In Conclusion....

Today is the last day of assigned writing for this blog.  I think that in the last few weeks, things have been eye opening to me.  I learned a lot about they way my family eats and the things that we need to overcome to be normal, if that is at all possible. 
My kids, well, Aiden is anyways, a picky eater.  And of course, Carly is at the age where she follows everything that her big sister does, so she didn't like half of the foods either.  Mark is probably the worst.  He never learned about taking one for the sake of making his wife happy and just sucking it up and eating a dinner that isn't the greatest.  I thought I was bad, but at least I truck through his nasty dinners and just eat a snack before bed.  I almost think that it is the world we live in today.  When I was growing up, we had to shut up and suck down or food, or we went hungry.  I remember that I hated meatloaf, yet it never deterred my mother from making it once a month.  So once a month I went through about a gallon of milk and ended up with a red nose from pinching it closed just so I didn't have to sit at the table til bedtime and then lay wide awake hungry all night.  I tried this one night with my own kids, and my freaking husband of course let Aiden have a bowl of cereal.  UGH!  So it is probably only something that works if both parents can come to an understanding and ENFORCE THE RULES!  But then again, it must have to be a rule in the first place.  At least to give him some back-up, his mother would make a separate meal if she knew he didn't like what was for dinner, so he grew up that way. 
All in all, the eating habits of my family suck.  We are stuck in a routine of spaghetti and breakfast for dinner.  I tried to get them to increase their taste bud variety, but they are too stubborn to see anything but what they know.  I will not quite though.  I liked trying new recipes and maybe if I got them into picking something out, they would like it too. 

Lemon Cake Cookies

Holy crap have I discovered the holy grail of cookies!!
I am a lemon freak, for some reason, it is my new obsession.  Anyways, a friend of mine had decided to start an annual cookie swap this year.  For those of you that don't know, myself included about a month ago, you get a group of people together, they all bake cookies, everyone baking a different kind of course.  Then they meet and exchange about a dozen cookies.  Depending upon the people that are coming, you will have a fairly large amount of cookies to bake.  I chose sugar cookies, for simple lack of enthusiasm and not being able to wrap my head around making six dozen cookies, yes, that's 72 freaking cookies, to GIVE AWAY!  I know that you get some in return, but still, that is a lot of cookie baking. 
So two batches of sugar cookies later, I had all I needed to give away, plus a little leftover for home.  Just had to include some frosting, you can't have sugar cookies without the frosting, and I wasn't frosting 6 dozen cookies.  So I added it in a little containers and put with each dozen. 
Getting to the exchange was a nightmare, because with two kids and husband that hunts, everything is in the late fall early winter.  But we made it, and there were some scrumptious cookies there.  Forgotten cookies, Tangerine Butter cookies, Snowball cookies, Peppermint Bark, Peanut Butter Blossoms, and Puppy Chow.  Of course we had to vote for our favorite one too, so of course, the lemon cake cookies won.  But these were the best cookie ever, they were moist, soft, sweet and chewy.  And the best part, you need four ingredients to make them!  FOUR!  Cake mix (any flavor with pudding in the mix), 1 1/2 cups cool whip, 1 egg, and powdered sugar.  Mix the first three ingredients, dip batter by teaspoonfuls in the fourth, and bake on a cookie sheet @ 350 deg for 10-12 min. 
And the best part, everyone in the house loved them!  Can't wait to try some other flavors!

Little Weniers

I have to admit, this is something that I have never done before, pigs in a blanket.  Not for fear of failure, or family disinterest, but for the fact, that it never appealed to me.  Meeting my sister at the grocery store one day though, I had an idea that I would try.  I bought the little smokies and then thought, crap, I have to walk all the way back to the diary section to get the crescent rolls!  Nope, the geniuses at the grocery store have such creative marketing techniques, that the put some crescents right next to the little smokies!  Awesome!  So I grab a package of each and head for the checkouts.  I thought that this would be the perfect idea for lunch on a weekend because I loath the idea of cooking on a Sunday afternoon. 
Carly turns 2 in 11 days!  We had her party yesterday, Sunday, and since our house is so small, I decided that we would have just cake and ice cream for family.  Worked out perfect, except that the party was after lunch.  What to make?  I saw the little smokies and the rest was history.  Well, I had to call my sister to find out if I had to cook the sausage before I put them in the oven, which you don't, and how long to cook them, longer than 10 minutes, mine were a little undercooked.  Well, no one liked them!  Except me of course, I have to admit, if I don't think I will like it, I won't make it.  Thankfully, we were having a party in a little while, so they did get eaten, just not by my family.  I'm not sure if it was just the idea that we would be having cake in a little while for the little ones, and the fact my husband just ate a sub, but I will be making these again.  Just for the shear simplicity of it.

Murphy's Law

Everything that can go wrong, will.  Sometimes I think it should be renamed Murray's Law, because honestly, if it wasn't for bad luck, we wouldn't have any.  Take dinner the other night.  My newest recipe, Chicken Alfredo Casserole.  I love chicken alfredo.  I love pasta and sauces and gravy, so this was an instant hit for me.  I should have known that it wouldn't be for my family, just not for the reasons I suspected.
It started off fine, well almost.  I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer so needless to say, I had to throw it in a pot and stick it in the microwave, my husbands least favorite way to eat something.   If I am making something that way, he usually doesn't know about it.  So the chicken is in the microwave and I am working on the rest of the recipe which is coming along nicely, until I realize we don't have any chicken broth, something I need almost 2 cups of.  Strike two.  So I take some concentrated broth and add that, I am too far along to back out now.  The pasta is done, the microwave dinged, and the sauce is ready.  Time to cut up the chicken and toss it all together.
The chicken smells funny to me.  I am also pregnant, so everything smells funny to me.  I ask Mark to smell it, and he says it smells funny too.  Damn.  There goes the chicken I just spent 20 minutes cooking.  So, I just throw everything else in the oven and turn on the timer.  Mark asks if I want to run up to subway, really?  I just spent 45 minutes cooking this dinner that didn't turn out.  No, I don't want to go up to subway, we can just eat the noodles.  Apparently you have to have meat in every meal or its not a meal. 
Aiden had spaghetti o's, Carly had cereal, and mark had cereal.  I had noodles and alfredo, and it was good.

Breakfast for Dinner

One of my favorite meals for dinner is breakfast.  I think it has to do with having something sweet for a meal.  Both sides of my family has a sweet tooth so I didn't stand a chance.  The fact is that there are so many good foods that make breakfast an endless possibility.  You could have sausage, bacon, ham, or steak, and that is just the meats! We have incorporated this into our weekly meal planner as well.  But as always, I am looking for something new.  So what better than something that would combine almost all of the best breakfast foods?  Nothing. 
Start with a can of Grands biscuits.  Fry up some bulk sausage and frozen hash browns.  Mix some flour and milk with the sausage to make a gravy.   Through a couple eggs in with the hash browns and finish cooking.  Pull out a muffin pan and take a biscuit and smash it into the muffin hole.  Put in some hash brown mix then add the sausage gravy.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 min.  So there, all the great things about breakfast in one easy muffin.
Sounds good in theory.  The girls didn't like them, but then, I have yet to find something new that they do like.  The husband at them, and they were tolerable.  But they weren't good.  They were too dry and needed more sausage.  I think I may retry the recipe, only put in half of a biscuit and make extra gravy to put over the top when they are done because everything is better with gravy. 

Macaroni and Cheese

So who doesn't love macaroni and cheese?  I know that this has been one of my absolute favorite meals since I can remember.  Not the kind that comes from the box either.  The oouy-goouy kind with melted cheese on the top.  The kind that leaves stings of cheese on your chin.  OK, if you haven't noticed, cheese and pasta are two of my favorite foods.  And when you put the two together, ahhh, heaven.  Annie's Eats is one of my favorite websites for trying new foods.  You can always find something new and exciting on her page.  I found the classic mac and cheese recipe and thought I would give it a try, because while I love real mac and cheese, I have never made it.  I know, I can't really believe it either, but the truth must be told. 
So starting this recipe was a lot about preparation.  Shredding the cheese, getting ALL of the ingredients out, who knew there were 287 things that went into one dish.  OK, a little high, but still.   I did everything the way it said, garlic in the butter smelled amazing by the way.  Got it all together in the pan to put in the oven and sprinkled a little more cheese on the top.  35 minutes later, it was done.
Now to the taste testers.  Mark had been hunting that night, and was a little surprised when he came home to just mac and cheese for dinner, the man does like his meat.  The girls love mac and cheese so I thought that this would be a crowd pleaser.  Who would have thought I could be so wrong.  Mark took one bite and turned up his nose, as did Aiden.  Carly didn't even take a bite, she saw everyone else getting up to find something else that she did to.
I ate the damn thing.  Something happened with the sauce, need to figure out what, but it went grainy.  It wasn't bad, but it really needed some work.  Maybe another recipe when I get the courage to start it again.  I am hoping the next one works, just to cure my cravings.

Salad

I hate salads.  Ever since I can remember, I have been trying to find a dressing that would spruce up a salad enough for me to like them.  I remember taking a little of every salad dressing at restaurants thinking that one of them had to work.  How could I not like any dressing?  The worst, by far, was ranch.  I couldn't even stand the smell of it on someone after they ate it.  This past summer, a friend of mine brought a salad to our monthly dinner.  It was from Ya-Ya's, their grilled chicken Cesar salad.  Pretty amazing, unfortunately the dressing is not to be reproduced and I haven't had any luck in repeating this salad at home.

A few months later, my friend, who is also a Pampered Chef consultant, invited me over for yet another salad.  If you aren't a fan of Pampered Chef, you should become on, my life is forever changed in the kitchen because of this company.  The best thing to date, their chili lime rub.  This salad used this spice to create something amazing!  It is put on the chicken before it is cooked and mixed with, get this, ranch dressing!  So you have your lettuce and any other veggies you put in your salad, then you break up some lime tortilla chips and add your dressing, lots of dressing!  I was floored when she told me it was mixed with ranch, since I can't stand it.  By far the best salad ever, the kids are not fans, the hubby loved it also. 

Why Bother?

If you have a 5 year old, then this statement is one you not only have thought, but most likely put into action.  For the past week, I have cooked dinner every night.  Now, every night was a tired and true recipe that the whole family has eaten not once, but many times.  Of the past weeks dinners, Aiden has attempted to eat two of them.  So that means, for about four days straight, she had cereal for dinner.  CEREAL!!  I spend usually about 30 min to an hour cooking dinner each night and the little turd tells me she (Aiden) doesn't like whats for dinner.  Really?  So a bowl of cereal it is!  Friday night I made chicken nachos and we had friends over for pumpkin carving.  She didn't like nachos that night, and of course had cereal.  Saturday, she wanted macaroni and cheese for dinner, and actually ate it.  I had leftover nachos from the night before, and wouldn't you know it, she was mad because she wanted nachos, even though she didn't like them the night before.  UGH!!!  I have given up on her and dinner.  I don't even make her eat what is made anymore.  If she says she doesn't like it, then I tell her to get out what she wants because I don't feel like the argument.  Is this normal?  I am hoping so because I don't know if she is going to grow eating cereal for the rest of her life!

old vs new

Growing up, I loved hamburger helper.  Who didn't?  It was the easiest meal to make, and all you needed was some bread and butter on the side.  Now that I have more refined tastes..ehmmm..hamburger helper is just not as good as it used to be.  So why not make my own!  It was something that was really easy to make once you knew what you were doing.  Almost the same ingredients were involved also, they just didn't come out of the box!  Hamburger, pasta shells, beef broth and cheese soup mix, and 30 min later, you have homemade hamburger helper!  It tastes almost nothing like the original, which is a good thing if you didn't like the orginal, but bad if you did.  The new version was not a good as I remember the old to be, but it seemed to go down alright.  Aiden has become so picky the last week, I think she would rather starve to death then eat something new, so needless to say, she didn't like it.  Carly on the other hand, ate bowl after bowl.  The husband, well he eats pretty much everything I make, so he ate and didn't complain.  Not sure if this one will be a keeper or not, might have to give it another trial run.

Happy Birthday!

My oldest turns 5 today!  Cannot believe how fast this has happened, or even how much she has changed over the years.  Last weekend we had her "Tangled" birthday party.  The party was a huge success, almost everyone on the invite list showed up.  It really was a good thing that weather cooperated otherwise we would have all had to try to pile into the tiny or garage, or even tinier house. 
So for her birthday cake, she decided on the infamous doll cake.  For those of you that don't have kids, the doll cake is a big cake with a doll stuck in the middle, the cake is her skirt.  I have never made one and the directions that I found online, really made no sense.  The gist of it, you bake a cake in a bowl, hollow out the middle and stick the doll in, frost, and enjoy.  The directions online called to make two bowl cakes and somehow put the together?  Of course there were no pictures to illustrate their point, so basically, wing it.  Well, we made one bowl cake, made two round cakes, and put it all together to get the final product. 

Everyone loved the final product, and as you can tell, Aiden added her own "bling" to the cake, sparkle frosting.  I have to admit, it looked pretty good.  Not to bad for just using pictures and imagination.  The best part, including the barbie, it cost about $9 to make.  I would have to guess that if we had bought if from the bakery, it easily would have cost triple that. 
Since we don't know our dog's birthday, we decided that we would celebrate his birthday with Aidens'.  So Phineas also got a birthday cake on his special day, complete with dog food sprinkles. 

Pizza, Pizza, Pizza.

So my family is obsessed with pizza.  Actually, Aiden and I am obsessed with pizza.  It is the one,  well, one of many, dish that we can eat and eat and eat.  I could eat it everyday, for every meal, if only my husband would let me, sigh.  Jets and Pizza Hut are by far my favorites, something about a thick, chewy, greasy slice that gets my stomach roaring.  Not only bad for my waistline, but Mark doesn't like thick pizza, he likes the thin crispy crap.  On the plus side, we have perfected the art of homemade pizza.  We have an awesome recipe for crust, which I of course make with my Kitchen Aid, found a great canned sauce, and an equally great bottle of Italian seasonings.  Put it all together with some ouey gouey cheese, and you have the best homemade pizza around!  In light of that, why not shake it up and try something new. 
Now, I should have realized that this wasn't going to be the best idea because of the fact that we are so used to the great homemade pizza that we are used to.  Even though, I still thought, why not.  I saw on the handy dandy television an ad to make personal pizzas using the Grands biscuits.  So Aiden and I flattened the biscuits, added the seasoning, sauce, cheese (light cheese for Carly) and pepperoni, and popped them into the oven.  15 minutes later, they were done. 
They turned out nicely, they rose and browned and made a mess all over.  Aiden and Carly both flew over to the table and a few minutes later, dinner was served.  Then a few minutes later, dinner was served again!  They loved them, Aiden ate 3 and Carly ate 2.  SUCCESS!  They were pretty tasty, should have added a little more seasoning, because you really could taste the biscuit, but all in all a keeper. 

Roasted Garlic Paste.....what?

One of my favorite online blogs to get new recipes from is Annie's Eats.  She has a love for Macaroni and Cheese which is an all-time favorite of mine and the kids.  Sunday I decided to make pasta with roasted garlic, white cheddar and wine sauce.  I did have to tweak it a little because of all the things we didn't like in the recipe.  Personally, I don't like broccoli or wine so those were nixed right off the bat.  I simply added more chicken broth and replaced the broccoli for some carrots and fresh green beans out of our garden.  So first thing in the recipe you had to make roasted garlic paste.  Like I have said before, I am a baker.  I love any and all things that I can make with my Kitchen Aid.  A chef I am not.  Surprisingly, the roasted garlic paste directions were straight forward enough for even me to make, roast garlic for an hour in the oven, and squeeze out the cloves and mash with a fork.  See, super easy! And super yummy!  The dish came together nicely, and I made a loaf a french bread on the side.  Now the verdict would come in.  Carly loved it, she ate and ate and ate, until she noticed that her sister wasn't eating, then of course, she stopped.  Aiden did not like it at all.  She just stared at her food, not the reaction that I was going for!  The husband and I loved it as well, which is surprising for us, because we usually don't take well to new foods either.  Poor Phineas didn't get any leftovers either.  He is usually pretty excited when a meal is done, waiting in the kitchen for the kids to scrape their plates in his bowl.  So this meal will be one that we will keep, probably keep tweaking little by little to satisfy the munchkins. 

Something Old and Somethng New

So to get things started, I started with an old favorite of my four-year-old, roast.  Aiden is not a big eater by all means, she mostly grazes all day long then won't eat a big meal come dinner.  It never fails that ten minutes before bedtime, she is starving once more, usually getting a bowl of Mini-Wheat's or Nutri-grain bar.  But for some reason, the kid loves roast. 
Personally I love roast too.  I make mine in the crock-pot and since we have been buying our meat fresh from the farm, it has never been better.  The fact that you can smell the aroma all day long just adds to the anticipation of the big "event", one reason that I am excited for the cold weather.  I usually make my roast with a can of condensed soup, some beef broth, either from a can or cubes, and some carrots.  For some reason, we don't like potato's that have been with a roast, because they taste too much like the meat.  Instead of the condensed soup, I opted for a dry soup and used it like a dry rub on the meat.  Then, because I forgot that I was making it for dinner, started it about two hours later than usual, which actually worked out for the best.  When I start the roast at 9am I find that I am turning the crock-pot off, or on warm, around 5pm, so as not to dry out the meat. 
The meal was a success to say the least.  Aiden had two helpings of roast, didn't care for the carrots though.  Carly was happy with the meal also.  She is easy to please for the most part though, and ate all of her carrots which made me happy.  This is one meal that will be added to my recipe book for more meals to come. 
Later this week I will try my hand at making a staple around our house, mac-n-cheese!  Have never made it from scratch so it will be interesting!

The First Blog

Today is the first day of my new blog, Kids And Their Food, what to do, what to do. I have created this blog as a way for me to discuss, poke fun at, brainstorm, and analyze my children and their eating habits. We eat pop tarts for breakfast when dad isn't home to cook for us, nachos for lunch, and whatever is defrosted from the freezer for dinner.  I, for one, am no prodigy in the kitchen.  I do enjoy baking,  which I don't have enough time for anymore,  but coming up with new ways to eat the same old food is becoming a bit tiresome.  When your five year old tells you she doesn't like chicken, it's time to shake things up a bit. During the course of this experiment, I will try to prepare at least two new dishes a week of the very tired and true staples that make up the majority of the meals in our home.  I will then post my children's reaction to the dish and whether it will be prepared again, or given to the dog (who will be very happy with the crummy leftovers!). 

To give a little background on the Murray household, we make up a family of 5.  Mark, my husband, is a Diesel mechanic at a local school district.  Aiden, will be 5 this month, and starting kindergarten in a matter of days (yay!!!!!!!).  Carly, the baby, will be 2 in December and probably has the biggest appetite and most dietary challenges of us all.  Finally, there is Phineas, our beloved Lab, mixed with something or other, whom we rescued last year.  He will eat tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers right out the garden, even a pumpkin if you let him!

So there we have it, the challenge, the family, and the stakes.  If there is something you think I should try, I am open to suggestions.  We are very picky eaters, and something new will not only be good for us, but will get us out this rut.  So here's to not burning down the kitchen, happy bellies, and stronger families!  Eat up!