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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Quinoa, Black Bean and Corn Salad by Haile Thomas

3 Oct

Quinoa, Black Bean and Corn Salad was on the menu at the Kids’ State Dinner at the White House in August.

Ever since our trip to DC for the Kids’ State Dinner, I’ve had a list a mile long of things I want to make that we either had on the trip or are recipes in the cookbook (free download here) we received from epicurious showing all the recipes from the other winners. One of the things I’d heard about but had never tried til DC was quinoa. It was in one of the dishes we ate at the White House, and it is now today’s recipe.

A few weeks ago I picked some up and I spent some time reading about what it is, how you cook it (has to be rinsed first in most recipes) and what kinds of things you eat it with. Even though I had the recipe for today’s dish, I actually used it first to make muffins, which four out of five of us liked, so you’ll see that at some point in the future too.

Caroline was so excited that we were finally going to try out this recipe, it’s been at the top of her list too!

Last week we tried out Haile Thomas’ recipe. Haile is from Arizona and Caroline and I both loved her dish when we had it in DC. Haile is 11, and the cookbook blurb states that they began experimenting with quinoa when the family gave up eating white rice when her dad learned that he was a diabetic.

“The secret to [the recipe's] success is that ‘all the kids love it, the ingredients are affordable, it’s easy to make and it’s just plain good,’” Haile’s mom says in her quote. They say it can be served hot or cold and I agree. We had ours as a side dish with quesadillas and again, the same four out of five of us loved it. I guess quinoa is now going on Alex’s Don’t Like List.

Coincidentally, just as I finished typing this, I found out that Haile is featured in this month’s Food and Flourish Magazine. In fact, she’s not only featured on pages 26-31, but she’s ON THE COVER!

If you haven’t tried quinoa before, I highly recommend it. I’m thrilled to have another healthy option for side dishes with our meals and I’m glad so many of my family members love it!

**Any modifications I had to make for this recipe I have put in parentheses. **

Haile’s Quinoa, Black Bean and Corn Salad

Serves 6

I love all of the colors in recipes like this. We definitely “ate a rainbow” with this dish!

INGREDIENTS

2 (15 ounce) cans of organic black beans (ours weren’t organic) drained and rinsed
4 cups fresh corn (we used a bag of frozen, cooked but not hot)
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered (I chopped up a large tomato)
2 cups cooked quinoa
1 medium red onion, chopped (I used half, it was large)
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley (I used dried parsley)
2 avocados, pitted, peeled and cut into cubes
1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 lemon halved (mine was bad so I used lemon juice instead)
Sea salt

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl, combine the black beans, corn, tomatoes, quinoa, cilantro or parsley, red onion, avocados, and olive oil.

Squeeze the lemon halves and add their juice to the bowl.

Toss to combine, then season to taste with salt and serve.

Cook’s note from the Thomas family: To make this dish hot, warm it on the stovetop of in a microwave, or saute all the ingredients together and add the avocados and cilantro or parsley after it’s plated.

This was a perfect side dish for our quesadillas last week!

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What’s For Dinner Wednesday: Easy Garlic Chicken

19 Sep

This recipe got a thumbs up from all five of us, which is a rarity! Even the leftovers went quickly!

Last week I was on Facebook when a friend of mine posted a very simple recipe for garlic chicken. I absolutely love garlic, and I love brown sugar, which it called for, and I even had all the ingredients for the recipe already. I decided to make it the very next day. She had gotten the recipe from Food.com and you can see the recipe here. It was called Easy Garlic Chicken, and I love Easy as much as I love Garlic and Brown Sugar.

Originally, when I saw the cooking temperature, 500 degrees, I asked whether or not that was too high, but it wasn’t. We cooked ours at that temperature and we actually had to use the entire 30 minute cooking time because our very large chicken breasts were still partially frozen in the middle. We also differed from the recipe by using bone-in, with skin, rather than boneless, skinless. Every so often I like to mix it up a bit and buy bone-in breasts.

A side of sauteed asparagus and brown rice completed the meal. I’d definitely make this again and I encourage you to give it a try too!

EASY GARLIC CHICKEN

It was tempting for me to keep tasting the brown sugar rub. Very tempting.

INGREDIENTS

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 garlic cloves, minced
4 tablespoons brown sugar
3 teaspoons olive oil
DIRECTIONS
1) Preheat oven to 500°F and lightly grease a casserole dish.
2) In small sauté pan, sauté garlic with the oil until tender.
3) Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar.
4) Place chicken breasts in a prepared baking dish and cover with the garlic and brown sugar mixture.
5) Add salt and pepper to taste.
6) Bake uncovered for 15-30 minutes.

We couldn’t wait for these to be done, the whole house smelled fabulous the entire time they were cooking!

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Val’s Zucchini Fritters

5 Sep

These zucchini fritters were easy to make and according to Val you can make them using almost anything including Swiss chard, spinach, broccoli or carrots, or any combination of the above.

It’s zucchini season. If you are someone who grows zucchini in your garden, then right about now you have lots and lots of zucchini. We are often those people, but this year our zucchini didn’t take. So when we were at my cousin Val’s house a couple of weekends ago we were lucky enough that she gave us some of the zucchinis that she and her husband Bob grew in their garden this summer. And, she gave us the most fabulous new recipe for zucchini fritters. We had them that night and we have since made them ourselves (when I say we, I actually mean Don made them) this weekend for a big cookout that we attend each year on Labor Day Weekend.

This cookout that we attend is big and it’s been going for 40 years. You can even read about it here. The menu has evolved over the years and every so often a new menu item is added in. I can tell you now that Val’s Zucchini Fritters will be returning to the cookout next year. Additionally, all of my kids liked these, so it’s a recipe all five of us liked, which is rare.

From the printout Val gave me, I can see that the recipe she uses is originally from Simply Recipes. You can see the original recipe that she gave me, here. Valerie said the most important thing to remember is to squeeze the zucchini, or whatever vegetable you’re using, until there is as little moisture left as possible.

Here, from Simply Recipes is the recipe for Val’s Zucchini Fritters, great for an appetizer before dinner or to go along with dinner:

Zucchini Fritters
Ingredients

  • 1 lb of zucchini (about 2 medium sized), coarsely grated
  • Kosher salt
  • Ground black pepper
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 scallions, finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup grape seed oil or olive oil
  • Sour cream or plain yoghurt

Directions

1 Salt the zucchini with about 1 teaspoon of salt. Try to remove the excess moisture from the zucchini by either squeezing the liquid out with a potato ricer, or by squeezing with paper towels. (The original recipe calls for putting the zucchini in a colander set in the sink to let it drain for 10 minutes after salting it. I think it works much better to use a potato ricer.)

2 Whisk egg in a large bowl; add the zucchini, flour, scallions, and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Mix to combine well.

3 Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook fritters in two batches. Drop six mounds of batter (2 Tbsp each) into the skillet. Flatten slightly. Cook, turning once, until browned, 4-6 minutes on each side. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate. Sprinkle with salt. Repeat with remaining batter.

Serve immediately, with sour cream or plain yoghurt on the side.

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What’s for Dinner Wednesday: Caroline’s Broccoli & Cheese Egg White Omelet

15 Aug

Tonight Caroline and I were both interviewed for our local news, then she cooked and ate her winning recipe for the camera.

Well today has been quite the whirlwind day and as I finally sat down tonight to figure out what recipe to post for my What’s for Dinner Wednesday post, I could only think of one: Caroline’s winning recipe for her Egg White Omelet.

The reason I could only think of this one recipe is because our whirlwind day has consisted of press releases, phone calls from Senators and news stations, emails from food columnists and radio hosts.

It’s really been quite the day.

And you should have seen how fast we cleaned our house when we learned that TV cameras were coming in three hours or less.

Jennifer Mobilia of Channel 12 and Channel 11 News was in our house this evening!

Yup, tonight one of our local news stations stopped by our house to interview Caroline and I for the 10 pm and 11 pm news broadcasts. It was such a fun experience and we’re sitting now as I type this, waiting for it to air in less than a half an hour.

Another exciting thing happening here this week was the arrival of our official invitation from Michelle Obama, inviting us to the White House for the Kids’ State Dinner this coming Monday. Our hands were shaking as we opened the envelope!

The arrival of the invitation from Mrs. Obama really made everything seem real!

So, with all of that being said, I thought it only appropriate to share with you Caroline’s official recipe for today’s post. Enjoy!

Broccoli & Cheese Egg White Omelet
By Caroline Cowart

We came up with this lunch recipe because Caroline prefers egg whites instead of regular eggs, and she likes broccoli quite a bit. This meal is healthy as well as tasty.

When choosing our ingredients we tried to use healthier alternatives: Mozzarella Cheese has less fat than American Cheese, wheat toast is better for you than white toast, and we added a side of mixed fruits and orange juice in order to tie in all of the food groups.

INGREDIENTS

3 large egg whites, separated (You can save your yolks for use in a future recipe but you will not need them for this one.)

1/4 cup shredded Mozzarella Cheese

3/4 cup broccoli, cooked and chopped (You may use either fresh steamed or frozen broccoli florets.)

A healthy recipe for any meal of the day and good enough for the First Lady to eat!

DIRECTIONS

1) Separate eggs, place your whites into a small bowl.

2) Preheat non-stick frying pan, lightly coated with cooking spray, over medium heat.

3) Pour egg whites into frying pan.

4) When whites are semi-solid, place cooked, chopped broccoli onto one half of the pan of whites, leaving the other side of the omelet empty.

5) Sprinkle shredded Mozzarella Cheese over broccoli.

6) Place entire frying pan under the broiler for about five minutes or until cheese is melted and egg whites are solid. Edges of the omelet will be lightly browned.

7) Remove pan from broiler and place the omelet on a serving plate, folding the omelet in half so that the empty side now covers the side with broccoli and cheese.

8) Serve with a side of wheat toast, mixed fruit and orange juice.

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The most exciting news EVER….

24 Jul

What could my exciting news be??

I have THE MOST EXCITING NEWS!!!!

You won’t believe it.

I’ve been keeping this a secret for SO LONG, more than a month, and it was SO HARD!

Okay I told *a few* people.

And of course my immediate family.

But that’s it.

Do you want to know??? I know you do!

Okay here it is.

I would sit down if I were you. It’s big.

Caroline and I are going to Washington DC.

We’re going to meet THE FIRST LADY!!!!

That’s right! Michelle Obama!! We’re meeting Michelle Obama!!!

Yes, seriously!

Okay. Let me regroup. Here’s how it happened….

Back around the end of May, my editor at the Cranston Herald, Meg, received a press release from Senator Jack Reed’s office announcing a recipe contest that Epicurious was putting out in conjunction with the White House. One winner, a parent/child team, would be chosen from every single state. You can read a similar press release here.

Now Meg is a big fan of The Whole Bag of Chips. She emailed me the press release and said, “You should enter this with one of your kids.”

I took a look, and thought, “Hmmm….maybe I should.”

So I broached it to my kids, but there was one problem: you could enter with one child at a time, ages 8-12, but if you entered with more than one child, only one could win and if one was a winner, the whole family doesn’t get to go to Washington, just the one winner and their parent.

Right off the bat, Alex is seven, so I couldn’t enter with her. My first initial thought was to enter with Caroline because she cooks more in the kitchen than Liz and is slightly more independent in the kitchen, and additionally, she’s 12, the top age. She couldn’t enter again if it ran next year.

But, Elizabeth, upon hearing about the contest said, “Well, I’m between 8 and 12 I want to enter too.” So I explained the whole thing about not being able to win with both, even though I could enter with both.

Elizabeth said, “That’s okay, if Caroline won, I’d be happy for her.”

Caroline said, “I don’t know. If you won, I think I’d be too sad. I don’t know if I can do it.”

I was stumped. I didn’t know what we should do. We had some time though, I let them think on it, and I hoped that Caroline would come around and both of them could enter.

One day at the beginning of June, I received an email from Caroline that said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” (I’m pretty sure she wrote that email from in our house, with me right in the house with her, but it didn’t matter to me. She wanted to do it.)

And so, we did it.

Elizabeth and Don with their contest entry, a tuna wrap and all the fixins’!

On June 9, after dinner we got down to business.  Separately we had to come up with our meals, cook up our meals, type up our entries which included the recipe with ingredients and step-by-step instructions and a photo of a complete meal including side dishes and beverages, as well as a short essay.

We have a tiny kitchen. We had to take turns.

Elizabeth had chosen to enter with Don because their healthy lunchtime recipe was one he makes for her lunch a lot: a tuna wrap with lettuce and tomato. On the side she had celery and carrots and a glass of coffee milk (a delicacy here).

Lunch anyone?

Caroline and I came up with an egg white omelette with broccoli and mozzarella cheese because she will only eat egg whites, and she loves broccoli. On the side we had wheat toast and mixed fruit (kiwi and nectarines).

We sent in our entries that night. The deadline was June 17, the night before the last day of school.

That Friday afternoon, following the deadline, I received an email. Caroline and I were finalists for our state. I couldn’t believe it. I asked Don if he’d gotten one, but he had not.

We had to tell them.

I let Caroline see the email first. Then we told Liz. I was worried at how she’d react. Her eyes got bright, but she said, “Caroline, I’m so happy for you. Here, have my lollipop stick,” and she handed her the empty stick. That was the end of it.

I emailed Meg, “We’re finalists! OMG” and began filling out all the paper work needed to complete the next level of the contest. We had five days to get it filled out, notarized and postmarked.

Then, we waited.

We knew from the rules that there could be up to three finalists per state but that’s all we knew; that and the fact that only one of those finalists would win.

And waited.

We wondered. We’re a small state. How many entries could there be?

And waited.

It was agonizing. The original notification date was supposed to be by July 16. I slept about ten seconds the night before.

But we didn’t hear anything.

I checked in. “Just checking to see if all the winners had been notified yet?”

No. Not yet. No one.

We were still in the running. The winners would be notified that week.

So we waited and waited some more. Every day seemed like a week. I checked my email ten million times a day if we were home, to see if we heard anything yet.

By that Thursday I checked in again. A formal email went out. Competition was tough this year. They needed more time. The official notification date would now be Tuesday July 24. We’d hear either way.

And now here it is, Tuesday, July 24.

And guess what???  Well you know already. WE WON!!!!

Caroline and I will be traveling to Washington to represent the state of Rhode Island at the Kids’ State Dinner, which will be held next month!!

I’m so incredibly excited!! But even more so, I’m so incredibly proud of my kids. I’m proud of them for taking the risk to enter, proud of them for being healthy eaters, for being cooks in the kitchen, and for loving each other and us, enough to want to compete against each other and yet be willing to support each other at the same time. To me, and I’m choked up as I write this, that says a lot about the strength of their bond with each other and their bond with us. I love my kids so much, and I’m so, so proud.

I am incredibly proud of my kids!!

I will keep you updated as the trip takes place and you can be sure there will be photos to go along with it. They are creating a free downloadable eBook containing all the recipes from all the winners for each state, so our recipe will be published in that cookbook. I’ll let you know when that becomes available as well.

We won. Can you believe it?

Our healthy lunchtime recipe: Egg white omelette with broccoli and cheese.

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Couponing Update: My Summer Stockpile

2 Jul

I had to break my own rule and make an overflow spot for all the shampoo and conditioner I’ve stockpiled.

It’s official.

I’ve saved $1053 at CVS since January 31.

I’d never couponed a day before that.

I’m completely blown away by how much you can save when you coupon. I still can’t help but kick myself for not doing it sooner.

Today for example, I went in to CVS just to buy my newspaper. I went to their red coupon machine in the store though, to check and see what store coupons came out.

Tons of coupons came out. And $5 Extra Bucks from a previous Beauty Club purchase. Since I was there and since I wasn’t planning on coming back for a while, I decided to see how I could best spend those $5 Extra Bucks and combine them with the coupons that came out of the machine.

I bought:

1 Cranston Herald 50 cents

1 Hershey Simple Pleasures (on sale $3 but normally $4.59)
2 VO5 Shampoo
2 VO5 Conditioner (on sale 79 cents each for all four)
2 CVS body wash (on sale buy one get one 1/2 off)
I had $3 in coupons for the chocolate ($1 from the CVS machine  and one for $2 from the mail that I’d stuck in my pocketbook the day I got it.)
I had no other manufacturer’s coupons with me but the machine had given me $1 off the body wash and $2 off shampoo or conditioner.
I saved $14,  I spent 74 cents out of pocket.
I’d saved so much that at the register my balance was negative and they can’t give me back money so I had to send my kids back to the aisle to get more stuff. Twice. We finally got it up to the 74 cents, so I could leave.
Anyway…..
About six weeks ago or so, I set a goal for myself. Knowing that my couponing was going so well, and knowing that my paycheck can be significantly less over the summer when school is out (less hours I’m available to work and less school news to cover), I decided that while my pay was consistent and while my kids were in school–I could shop alone, and concentrate, I’d start stockpiling as many non-grocery items as I could for summer. I’d use my Extra Bucks at CVS as wisely as possible between then and now. I’d use my coupons and my Target Red Card as wisely as I could also. I’d get us set up so that other than fresh fruits and veggies, and meats, I’d have as much as possible on hand so that we spent less over the summer and used up what we had.
(I still shop mainly at CVS and Target because they allow the stacking of their store coupons together with manufacturer’s coupons and they have great sales. CVS is my top favorite spot because of the added Extra Bucks.)

I won’t need toilet paper or Lysol wipes all summer long.

I tried to utilize the sales to my advantage when I could, especially the ones at CVS where I had coupons, a sale, their own store coupons, and received Extra Bucks back on top of it. I got three cases of water for free, six tubs of laundry detergent for free, four cases of toilet paper for free, shaving cream, cereal, body wash, allergy medicine, and lots and lots of shampoo and conditioner, all for free. I had four tubs of Lysol Wipes until just before I took this picture.

I was stocking up, for sure.

And meanwhile, my regular grocery spending has been shrinking every month.
Did you know that Suave deodorant is just $1.37 at CVS before coupons? Get a $1 off and you’re paying 37 cents. That happens all the time.

One of my favorite days I saved $99 at CVS. I got 32 items:  23 bottles of shampoo and/or conditioner, two bottles of laundry detergent, two toothbrushes, one toothpaste, and four deodorants, all for $36 (including tax). I had utilized the manufacturer’s buy one get one free coupons, plus CVS coupons and sales, and Extra Bucks. I was so excited when I left that my hands were shaking.
Not to mention that for every $50 you spend at CVS on beauty items (which includes all the shampoo and conditioner) you get $5 back in Extra Bucks on one of your next trips. So I knew I’d have more money to spend.
At the end of each quarter you get 2% of your spending back (including prescriptions, which we have quite a few of during the year) and I earned $16.50 to spend after July 1. Of course, I’ll find the best way to stretch that with sales, coupons (both CVS and manufacturer’s) and see if I can earn any additional Extra Bucks back.
Last week, I spent $24 ($20 before tax) and got a men’s razor that came with two refill blades, a pack of 5 refill blades, two bottles of vitamins, four mascaras, and two 12 packs of wet Swiffer cloths. I saved $59. I’d gone in specifically because I needed the razor and Swiffers, and I had coupons for them all; both CVS coupons and manufacturer’s coupons. But, when I got there, there were sales, and Extra Bucks were earned on the razor (which ended up being free with all my coupons), which paid for one of the packs of Swiffers, and I earned $5 more Beauty Club Extra Bucks with the mascaras. (The mascaras were buy one get one free with my two BOGO manufacturer’s coupons plus I had four $1 off coupons too, that I was able to use.)
And so it goes and goes and goes.
I don’t want to spend my summer scanning sales, cutting coupons or shopping with my kids. I want to be outdoors, with my family, having fun. So now, we dip into the stockpile and see how long it lasts us.
And you know I’ll keep you posted!

With a family of five, three of them being long-haired girls, we go through a lot of shampoo, conditioner, body wash and shaving cream, in particular.

In total, I’d stockpiled eight containers of shaving cream!

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Cookies for a Cause: The Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie that started it all

1 Jun

Baking cookies to help fight kids’ cancer might be the most worthy cause I’ve ever baked for.

Have you ever heard of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer? If you haven’t, you should check out the link and read more about it. It’s a very worthy cause: bake sales to help find a cure for kids’ cancer.

Earlier this year I did a story about a local bake sale event hosted by Heather Wirtz, the editor of the Macaroni Kids newsletter for the Cranston/Kent area. The sale raised money for the Cookies for Kids’ Cancer non-profit organization and it was hugely successful. I baked one of my favorite Christmas Cookie recipes, Brown Eyed Susans, for the bake sale.

At the event itself I was given several handouts to help me in writing my article and I met one of the family members, Bonnie Soper, who told me how her cousin Gretchen lost her son to childhood cancer several years ago. Gretchen and her husband founded Cookies for Kids Cancer as a way to fight back, and they started with a simple bake sale.

One of the handouts that was given to me was for the “Cookies for Kids’ Cancer Best Bake Sale Cookbook” and on the flip side was a recipe for Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies and it was entitled, “The Cookie That Started It All.”

Other than the baking time, which was cut off, the full recipe was there, and I decided that I wanted to try out the recipe some day, in honor of Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. I wrote the news story about Heather’s bake sale in January and it was almost June before I had the chance to try out the cookie recipe.

They were delicious and with every bite I thought of this important cause, and I knew I had to write about it. I’m so grateful and thankful every day that my family has its health. Those who know me well, know my kids are sick constantly, weekly, and it’s exhausting keeping up with it all. But they’re not terminally ill, and I keep that in mind daily as well as every week when I’m running someone to a doctor for one ailment or other. We are very, very lucky. In the big picture, they are healthy.

Caroline was a big help with these cookies, scooping and pressing the batter for each and every one.

Speaking of my kids, my daughter Caroline was a big help to me this past weekend as I made these cookies to take with us to a Memorial Day cookout. The recipe yields quite a few cookies and that’s one reason I made it. There were enough to bring and enough to leave some home as well. I made all the batter and she scooped it onto the tray and flattened them to go into the oven.

The recipe, as I said above, did not have the bake time on the card, which was an advertisement for the cookbook. But, I looked up a similar recipe in one of my cookbooks here and found that 10-12 minutes on a cookie sheet was the perfect time. The only time I went over that time was when I used a baking stone. I find that those take longer for cookies to bake than the metal trays.

I hope you’ll consider doing a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sale for your organization’s next fundraiser, or that the next time you’re looking for a unique gift, you go to their site and order some Cookies for Kids’ Cancer cookies to be sent to that special someone.

And now, here is the recipe, the Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie that started it all.

This recipe makes a lot of batter so you need a good, strong mixer to mix it up.

CHOCOLATE CHIP OATMEAL COOKIES

Yield: 3-4 dozen cookies
INGREDIENTS

2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1 large egg at room temperature

1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup quick cooking oats or old fashioned rolled oats

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. kosher salt (I didn’t have kosher)

3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cookies bake until lightly browned around the edges.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Place butter and sugars in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle and beat until smooth and creamy.

Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla, one at a time, beating well between additions.

Place the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl; mix well and add to the butter mixture.

Beat until everything is well incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the chocolate chips and beat again.

(You can cover this and refrigerated up to one week.)

Form the dough into heaping teaspoon sized-balls and place them about two inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet. I used the smaller Pampered Chef scoop to scoop out my balls of dough.

Using your palm, gently press down.

*At this point the recipe begins to say how you can alternately roll the dough into a log, and it gets cut off here. I assume it says you can slice and bake them. The baking time is cut off as well, since this was an advertisement for the cookbook. However, I can take it from here.*

Bake 10-12 minutes on a cookie sheet, slightly longer on the baking stones, until lightly browned around the edges.

Let sit 1-2 minutes on cookie sheet to cool before removing to cool completely on wire racks.

Consider hosting a Cookies for Kids’ Cancer bake sale for your organization’s next fundraiser.

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Jacob’s Cookbook

27 Apr

A brownie recipe from Jacob's new cookbook

I know I’ve mentioned it in the past, but I meet some amazing people in my job at the newspaper, and I mean really amazing. So often I come home after a story, completely stunned by what I’ve just learned about the person I’ve just interviewed. Two weekends ago I had an interview that completely blew me away both as a parent and as someone who loves food and cooking.

Two weekends ago I met Jacob.

Jacob is 14. He’s an eighth grade student and he’s about to publish a cookbook as part of a project he has to do for school. The proceeds from his cookbook will benefit the local community food bank.

That in itself is amazing, but that’s not what blew me away, actually.

Here’s what did: when I interviewed Jacob I asked him where he got all of his recipes from for his cookbook.

His answer: he made them up.

Jacob has not only created a cookbook at age 14, which will benefit a worthy cause, but he created all of the recipes himself from scratch, including how much of each ingredient for each recipe. He created the cookbook page layouts, made all of the recipes, took all the photos of all the foods, and typed them all up himself.

I just about fell out of my chair.

I said to Jacob, “That. is. amazing.”

Jacob with his cookbook before it goes to print.

Jacob said he knew that, but I don’t think he REALLY knew that. I mean I don’t think I could just MAKE UP a recipe (never mind a cookbook full of them) and figure out all the stuff that has to go in it, all by myself and I am FORTY YEARS OLD-I’ve been cooking for several of his lifetimes and I couldn’t do that!!

I sat and interviewed Jacob for about 45 minutes or so, and my article about him can be seen here.

More importantly though, I have one of Jacob’s dessert recipes right HERE on my blog!  That’s right, he was kind enough to share one of his recipes with me and one with the newspaper. I am so glad that the one I have is a dessert recipe, since apparently Jacob and I both have a sweet tooth.

Here it is, Jacob’s recipe which he created himself for Orange Zest Brownies.

**************************************************************************************************************************************

“As most people know, opposites attract. Well it is the same for flavors in food. A citrus flavor will go great with a sweet and creamy flavor. That is why orange chocolate brownies are perfect! Enjoy!” -Jacob Gebhart,  Amazing Appetizers and Decadent Desserts

Easy ingredients!

INGREDIENTS

BROWNIES

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1/3 cup shortening (I used 1/3 cup butter instead.)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 TBSP orange zest
FROSTING

3 oz. cream cheese

1-2 TBSP milk

2 and 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 TBSP orange zest

The orange zest gives it a great flavor.

DIRECTIONS

BROWNIES

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray an 8×8 baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Heat chocolate and shortening in a 2 quart sauce pan over low heat, stirring constantly until melted.

Remove from heat, add sugar, eggs, vanilla, mix well. Then add remaining ingredients and stir until combined.

Spread batter in prepared pan evenly.

Bake for 25 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Make sure to cool completely before cutting and frosting.

FROSTING

With an electric mixer, on medium speed, combine cream cheese and 1 TBSP of milk.

Add sugar, a little at a time, beat after each addition. (I added the last TBSP of milk halfway through as it got thick.)

Then add the orange zest and combine.

Cut cooled brownies into 9 pieces. Spread each square with orange cream frosting.

*****************************************************************************************************************************

I found the recipe very easy to follow and quick and easy to make, just how I like my recipes to be! If you’re a taster when you bake, I highly recommend tasting the batter after the sugar is added but before the eggs. SO GOOD. I also tasted the cream cheese frosting before and after the zest was added, to see just how much the zest changed the flavor, and I was amazed at what a little bit of zest can do both to the texture (it was immediately creamier) and to the taste (it did now have that hint of orange flavor in it.)

For the orange zest, I used the zest from two medium oranges and split it between the batter and the frosting. It did work out to be just about one whole tablespoon in each, I’d say.

I opted to serve my frosting “on the side” as optional because with all the different likes and don’t likes at my house,  I didn’t want anyone not to want the brownies because they had “stuff” on them.

I also took half the batch to a friend’s house one afternoon and we enjoyed them with our coffee.

Great job Jacob, thanks for sharing your recipe with me! It truly was a decadent dessert!

Anyone who is interested in purchasing Jacob’s cookbook, Amazing Appetizers and Decadent Desserts, when it’s published, please send an email to Jacob at jayg@cox.net.

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A book for your kids: “Is Your Hair Made of Donuts?”

12 Apr

Joy Feldman wears a wig when she reads to students that really does look like it's made of donuts!

There are so many reasons I love my job at the newspaper, but one of my favorite things is all of the amazing people I get to meet, all of the things I get to learn about through my interviews.

Today’s children’s book is one that I found out about through my work at the paper. Local author Joy Feldman spoke at one of the schools in our city and I covered her visit. What an amazing woman! You can read my full article about her here.

Feldman’s book, “Is Your Hair Made of Donuts” is her second book, but her first book geared towards children. Her goal is to encourage children and families to eat healthier foods, and to remember that you truly are what you eat.

The story revolves around the two main characters, Maddie and Matt and their quest for healthy eating. It even includes some of Matt and Maddie’s favorite recipes in the back of the book. The book also comes with a free downloadable teachers’ guide to coordinates with the book.

You can order Feldman’s books on her website and you can take a look at all she has to offer, including her adult book, “Joyful Cooking: In Pursuit of Good Health,” which Feldman says is more than a cookbook, it’s a resource for pursuing a healthy lifestyle.

I’m thrilled to have my own copy of “Is Your Hair Made of Donuts” for my family, thanks to Joy, and the title does make me think quite a bit about my own eating habits.

I believe my hair might just be made of chocolate chips!

Your kids will love reading about Matt and Maddie and learning about how your eating habits really do make a difference! Teachers will love the guide that goes along with the book.

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New England Newspaper & Press Association Awards

12 Feb

Tonight was the night I'd been looking forward to for a month now, and I was so happy it didn't snow!

Last night was the 2012 NENPA Awards Banquet. Awards were given out to nominees from Maine to Connecticut in a wide variety of categories. The awards are based on your work from the 2011 calendar year. The event is held at the historic Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts each year and if I had to guess, there were over 600 nominees at the dinner ceremony. It’s quite an honor to even be nominated, an honor to know that you rank up there as a writer or photographer with the top journalists in all of New England. In 2010 I attended and placed second for Education Reporting for my 2009 work. I was thrilled!

Our company, Beacon Communications, has several different newspapers: The Cranston Herald and The Johnston Sun Rise, both of whom I write for, and The Warwick Beacon. This year there were six of us nominated for awards, four of us attended, and my husband Don. Our company allows each of us to submit our best work in three categories if we’d like to be considered for an award by NENPA. This year I had submitted one in Education Reporting, one in Religious Reporting, and one Educational Series. You submit in August and you hear back from NENPA in January, with the award ceremony in February.

When I heard from my editor that I’d won again this year, it was in the Religious Reporting category. She mentioned that there were still several categories whose judges had not reported back. Education was one of those categories. By the time February came, I hadn’t heard anything else about winning in another category so I assumed I was only nominated in that one.

We arrived at the Park Plaza hotel with plenty of time to spare so we walked into the room where they post all of the nominated work, separated by category and class. (Class is determined by your newspaper’s circulation.) As we walked up and down the aisles looking for the Religious Reporting category, we walked past the Education Reporting category and I sadly said to Don, “Awww…there’s Education.” That’s what I had won for in 2009 and I was bummed out that my piece I’d submitted hadn’t won again. Suddenly though, I did a double-take because hanging on the board in front of me, covered by another entry, was my Education submission, nominated for an award. I was so shocked and I was thrilled!! Now I knew that not only would I be recognized in one category, but two, and that my area of expertise, Education, had in fact, been nominated for an award.

There, sticking out from behind two other entries, was a Cranston Herald nominee, MY nominated work! I was so surprised!

Dessert was delicious!!

Dinner consisted of salad, chicken, veggies and some sort of green rice.  Dessert was delicious and well-worth the wait. It was a chocolate mousse served inside a hard chocolate shell, shaped like a pyramid. There was whipped cream and half a strawberry on the plate, along with some sauce drizzled on the plate as well.

After dessert and coffee, they began announcing the nominees in each class for each category, in alphabetical order. It’s grueling to sit through and wait for your category to be called, then your class in that category and then your name to see where you placed.

During the weeks leading up to the event, I had hoped and prayed for first or second place and the other day when I was at the hairdresser for an appointment, I said to one of the stylists, “I only want first or second place. I’ll be so disappointed if I only get third.”

She asked me how many people I had been up against, to even be nominated at all, and I said I wasn’t sure, maybe hundreds since the competition encompassed all of New England. She was shocked to hear that, and she said, “You should be thrilled no matter WHAT place you get! Think of your daughters and the lessons you want to be teaching them. You don’t want them to think it’s about the winning or what place you get,” and at that point I thanked her for bringing me back to reality. She said to me, “I’m going to pray that you get third place and that you’re able to be happy with that.” I hugged her as I left, and I thought about what she said from then on.

I placed third in both categories, actually tying with another journalist for third place in the Education Reporting category.

I also found out later, that there were 3000 entries into this year’s competition. Although not all 3000 were in my two categories, it does show just how tough the competition was overall.

I’m thrilled that I have been recognized yet again for my contribution to journalism here in New England, and in my city and state. I’m thrilled to have a job I love, and that I can be proud of the work that I do. I am glad my daughters can be proud of me and I need to be better at accepting less than first place! I don’t want them to ever think that third isn’t “good enough,” because it certainly is. To be in a room filled with almost 1000 New England journalists, knowing that you’re one of them and you all make up the cream of the crop, is quite a feeling, and I can’t wait to do it again!

I can now say I am a FOUR TIME award-winning journalist!!

Here are a few more photos from last night’s event.

Beacon Communications was well-represented at the NENPA Awards!

Education, I couldn't believe it!

It's great to have Don there with me when I get these awards. He often makes it possible for me to do the jobs I do, by taking care of the kids when I'm out on nights and weekends, so having him share in the limelight is nice!

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