So now I'm back to cooking!! WOO-HOO!! It's funny the things you miss when you arn't feeling well enough to do them...like clean laundry hot from the dryer and food that doesn't come out of an oil dripping bag. Oh well. The company my husband, Brian, works for is doing a "Biggest Loser" challenge to help with New Years Resolutions and to promote the healthiness of the employees. My husband at 6' 5" is not a small man by any means. My mom told him when we got engaged, that if he ever hurt me there was no Asian country that he could hide in. He would stick out like a sore thumb. In order to help him with the challenge, I have instigated Meat-Less Monday!! It lasted all of one day, then we decided that going vegan was something we needed to ease into. Taking a bacon-loving, steak-devouring, American male and turning him into a veggie-loving, bean-devouring American male is a whole lot harder then it sounds. In order to at least attempt to introduce Brian to vegetables that Subway doesn't carry and you can't find at a McDonald's drive-thru, I've started putting veggies in everything. My husband has never had eggplant and doesn't know what Camembert or Gorgonzola are. {they are cheese by the way} If they don't offer it at Subway, Brian doesn't eat it. I want my daughter to not be picky and to try new things and to eat whatever I make for dinner. I remember my mom making 3 or 4 different dishes for each meal simply because my sister refused to eat cheese or my youngest sister wouldn't eat corn tortillas. I don't want that to be me, other then allergies of course. In order to facilitate this I did a lot of reading when I was pregnant on other countries food introduction techniques and their recipes for children. The conclusion is that in order for children to like different foods, they need to be taught that different foods are good and that you have to try something before you decide you dislike it. When Lorelai starts eating solid foods I'm going to use a system similar to the French Method outlined in "French Kids eat Everything" by Karen Le Billon. The only issue is, as you can guess, that my husband doesn't eat everything or even close to everything. That gives me about a month before Lorelai hits the "6-month start solid food" mark to introduce Brian to at least the stuff I want to give to Lor in the early months like avocado and pumpkin. My only conclusion was that I would start putting these "funky" and "strange" foods into our everyday diet and then cook similar foods for Lorelai and for us adults. so if she is having smooched avocados we could have tacos with guacamole. Little things like that to add variety. The French believe that you have to try a food four times before you can truly claim to dislike something. Your taste buds haven't been properly introduced. That's a theory I can get behind. I know that I used to not like beets, but they are very available in this area. When we started going to the farmer's market, we started eating more beets. Now I like them. They have this sweet taste with a kind of bitter aftertaste that you can't find anywhere else. So my mission is to get both Brian, who doesn't like anything, and Lorelai, who hasn't eaten anything, to like or at least try everything. Yesterday I started this mission with "Bean-Balls and Spaghetti" which quickly became "Bean-and-Turkey-Balls and Spaghetti". The first step in making our diet healthier and adding in more vegetables, is to take some of the red meat out. Just some not all and there is no way removing beef completely would be tolerated in my household. If you ever hear of me going thru a divorce it's because I thought I'd cut beef and bacon out completely. Anyway I'm not saying it is the best way to go about it, if you have any better ideas let me know. What I'm saying is that this, I hope, will work best for my family.
Okay so I've gotten off track a little from what I started out this post to be. Last night I made Bean-Ball & Spaghetti. So here's what I did. I decided to mix up my spaghetti sauce by making it Caramelized Onion Tomato Sauce. In a stock pot I put 1 tablespoon (eyeball it) of oil and added 2 sweet yellow onions diced. I find the Sweet onions caramelize better but you could use any onions you like. To caramelize the onions, put them over a low heat and cover for about 15 minutes be sure to stir every 2-3 minutes. The onions should be translucent but not brown at all. Uncover and turn the heat up to medium-high and brown for another 15 minutes. When you start the second 15 minute section, add 4 cloves of garlic, minced. In a fry pan I put in my ground turkey. I used one flat, that turned out to be mostly meat but you could adjust the meat vs. bean ratio.
While the onions are caramelizing and the turkey is cooking, I started the rest of the Bean-Ball recipe. Take one 20-oz can of kidney beans, rinsed and drained and mash them. I know people often use a potato masher to do this and them move to a fork for the stubborn couple, but I've never been able to get a potato masher to mash beans so I start with a fork and just push the beans against the side of a bowl to smoosh them. You want them mostly mashed, especially if you are going to roll them into balls. (see picture to the left) Once they are all good and smashed add the following (see the picture to the right): 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons steak sauce (use one you would eat, if you wont eat it on a steak don't put it in here), 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 gloved minced garlic, 1/4 teaspoon graded lemon zest, 1/2 cup plain bread crumbs, 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, and 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme. Them make sure you mix it all well. No one wants a pocket of steak sauce in the middle of their ball. :-) If you were just doing beanballs this would be the point where you would simply roll and cook them, but I added turkey for my carnivore husband. By this point your turkey should be all cooked, mix it all into the bean mixture. Depending on what you want to do with this mixture, at this point you could roll them into balls and start cooking them off or just set it aside like I did. You could cook them in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes or you could pan fry them. Since we cooked the turkey off first you don't have to worry about anything being raw.
So you should have caramelized onion and garlic in the stock pot. Saute this until it is fragrant. Onion and garlic have a specific smell, you'll recognize it. There is nothing better then the smell of onion and garlic cooking. Add 28-oz crushed tomatoes, 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a few pinches of black pepper.
Bring this up to a simmer and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. While its simmering, start cooking whatever pasta shape you want. If you cooked the bean-balls into balls, this is when you would start plating. My daughter was being fussy when I made this so I tossed the mixture into the sauce and let it all simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Then mix the sauce with the pasta. If you use a small pasta with holes like macaroni or fussille, the pasta can trap the sauce and meat/beans so you get a little of everything in every bite.
All in all it turned out very good :) and even better Brian was accepting of it. I couldn't get him to say he liked it but he did take leftovers in his lunch. Lorelai tried to help and ended up just chewing on a cup in her high chair while I cooked. Till next time world!
