Summer 2011, Day 3: Mahi Mahi Tacos with Strawberry Salsa

Today we made Mahi-Mahi fish tacos. Maji-Maji tacos are from the California strawberry cookbook.

My mom really wanted to do this recipe, so I agreed. I thought we should do an Ellie Krieger recipe, so I also made Apple Brown Betty.

But back to the tacos. They are actually really good. There are 3 parts.

• The Fish.
• The Chipotle Avocado Sour Cream.
• The Strawberry Salsa.

First, the fish. What you do is season the fish with cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. And chili, if you want, which I didn't. Then you grill it on a grill pan. That's it.

For the sour cream. Basically, you just get sour cream, chop up some avocado (we used a whole one), and a teaspoon of chipotle chili in adobo sauce (comes in a can). You don't have to add the chipotle, if you don't want to. Mash it all together and there you have it.

The Strawberry salsa you just chop up red onion, strawberries, mango, papaya (we used frozen mango and papaya), and cilantro. It's a sweet salsa.

I give it 1 3/4 Thumbs Up, and my brother's friend also gave it 1 3/4 Thumbs. My mom LOVES it and gives it MORE than 2 Thumbs Up.

She says this is a definite repeat meal. I liked it.

Summer 2011, Day 2: Strawberry Smoothie Love

To Whom May Read This Blog...

As you probably all know, I'm Sophie. The reason why we didn't do our Kid's Cooking Challenge over the school year is because we were really busy. But now it's summer so we're starting it up again.

I started by going to a Califoria Strawberry convention where I learned all about strawberries and how to use them and what's in them. They're pretty amazing because they actually carry a lot of vitamin C, antioxidents, and fiber. I know we're doing Ellie Krieger this summer for our cooking challenge, but I wanted to sort of make my own, using the California Strawberry Cookbook.

The smoothie was really easy and quick. Like usual, we didn't have all the ingredients, so I improvised. We didn't have strawberry juice, plain yogurt, basil leaves (we had them, but I didn't want to add that or the pepper spice). What I did instead was I put in some frozen mangos, strawberries, a cup and a half of ice, some milk, and some strawberry yogurt.

Then I pureed it in the blender. A dietician, who is a guy-etician since he's a guy and most dieticians are women, I guess, said a smoothie is a good lunch or breakfast...or even dinner.

It was a really easy recipe. You just put it all into a blender and puree. It was really tasty and it fills you. And it was very healthy. No ice cream. No presercatives. And I learned that if you freeze fruit, or buy frozen fruit, you don't actually lose much of the good stuff. There's still a lot of good stuf in the fruit, or vegetables, too.

I give this 2 thumbs up, and will make this again.

PS, my oldest brother, who's very particular about his smoothies, said this was a very good smoothie. He thought there were bananas in it, but I said no, they were mangos.

I suggest you feed this to your family.

This is the book by the Guy-etician, David Grotto.

Summer 2011, Day 1: Eggs in a Basket

Hello, everybody. Well, it seems it's that time of year again. We're starting the cooking challenge again. But this year, it's not only focused on Jamie Oliver. We're using Ellie Krieger's cookbooks, as well as some of our favorites from last year.

This year will also be different due to the fact that we're not going to be doing the challenge everyday. Maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Because last year, the cooking really dominated my summer.

Today, for the very first entry, I did Eggs in a Basket from Ellie's So Easy cookbook. My mom read about Ellie in a magazine, then she started watching Healthy Appetite, her show. Soooo...

It was somewhat easy. It's not technically easy if I actually have to wake up (I got up at 11:30 today after 11 hours of sleep... tragic), get up, and make food.

Anyway, for this recipe, I got a piece of my GF bread from the freezer. We made some from a a mix using the bread machine about 2 weeks ago. I have slices frozen. I cut a hole in it using a 3 inch cookie cutter. Use a pastry brush to spread melted butter, or a spoon to spread softened butter onto both sides of the bread. After that, what you do is you put it in a pan and crack your egg into the hole. You also put the little 3 inch circle you cut out into the pan.

Then you cook it until the egg white hardens. Flip it and cook it for another minute or so, depending if you like it runny or rock solid.

In the recipe, you're supposed to put turkey and asparagus on top, but I said, "Chale! Let's just throw some sausage in there." Because sausage is the best food known to man. I don't know if Ellie Krieger would approve, since I didn't get my veggies, but, "Sabes que," it's my lunch so I can do whatever I want.

It was good. I will do it again.

Two things: put butter on the little cut out circle of bread, and serve with hash browns, which I did.

Two thumbs up.

Day 80 - Dumplings Galore

Dumplings.

A lot of people have a big BIG love for them.  My son happens to be one of them.  We’ve made gluten free pot stickers before, and that was my plan for today.  More gluten free pot stickers (which are pretty good).  But I got a little ambitious, decided to change it up, and went with steamed dumplings instead.


I come from California, home of dim sum (2nd home, actually, after, you know, China). Dim sum is Chinese breakfast and while I’ve heard they have some good places in Dallas, I’ve yet to venture that way, and so I decided to try to make some yummy dim sum-like dumplings on my own (with the kids).

They were surprisingly easy.  What got complicated was that we decided to make 5 kinds.  That’s what happens when you have a 10 year old vegetarian, a 13 year old child with celiac disease, some meat-eaters, and a type 1 diabetic all in one household.  You have to meet all needs.

So nothing is particularly easy in our kitchen.  But we’ve done pretty well, and our dumpling extravaganza was a major success.

The great thing about this dumpling adventure was discovering that the gluten free dumplings are gluten free by nature.  The wrappers are JUST like the ones at the dim sum restaurant and that’s just how they are--made of white rice flour and tapioca starch.

We made gluten free pork and gluten free shrimp dumplings.  We made pork dumplings and shrimp dumplings with wonton wrappers.  And we made vegetarian dumplings with bean sprouts, scallions, nappa cabbage, and ginger.

The recipes were from this awesome website all about... DUMPLINGS!

So, if you have an hour... or three... try your own dumpling extravaganza.  You won’t be sorry.

Day 80 - A Thanksgiving Feast

 It has been quite a while since we have posted about our cooking.  But that is not to say we have not been cooking.  Don't judge people by their lack of blogging.  The reason why we have not been blogging much is because we've been quite busy.  More than busy, actually.  Super duper busy.  My parents went to San Antonio.  We stayed with our Grandparents.  Plus school.  And after school stuff.  Plus I got sick with bronchitis 5 weeks ago and it did not get better until about 3 days ago.

Today's the 80th day of our challenge.  We're going to cook and blog occasionally because it's so busy for us.  I don't know if it is for you, but it is for us and so we hope you like our blogging when we do it.

Okay, onto today.  Today my mom and me have made multiple things.  Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving and 24 people will be having dinner, we have to prepare tons and tons of stuff.  I'll name the things we are cooking:

• Stuffing
• Pumpkin Cheesecake
• GF Rolls
• Pear Butter
• GF Pumpkin Bread

I think that is all.  Phew!  That is a lot.  We haven't done the pear butter, nor the rolls yet, and trust me, making all that other stuff takes a long time, people.

Before we could make the Pumpkin Cheesecake, we had to make GF gingersnaps.



Because the recipe calls for gingersnaps for the crust and we had to make it GF for my brother.  So we did GF gingersnaps from this good cookbook.

Then I made the crust by crushing the gingersnaps.



Then came the filling which called for some kind of thing called Frangelico which we did not have because we can't buy it in our town.  We didn't have any substitutes for that stuff, so my mom called our neighbor and she had almond extract and that would do the trick, so thank you, Mrs. Spratlen!



I will post the recipe tomorrow if it tastes good.






Putting on the sour cream topping


Then we made stuffing.  Of course I am vegetarian and won't eat the sausage or turkey or anything for Thanksgiving.  My brother does not like stuffing so we didn't make this GF, but I made mine vegetarian.  My mom helped me make a vegetable broth.  I absolutely love stuffing for all my life.




The reason we are making so many pumpkin deserts is because all my family loves pumpkin, and not just love it, but LOVE pumpkin stuff.  So we made pumpkin bread, which is GF and which Jared has made before... thank you, Mrs. Stutzman, maker of the best pumpkin bread ever!



I took a break while everything was cooking, and I deserved the break.  My mom and I had been working nonstop from 10 to 1:30.  Imagine cooking for that period of time.  For my break I played a game on the DS called Carnival Games, which, by the way, is very fun.  You get to pretend to go to a real carnival.  You get tickets and get prizes and go to really fun games like you were really at a carnival.

You get cotton candy, and you get all this stuff you want.  My favorite game is The Dart game.  There are 3, but I like the one where you shoot octopuses.  It is pretty fun.  There are a bunch of different games people would enjoy.  I would recommend Carnival Games!  It's a fun game for kids.  Jared likes it, too, and so does Caleb.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!!!