lara – Page 65 – Feed Your Kids

Saucy Lemon Pudding

This is my all-time favorite dessert. Ever. I love creme brulees and I love any kind of citrus dessert, but this dessert combines the best of both: tangy lemon flavor AND a crunchy broiled sugar topping. Mmmmmm…… The recipe was adapted from a Betty Crocker “back of the box” recipe. If you’re serving this dessert … Continue reading “Saucy Lemon Pudding”

The recipe was adapted from a Betty Crocker “back of the box” recipe.

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If you’re serving this dessert for a dinner party, it is crucial to prepare your “mise en place” ahead of time. The puddings take a while to bake, once they’re prepared. You don’t want to have to be grating lemon peel and squeezing lemons while your guests are waiting for dessert.

Saucy Lemon Pudding
serves 6

1/3 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. finely grated lemon rind
(Having the lemon peel finely grated is important – I didn’t do a great job last time and they were little chunky bits of lemon in it. Chop it up a little with a knife after grating, if you need to.)
1/3 cup flour
1 cup milk
Optional: 6 – 8 Tbsp. superfine (caster) sugar

Cream butter and 3/4 cup of the sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in egg yolks, lemon juice and rind. Add flour; mix well. Stir in milk. Beat egg whites (separately) until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining sugar, beating until stiff peaks fork. Fold into batter; pour into 6 ramekins (6 to 8 ounce size). Set custard cups in baking pan; pour in boiling water to 1/2 inch depth. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

From here you have two options:
The original recipe says to invert on a small plate and serve.

I prefer, instead, to sprinkle the superfine sugar, liberally and evenly, over the surface of each pudding (while it’s still in the ramekin) and then broil it lightly and evenly with a kitchen torch (a regular hardware-store blowtorch will work fine, too, if you buy a small adapter to go on the end) until the sugar has caramelized into a smooth, crunchy layer. In the past, I have used turbinado sugar, but I’ve decided that it’s too crunchy and I prefer the superfine, since it melts better into one, thin, smooth crunchy layer. Place the completed puddings (still in the ramekins) on a saucer, small plate or shallow bowl and serve. Warn your guests that the ramekins will be hot.

These are very, very yummy.

Groceries

This is what $180 worth of groceries looks like in my neighborhood. I don’t buy flowers often, but we were having friends over for dinner and I thought they were pretty. The herbs were on sale, too, so I couldn’t resist those.

Beef Broccoli Lo Mein with Eggrolls & Spicy-sweet dipping sauce

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I have served this delicious (and REALLY easy) Beef-Broccoli Lo Mein recipe from Cooking Light magazine before and we have really enjoyed it. The beef takes on the ginger-garlic flavor nicely (even though it’s not marinated) and the sauce has the perfect balance of sweet and spicy. I substitute wide Udon noodles for the spaghetti for a little more authenticity. The only drawback to this recipe is that it calls for a lot of ingredients that most people do not routinely have on hand (oyster sauce, fresh ginger, Thai chile paste, etc.). Of course, around here, we ALWAYS have sriracha on hand. Hubby loves that stuff and put it on his breakfast casserole this morning.

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I don’t “Mise en place” for everything that I cook, but I do think that it is especially helpful for anything stir-fried.

When the recipe was originally published (in 2002 or 2003?), it featured a whole “menu” complete with Egg rolls and “spicy-sweet dipping sauce”, but that feature is REALLY hard to find on their website now, even with a link (it’s buried in a long article on weekday menus and it’s hard to find that specific one), so I’ll just give you the instructions for that here:

While you are cooking the pasta, bake 6 frozen white-meat chicken egg rolls (we actually prefer vegetable, but it’s up to you) according to package directions. While egg rolls bake, combine 1 tablespoon minced green onions, 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce, 1 tablespoon rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons duck sauce, and 1 teaspoon sriracha. Serve sauce with egg rolls. This sauce is DELICIOUS and is also great on potstickers. (Hubby and I learned how to make potstickers at our Chinese New Year cooking class last week – check back later for more info.)

This sauce is DELICIOUS and is also great on potstickers. (Hubby and I learned how to make potstickers at our Chinese New Year cooking class last week – check back later for more info.)
Hubby and I LOVE this sauce, but it’s a little too spicy for Boy and Girl; they usually use the “sweet and sour”-type dipping sauce that comes in the package of eggrolls.

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We also ate some in-the-shell edamame with this dinner.

Cooking Light suggests that you serve fortune cookies (natch) for dessert. When I was a kid, my mother and I made fortune cookies from scratch once (I cannot, for the life of me, remember WHY), but I do remember that it tough to get the cookies stuffed with a fortune, folded in half and rolled around a wooden spoon in time before the cookies hardened into unflexibility. This has been a running joke with Hubby and me. I told him once MANY years ago, when we were finishing dinner and having fortune cookies at a Chinese restaurant, “My mom and I made fortune cookies from scratch once when I was little”, thinking that he would be terribly impressed. In typical understated Hubby fashion, he said “cool” and went about eating his cookie. When I told him of my disappointment, he corrected his reaction so appropriately “Wow – fortune cookies – really? That’s great!” that I now remind him of my childhood Chinese baking pursuits EVERY time that we eat fortune cookies – so much so that he will now sometimes say, “Wow – fortune cookies – really?” when he sees the server coming with the check and cookies at the end of the meal.

Doll maker website

I was babysitting for my cousin’s adorable 2-year old son today, so didn’t get much cooking done, even though it’s a “holiday”. I did manage to find this totally cool doll-maker website, though. This is really fun. I might have to let Girl’s friends try it the next time they have a sleepover.

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This is really fun. I might have to let Girl’s friends try it the next time they have a sleepover.

Cauliflower-Parsnip Soup with Beet Crisps

I saw this recipe from www.chow.com, featured as part of a Valentine’s Love/Hate menu. It looked really good and the mom-in-law had fresh cauliflower and beets handy, so I thought I’d give it a try. Hubby was out of town for Valentine’s, so I ended up making this a little later, for my dad’s birthday. My grandparents were in town, too, so it was a multi-generational (4?) party. I forgot to take photos of the finished soup as it was being served, but it was quite lovely, with the colorful, crispy beets on top. (I’ve posted a photo of Hubby, me, Boy, Girl and my grandparents at the birthday dinner, instead.) I only made one batch of soup, which is only supposed to serve 2, but there were 8 of us, so I served small, appetizer portions in ramekins, as an “amuse bouche” before my mom’s dinner of bruschetta, salad and lasagna. The soup was very yummy and creamy, especially for something so healthy. I did substitute chicken broth for the water, just to add a little more body. The parsnips gave a tangy, refreshing gingery flavor.

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The leeks, sauteeing.

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The soup, simmering, before being pureed.

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These beet chips were SO yummy. They would be tasty on top of a salad, instead of croutons.

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Busy Busy

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve given you any new recipes. It’s been an insane week and I haven’t been cooking much. Girl had a basketball tournament (3 games in one week), Hubby was out of town and we’re all still really tired and recovering from being sick. I did make some heart-shaped banana muffins for rhe kids for breakfast on Wednesday (also served them to basketball team, because it was my day to bring snack), but other than that and scrambled eggs at breakfast, the kitchen has been closed around here. Some friends invited us (minus Hubby, who was braving freezing weather in DC) to dinner on Valentine’s and served us GREAT Chicken Curry that I SHOULD have taken a photo of. It was DEEE-lish!

Hubby and I are going to a “Chinese New Year” cooking class tonight, so I’ll get back to cooking soon……

Thursday Thirteen – more about me than you ever wanted to know

Thirteen Things about LARA 1. I am a total grammar geek (Hubby says Grammar Nazi). It drives me crazy when someone says that they’re doing “good”. I correct my children (gently) all the time – so much so that they don’t need much correcting anymore and have moved on to correcting others. Girl has taught … Continue reading “Thursday Thirteen – more about me than you ever wanted to know”

Thirteen Things about LARA

1. I am a total grammar geek (Hubby says Grammar Nazi). It drives me crazy when someone says that they’re doing “good”. I correct my children (gently) all the time – so much so that they don’t need much correcting anymore and have moved on to correcting others. Girl has taught her friends the difference between adjectives and adverbs and when it’s appropriate to use each. That’s what they discuss at the lunch table at school. I’m so proud.

2. Inclement weather both terrifies and excites me. I LOVE being safe at home during a blinding rainstorm or snowstorm or ice storm or tornado warning. I have a weather radio. I hate having to travel in bad weather, however. I am addicted to weather.com and check it every day before going out. Sometimes more than once.

3. My favorite TV shows are: “Top Chef” and “The Sopranos”. I also love just about anything on the History Channel. I just recently discovered “Lost” and am watching it as fast as I can on DVD so that I can catch up with the new season. I am very proud to say that I have never seen American Idol. I am absolutely uninterested. I also, although this is painfully embarassing to admit, love “Dog, The Bounty Hunter”. Also embarassing to admit is that our whole family loves to watch “America’s Funniest Videos” reruns together on Friday nights. We laugh our butts off.

4. I am an obsessive list-maker and organizational freak. A big dinner party or Thanksgiving Meal requires a 12-page document including menu, grocery list, RSVP lists, recipes and schedules of what goes in the oven when. I also put Post-It notes on my buffet table to show which dish will go where and I get the serving utensils out ahead of time.

5. I love running. And pushups. And crunches. And bicep curls. But mostly running.

6. I like designer sunglasses and expensive French scarves, but I buy lots of my other clothes from Target and Lands End. I also love eBay, but I don’t buy clothes there.

7. I love to play cards and board games. Especially Euchre. My car license plate is JJAKQ (the highest hand you can have in Euchre). Our three cats are named Ace, Jack and Queen. I love to play a game we call “I Doubt It” (more commonly known as “Bull***t”). Boy can win this game against anyone. Behind that angelic, blue-eyed, dimpled face is a very convincing bluffer. He may grow up to be a very successful con man…..or maybe he will someday win the World Poker Tour. Again, I’m so very proud.

8. I love gangster movies, the more violent the better: Scarface, Pulp Fiction. My all-time favorite movie EVER IN THE WORLD is GoodFellas. Ray Liotta…..(swoon). I also love Fletch and Animal House and total sleeper (featuring Rowdy Roddy Piper) called They Live.

9. I think old, bald guys are incredibly sexy: Ed Harris, Patrick Stewart, Sean Connery, Robert Duval, etc. Especially Robert Duval, even though he’s old enough to be my grandfather. Did you know that he can tango?

10. I love collecting dishes (different types of the same pattern) and can serve 12 people 7 courses without washing a single dish. I recently got bread and butter plates in my “everyday” pattern and was so excited that it was the first thing that I told Hubby when he returned from a week-long business trip – “Look, honey….bread plates!”. I did give him a welcome-home kiss first. I think.

11. I love 80s British Pop, especially Squeeze (also XTC, The Pistols, Buzzcocks, etc.). I think Danny Elfman is a genius and can sing every Oingo Boingo song by heart. I also love Sam Cooke and The Supremes. I feel VERY old when that AARP commercial comes on – the one with the Buzzcocks’ “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays”. I need to find some NEW music to like. Lily Allen has some potential…..

12. I love downhill snow skiing. So fast that I could go tumbling down the mountain at any moment and break every bone in my body.

13. I try really hard to be an environmentalist and recycle everything that I possibly can (junk mail and paper, plastic containers, glass). I even take my hangers back to the dry cleaners and plastic bags (and the plastic wrap that comes on magazines and toilet paper, etc.) back to the grocery store……but I still feel guilty because I use plastic water bottles, plastic baggies and disposable milk boxes in my kids’ lunches and I drive an SUV (although it is a smallish SUV).

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
(leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)
1. http://www.richardpettinger.com/blog?category=thursday_thirteen

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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In the interest of equal time…..

….here are the other two. Queen (left) and Jack (right).

….here are the other two.

Queen (left) and Jack (right).

….and the house has an Ace showing….

This is the drawback of setting the table too early (at least at our house). Ace, waiting to be served.

This is the drawback of setting the table too early (at least at our house).
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Ace, waiting to be served.

Lentils with Sausage

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I saw this recipe in the January issue of Food & Wine (recipe here) and thought that it sounded really yummy. I really like lentil soup, but have never cooked lentils before, myself, so I thought I’d give it a try. They were really easy and they turned out to be delicious! Both kids loved them. Girl has been trying to speak in Spanish a lot lately and she must have said “Me gustan los lentils” about three times at dinner (for those of you that actually KNOW Spanish, I said she was TRYING, not that she was fluent…..). Hubby is out of town on business, but I think he would like these, too – I’ll definitely be making them again! Future Vegetarian Girl didn’t care for the boudin. Boy loved it until he overheard me talking on the phone to Hubby about the fact that boudin has “organs” in it. Guess I blew that one. Oh, well…..more for me!

As usual, I made a few adaptations. Something about the celery and onion made me think “Cajun” when I saw this recipe, so I used boudin instead of the chicken sausage. I had some in the freezer, anyway…..why use chicken when you can have pork liver?
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Boudin is really fragile and falls apart easily once it’s cooked (because of all of the rice), so I just grilled it slightly, then gently sliced it and served it alongside the lentils, rather than trying to stir it into them (it would have fallen apart). It actually might have been good to pull the boudin out of the casing and stir it (loose) into the lentils after they were cooked – maybe I’ll try that next time.

I used a little less onion than the recipe called for and just chopped all of the vegetables myself, rather than food-processing them. I actually don’t OWN a food processor, nor do I want one. I actually find chopping veggies, herbs, etc. by hand (with a GOOD knife) to be cathartic. Weird, I know….. The only time that I wish I had a food processor is when I have to grate large amounts of cheese for something and it’s hardly worth it for just that….. Because of my hand chopping, the chunks of veggies (especially carrots) were more evident in my dish than they were in the original, but I kind of like that, anyway. I didn’t add the wedges of onion – just used the chopped, pre-cooked onion.

I didn’t have fresh thyme sprigs, so I just added a bit (1/2 tsp?) of dried thyme to the lentils in the final stages of cooking. I also added a bit of parsley. I’m adding a bit of parsley to almost everything these days, because my plant outside is HUGE.
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Oh, and I forgot the vinegar, but that probably would have been really good! Darn.

Addendum:
Boy just woke up, came downstairs, and said that he was hungry, so these lentils may find themselves on our plate as a side dish in the future, rather than as a main dish.