a gourmet chef and certainly wasn’t presenting up anything particularly exotic, but we knew that veggies were part of the deal when it came to dinner. She did make compromises, knowing that some veggies were better than none. When she would put together the salads, she’d skip the cherry tomatoes in mine. (I just didn’t acquire the love of tomatoes that the rest of my family had!) Hers and Dad’s would have extra onions and mushrooms and things. But hey, we still got our lettuce at least – and she didn’t have to disguise it. Sweet corn, lima beans, green beans, and peas were regulars at the dinner table. A little butter and salt and pepper and we ate them. I don’t know if I would ever have been excited at asparagus season coming about if it had all been pureed and hidden in other foods.

The only big arguments came with cooked cauliflower in cheese sauce and cooked broccoli. The smell was horrific and we had the rule of “at least ONE bite must be taken” – well, lets just say it did NOT go well and cooked cauliflower was not presented again.

Raw veggies were usually about as well. Carrots and celery and a little salad dressing – we knew exactly what we were eating, ate it voluntarily and no one had to hide it from us. Over the years I’ve also developed a liking for raw broccoli and cauliflower. (Just don’t cook it, please!) Fresh sliced cucumbers with just a touch of salt on them.

If all these vegetables had been hidden from us, my brother & I would have even worse eating habits than we do now. (We try, but we’re not perfect.) If you’ve never had vegetables prepared on their own as a kid, then why would it ever occur to you to prepare them as their own dish when you grow up? When I got out on my own and stumbled on fresh green beans at the market, I grabbed a big handful and took them home and figured out how to cook them – and they were great and even better than anything Mom had made. (Not her fault, frozen veggies were the norm, finding fresh always seemed to be difficult.) I will make up lima beans and eat them as dinner on some occasions. I regularly make up salads for lunch.

I don’t have kids, and I don’t know if I ever will. However, I just don’t see myself trying to hide butternut squash in macaroni and cheese. Sure, I’ll probably figure out what the little ones favor in the veggie department and that will probably be presented more often. I’ll try and avoid cooking methods and presentations that aren’t appealing. (Peas and cooked carrots come to mind – I don’t know who came up with the combination, but I’ve never understood the popularity.)

Show some respect for the veggies and let them shine on their own! The kids will be better off for it.

Salmon. Of some sort. I have been in a “I must have salmon” mode for about 3 days. However, yesterday as I was planning my trip to the good market for salmon, I remembered that we were heading out for a hockey game, hence no dinner. (Well, there was dinner, but it was “stop on the way home” OK, but not salmon.) Today, it’s chili as it was a birthday request. Tomorrow, there will be leftover chili.

But, soon – very soon – there will be salmon. I’ve been poring over various recipes of wonderful things to glaze over the filets. I am SO ready for salmon!

I register, I get the email saying my username has been reserved and that my membership is pending approval. From looking at a thread earlier in the year, it seems the “you’re in” email should be within a day… If I attempt to login, I either get a message saying the membership is still pending approval, or then a flat out “username/password” not found.

I’ve tried using the contact forms to get assistance and gotten absolutely no response. Honestly, it seems that the registrations and the contact forms are simply going off into the ether.

Looking at this thread, it would seem it was happening earlier this year as well, and I’d love to PM the admin and tell him I need assistance, but of course, I can’t do that without logging in, and I can’t log in because my registration won’t stick.

If they just don’t want me, at least they could email me and tell me so! ;) Yes, I know I’m not a professional, but there are other non-pros out there trying to decide where they want to take things and how to go about it, and it would be nice to be able to post the occasional question regarding culinary education and such.

If someone else out there has been able to register and could help me get in contact with the Admin so I can find out what’s gone awry, I’d certainly appreciate it.