Salad-on-a-Stick

If you ask Jack if he wants a salad, his response may vary from, "Um, yeah, okay..." to a firm "no". But if you ask him if he wants salad on a stick, his little eyes light up and he answers with a resounding "Yes!".

I saw the concept on a Rachael Ray episode about kid-friendly foods and decided to replicate it for Jack's birthday party.

Salad-On-A-Stick
Bamboo Skewers
Cherry or grape tomatoes
Cucumber, peeled and sliced 1/2 inch thick
Orange and yellow peppers, in 1 inch pieces
Salami, cut in 1-inch rounds
Marinated mozzarella balls
Dressing for dipping (we used Ranch and Italian)

Jack's Pink-and-Purple Birthday Cupcakes

Jack presented me with quite the dilemma this year: he asked for a pink cake with purple frosting. At first I thought he was joking, but he continued to ask for it, so I decided that I'd have to deliver. First of all, I love that he doesn't have any gender stereotypes about colors -- he thinks that the two new houses being built in our neighborhood should be pink and purple, too. I love this kid.

I asked him what flavor of "pink" he wanted and he said strawberry, so I set out to find a good strawberry cake recipe. It wasn't easy. Most strawberry cakes involve a box or a boxed white cake with strawberry jello mixed in. I know I'm a total food snob when I say this, but box cakes are not acceptable in our house, especially not for a birthday. Finally, a former yearbook student of mine, now a mom of a toddler herself, helped me track down a "from scratch" recipe that didn't involve big chunks of strawberries (another undesirable, in my opinion) and was actually a modified version of a Martha Stewart recipe. I trust Martha to make good cake, so I followed the recipe for Strawberries and Cream Cupcakes.

But there was still the issue of the purple frosting. I thought I'd have to break down and use food coloring, which I prefer not to do, but even that became an issue because a friend of mine told me that Wilton's purple cake dye tastes really bitter. So, I decided to try using blackberry jam as a colorant. I made my usual cream cheese frosting recipe and added about a 1/4 cup of blackberry jam. Voila! Purple frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 stick of butter, softened
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 1/4 c. powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
(and 1/4 c. blackberry jam, to make purple blackberry frosting)

I followed the suggestion from the cupcake recipe of using a ziploc bag to pipe the frosting on, and I was amazed by how nice the cupcakes looked -- my cupcakes normally look like they've been assembled by clumsy-handed yeti, so this was a huge improvement. I can't wait for Jack to see his birthday cupcakes tonight.

Dirt Pudding

It has become an annual tradition for Jack to take dirt pudding to daycare for his birthday, in part because one of his classmates is allergic to eggs, so cupcakes are out, but also because Jack LOVES the worms. Here's how we make it:

Dirt Pudding
1 box of Oreos, pulverized in a food processor until "dirt-like"
1 pkg. cream cheese
1/2 stick of butter
1 c. powdered sugar
2 6 oz. pkgs. Jello instant vanilla pudding
3.5 c. milk
1 tub Cool Whip
Sour gummy worms

Combine the cream cheese, butter and sugar. Beat in the Jello pudding. Beat in the milk, in two separate additions. Fold in the Cool Whip.

Layer the Oreo "dirt" with the pudding mixture so that you start and end with Oreos. I use a bucket (with shovel), but others have recommended a flower pot with a whole Oreo to cover the hole in the bottom. Top with worms.

We made a variation of this for Halloween by putting Chessmen shortbread cookies on top of a 9x13 dirt pudding mixture, to look like headstones, and then sprinkling candy pumpkins around the graves. Very spooky and super cute.

Fruit Crisp

This is my favorite go-to dessert. My grandma used to make apple, and occasionally peach, crisp all the time when I was a kid. It wasn't until I became an adult that I realized just how quick and easy it is. I have to confess that I tend to make mine more frequently with blueberries because that streamlines the process even more (wash and dump) without the peeling. But today I bravely tried something I had never made before: Rhubarb Crisp.

THE CRISP
1 stick butter (yes, I mean butter - it's way better than margarine)
3/4 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. oatmeal
1/2 c. flour (I'm dying to try this with gluten-free flour to see if I can serve it to Brian's mom and sister)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. If you are a responsible cook and plan ahead, let your butter soften on the counter before cooking. If you're like me and start baking the second you get the baby to fall asleep or in the exersaucer, it's perfectly okay to put the butter in a metal bowl and let it melt a bit in the oven while the oven preheats - it won't affect the crisp.

With a spoon or fork, mix the remaining ingredients with the softened or partially melted butter.

Sprinkle the crisp mixture over your fruit.

THE FRUIT
5 apples or peaches, peeled, cored, and sliced; or 2 pints of blueberries, rinsed (how easy is that?!)
I've also tried a "Michigan Harvest Crisp" with plums, apples, peaches and dried cherries, which turned out fabulous.

To make a rhubarb crisp, I had a few extra steps: I washed a bunch of rhubarb, sliced it, and put it in the bottom of a 8x8 baking dish. Then, I boiled 1 c. sugar, 1 c. water, 2 Tbsp. corn starch, and 1 tsp. vanilla and poured the mixture over the rhubarb.

Bake the fruit topped with the crisp mixture for 35 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Easy as pie. No, EASIER than pie.

"Make It Up As I Go" Potato Salad

Tonight, in an effort to use up the redskin potatoes from Easter, I scrounged together some items for a potato salad, which turned out to be delicious. I loosely based it on a Paula Deen recipe, but ended up skipping the mayo in favor of Italian dressing, which was quite yummy.

Here's what I did:

Boil one pound of redskins and cut them up into bite-sized cubes. Finely chop about 1/4 c. of red onion. Top the potatoes and onion with a squirt or two of Italian dressing and let sit for 15+ minutes. Meanwhile, bake 4 strips of bacon in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Crumble the bacon over the potatoes, and if you're feeling saucy, pour a little (1 Tbsp or less) of the bacon grease over top of the potatoes as well. Voila!

Cod in a Tomato Wine Sauce

I'm always looking for a good Lenten fish recipe, and I think I found a keeper tonight. Brian had picked up some cod earlier in the week and I found a five-star Rachael Ray recipe from FoodNetwork.com, so I decided to give it a try. Brian and I both enjoyed the mildly sweet flavor of the cod, which was complimented well with the tomato sauce on the pasta. Jack wasn't crazy about the cod, but he gobbled up the pasta.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, twice-around-the-pan
1 small onion, finely chopped, about 1/3 cup
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine (I used a sweet white because that is what we had in the house, and we drank some with dinner)
1 (15-ounce) can stewed tomatoes
3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley (I used about a teaspoon of dry parsley)
2 pounds cod or haddock, rinsed and dried (we only had a half a pound of cod, but it was enough for the two of us)
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 pound angel hair, cooked just shy of al dente, about 4 or 5 minutes (I used whole-wheat pasta)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

To a small skillet preheated over medium heat, add extra-virgin olive oil, onion and garlic. Cook onions 5 minutes, until translucent. Add wine to the pan and reduce for 30 seconds. Add tomatoes and break up the sliced stewed tomatoes with a wooden spoon as they heat through. When the sauce comes to a boil (2 or 3 minutes) remove it from the heat and stir in the parsley. Season the fish with salt and pepper. Pour a few spoonfuls of sauce into the bottom of a shallow baking dish. Add fish to the dish in a single layer. Add remaining sauce and bake 15 to 17 minutes until fish is firm and opaque.

Remove fish to serving plate or dinner plates. Spoon a few bits of tomato and sauce over the fish. To the remaining sauce in the baking dish add 2 tablespoons butter cut into small pieces. Add hot pasta to butter and sauce and turn pasta in dish to coat evenly and to allow pasta to absorb juices. Pile pasta alongside fish and serve.

Another Foodie Blog

Check out my cousin Caitrin's recipe blog at www.thedosidoes.blogspot.com. Caitrin made Brian's favorite potluck recipe of a chocolate chip cheese ball, now famous and frequently requested at our neighborhood gatherings. So I'm looking forward to seeing what else she posts. So far, she has a delicious looking recipe for chocolate ganche cupcakes and for Quiche Lorraine. I have a feeling that we'll be making those cupcakes as soon as Lent is over and Brian can eat chocolate again.