Sub Sandwiches--Smith age 3

So Proud. 

Amy's Take:  So, maybe this meal does not even merit a post.  Today was likely the hottest day we'll have this year.  97 (I think) and super humid.  Heat index of 110.  A stay inside and enjoy your air conditioning kind of day.  Too hot even for the pool.  And Smith and I had planned roast chicken for dinner.  Yikes.  So, we made an emergency trip to the grocery store.  Premade sandwiches, chips, hummus and sugary drinks (to restore our electrolyte levels or something).  My girls were shocked by the amount of junk I brought home (we also bought two boxes of Drumstick ice cream knock-offs).  We stuck everything in the fridge because it was 3:00 and Smith spent the next two hours whining about wanting to eat dinner.  At 4:58 he put everything on the table.  He was so proud of his dinner.  He even ate the Spinach-Artichoke hummus.  Even after he knew what it was.

Teriyaki Beef with No-Pain Lo Mein--Molly age 12

Sandra was today's photographer. 

May be a while before we let her do that again.

Picking green onions for dinner. 

Please ignore the tight shorts.  Amelia was bragging today that they've fit her since she was 18 months old. 

A great picture of yours truly. 

Eventually she took pictures of the food. 

Finished Product. 

Molly's Take:  It was good.  Better noodles that the peanutty noodle recipe. 

Amy's Take:  Molly is the oldest and my most ambitious cook.  Last summer she made a recipe from Family Fun magazine called Teriyaki Beef with Peanutty Noodles.  http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/teriyaki-beef-with-peanutty-noodles-864682/  She liked the beef, but not the noodles so much.  So today I suggested she make the teriyaki beef and try No Pain Lo Mein from Rachael Ray.  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/no-pain-lo-mein-recipe/index.html Molly likes using some of Rachael Ray's  30-minute meal recipes (From the internet, not her cookbook. What kind of cookbook is that anyway--it doesn't even have pictures?!)  The meals never take 30 minutes.  Rachael assumes that we all also have three prep chefs off stage, but they work as complicated meals for an ambitious 12 year old.  In the future I will try to remember though, to not have Molly start one of these meals at 5:30 after a long day at the pool.  We didn't eat until 7:30.  It put all of us in the best mood ever. 

Other Takes:
Amelia:  Wouldn't eat the noodles until I let her put parmesan cheese on them.

Spaghetti and Garbage Sauce--Amelia age 7

Throwing in some pepperoni. 

Mmmmm.  Pepperonis are yummy. 

The Garbage Sauce. 

Finished Product. 

Amelia's Take:  Yummy dinner.  I made the garbage sauce for Mommy and Sandra. 

Amy's Take:  Here in Iowa you frequently see garbage burgers or garbage salads on restaurant menus.  Kind of a general use, everything but the kitchen sink kind of term.  Amelia wanted to make spaghetti sauce tonight.  Usually she'd put hamburger in it, but the only hamburger in our house was in the basement freezer.  I was folding laundry on top of it and wasn't willing to move it to get the hamburger.  So, we used what was upstairs--some cooked chicken breast and some pepperoni.  We also put in green onions from the garden and some sliced mushrooms (maybe you could tell by now--I put mushrooms in pretty much anything).  Oh, and some tomato sauce, of course. So, we called it  Garbage Sauce.  Everything but the kitchen sink. 

Other opinions:
Lucy: "More sauce."  She ate all of the sauce off the top of her spaghetti and then asked for more, ate all of that and said "More sauce" again.  

Quiche Lorraine--Sandra age 10

Uncooked.

Cooked.

Gratuitous Picture of Lucy. 

Finished Product. 

Sandra's Take:  It was really good and easy.  I want to try and make it for breakfast sometime.  You should all make it. 

Amy's Take:  Isn't it a shame that quiche and cliche don't actually rhyme?  Maybe if I pronounced them both with an authentic French accent they would.  Kee-shay Kli-shay.  Then I could make a joke and say "Real men don't eat quiche is a quiche cliche."  And that would be so funny.  But they don't rhyme, so I am giving up on this joke even if I do think it is genius. 
Sandra checked out a children's book on French Cuisine from the library this week.  "Cooking the French Way" by Lynne Waldee.  She wanted to make something French.  We chose quiche because she LOVES bacon.  Every year on her birthday she asks to have unlimited bacon (and nothing else) for dinner.  We used a frozen pie shell and precooked bacon pieces to simplify things.  And it was really, really simple.  We made one with just bacon and cheese and one with mushrooms, red peppers, green onions and spinach.  Guess which one Smith liked?  We changed the recipe to make it slightly healthier and more kid friendly, so I am going to give it to you.

Quiche Almost Lorraine
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt
dash pepper
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 9-inch unbaked pie shell
1 cup grated cheddar/monterey jack cheese
2.5 oz package of real bacon pieces
1.  Heat oven to 350
2. Mix eggs, milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg with a whisk.
3. Use a fork to prick sides and bottom of unbaked pie shell about every half inch.
4.  Make 2 or 3 layers of alternating cheese and bacon bits in bottom of pie shell.  Pour egg and milk mixture over this.
5. Bake 45 minutes until golden and puffy. 

If you want to add vegetables, put 1 cup sliced mushrooms, two sliced green onions, 1 cup cleaned baby spinach, and 1/4 cup diced red pepper in bowl and microwave for two minutes before placing in pie crust.  Cover vegetables with cheese and egg mixture and bake as directed. 

Barbecued Chicken Sandwiches--Smith age 3

Say cheeseball.

Hard at work.

Not so happy with the finished product.

Smith's Take:  Cooking was good.  Eating was good. 

Amy's Take:  Smith's past dinners have all involved arranging fish sticks on cookie sheets.  Today we thought we'd go fancy with shredded barbecue chicken sandwiches.  He put the chicken in the crockpot and then fell asleep on the couch about 4:30.  I shredded the chicken and added some bottled barbecue sauce and Smith woke up just in time to eat.  I think he would have preferred fish sticks. 

Other opinions:
Amelia:  It was yummy. 

Baked Salmon and Stir Fried Veggies--Molly age 12

Measuring oil for marinade.

She can take the heat. 

The most controversial part of dinner. 

Finished Product.

Molly's Take:  The salmon was really good, and it and the rice were easy to make.  The vegetables were easy too, but I didn't do all of the work on them.  They were a little bland, though.

Amy's Take:  Dinner was late tonight.  Sandra was attending a science class called "Try This At Home."  I kind of regret it.  Please never, never encourage my children to make ooblek at home.  It is only interesting for about two minutes before they decide to test its scientific properties on all kinds of different surfaces--like the living room carpet.  Anyway, Molly made this salmon recipe  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/baked-salmon-ii/detail.aspx  It was easy and good and everyone liked it quite a lot.  We changed it a lot--left out the parsley and pepper, added a teaspoon of lemon-pepper seasoning and used fresh basil and thought there was too much oil in it. And we didn't let it soak in the marinade for an hour--who has time for that?  But I think we'll try it again.
The stir fry consisted of all of the vegetables in our fridge at least slightly reasonable to put in a stir fry as tomorrow is shopping day.  Two mushrooms, half a red pepper, half a tomato, a quarter of an onion, a zucchini and a yellow squash.  I loved it.  Smith did not.  Lucy put a piece of yellow squash in her mouth, chewed for quite a while and then spit it back out on her plate and said something along the lines of "Blech."

Other Opinions:
Lucy: Blech.

Cheese Ravioli--Sandra age 10

Molly was today's photographer.  She calls this the lonely ravioli.

Ruining our camera with steam. 

Burning bowl of sauce. 

More?

Finished product. 

Sandra's take:  The best dinner I've had in weeks.  But there wasn't enough ravioli and rolls.  There were a lot of green beans left.  And no one really liked the sauce.  It was yummy!

Amy's take: After a few years of doing this Sandra has learned what meals require pretty much no effort.  She had this one all planned out.  Frozen cheese ravioli, canned sauce, Pillsbury garlic cresent rolls from a can and frozen green beans.  My kids love this meal.  And it takes six minutes to cook everything.  Last summer Amelia decided that we needed to make cheese ravioli from scratch.  We don't own a pasta maker (I am kind of anti-extra-appliances) so we rolled out the dough and she wanted circles and not squares and the only thing I could find to cut them with that was the right size of circle was a little plastic cup that at one point had a mango lassi from an Indian restaurant in it.  Cutting my tough dough with that stupendous (Smith thinks stupendous means really, really stupid so we are going with that for a while) plastic cup almost sent me in for carpal tunnel surgery.  It took us more than two hours to cut them all out.  It was nuts.  And other than being kind of tough they were exactly like Mama Rosie's. So, Amelia, if you are reading this--remember that your mother has, at some point, done something for you.

Rhubarb Crisp--Sandra age 10

Don't eat the leaves. They're poisonous!

Chopping is hard work. 

Do we really want to eat this?

Sometimes we make mistakes.  Like adding oatmeal to the clear glaze for the rhubarb. 

Finished product. 

Sandra's Take: Rhubarb crisp is kind of in the middle of hardness. I messed up a little but it turned out very yummy.

Amy's Take:  Just before Sandra started dinner tonight, I had to run to the store for new camera batteries (oh the trials of having a cooking blog!) and while I was gone she and Molly found a recipe for rhubarb crisp on the internet  http://southernfood.about.com/od/fruitcrisps/r/bl30623m.htm .  It was a bit complicated.  A bottom and top layer of oatmeal stuff, a cooked glaze over the rhubarb.  I got home and suggested using something simpler.  Sandra didn't want to, so she did it all.  Mostly by herself with some help from Molly.  At one point Molly walked in and told me that they were cooking the glaze but thought it would never get clear as the recipe specified.  That was because they put oatmeal in it.  Oatmeal will pretty much never turn into a clear jelly.  We had to redo.  Sandra cried.  It all turned out good.  It is kind of a pain of a recipe that ends up looking like yesterday's oatmeal as soon as you scoop it into your bowl.  

Other Opinions:
Molly:  We had it with ice cream.  It was sweeter than normal rhubarb crisp, but still delicious.  I really liked it, and think that all rhubarb crisp looks disgusting.

Mushroom and Sausage Pizza--Amelia age 7

Lucy tasting the cheese. 

If one spoon is good, why not use all of the utensils in the drawer?

Mushrooms are yucky.

But they are easy to slice, even with a lousy dull knife. 

Finished Product.

 

Amelia's Take:  I cut the mushrooms up and it tasted good. 

Amy's Take:  I had salmon and roast veggies on the menu for Amelia's night.  She was set on pizza.  We looked in our basement freezer for pepperoni.  None there.  Amelia thought hot dogs would be a good topper.  I voted for chicken.  Luckily, we had some sausage.  We made our dough (my recipe below--don't get spoiled here--it is probably the only recipe I'll ever bother typing out).  Amelia cut up mushrooms and I browned the 3/4 pound of ground sausage and added some somewhat fresh basil (from our neighbor's garden last summer and currently from the freezer).  The basil got surprisingly crispy when cooked with the sausage.  We rolled out our dough, and covered it in Hunt's Spaghetti sauce from a can--no sugar added and cheap (why does pizza sauce cost much more per ounce than spaghetti sauce--is it really so different?).  We sprinkled on our sausage, mushrooms and cheese and baked at 400 for about 15 minutes until cheese was bubbly and getting brown. 

Other reactions: 
Smith:  "I hate mushrooms.  I think I see a mushroom. Is this sausage or mushroom?  I really hate mushrooms."  Repeated 28 times. 


Whole Wheatish Pizza Dough
1 tbsp yeast
1 cup hot water
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp oil
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cup white flour
Mix yeast, water, salt and oil in bowl.  Let sit a few minutes.  Add whole wheat flour and stir until mixed well.  Add in remaining flour a 1/2 cup at a time.  When it gets too hard to stir, remove dough from bowl and knead on counter.  Form large ball and let rest ten minutes or until you are done cooking sausage and slicing mushrooms.  Roll our thinly on cookie sheet or large baking stone or whatever. 

Skousons' Summer Skitchen

The cooks.

My kids need a summer project.  At least I think they need a summer project.  For the last four or five years I have had each kid make or help with a meal once a week during the summer.  This year we are going to document these meals.  Yes!! You can all be inspired by us!!!   If, in the past, you have enjoyed cooking blogs, prepare to be disappointed.  You will probably learn nothing from this blog.  The pictures will not be of beautifully styled food in Pottery Barn dishes sitting on granite countertops.  Ok, so you will not be inspired.   No, this will be food made by my 12, 10, 7 and 3 year old  (we are not letting the 1 year old participate much)  in my 1942 Iowa farmhouse.  All right,  it's not a farmhouse--it was built by a lawyer, but if we pretend it's a farmhouse it seems more romantic. In a kitchen that badly needs remodeling--as soon as we finish all the exterior painting from last summer's hail storm, hang the towel rack in the upstairs bathroom and paint the whole downstairs.  So, in the meantime you will not see the Ideal Skousons.  You will see the Real Skousons.  And see what we really have for dinner.  This is a little scary already.