Food

Slow Baked Salmon

Mother’s Day coincides with king salmon season in Northern California. So I guess it’s become (is becoming?) a tradition for us to have salmon for Mother’s Day dinner.

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Burrito Bowl

I don’t have a picture for this, it was dark when we ate dinner. This is a total “mom blog” meal. And for good reason! It’s easy, uses only one pot, easily adaptable (prep ahead of time, prep and freeze ahead of time, make in the slow cooker, make with different proteins, etc), enjoyed by kids and adults. It’s called a “burrito bowl” but I don’t know, it’s more like a Rice-a-Roni type thing. I used this recipe and followed it pretty closely. A couple of changes do come to mind, I didn’t have chili powder but used a little chipotle in adobo sauce instead, used 1.5 cups brown rice instead of just 1 cup, added liquid to equal what is needed to cook the rice (in this case 3 cups, a mixture of chicken broth, tomato, water). Mine took way longer to cook, as I expected with this rice. Almost an hour simmering, but it’s an hour where you do almost nothing, just check the liquid level and rice tenderness occasionally.

Thoughts for next times: try with seasoned tofu, shrimp added at the end, white rice for a faster meal, pinto beans, etc. etc. etc. Tonight we’re having leftovers, I’m thinking mixed with cheese and warmed in the oven, casserole-style.

Easy Stovetop Mac and Cheese

One of my usual easy kid meals is box macaroni and cheese with some stuff thrown in, frozen broccoli, canned beans, leftover chicken, etc. I was ready to make just this meal the other day when I realized we were out of box macaroni and cheese. So I decided to just make it from scratch.

macaroni and cheese

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Cabbage Stew and Catching Up

It has been so long since I posted anything, but apologizing for not posting more frequently is something I want to stop doing. I’m a mom, you know?

Here are some things we’ll be talking about in this post: bagels, oat bars, enchiladas, kale salad, broccoli, cabbage stew

homemade bagels

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A little while ago I tried this no-soak recipe for black beans. I cooked them for HOURS but they never seemed to really soften. Where the organic beans I bought from from the hippy food co-op super old? Do they really need to be soaked, despite the serious research by the fellows at Serious Eats? Where did things go wrong?

The problem, it turned out, was the orange added to the beans during the initial cooking phase. This made my water too acidic and the beans stayed hard, no matter how long they cooked. Solution: baking soda. I added a bit (maybe 1/2 tsp) and they softened very quickly. For next time: don’t add orange until beans are already soft.