Chicken Soup for the Postadenoidectomy Soul

The boy had his adenoids removed today. We left the house at 5:10 a.m. this morning and arrived back home almost exactly four hours later. Yeah, four hours later. I think we spent more time waiting at the patient check-in and then in the pre-op area than we spent waiting for the surgery to be completed and for the boy to come out of the anesthesia and be released. I wasn't there when the boy returned from surgery--I'd had to make a Target run to acquire for him new undies and pants, for he'd had a small accident once under the influence of the anesthesia, and I hadn't brought along a change of clothes, thinking he'd have to change into full surgical regalia for the procedure--but the husband told me within minutes of his return to our assigned pre-op/post-op closet, he was up and chipper and munching on a popsicle and slurping down some juice.

Having seen the husband through his uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (which can include the removal of the adenoids and the tonsils in addition to the tightening of the soft palate, as it did for the husband) and septoplasty, I had some idea of how to prepare to meet the boy's potential post-op nutrition needs. Popsicles? Check. Yogurt? Check. Kefir? Check.

About a gallon of chicken noodle soup? Check.

Luckily, I knew this chicken noodle soup more than pleased the boy, having made it on a whim a few weeks before so I could use up some celery. At that time, he'd chowed down three-fourths of the batch. This time, I aimed to make a double batch.

Quick Chicken Noodle Soup2 C water
32 oz. carton fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth
1 T olive oil
1/2 C prechopped onion
1/2 C prechopped celery
1/2 t salt
1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
1 medium carrot, chopped
6 oz. fusilli pasta
2 1/2 C shredded skinless, boneless rotisserie chicken breast
2 T chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1. Combine the water and the chicken broth in a microwave-safe dish, and then microwave on high for 5 min.
   
2. While the broth mixture heats, heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
   
3. Add the oil to pan and swirl to coat.
   
4. Add the onion, celery, salt, pepper and carrot to the saucepan, and then sauté 3 min. or until they're almost tender, stirring frequently.
   
5. Add the hot broth mixture and pasta to the saucepan, and then bring it to a boil.
6. Cook the soup 7 min. or until the pasta is almost al dente.
   
7. Stir in the chicken and then cook 1 min. or until thoroughly heated.
   
8. Stir in the parsley.

Yield: 6 1-cup servings

Nutritional Info
Calories: 237
Fat: 4.8 g
Sat fat: 1 g
Protein: 22.9 g
Carbs: 23.9 g
Fiber: 1.7 g
Cholesterol: 50 mg
Sodium: 589 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
This recipe I found in the freebie Cooking Light January issue, and I initially passed over it. But as I noted a few paragraphs back, I had some celery I needed to use, and since the boy had been gobbling down some canned chicken noodle soup from Canada like it was water and he'd just returned from a 10-year sojourn in the Gobi desert, I thought I'd give this one a shot.

Before I get to my futzings, I just have to say one thing about this "quick" recipe: Is it really so damn hard to chop up a celery stalk or two, a carrot and maybe half of an onion? Is that really so damn time-consuming a task?

All right, Gentle Reader, here's a rough idea of how I played with this recipe:

• Screw the rotisserie chicken. What's so hard about boiling a boneless, skinless or even a bone-in, skinless chicken breast in just enough water and then shredding it? That's what I did (the bone-in breast I used in addition to a small boneless boob for the second batch), so not only did I get some nice chicken, I wound up with some (admittedly weak) chicken broth to use in place of the two cups of water.
  
• Screw the microwave. What's with nuking the water and broth? Is it really so hard to wait for this liquid to boil? Have we really come to this, Gentle Reader? If you have no patience, then you have really no business being in the kitchen.
  
• I never have parsley. I have cilantro, but I think I've noted several times how much the boy loathes cilantro.

I had to look up exactly what fusilli pasta is, although I had a rough idea based on the illustration in the magazine. If you're too lazy to pop fusilli into Google and hit Enter, Gentle Reader, let me clue you in: It's corkscrew pasta, or as I knew it until that day, it's rotini. That's it. When I first prepared to make this recipe, before I visited Google, I worried that perhaps this was some special pasta, but no. It's just rotini.

Fortunately, thanks to some reshelving, restocking and deep discounting of the pasta shelves at HEB, I have pasta out the wazoo. I've got yer penne, I've got yer angelhair, I've got yer rotini. The fancy stuff too--the omega-enriched and/or whole-grain stuff. I personally can't stand pasta (it reminds me too much of when I was fat and was an all too frequent visitor to The Olive Garden and made too many batches of cavatini or spaghetti slathered with Five Brothers four-cheese sauce), but the boy and the husband--but especially the boy--like the stuff. Pasta makes for an easy meal on nights when I'm uninspired.

Where was I? Sheesh, writing up a post after being up for some 15 hours is not the most brilliant thing to do.

Okay, yeah, rotini. The first time I made the soup, I polished off an already-open box of rotini, which was just about the 6 ounces called for. Combined with the shredded chicken breast meat, the end result looked pretty much like the picture in the magazine and surprisingly pretty flavorful, considering how sparse the seasoning is. (I think I might have sprinkled a bit of kosher salt and pepper into the water I boiled the breast in the first time. I know I definitely did the second time.)

The second time, I used all 16 ounces in the bag of discounted Hodgson Mills whole wheat spiral pasta I had on hand. I was a little leery of using the whole wheat pasta in this batching, knowing that the finished product would be stored for later reheating and that whole wheat pasta can disintegrate or at least get really mushy and unappetizing when reheated in a lot of liquid. But the boy loves his pasta, and I figured even mushy spirals would work well if he were nursing a sore postadenoidectomy gullet.

Of course, adding all 16 ounces of the pasta to the pot along with the six cups or so of shredded chicken meat made for a big-ass pot of soup. I thought I'd put in enough liquid--I eyeballed it as I went along, using the broth created when I boiled the chicken along with about half or more of a 32-ounce container of Pacific Natural Foods chicken broth I'd opened a few days before when making our favorite tagine recipe. Despite the skewed liquid-to-solid ratio, the pasta was cooked to just the right tenderness, plus the lack of an abundance of liquid allowed me to stow the finished soup in a way that would allow me to reheat it on the stove, adding fresh broth, without those noddles turning to mush.

And my theory proved true. Not long after arriving home, the boy was lamenting how hungry he was, echoing his one of his first post-op statements to his father: "When can I go home? I'm ready to eat some chicken noodle soup." (Isn't he just precious sometimes, Gentle Reader?) I plopped the smallest of the three storage bowls of soup into a two-quart saucepan, started it warming over gentle heat and added enough freshly opened Central Markup-brand broth until most of the solid ingredients could roughly float. As soon as it was warm, I headed off to the gym.

When I returned just over 90 minutes later, the soup was gone. I don't think the husband partook of it either.

The boy had half of the medium-size container of soup for supper. I still have a quart-size (maybe a two-quart size) container in the 'fridge.

Eat your heart out, Cambell's. I'll tell you what's "M'm! M'm! Good!" and it ain't you and your obese, pasty kids!

Penne for Your Thoughts

I suppose this is my time to be racked with indecision, Gentle Reader. For several days, I was angsty over whether to quit my one freelance gig, which brings more anxiety into my daily life than I think it's worth, to have more brain span (and more patience) for everyone and everything here at Chez Boeckman-Walker or whether I should just suck it up and keep plodding (and truly what I've been producing is plodding, turgid work) so I don't become the thing I've long dreaded most--being a stay-at-home mom--or whether I should pursue my interest and accumulated experience with pharmaceuticals and health care into a new career. (This situation has since resolved itself, but the angst lingers.) Perhaps because of that indecision and lack of direction, I've had a helluva time for the past several days figuring out what to make for supper each night.

The jerk-seasoned spicy chicken couscous was a tremendous success the other night, but it just didn't set me to rights in the kitchen. So back into my digital folders of recipe links I dove, searching for something different and something that would perhaps inspire me and my taste buds to be more decisive. I don't know if the recipe I selected has accomplished that, but my taste buds are certainly happy.

Penne With Red Pepper Sauce and Broccoli4 T olive oil
1 1/2 C chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 red bell peppers, chopped
1/4 C almonds
2 t balsamic vinegar
1/2 t salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/8 t cayenne pepper
4 C broccoli florets
1 lb. penne pasta
1/3 C grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 C fresh basil leaves, cut into thin strips

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet.
   
2. Add the onions and saute them for about 5 min. or until they soften, stirring occasionally.
   
3. Lower the heat a bit, add the garlic and red pepper and continue to cook the vegetables, stirring often, for 15 min.
   
4. In a food processor or blender, finely chop the almonds.
   
5. Add the pepper-onion mixture, the vinegar and the remaining olive oil to the almonds, then blend all to a puree.
   
6. Add the salt, black pepper and cayenne to the puree, then blend briefly to incorporate them.
   
7. Arrange a vegetable steamer over water in a saucepan. Bring the water to a boil, add the broccoli, cover and cook over medium heat for 5 min. or until the broccoli is tender. Keep it warm.
   
8. Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water until just tender.
   
9. Drain the pasta, then return it to the pot.
   
10. Pour the red pepper sauce, Parmesan cheese, broccoli and basil into the pot of penne.
    
11. Heat the contents over medium heat until the pasta is very hot, stirring carefully to mix well. Add more salt and pepper to taste if necessary.

Yield: 5 servings of unknown size

Nutritional Info
Just a note about the following numbers: I don't put too much faith in the nutritional info available on AllRecipes.com. I've never followed the links available to learn how they're tabulated, but some recipes I've looked at had some awfully suspect numbers.

Calories: 551
Fat: 18.7 g
Carbs: 80.8 g
Protein: 19.2 g
Fiber: 7.7 g
Cholesterol: 5 mg (See what I mean about suspect numbers!)
Sodium: 358 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I consider this dish to be one of the most experimental I've ever done in my time as a faudie. I've never consumed a pasta dish with a sauce that wasn't based on either tomatoes or on a form of dairy. I was a bit nervous about the result--the flavor and how edible it would be. I browsed the reviews available, gleaning what I could from other users 'o this recipe, and compared what I learned from them to what I'd learned through my various adventures with red bell peppers, particularly a certain roasted red bell pepper soup.

Without further ado, here is my version of the recipe:

The Faudie's Futzed Penne With Red Pepper Sauce and Broccoli1 T and 1/2 t olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 red bell peppers
2 t balsamic vinegar
1/4 t salt
1/2 t (approx.) freshly ground black pepper
1/8 t cayenne pepper
2 to C broccoli pieces
1 C penne (uncooked)

1. Line a 9" x 13" cake pan or broiler pan with foil.
   
2. Prepare your oven's broiler for roasting veggies according to the manufacturer's suggestion. If you don't have the manual, the Hi setting should work fine.
   
3. Halve the red bell peppers, remove the seeds and ribs, place in foiled pan, then smash them as flat as you can.
   
4. Broil the peppers until as much of their skins have blackened.
   
5. Remove the blackened peppers from the pan and into a Ziplock or other container you can seal to let set for a few minutes (5 min. should be good).
   
6. One by one, remove the blackened pepper halves from the bag, peel off the blackened skin, then chop.
   
7. Place the chopped red peppers into the canister for your food processor or blender.
   
8. Heat 1/2 teaspoon (approx.) of olive oil over medium heat in a medium skillet.
   
9. Add the onions and saute them until they soften.
   
10. Add the garlic, then saute another 30 seconds to 1 min.
    
11. Clear some space in the center of the skillet, then place the 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne into that space. Let the spice toast, stirring a little, until fragrant (30 seconds to 1 min.).
    
12. Add the onion-garlic mixture, the vinegar and 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the red peppers waiting in the blender, then blend all to a puree.
    
13. Add the salt and black pepper to the puree, then blend briefly to incorporate them.
    
14. Prepare the broccoli so it is tender, then drain and keep warm.
    
15. In a large pot, prepare the pasta until just tender per package directions.
    
16. Drain the pasta, return it to its pot, then add the broccoli.
    
17. Pour the red pepper sauce over the penne and broccoli, gently tossing to combine.
    
18. Serve immediately, or otherwise keep warm on the stove.

Suggested toppings: Grated Parmesan, mozzarella or cheddar cheeses (although I like mine without such intruders)

So why did I roast my bell peppers? Because I was concerned about the texture of the sauce if I left them on. I don't think sauteeing the peppers to the point of tenderness then pureeing them would make the sauce as smooth as I know pureed and skinless red peppers can be. Plus I just kinda enjoy roasting and skinning red bell peppers now that I know how to do it right!

If you like pasta dishes but are in the mood for something different, I highly recommend this recipe. You don't have to roast your peppers (though please do tell me how your sauce turns out if you don't), and you could probably add a myriad of spices to the sauce to suit your tastes. Me, I like the relatively unaltered taste of red bell peppers, thus I didn't add anything not given in the original recipe.

A Recipe Only Poppy Cannon Could Love

It's been a rant-rific week here at Chez Boeckman-Walker, so I thought I'd take a break from bitching and complaining to cook something. Not something new, mind you, Gentle Reader, but something that would be a bit of an experiment--a little culinary misadventure if all worked out right (which is to say, if all worked out to be a total f'in disaster).

Revising a Bland Favorite Yet Again
In the third chapter of her book Something From the Oven, Laura Shapiro spends a good length of time discussing Poppy Cannon, who was for a time a sort of maven of that canned goodness cooking many of us have come to associate with those wholesome and Whitey McWhitey years of the 1950s and early 1960s. I'd never heard of Poppy Cannon, and I have to admit I'm a bit in awe of how much she was able to do without a stunning amount of culinary training or expertise. She seems like one of those people who got where she got out of a combination of dumb luck and good timing. She was a largely substance-less talking head long before CNN, MSNBC and Fux allowed people to make a living out of being substance-less mouthpieces. (Or maybe there was more to her success that Shapiro just didn't uncover or choose to include. I dunno.)

Anywho, so Poppy Cannon seems to have been a huge fan of convenience food items and culinary shortcuts without worrying so much about the overall quality of the end product. She wrote a number of cookery books, and her best-known one apparently was The Can Opener Cookbook, which you can probably guess already, Gentle Reader, taught hausfraus trapped in the suburbs and other people living quiet lives of desperation (or so the myth has been perpetuated) how to prepare mock-gourmet meals with canned ingredients. (Can I get a "Viva la cream of mushroom soup!"?) Sure, not all of us have the time or talent to prepare haute cuisine, but...come on, folks! Have you read the label on a can of soup? On a can of anything you could prepare fresh or buy fresh? Frightening stuff there. Trust me.

Anywho, with Poppy Cannon on my mind and in my heart, I dug out the recipe card for curried tuna noodle casserole for Thursday's meal. I've made this recipe once back in May, then fixed up the leftovers in July. Enough time had passed to wipe the memory of those meals from the boys' minds, so why not see how I could muck up the recipe this time, especially by throwing in whatever canned or formerly canned ingredients caught my eye?

Here's the original recipe, which I've only prepared once:

Curried Tuna Noodle Casserole3/4 C green peas
3/4 C sliced green onions
2/3 C chopped red pepper
2 t curry powder
3 T all-purpose flour
1 1/2 C milk
4 C hot, cooked egg noodles
1/4 C chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 t NaCl
1 12 oz. can of tuna, drained
1/4 C reduced-fat buttery cracker crumbs (about 7 Ritz crackers)
2 carrots, sliced (optional)
3 celery stalks, chopped (optional)
Pinch of cinnamon (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
   
2. Prep a nonstick skillet with cooking spray, then warm it over medium heat.
   
3. Once the skillet is ready, saute the peas, onions, bell pepper and curry for 5 min. or until the veggies are tender.
   
4. Put the flour in a small bowl, then gradually add the milk, whisking to combine.
   
5. Add the sauce to the veggies, then bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and allow the veggies to simmer 2 min. or until the sauce has thickened.
   
6. Remove the heat and stir in the noodles, NaCl, parsley and tuna.
   
7. Pour the concoction into a 2-quart casserole dish. Sprinkle with the crumbs.
   
8. Cover and bake 20 min.

Nutritional Info
Calories: 275
Fat: 4.9 g
Sat fat: 1.7 g
Protein: 20.8 g
Carbs: 36.4 g
Fiber: 4.1 g
Cholesterol: 54 mg
Na: 437

I failed to record where I got this recipe. I suspected initially it came from one of my Weight Watchers recipe collections since it just...it's so damn seemingly wholesome and all-'merican that it just screams "I came from a Weight Watchers publication!" However, those options that I recorded make me wonder if I got it from one of the recipe Web sites I visit and jotted down some reviewer recommendations. Hmm. Oh well, I'm too lazy to go dig around and excavate the recipe, and I doubt you care that much about its source, Gentle Reader.

The Faudie's Futzings
Oh boy oh boy, did I ever futz with this recipe! Poppy Cannon, eat your heart out!

• I was too lazy to attempt the roux with the flour and milk, so I got out a can of reduced-fat cream of mushroom soup. Hey, I grew up on tuna noodle casserole made with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. Sure, my can wasn't Campbell's brand, but it was good enough.
  
• I didn't have quite the full amount of green onions the recipe called for, which seems like an awfully large amount to me. I had five or six green onions on hand, so I used them. And I didn't saute them. I don't like my green onions all wilty.
  
• Red bell peppers are too pricey now, so I'd bought a green one (50 cents!) a week or so ago. However, green bells tend not to have any flavor, so I didn't even use it. I instead used about half a small can of diced green chiles that I'd opened last weekend when I made low-fat sour cream chicken enchiladas. I figured, hey, Indian food combines curry powder and green chiles all the time, so why not use them?
  
• I skipped the chopped parsley. I considered throwing in cilantro, but the boy hates cilantro and I didn't need to give him more fuel to refuse to eat this dish since it also contains peas.
  
• Speaking of peas, I used frozen peas and carrots. I have two bags of them in the freezer because the husband used them briefly as ice packs after his surgeries back in November. I hate to let things go to waste.... Plus the carrots added some nice color to the dish.
  
• I had four 5-oz. cans of tuna and a 5-oz. pouch of hickory smoke-flavored tuna that's been hanging out in the pantry for...the FSM knows how long. I truly had every intention of using two cans of tuna, but then I thought about that pouch and thought about my past experiences with flavored tuna in pouches, which isn't great. I mean, the flavor is hardly noticeable, so much so that you might as well be eating plain 'ol tuna. So in an effort to rid my pantry of the space-taking pouch, I threw that in. And discovered quickly that the promised hickory smoke flavor was quite present. And quite a contrast to the curry. Oh joy.
  
• Speaking of the curry powder, I used half a tablespoon. I'd noted on the recipe card after futzing with the leftovers back in July that I could use up to a tablespoon and a half of the powder in order to get some semblance of curry flavor. I didn't want to use that much this time around, and after the addition of the hickory smoke tuna, I was tremendously tempted to stir in more powder. But I didn't. Because....
  
• I didn't drain the one can of tuna I used. The cream of mushroom soup was awfully thick, and I used an entire bag of Ronzoni Whole Wheat Wide Noodles in hopes that the boy would at least get his fill of those, which have 8 grams of protein in a serving. Therefore, I dumped in tuna and spring water in hopes of thinning the soup base and knocking back the hickory smoke flavor a tad. And I'm happy to report that it worked to some degree.
  
• Screw the cracker crumbs, screw the casserole dish, screw baking this sucker. I dumped the goop of veggies, cream of mushroom soup and tuna over the big pot of noodles, tossed to combine, tossed in the green onions, crossed my fingers, said some prayers, made a few offerings and announced supper was ready.

So how did the meal go over, you ask, Gentle Reader? Well, the boys ate it without complaint. The husband said a few times he thought it was quite good (he might have been being kind), and the boy asked for additional servings twice, maybe three times--but he didn't eat his peas or the green onions, but that was totally expected. I have about a serving and a half left over for this weekend, which beats the huge half-casserole I had left over after the first time I made this recipe.

I'm not sure if Poppy Cannon would have approved my half-assed improvising and experimenting. I suspect, though, that she'd be pleased to some degree that someone was thinking of her and her cooking methods nearly 60 years after she published The Can Opener Cookbook. May the FSM bless you wherever you are, dear Poppy!

I Betray My Cooking Principles

Yes, you read that right, Gentle Reader. On Thursday, I did three things I swore I would try very, very hard to avoid doing.

#1: I Use Real Sugar and All-Purpose Flour
Since I've had such difficulties with my usual white whole wheat and whole wheat flour combo in dessert recipes, I decided that I'd use real sugar and all-purpose flour--in limited quantities--when I made lemon snaps, which are very much like snickerdoodles, from a recipe I'd found in one of my Weight Watchers recipe magazines (the Quick & Easy Menus one).

Lemon Snaps2 C all-purpose flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1 C sugar
1 T lemon zest, divided
1/2 t ground ginger
6 1/2 T butter, softened
2 t light-colored corn syrup
2 t vanilla extract
1 large egg
3 T sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Prep two or three baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray.
   
2. Combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl, stir well and then set aside.
   
3. Combine 1 C of sugar, 2 t of lemon zest and the ground ginger in the bowl of a food processor. Process for 1 min. or until the mixture is lemon colored.
   
4. Spoon the processed sugar mixture into a large bow. Add the softened butter, then beat at medium speed until mixture is light and fluffy. Add the corn syrup, vanilla and egg, then beat well. Stir in the flour mixture; the resulting dough will be stiff.
   
5. Combine the remaining 1 t of lemon zest and 3 T of sugar in a bowl and mix well. Set this mixture aside.
   
6. Coat your hands with cooking spray, then shape the dough into 60 1" balls. Roll the balls in the lemon-sugar mix, and place them 2" apart on the baking sheets. Flatten each ball with the bottom of a glass.
   
7. Bake for 7 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the pans 5 minutes, then remove them to cool on a wire rack.

Yield: 5 dozen cookies
Serving size: 2 cookies

Nutritional Info
Calories: 88
Fat: 2.8 g
Saturated fat: 0.6 g
Protein: 1.2 g
Carbs: 14.8 g
Fiber: 0.2 g
Cholesterol: 8 mg
Na: 42 mg

The Faudie's Futzings

• I used 1 cup of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of white whole wheat flour. Sorry, Gentle Reader, I just couldn't bring myself to go all-purpose all the way.
  
• Because I used a whole wheat flour, I used 3 t of baking powder since Cook's Thesaurus advises to "add half again as much baking powder" when substituting a whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour.
  
• For the cup of sugar in the dough, I did use Clabber Girl Sugar Replacer. For the rolling lemon-sugar mix, I used good 'ol C&H.
  
• Even though I have eggs, I still cannot bring myself to use one. Stupid, huh? For the whole large egg I added the equivalent of liquid egg white. This substitution is probably one reason my cookies suck.
  
• I didn't go for "real" butter either. Nope, I went for the Promise. I figured I'd be safe since it would help meet that "add additional liquid" advice Cook's Thesaurus offers for whole wheat flour substitutions.
  
• Because I was lazy, I didn't initially zest a lemon even though I had one in the crisper. No, I dug out the 8-year-old bottle of lemon zest from the cabinet and used that. When I realized my dough had no lemon flavor, I put it in the 'fridge, went out to do the weekly HEB run (so I could hopefully miss the "Oh my sweet Jebus it's a hurricane and it's going to wipe out Austin!" crowds) and added to my cart a bottle of lemon extract. I think I added a teaspoon of that stuff--might have been two of 'em--and that helped add the missing lemon flavor.
  
• Then I did zest that lemon for the lemon-sugar stuff to roll the dough balls in. I got more than a teaspoon from it, so what was left after I dumped a heaping teaspoon into the bowl with the 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar went into the bowl of dough. Hey, I like lemon and so do the boys. Plus I just couldn't let the zest go to waste.

Yummy Sugar and Lemon Zest

I have to tell you, Gentle Reader, that I have no idea how the originator of this recipe managed to get 60 dough balls from it. I guess my idea of a 1" dough ball is way off--and that wouldn't surprise me in the least. Add to that challenge another major one: The dough didn't want to form into little balls. No, it was gooey and ooey and slimy and sticky. I managed maybe a dozen balls before I threw up my hands in defeat, whipped out my cookie scoop and plunked one scoop into the sugar-lemon mix, coated it as best I could, popped it onto the cookie sheet then repeated the process. I suspect the flour issue and the lack of a yolk screwed me in the rolled ball department. Le sigh.

But the cookies that did get a decent coating are quite tasty. The camera doesn't adequately capture the glistening sugar atop, but I dare you, Gentle Reader, to look upon this image and not drool.


#2: I Let My Son Eat Organ Meat
The boy comes home from school each day famished (lunch is at 11, dismissal is at 2:45 and no afternoon snack is served) and wiped out (the measly 30-minute nap he gets for the first nine-week period is nothing compared to the two-hour power nap he enjoyed at daycare). In hopes of curtailing his penchant for falling comatose in his room once he's home, waking to subject his parents to a couple hours of crankiness then bouncing off the walls after supper and bedtime, I thought I'd try to find more filling after-school snacks than the bananas and apples I'd been offering. Let me tell ya, Gentle Reader, finding quick, easy, nutritious, affordable snacks with a good quantity of protein that are low in fat, sugar and calories and that the boy will eat is damn tough.

So I caved. I know he's a great fan of sausage wraps--the cocktail sausages wrapped in some type of dough then baked to golden and greasy perfection. Hell, I'll admit that I loved those things in my time too. But sausage is...not something the boy needs in his diet. He has a tendency to be constipated anyway, so I don't need organ meats clogging up the works. Then again, I do want to spend an afternoon with a boy who isn't cranky or dead asleep, so I bought a package of Healthy Ones sausage. This brand is from Armour-Ekrich, and I hadn't seen it before. But at 2.5 grams 'o fat and 7 grams of protein, I could overlook the 480 mg of sodium and the fact that it was organ meat.

To accompany the sausage, I bought a small can of Texas-style buttermilk biscuits in a can that didn't have appalling nutritional numbers printed on the side.

The boy was all too happy to help me make him a batch of after-school sausage wraps. He was excited to wield a knife--with my help and constant supervision, of course--and he had a high 'ol time smashing half of a biscuit to enrobe the halved sausage piece I gave him for it. While he wasn't willing to put them in the oven himself, the boy was quite anxious to eat one right from the pan after the 7 minutes of baking were up. Such a desire is highly unusual for the boy since he prefers his food be ice cold or just barely lukewarm.

A Boy and His Organ Meat

The experiment with a heartier after-school snack was a success, in case you're wondering, Gentle Reader. After five or six wraps, the boy was fueled for some wicked Star Wars playing followed by some time building a Lego theme park on the computer.

#3: I Cook Italian
"What's so awful about cooking Italian?" you ask?

Well, here's the thing, Gentle Reader. Back before I lost my weight the first time, I lived on Italian. Lots of cheese, especially that Four Brothers alfredo sauce in a jar. Lots of pasta. Lots of carbs. Lots of heaping bowls. Lots of trips to Olive Garden. Lots of trips to Spaghetti Warehouse.

But then I lost my weight and all that ended. I lost my appetite for Italian. (I think the younger sister found it. She's nuts for Italian.)

Truth be told, I still really don't have much of an appetite for Italian either. But the boy thinks pasta is just this exotic stuff, so when I do make some kind of pasta dish, it's a real treat for him. And since I had some fat-free ricotta and some ziti waiting to be used, I dug out a recipe for baked chicken and ziti, also from a Weight Watchers publication (Weight Watchers: Simply the Best).

Baked Chicken and Ziti1/2 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1/4" strips
1 onion, chopped
2 minced garlic cloves
28 oz. crushed tomatoes (no-salt-added variety)
1 t Italian herb seasoning
1/4 t ground black pepper
2 C ziti or penne
2/3 C fat-free ricotta cheese
1/3 C shredded mozzarella
2 T grated Parmesan

1. Spray a large skilled with nonstick cooking spray and heat. Add the chicken and cook until lightly brown (5-6 min.). Remove the chicken to a container.
   
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
   
3. Wipe out then respray the skillet with cooking spray. Add the onion and garlic, then cook until softened (about 5 min.). Add the tomatoes, Italian seasoning and pepper, then bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and let simmer uncovered, stirring as needed, until the sauce thickens slightly (8-10 min.).
   
4. Cook the pasta according to the package's directions. Drain and mix with the ricotta.
   
5. Pour half of the sauce into the bottom of a 13" x 9" baking pan. Atop it, layer the ziti, the chicken, then the rest of the sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella and Parmesan.
   
6. Cover and bake until the sauce is hot and bubbling and the cheese is melted (15-20 min.).

Yield: 4 servings (of indeterminate size, although they've got to be some big servings)

Nutritional Info
Calories: 380
Fat: 5 g
Saturated fat: 2 g
Protein: 31 g
Carbs: 52 g
Fiber: 3 g
Cholesterol: 40 mg
Na: 209 mg

The Faudie's Futzings

• I used whole wheat ziti--but not much since I'd used more than I thought I had for the pasta with chicken, brocc and tomatoes (sans tomatoes) I made at the end of August. Since pasta is a rarity at Chez Boeckman-Walker, I had to make do with the whole wheat spaghetti I had on hand. Yup, I was basically making spaghetti pie. Gads, someone shoot me.
  
• I used fat-free mozzarella, and I didn't use anywhere close to a third of a cup. As I mentioned before, I've got a perpetually constipated boy to manage. Check that. I've got a perpetually constipated boy who'd eaten organ meat just a few hours prior to manage.
  
• I didn't put the Parmesan atop the dish before baking. I set the little shaker container on the table instead because, like Italian, Parmesan doesn't do anything for me. The boys, on the other hand, think it's great.

While I do have a Pyrex cake pan I probably should have used, I instead whipped out the no-name covered casserole dish I used to make cavatini in back when I was fat and ate glutinously. Ahh, sometimes I miss those tubes of Potter Pig. And the rotini. And the rotelle (not the Ro*Tel).

Actually, no, I don't miss these things.

While I unfortunately poured a bit too much of the sauce at the bottom, the dish came out beautifully--or at least I think so. See for yourself, Gentle Reader:


Because I'm not a fan of Italian and wanted a some veggie to accompany the pasta, I whipped up a lot of broccoli. I surprise myself by how much I love broccoli. I was eating it right out of the pot while I waited for the ziti to finish baking. Hell, I could have eaten just the broccoli. In fact, I think I did eat more brocc than ziti. Which is all well and good for the boys; they have plenty of baked pasta goodness for the weekend.

Sometimes a Picture Says It All....

Screwed

Yeah, this image deftly captures my culinary misadventures today. And there's a great story to go along with the above image (which, if you can't discern, Gentle Reader, is a screw in the cork of a wine bottle), but you'll have to read the whole post to get to that story. So, Gentle Reader, suck it up and plow on!

Betty Crocker Is an Old Biddy and a Crock
My stockpile of desserts and treats is kaput, and I've been uninspired and unmotivated to replenish it. Last night, I told the husband that I'd probably spend some time this holiday (feh, holiday) weekend baking but needed him to sit down at my computer, go through the copious number of recipes I have bookmarked and select some. After some discussions of ingredient availability, he narrowed it down to Betty Crocker's coconut cherry bars.

I was up earlier than intended this morning, and I couldn't bring myself to just sit and enjoy more of the final book of King's Dark Tower saga, so I headed into the kitchen to whip up some coconut cherry bars before heading to the gym. I can do those things because I don't have an oven that take half an hour to preheat to a mere 350 degrees. Have I mentioned lately...

I Heart Lumpy!

Nothing too out of the ordinary occurred to the making of these bars, and while they were out of the oven in plenty of time for us to make it to the gym shortly before 9 to secure the boy a spot in the daycare, the bars.... Well, Betty Crocker is an old biddy and a total crock. I have no doubt that the visual presentation on the old bat's Web page for this recipe have no relationship to the actual end product. See for yourself, Gentle Reader:

Betty's Bars

The Faudie's Bars

And the husband was damn lucky to cut one from the pan that stayed in a reasonable bar form, for the topping was not very firm and easily oozed off the crust.

Coconut Cherry Bars1 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C butter or margarine, softened
3 T powdered sugar
2 eggs
1 C granulated sugar
3/4 C chopped nuts
1/2 C flaked coconut
1/2 C chopped maraschino cherries, drained
1/4 C all-purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t NaCl
1 t vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8- or 9-inch square pan.
   
2. In a medium bowl, mix 1 cup of flour, the butter and powdered sugar with spoon until flour is moistened. Press the mixture in pan, then bake for 10 minutes.
   
3. In a second medium bowl, beat the eggs. Stir in the remaining ingredients, then spread the mixture over the baked layer.
   
4. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown, then let cool completely (about 30 minutes). For bars, cut into 6 rows by 5 rows.

Nutritional Info
Calories: 110
Fat: 6 g
Saturated fat: 2 g
Cholesterol: 20 mg
Na:55 mg
Carbs: 14 g
Protein: 1 g

The Faudie's Futzings

• I used white whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose. I didn't even bother doing the half white whole wheat/half whole wheat thing. I had places to go, miles to run after all.
  
• I used good 'ol fat-free butter that wasn't softened because the stuff is pretty ooey-gooey to begin with. Was I worried about the added moisture? Not terribly since I was using a whole wheat flour, which tends to be a bit dryer.
  
• I used egg whites from a carton instead of eggs, even though I have eggs, believe it or not, Gentle Reader. Would the yolks have made a difference? Perhaps, but I'm no egg expert. I did beat them using the whisk beater for my handheld mixer until they were just a bit fluffy on top. Did that screw me over? Perhaps, but, again, I'm not egg expert.
  
• No granulated sugar here! Only Clabber Girl Sugar Replacer. I really wish that stuff weren't so powdery! I suspect granulated sugar might have helped the topping thicken better.
  
• I had no maraschino cherries, but I did have a can of light cherry pie filling that I'd bought for another dessert bar recipe the husband wants me to make. I didn't drain the goop away because I hoped it would give the bars a bit more cherry flavor. And yes, Gentle Reader, I realize including the goop is probably the biggest culprit in the topping ooey-gooeyness fiasco.
  
• The coconut is of an indeterminate age, but it didn't seem overly dry. Perhaps it should have been dryer so that it could have then absorbed some of the excess moisture. (Wishful thinking, I know.)
  
• Because I'm lazy and so is the husband, we dug out a package of chopped mixed nuts (about two-thirds of a cup) and made up the rest from a bag of chopped walnuts. We had pecans, but I'm not a big pecan fan. I know, I know--that's blasphemous in this part of the country.

After 25 minutes of baking, the pan of bars came out looking more like a frosted German chocolate cake than coconut cherry bars:

Mea culpa: I let the husband cut into them after only five minutes--if that--of cooling. The bars were, after all, what he'd requested, and I thought he ought to be able to taste them before heading off for two hours of torture (for me, bliss for me) at the gym. Despite the corner piece losing a bit of its topping and being roof-of-the-mouth-scorching hot, he loved them. Me? Eh, I'll pass.

Charles Kimball Is a New England Fuddy Duddy and a Crock
Okay, okay, I really don't mean that. I just feel so inept after screwing up a recipe from America's Test Kitchen. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but at least supper tonight, Pasta with Chicken, Broccoli, and Sun-dried Tomatoes sans Sun-dried Tomatoes, was edible. Hell, it was beyond edible since the boy asked for thirds.

Preparing this dish took much longer than expected thanks to an alcohol problem. No, really. I'm not lying to you, Gentle Reader. More on that in a moment. I also had problems with the other ingredients, such as having to chop an onion quickly because the 'fridge has swallowed the butter tub of chopped onion I'd prepared earlier this week; chopping fresh thyme is a ridiculous task since thyme leaves are iddy biddy to begin with; and I almost forgot the damn flour.

My frustration came with preparing the sauce. I failed to brown the flour along with the garlic, onions and red pepper flake, so perhaps that's how my sauce wound up screwed. No, I added it when I poured in the fat-free low-Na chicken broth and, after much culinary drama, the wine.

Yes, Gentle Reader, you read that right. Wine. I actually bought wine. Walked into HEB after picking up my race packet, happened upon a booze guy stocking shelves and asked him if he could recommend a dry white wine for cooking.

HEB booze guy: Sure, I can show you a few options. How much are you looking to spend?
Me: As little as possible. Sorry.
HEB booze guy: No problem. Now, are you going to drink it as well as cook with it?
Me: Nope. Sorry.
HEB booze guy: Not a problem. Here's this ::pointing to a chardonnay, I think:: that's only $6.50 a bottle. Or.... ::walks off to another aisle for a moment then reappears with a bottle in hand:: This one's six bucks a bottle.
Me: Six bucks works for me! Thanks!

So now I have wine in my refrigerator. It's shoved in the back and will surely be frozen by morning. Anyone want to swing by Chez Boeckman-Walker for a Sunday morning chardonnay slushie?

But the acquisition of the wine by this wino-phobe was not the drama. No, it was in getting the damn bottle open. What? You really expect tee-totalers to have a corkscrew in their domicile?

Ahh, but the husband declared he could get the bottle open with a knife. Which frightened me because I know the husband: he's not exactly the most sure-handed of people (i.e., he's a bit of a klutz and is known for dropping things). Thankfully, his attempt with a knife was short and fruitless. So then he announces he has just the solution:

Me: Cordless drill?
The husband: Cordless drill.

Of course, said cordless drill's battery was sapped. So while I'm trying desperately to get the sauce to cook while it waited for its final ingredient, the husband's trying to drill the cork out of the bottle by running the drill from the power adapter. That wasn't working so well, so he moved on to solution #2.

"What was solution #2?" you ask, Gentle Reader?

Inserting a screw into the cork and then using a human-powered screwdriver to remove it and the cork into which he inserted it. Yeah, you guessed it, Gentle Reader: Solution #2 worked about as brilliantly as asking the boy not to ask any Star Wars questions for a day.

Undaunted, the husband moved on to solution #3: Using brute (feh) strength and a fancy pair of pliers to yank the screw and the cork into which it was inserted out of the damn bottle. And that solution did work, although I was certain I'd end up with a husband with a broken nose (from slamming his elbow into it once the cork came free) and a bottle of wine shattered on the ceramic tile floor of the kitchen.

Okay, I'm a shitty storyteller. Just see the pictures for yourself:

The sauce never did thicken. I wound up pouring it in its thin soupy glory over the broccoli and pasta. But no one complained too much. The chicken had absorbed some of the flavor, and the pasta and broccoli were tossed in it enough to pick up the flavor too. And once you sprinkled a little cheese (we used fat-free mozzarella instead of Asiago because I'm a cheap bastard) on it, it's all good.

A Tasty Disaster

If you want to try this meal for yourself, here's the recipe:

Pasta With Chicken, Broccoli and Sun-Dried Tomatoes4 T unsalted butter
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts , trimmed of fat and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch slices
1 small onion, chopped fine (about 2/3 C)
Table NaCl
6 medium cloves garlic, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 T)
1/4 t red pepper flakes
2 t chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 t all-purpose flour
1 C dry white wine
2 C low-sodium chicken broth
1 bunch broccoli (about 1 1/2 lb.), florets trimmed into 1-inch pieces (about 6 C), stems discarded
1/2 lb. penne pasta (ziti, cavatappi or campanelle)
2 oz. grated Asiago cheese (1 C), plus extra for serving
1 jar oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes (7 to 8 1/2 oz.), rinsed, patted dry and cut into 1/4-inch strips (about 1 C)
1 T minced fresh parsley leaves
Ground black pepper
1 lemon, cut into wedges (optional)

1. Bring 4 quarts of water to a rolling boil, covered, in a stockpot.
   
2. Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of butter in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until just beginning to brown (about 1 min.). Add the chicken in single layer; cook for 1 minute without stirring, then stir chicken and continue to cook until most, but not all, of pink color has disappeared and the chicken is lightly browned around the edges (about 2 min. longer). Transfer the chicken to a clean bowl; set aside.
   
3. Return the skillet to high heat and add 1 tablespoon of butter; add the onion and 1/4 teaspoon of NaCl then cook, stirring occasionally, until browned about edges (2-3 min.). Stir in garlic, red pepper flakes, thyme and flour; cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant (about 30 sec.). Add the wine and chicken broth; bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened slightly and reduced to 1 1/4 cups (about 15 min.).
   
4. While the sauce simmers, add 1 tablespoon of NaCl and broccoli to the boiling water; cook until the broccoli is tender but still crisp at center (about 2 min.). Using a slotted spoon, transfer the broccoli to a large paper towel-lined plate. Return the water to a boil; stir in the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta cooking water; return pasta to pot.
   
5. Stir the remaining 2 tablespoons butter along with the Asiago, sun-dried tomatoes, parsley and chicken into the sauce in the skillet; cook until the chicken is hot and cooked through (about 1 min.). Remove the heat, then season to taste with pepper. Pour the chicken sauce mixture over the pasta then add the broccoli; toss gently to combine, adding pasta cooking water as needed to adjust the sauce consistency. Serve immediately, passing additional Asiago and the lemon wedges (if using) separately.

Serves 4 (4 very large servings, take it from me)

The Faudie's Futzings

• I used olive oil--maybe a teaspoon--when I browned the chicken then added another teaspoon, maybe a teaspoon and a half before browning the onion and garlic. I didn't add any butter to the sauce whatsoever.
  
• Instead of all-purpose flour, I used white whole wheat. Again, I failed to brown it, so that might have screwed up the sauce.
  
• I didn't put any cheese into the dish before serving it. A cup is a lot of cheese, even if it is fat-free stuff. Also, the boys sprinkled a little Parmesan on their servings, so there's an option.
  
• I didn't opt for the lemon. I'm not sure what counterpoint it might serve to the dish, and I just didn't have time to slice up a lemon (and I do actually have one).

As I noted throughout this section, the sauce's shortcoming is totally my fault. I just haven't had any luck ever get a sauce that's not tomato-based to thicken. I don't know what I do wrong.

And yes, Gentle Reader...

I Still Heart Christopher Kimball

Culinary Misadventures With the Kiddo, Day 1

Recipe #1: Beaver Dens

[Insert off-color humor here.]

This recipe we uncovered in the kiddo's latest issue of Your Big Backyard, and it just seemed too easy to pass up: Melt some chocolate, peanut butter and butterscotch, throw in some chow mein noodles, spoon onto wax paper, let cool. Plus I'm a sucker for no-bake cookies, although I must admit I've never eaten chow mein noddles in my life. I remember quite well the La Choy commercials that aired during Mum's CBS soaps, and I remember being absolutely fascinated by La Choy's meal-in-two-cans sets, but today was my first day to eat chow mein noodles. (Obviously, childhood poverty didn't deprive me of anything on this account.)

The kiddo was quite enthralled by my makeshift double boiler (which I used even though the recipe called to just nuke the chocolate and butterscotch chips and then add the PB and return for another quick round of nuking), and he was also fascinated by my portable food scale, which we used to measure out double the amount of chocolate (well, carob) chips and butterscotch chips. Yes, we doubled the recipe not because we need yet another batch of no-bake chocolate cookies in the deep freeze but because the original recipe calls for one-eighth cup of PB, and I was too lazy to calculate how to measure that amount when I don't have a one-eighth cup measuring cup (my lovely Williams-Sonoma set didn't come with one, thank you very much).

Did I end up substituting anything? Does a bear defecate in the forest? Is the Pope Catholic?

(That last one I assume is an affirmative. Now I recognize that not all bears live in forests, ergo not all bears defecate in a forest, so a resounding "Yes!" to that rhetorical question isn't a given. But perhaps the question of whether or not I substituted something should be considered a rhetorical one right up there with a bear's excretory functions and the Pope's religious persuasions.)

I stocked up on PB--creamy and crunchy--when it was on sale last week at Target. Being the idiot that I am, I failed to reserve from the deep freezer a jar of creamy. So all I had at the ready was crunchy, and the kiddo didn't reject the notion of using crunchy. What I found odd was that I didn't detect any peanuts in the melty mess before adding the noodles or while spooning out the cookies. Does this mean ConAgra doesn't use real peanuts in its Reduced-Fat Crunchy Peter Pan? I don't think real peanut morsels would dissolve, but I'm not a peanut farmer. (Does anyone have Jimmy Carter's cell number?*)

The kiddo was very helpful during the entire process, and he's quite thoughtful. Here's a sample of our conversation during the making of this recipe:

Kiddo: "I thought peanut butter, chocolate and butterscotch all mixed up together would taste like chocolate."
Me: "What do you think it tastes like?"
Kiddo: "Yummy!"

He's got a way with words, that son 'o mine.

By the way, be really careful using carob chips in lieu of regular 'ol chocolate chips. I haven't done any research yet on this matter, but my experience so far with them tells me they melt in the presence of the slightest bit of body heat. I swear, my kiddo picked up his first beaver den to enjoy (for his after-nap treat), and the darn thing started melting on contact--and he was still standing in the open refrigerator!

Recipe #2: You'll-Go-Ape for Chocolate-Covered Bananas
Last week I nabbed a copy of Emeril's There's a Chef in My Soup! by that kingpin of cuisine branding, Emeril Lagasse. (Nothing egotistical at all about putting your name in the title of the book in addition to having your mug on every page, your name embroidered twice on the chef's coat you wear on the cover image and your name, of course, as the author appearing at the bottom of the cover image.) Sorry, mon ami Emeril, but I picked up your kiddie culinary tome on the discount cart at Half-Price Books for three bucks.

I picked the book up on a whim, hoping that perhaps I could interest the boy in cooking with his mom while he was home from daycare. Naturally, he showed no interest in the book when I first presented it to him, but he was all over it suddenly when Mommy and Daddy were browsing through it and pointing out yummy-looking recipes the following morning. The chocolate-covered bananas looked easy enough for me to only minorly screw up, and it promised to have leftover chocolate for the boy to lick up. Can't ask much more from a "kid-friendly" recipe, can ya?

After the fun of melting carob chips, butterscotch chips and peanut butter together in a double boiler earlier in the morning, the kiddo wasn't all that impressed with melting some leftover microwavable dipping chocolate (from Krishan knows how long ago). He spent a good deal of the prep time playing with his beat-to-hell firetruck in the yoga room (he, Mommy and Daddy were rescuing people from fires, slipping over slippery ice, taking the wrong turns--probably because Daddy was driving, I suspect--and having other adventures in said firetruck), but once I declared 'twas time to coat the bananas and sprinkle them with our sprinkle-ables: leftover chopped nuts (from back when we used to eat Breyer's Fried Ice Cream smothered with fat-free Smucker's chocolate topping and chopped nuts to emulate Pappasito's dearly departed fried-giant-ice-cream-in-a-shell, or sin on a plate with whipped cream and strawberries), leftover chocolate animal cookie crumbs (from the Snickers ice cream cake I made right before that job interview) and, of course, various sprinkles and colored sugars from CakeMate. Being the rainbow nut that the kiddo is, he decided after assuring me he'd want a banana with nuts and one with the cookie crumbs that he only wanted the rainbow sprinkles. Little bugger....

By the way, Emeril calls to melt regular chocolate chips and then pour in some heavy cream to make the dipping chocolate. Not for me, Emeril. Sorry, Bam-meister, but you take your heavy cream somewhere else.

And while we had instantaneous melting issues with the carob chips and the beaver dens, we had instantaneous freezing issues with the bananas and the dipping chocolate. Those bananas were indeed frozen solid after a few hours in the deep freezer, and I had no idea the coating chocolate would freeze practically on contact. That made getting the sprinkles to stick damn hard, which didn't go over too well with the boy.

Instead of following Emeril's directions to place the coated and sprinkled bananas on wax paper to cool, I grabbed a piece of foam from my new tower fan, covered it with a bit of wax paper left over from the beaver dens and plugged each sticked banana into it after the kiddo wrapped up his work, then popped that foam in the freezer until it was chow time. You don't have to be impressed with my ingenuity, but you can be if you want.

Recipe #3: Super Stuffed Shells
Another recipe from Emeril's kiddy book, but made over by the Misadventurous Faudie (and Kid). It's intended to be your basic Americanized Italian pasta dish with a tomato-based pasta sauce on top, but since my kid hasn't been exposed to much Americanized European food, I was leery of how he might take to this dish as intended. So I sold it as a giant shells-and-cheese spin on one of his favorite mac and cheese varieties.

Did I follow any of the recipe? Well, I did follow Emeril's suggestions for how to prepare the shells. And I did use ricotta cheese (fat-free, of course) and some shredded mozzarella (fat-free, of course). I also used some of the spices he calls for: dried basil, dried oregano (from the container we bought at Sam's when I first got my own Sam's card, which happened when we were living in Santa Fe, in the fall of 1995) and some ground black pepper. I did use a little bit of olive oil to saute some onions, just as the Bam-meister suggests.

But that's about it. For the cheese of our giant shells-and-cheese dish, I combined the ricotta with some mozzarella, fat-free sour cream (probably about two tablespoons, maybe three) and some skim milk (again, probably two to three tablespoons' worth) with the sauted onions and kept that warm while I waited for the kiddo and Daddy to wrap up the shells. While I had the boys scramble to get their tuna ready (that was our main protein for the night), I stuffed the shells. Sure, the final dish was more Americanized Italian than mac-and-cheese-on-steroids, but, hey, I was improvising.

The kiddo declared that he liked the stuffed shells, so I felt like this one was a victory. Of course, he didn't eat all the cheese stuffing, but that's probably for the better since the poor kid carries the constipation gene. (We know that when he disappears for 20 minutes or more and isn't making any noise, he's in the bathroom trying to take care of things. We've tried so many different natural ways to help things move along in his colon, but none of them seem to help.) He polished off (to my surprise, for I was damn sure he would reject them) a chocolate-dipped banana for dessert then helped Daddy clear the table and clean up before trotting off to play more trains in the Star Wars room/study.

And that was Day One. Not too bad, all in all. The kiddo seemed to enjoy our culinary misadventures. I was thrilled (most of the time) that he was so keen on washing things--in the sink, no less, not with his tongue or fingers--but at the same time kind of disturbed. Then again, when you go to visit Nana and Papa and see one of them handwashing because they live in this magic pocket of the time-space continuum that dishwashers passed over, handwashing probably seems like a treat. Having grown up in that bubble of the time-space continuum that dishwashers passed over, handwashing isn't that fun. There's nothing like dishpan hands at the age of 8!

*If you want more evidence of what a freak I am, check out the link embedded here. Scroll down to the image of Jimmy in his Navy uniform. Not too harsh on the eyes back in the day. Guess he went on to spend a little too much time in the sun without sunscreen tending his peanuts.)