Going Medieval All Over Thanksgiving Again

Today was fun for us! We started out with a very relaxy morning, then we went to McDonald's for a no-effort lunch that included very yummy pumpkin pie shakes for all. We figured we should at least have a form of pumpkin pie today!:) After lunch we played a very long game of Monopoly. The game went so long that we had to put it on hold so we could all get ready and go out to Medieval Times.This was our 3rd year of going to Medieval Times on Thanksgiving and it has turned out to be a tradition that everyone in the family looks forward too. This year our friend Julia went with us and it was so fun to have her there. Thankfully she was very willing to "sword" fight with Ben and Sophie using the Medieval Times ribbon flags as play swords. It was very cute to watch Ben sparring especially as he did some hilarious slow motion moves. The dinner and show was loads o' fun as you would expect. We shouted, cheered, and waved our flags like crazy people for our red and yellow knight. Ben did get scared when ever the mist and the wizard came out, but other than that everyone enjoyed it all. Even Nina got very into the whole thing clapping and waving her flag, I don't think she ever cried at all even though most of the show was past her bed time. One thing to say is that I so wish they had a show only price for picky kids, I think Ben and Sophie only drank the Pepsi and ate the garlic bread and a little of the soup - Nina probably ate more than either of them. Adrian and I thought the food was delicious. After the show we wandered around the store part and took advantage of some photo ops with a knight and the princess. Julia and I were hoping to get a picture with the green knight - he was cute with fun hair - but he walked off before we could so we got a picture with a coat of armor instead. It was a great night and the kids are already asking if we have to wait all the way till next Thanksgiving to go back.
After we went home we finished the impossibly long Monopoly game - I won, but Sophie wasn't going to give up until her last property was mortgaged and her last dollar was spent even though I had about 9 hotels all over the board. I did feel kind of bad seen how badly she wanted to win - she's very competitive just like her Dad! I'm guessing a rematch will happen sometime this weekend. It's so fun that we can really play board games as a family now. I can't wait till future holidays filled with long Risk and Settlers of Catan games. Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving filled with lots o' love and good family times!

I made those Deceptively Delicious brownies...

Quick update on a few more recipes. If you are wondering if anything else at all is going on in my life... well yes, but nothing very interesting. Maybe seeing Beowulf last night with Adrian on our date-night was interesting, but it was also horribly icky and violent for a computer animated movie so I wouldn't recommend it at all. So other than that... just the same ol' same ol' hardly blog-worthy stuff and a few new Deceptively Delicious recipes tried. So here's the reviews:

Mashed Potatoes - Hey this is just in time for anyone cooking on Thanksgiving (which doesn't include me - we're going out, but more on that later this week). These potatoes were yummy! I doubled the recipe so I made it with 2 1/2 lbs russet potatoes, 1 cup cauliflower puree, 4 tablespoons trans-fat free margarine, and about 3/4 cup buttermilk. They were good. I couldn't taste the cauliflower and the kids gobbled it up.

Brownies - Alright I'm going to give you the honest truth on these - they tasted like "health food" brownies. They did not taste like your average Betty Crocker mix or my favorite Ghiradelli mix brownies. They were more chewy or maybe the word is spongey and you could tell the chocolate flavor was hiding something and oh it was - 1/2 cup carrot and 1/2 cup spinach puree. It also barely had any flour in it, just 3/4 cup oat flour. Oh, and barely any fat too, just 2 tablespoons trans-fat free tub margarine. I was amazed that they tasted good at all and they did taste okay. On Oprah they said they were "Last Meal Brownies" like you could have one of these brownies and be ready for the firing squad - well that wasn't quite my opinion. I'd much rather have a Mrs. Field's brownie with loads of butter or vegetable oil and sugar in it for my last dessert... Okay, but having said all that we did enjoy them for dessert tonight and the kids loved them. Sophie wants to take one in her lunch box tomorrow and asked that it not have powdered sugar on top, just ah-natural, so that tells you how much she liked it.

As a side note to be fair these brownies only have 133 calories and 3 grams of fiber in each serving, plus a healthy dose of antioxidants also from those hidden veggies. If kids love them how can you argue that it's not a great recipe all around?!!

Deceptively Delicious Part 3 - The Deception Begins

I'm going to just come right out and say it is like a miracle that my little Ben (worst Taster #2) has been eating his vegetables all week!! Of course he doesn't know about them, all hidden in his dinners, but he has eaten them none the less! And everyone else has been enjoying the Deceptively Delicious dinners too. I'll give you the run down on the recipes we've tried so far.

Buttered Noodles - These were a huge hit. The hidden veggie was yellow squash and I tried this one first just to see if it really was possible to deceive them with vegetable purees and it worked. The noodles looked just like bowtie pasta with Parmesan, you could barely see a hint of yellow in the sauce from the squash and you couldn't taste it.

Tacos - Jessica Seinfeld told the story on Oprah of her little boy exclaiming how he hated tomatoes while eating these and Jessica just smirked as a trickle of tomato tinged sauce flowed down his hand out of his taco.:) Well the same thing happened to us. I served the taco meat (which resembled sloppy joe meat, because of the added crushed tomato and butternut squash) in whole wheat tortillas, because my kids prefer soft tacos, and let them choose their toppings... Well of course Ben refused the chopped tomatoes topping, but then went on to talk about how yummy the taco was! Yay! Adrian and I smiled at each other. It was a little weird for me to eat goopier tacos, but the kids all loved them, including Nina who chowed down on the taco meat by the handful.
(See the trickle of tomato!!:))

Chicken Nuggets - These were not my favorite to cook or eat really. The process of cooking them was long and in the end the nuggets looked almost woolly with a thick coating of green, crispy, spinachy stuff on the outside. Here's the kicker though - Ben loved them. We told him they were chicken nuggets and he was all into them, having thirds... I was amazed. Sophie on the other hand was more apprehensive, but did eat them and Nina would not touch the weird green lumps. So the reception was mixed. Adrian and I having had many more years between us eating chicken nuggets that actually look like chicken nuggets had a harder time eating them. Adrian told me they tasted kind of like fish and I said (out of the earshot of any of the children), "Must be why I hate fish." I think next time, if I make them again, I will alter the recipe quite a bit. I may make and freeze them as is for Ben's lunches - hey if he likes them right?!

Chickpea Chocolate Chip Cookies - Incredibly good! You wouldn't even think there are whole chick peas in them if you didn't know. I would guess the cream colored chickpeas were macadamia nuts if I hadn't baked them and you really can't taste them. Super yummy and full of chickpea goodness!

Stuffed Peppers - Okay, so this wasn't a Deceptively Delicious recipe - I used the one I've been making for 10 years, but I made the filling with leaner meat and added pureed carrot and it was great! (Well to me, Adrian, Sophie and Nina - the fact that the meat was stuffed into a very visible vegetable put Ben off and he wouldn't even eat the filling.) From making these I found out I can play around with my own recipes to make them more nutritious and not effect the comforting taste. Oh, and we had this with my favorite Sabra brand hummus and pita chips - that went over well with everyone. Mmm mmm for chickpea goodness again!

Results So Far -

Jenni's thoughts - It is taking longer to cook. I guess that's a given because the main point of the cook book is doing away with unhealthy "convenience"' foods and making healthy meals that are far less processed with hidden veggies thrown in. I am happy with how the recipes have been received and I've enjoyed most of them. I am also bolstered by the happy feelings I get knowing my family's been eating better and that's what it's all about really.

Taster #1 Sophie - She's been eating great and enjoying most of it. I think the "buttered noodles" were her favorite of the recipes so far.

Taster #2 Ben - He's been eating his hidden veggies enthusiastically and thank goodness the cries and whines have been cut to a minimum at dinner - with the exception of stuffed pepper night.

Taster #3 Nina -She's been eating everything very nicely - well except the chicken nuggets and I don't blame her.

Taster #4 - Adrian - He's been enjoying most everything and been very supportive at dinner time as always. Though he has noted that our Bean-O supply needs to be replenished soon... Yes, there is a side effect to all the veggies that we hadn't really thought about till about the 3rd day in... All those whole grains, chickpeas, and veggies do take some adjusting too, but they are so much better for us in the long run.

Deceptively Delicious Part 2 - The Program

I can officially say we have been on the Deceptively Delicious plan for nearly a week and it has been quite the journey so far. We have ventured into the realms of whole wheat, organic, lean, and vegetabley meals and it's been fun, but admittedly more work than I am used to when it comes to cooking. I keep expecting it to take me less time to cook each night, but our dinner time has slipped from about 5:30 to 6:30, just because the unfamiliar meals have taken longer to cook. I'm sure that next months meals will take less time to prepare just because I'll know what I'm doing better. Anyways, maybe I'm giving to much meat before milk.... Let me start at the beginning.

"The Program" This part of the Deceptively Delicious plan is all about the shopping, stocking your pantry with healthier staples (like brown rice, whole grain flours, pastas, bread crumbs etc.) and making the veggie purees. Just making my menu for the month and shopping list took much longer cause these are all new recipes and counting up how many vegetables I needed to buy to make the right amount of purees was a bit tricky since they don't give you a conversion chart in the cookbook. I'll include my own underneath the pureeing part for anyone who's at all interested...

Here's my menu (I'll put all the DD recipes in red):

1. Balsamic Chicken and Mushrooms (not DD, or a kid pleaser, but Adrian and I thought it was yummy), Buttered Noodles and steamed spinach
2. Tacos and Pumpkin Cookies (thanks for the recipe Mendy!)
3. Chicken Nuggets, Annie's brand Mac and Cheese, and salad
4. Stuffed Peppers (my own recipe but I added pureed carrots), sauteed zucchini and mushrooms, and hummus and pita chips (Adrian did admit there were maybe just a few too many vegetables in this meal:))
5. Chicken Tetrazzini, sauteed carrots, and Chickpea Chocolate Chip Cookies
6. Crockpot Roast, Mashed Potatoes, gravy and carrots
7. Pita Pizzas and salad
8. Rice Balls, broccoli and pumpkin bread
9. Chicken Salad Pita Sandwiches, veggie chips, carrots and Ranch Dip
10. Pene Bake (mine again and a freezer meal, but this one has shredded carrots in it) and broccoli
11. Lasagna (need to use the Stoffer's one we have in the freezer before it goes bad) and salad
12. Leftover lasagna and Brownies
13. Hamburgers II, veggie chips and apple slices
14. Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole (mine, but I'm going to add pureed cauliflower and use whole wheat egg noodles) and green beans
15. Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and chicken noodle soup
16. Pasta w/ Bolognese Sauce and peas
17. Parmesan Chicken (this is a Sneaky Chef recipe which is a book very similar to DD), whole wheat spaghetti and marinara sauce and broccoli
18. Sloppy Joes and whole wheat pasta salad
19. Creamy Potato Soup and pumpkin bread
20. Apricot Chicken, brown rice and peas
21. Sweet Potato Pancakes, Scrambled Eggs, and chicken sausage
22. Macaroni and Cheese and carrots
23. Spaghetti and Meatballs and asparagus

Side Note: The reason there are only 23 is that I don't cook on Saturdays.:) Saturday is always a FFY or "fend for yourself" day which usually equals Subways or frozen pizza. I think we all need an off day and when we're talking about cooking fairly involved meals every other night with this DD plan, I think it's important.

Making the Purees. This took a while. I got a new and quite wonderful rice and vegetable steamer from Costco - it's Aroma brand and I love it. I also got a great food processor from Jen (thanks!), so I was all ready last Saturday night to make all my purees for the month, but it ended up taking 2 evenings to make them all. Steaming and pureeing the spinach took the longest just because you pile so much into the steamer and then it wilts down to practically nothing for you to puree in the food processor. Getting 4 cups of it took FOREVER. Next month I think I'll try broccoli in more dishes cause I'm sure that won't take as long and in many of the recipes you can use either spinach or broccoli. When I was all done I did feel very "virtuous" though (as Jessica Seinfeld calls it) whilst looking over all my purees in their cute little baggies - I froze all of them in 1/2 cup portions in little snack size ziplocks. (See picture up top.) It's been really easy to just grab whatever one I need, run it under hot water, snip the corner with a pair of scissors, and throw the purees into the recipes. I ended up with 6 bags of pureed carrots, 6 bags cauliflower, 2 bags yellow squash, 8 bags sweet potatoes, 8 bags spinach, and 13 bags butternut squash. Whew... If it sounds like a lot of work, well it was, but normally DD suggests making your purees a week at a time. I'm just a nut and would rather do a months worth at once, I guess it's the "once a month cooking" in me still trying to express itself.:)

My Vegetable Puree Conversion Chart (this is what I've found out so far)

• Cauliflower, 1 head = 3 cups puree

• Yellow Squash, 1 medium yellow squash = 1/2 cup puree

• Butternut Squash, 2 lb. bag pre-cut butternut squash chunks = 3 cups puree

• Sweet Potatoes, 20 oz. bag pre-cut sweet potatoes = 2 cups puree

• Spinach, 40 oz. bag baby spinach ( 2 1/2 lbs) = 4 cups puree (and about 2 hours of your time:))

• Carrots, steamer basket full of baby carrots = 3 cups puree

This post is getting long and I'm sure those interested would really just like to know how the "deception" is going over on my 4 "tasters" so I'm going to continue in the next post, Deceptively Delicious Part 3, on how it's been.

Scent Quiz

I got this quick and funny little quiz off my friend Jenifer's blog - thanks Jen! I'm really happy with my "girl scent" cause I love pumpkin and it's my hubby's fave too! And hey Thanksgiving is next week so how timely to find out I'm a pumpkin pie girl!:)

Your Scent is Pumpkin Pie

Warm, comforting, and a bit old fashioned You've got what men want - believe it or not!

What's Your Girl Smell?

Deceptively Delicious Part 1 - Meet My Kitchen Cabinet

If you remember a little while ago I took a trip to Borders and purchased Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. Well, when I bought it I was still making my way through last months menu and meals so I haven't yet tried any of the recipes, but now I am ready to embark upon a Deceptively Delicious experiment on my family. I am really hoping that the whole hiding-veggie-purees-in-foods-that-kids-like thing works and that they also turn out to be foods that Adrian and I enjoy as well. So I'm going to do updates here on my blog recapping how it all works out for us.

The book is set up in a really clever way were Jessica first introduces her family and what their food likes and dislikes are. For a cookbook, it was really quite a funny read. SO, I thought I'd totally steal that idea and introduce my own "kitchen cabinet" as she calls it.

Jenni - Hi I'm Jenni and this is my "Kitchen Cabinet", my all-important staff and advisers (just had to steal Jessica's lines:)). My 3 children are going to be my official Deceptively Delicious recipe tasters and I am sure they are going to be very tough critics (especially taster #2). Wish me luck as I try to trick them (and their dad too) into eating more veggies and fruits.

Oh, but as far as my own taste preferences - I think I'm a great eater. I love vegetables. I love fruit. I love carbs and junk too and that's the stuff I really need to do better at limiting. Oh, if only I hated chocolate and hamburgers. But as far as things I don't like, the only thing is fish/seafood. I even wish I liked fish, but no matter what I do it seems too fishy for me. Adrian seriously wishes I could change this because I think his idea of a perfect date would be to go to a movie and sushi bar. My big loves as far as good-for-you-foods are avocado, asparagus and mushrooms - so the mushroom and asparagus fajitas at Chevy's are right up my alley. Yum!

Taster #1 Sophie, our oldest, is 8 years old and she is my best eater (with the exception of taster #4). Often times Sophie will try to get Taster #2 to try whatever I cook, by saying "Look Ben, I'm eating it and it's yummy." This seldom actually works, but I appreciate her efforts. She does still have a slight texture issue so she likes things separated rather than all mixed together like in a casserole. (It used to be horrible - she wouldn't even eat jam or fruit yogurts because of "chunkies", but that turned around when she was about 5.) She has always loved veggies though, so I've really had no trouble getting her to eat nutritious stuff. One funny thing is that she hates berries. She likes berry flavored things and strawberry and raspberry jam, but not the real thing ever.

Taster #2 Ben, our middle child, is 3 1/2 years old and my toughest taster. He is the one that is actually the impetus for this whole experiment. He cries and whines every single night during dinner unless we are having mac and cheese or pizza. He will not eat veggies... Wait potatoes are vegetables, so he does eat fries, tater tots etc. He is not apt to try new foods unless it looks like a dessert or candy or something he already likes. I got him to eat scrambled eggs recently by calling it popcorny eggs. He loves fruit though, all kinds of fruit - apples, oranges, berries, mango, pineapple... I guess he just has a huge sweet tooth. I can get him to eat probably 2 bites of veggies upon threats of no more milk or noodles till you take a bite, but I am getting sick of making dinner time threats. Oh, and surprisingly Ben loves prunes. Of all the things for a picky kid to love, right?! But for a kid with his particular bowel problems prunes are a good like to have. Hopefully the additional fiber he will be getting from these purees will help. (Oh, if he reads this someday when he's older I bet he will not approve of that particular tid bit of TMI - sorry Ben.)

Taster #3 Nina, our youngest, is 15 months and a pretty good eater. I am really hoping she keeps up her eating habits, but then again at this age Taster #2 was eating green beans like they were french fries, so I realize things can change. She loves fruits and has a couple veggies that she will eat - frozen peas and corn. Her favorite foods are plain pasta, pieces of meatballs, cold cereal (especially Special K and Cheerios), and bits of apple or peach. It is very hard to get her to eat green veggies with the exception of frozen peas and I did get her to eat an asparagus tip yesterday, but it was because she was looking away when I put it in her mouth.

Taster #4 Adrian, my husband, is a great eater and very supportive at dinner time telling the kids to be nice and eat whatever mommy has made. He loves spicy foods, so he is my taste antithesis, but I try to make him spicy things on special occasions. He hates anything that resembles Hamburger Helper, even if it's just a casserole with hamburger and a sauce in it. Adrian will always say any meal I have prepared tastes great, but the true test is if he will take the leftovers to work for lunch. Through this test I have surmised that he is not a huge fan of soups or casseroles - though he always claims certain things just don't reheat well, but I'm not buying it Babe.:) In general I think Adrian is a protein and carb lover so I am on this quest to get him to eat more veggies too.

(BTW, the pictures of me and Adrian are of eating the most fantastic peach pie we have both ever had at the Hub restaurant in Heber, Ut. I swear that pie's special ingredient must have been cocaine because after one bite we were both hooked and went back twice in a 3 day period just to have another slice. We took pictures with Adrian's camera phone just to document the wonderful pie-eating experience!)

Soon I'll be doing my big shopping trip (I also have to buy a food processor), writing up my menu, and making my purees, so stay tuned for the next "DD" post.

Apple Picking

Last Friday Sophie and Ben had a day off from school and preschool so of course it was very important to get them out of the house for a while to save my sanity. Thankfully a great gal in our ward planned an apple picking excursion for all us seeking a fun no school activity. I was so glad we went because yes it did save my sanity and the kids had such a great time playing with their friends among the apple trees and in the cute kid size hay maze that the farm had set up.

Here's some pictures from the day:

November Art Pic

My pic for the month of November is Norman Rockwell's Freedom From Want, from his 4 Freedoms series during WWII. I absolutely love Rockwell. One of my first solo art book purchases was a big Rockwell book. He just makes me feel happy and nostalgic even though I didn't grow up in the 40's, it's just that his art embodies a certain kind of optimistic innocence that is beautiful. I also remember that the walls of my family's favorite restaurant when I was young, Spires, decked out in Rockwell prints. One print that Spires had up was the funny family tree that starts out with an all American family down at the bottom and them branches out in to all sorts of craziness with a pirate and let's say "lady of the night" on one branch. It's hilarious. I know that high-brow art historians don't consider Rockwell to have been an important point in art, but I think his art is relate-able and thought worthy.

Oh, and another reason for using Freedom From Want is that Sophie used it as her visual aid this month when she gave a talk in primary. Her topic was showing love for the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ through gratitude. She did a great job with her talk and found a new interest in my big Rockwell art book, so that makes me happy.

This is Halloween, this is Halloween....

Yesterday we had a fun fun Halloween! My favorite holiday didn't disappoint yet again. But it wasn't just yesterday so I'm gonna try to quickly recap some of our fun Halloween activities over the past week.

Trunk-or-Treat! Every year our ward has a trunk-or-treat and it's always so fun to go and see everyone's costumes and trunk decorations. We always try to dress up and this year Adrian and I were Jack and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas and Ben dressed up as Jack's ghost dog Zero. (This was just for the trunk-or-treat, he was Spiderman for everything else.) Sophie dressed up as a vampire. Yep, I think I've had a bad influence on my oldest daughter - I guess I've done a little too much Twilight talk around her. :) She totally picked out the scariest vampire outfit she could find at Target - an 18th century style black and red dress and black cape which we completed with a long black wig and fangs. Honestly she looked a lot more like a Rice vamp than a Meyer's one.:) Nina was an oh so cute little Tinker Bell. She was suppose to be Zero, but the costume ended up being more Ben's size so the day before the trunk or treat I went over to the Disney Store's 50% off sale (Yay!) and got her a Tink costume. The whole trunk or treat she pretty much just hung out in her stroller - it took place right at her bed time so she was pretty low energy pixie. Sophie was very tickled when she won the "guess how many candy corn are in this jar" contest - she was only off by 4 candy corns!! We were impressed. I am happy to say that Ben did better at the party this year. He still refused to leave my or Adrian's side and was pretty scared of all the people in costumes, but he did not spend the whole night crying or hiding in the nursery so I think we are making progress. Of course the highlight of the night for the kids was the actual trunk-or-treating and they made a serious haul of candy.


Ben's preschool Halloween parade. Well, Ben refused to actually be a part of the parade, but he did have a lot of fun at his school's Halloween party and was kind of okay with having his picture taken with his class. Still progress to be made in the preschool Halloween department, but hopefully next year he'll know what to expect and be a little happier about the whole thing.

Sophie's school costume parade. This is another fun fun tradition that Sophie's school does and I was pleasantly surprised by how into it all the teachers were too. One grade of teachers were all Harry Potter characters - their Hagrid and Ron were great! I could really tell Sophie enjoyed her costume this year because she looked so happy as she paraded in full vampire garb (minus the wig - we had to tone it down slightly for school :)). Ben was excited to see so many little boys in Star Wars and Transformers costumes during the parade - I'm thinking a Jedi costume might be in our future for next year.

HALLOWEEN! We did all our traditional Halloween stuff. We had crockpot chili, hot dogs, shredded cheese, and apple juice for our dinner (this year however I had to chug some Mylanta after, I think my stomach is getting more sensitive in my old age:)). We put out our pumpkins - Adrian carved our big pumpkin this year with a CTR emblem and the kid's pumpkin was decorated with Halloween Mr. Potato Head accessories. That was Ben's idea when he saw the kit in Target and of course Sophie was all into it because it was a vampire Mr.Potato Head. After dinner we got the kids in their costumes and even Adrian played along (because of Ben's urging) and dressed up as Jack. My FAVORITE part of Halloween is passing out the candy to all the cute little kids so I stayed and passed out candy with the theme from Phantom of the Opera turned up really loud on our kitchen CD player and Adrian took the kids out trick or treating. Nina came back after a couple of houses and Ben came back after about a block, but Sophie stuck it out until her bag was brimming. After they came back, all the kids had a fun time passing out candy with me on the porch and of course eating lots of candy! Around 8:30 all the trick-or-treating died down and after the kids went to bed Adrian and I watched scary shows on TV. We tried to watch Constantine which we had an edited version of on our DVR, but honestly I didn't enjoy it, not because it was scary, but because it was boring. Bless him, but Keanu Reeves just can't carry a movie on dialogue and there was far to much of that and weird camera shots in Constantine. So instead we switched it to Pushing Daisies and then a Halloweeny Dr. Who. It was just a lovely Halloween and now I'm a little sad to put away all the costumes and decorations. I'm not sad to start getting rid of all the candy laying around though, fun size candy bars are seriously too tempting to me and I'm gonna have to send them all the work with Adrian soon or I'm liable to eat them all!