The Princess' English

Today, I told Kyra that if she finished all of her lunch (a delicious strawberry bagel with cream cheese), she could have a bowl of sliced strawberries. I use it as a motivational tactic because otherwise the main course gets overlooked for the much tastier fruit (who can blame her on that?). I set the bowl of sliced strawberries on the counter for her. She did indeed finish the bagel and came into the kitchen to grab the bowl of berries. Here is the rest of the conversation:

K: Can I have my strawberries now?
M: Did you finish your lunch?
K: Yep!
M: Of course you can.
K: Ok. Where's my straw?
M: Your straw is in your milk glass.
K: No - my straw!
M: (Puzzled face) What do you mean, Kyra?
K: How can I eat my strawberries?
M: Ummm, with a fork?
K: Yes, a straw! That's how I say fork in English.

I guess I need to go back to school!

Do As We Say and Not As We Do?

I truly believe my picky childhood eating habits are coming back to haunt me in my children. Ian is such an unbelievably picky eater. Last week, things came to a head and I vowed not to become a short order cook. In fact, he had to eat Friday's dinner for breakfast on Saturday morning.

Fast forward to dinner last night. I fixed stuffed peppers which were very yummy (or at least I thought so). Now, I knew that Ian would never touch them so I used a portion of the ground turkey and I made a pasta bake with the leftover marinara. Ian and Kyra loved it. What I didn't expect was Rich wrinkling up his nose at me! Well, at least he was a good boy and ate the "stuffing" but no dessert for him! (He has painful childhood memories of being forced to eat stuffed peppers that he neglected to relay to me).

I guess this recipe gets cut out of the meal rotation!

Tasty Tuesday - Crockpot 40 Clove Garlic Chicken

I'm getting an early jump on Tasty Tuesday at Many Little Blessings because I don't know what time I will be able to get online tomorrow (and you need to go post a recipe too because Angie gives away prizes!). I got today's recipe ironically as a part of blogging Menu Plan Mondays. I noticed this Crockpot 40 Clove Garlic Chicken popping up on many a meal plans. I figured, if there were that many people fixing this, it had to be good! I got this recipe from Susanne at Living to Tell The Story. Since we are low carbing it, we opted not to make the gravy. I used a 4 pound chicken and cooked it for approximately 7 hours on low and the chicken literally fell off the bone! And don't let the 40 cloves of garlic discourage you from trying this recipe! The flavor was very mild. And to boot, both Ian and Kyra had seconds!!!! (a major miracle in this house!)

CROCKPOT 40 CLOVE GARLIC CHICKEN

-1 large broiler/fryer whole chicken (as big as your crock will fit)
-thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley
-salt
-fresh ground pepper
-40 cloves UNPEELED garlic
-2 stalks celery, washed and cut into 3 inch pieces
-baguette or french bread slices, toasted

Place the celery slices on the bottom of the crock. Season the chicken in and out with salt, pepper, and generously with the herbs. Place on top of the celery. Place the cloves all around and on top of the chicken. Cover and cook on low 8 hours.

Remove chicken and celery to serving platter. Remove garlic to small bowl.

GRAVY

-1/4 cup cream
-2 - 3 tablespoons cornstarch
-salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Skim the fat off the liquid in the crockpot. Turn to high. Add the cream. Mix cornstarch with a small amount of water until smooth and add to liquid. Stir, cover and heat until thickened. You can pour some on the chicken and put the rest in a gravy boat. We served it with noodles.

The roasted garlic can be squished out of it's skins onto the toasted bread.

My daughter, the hot dog snob

Since Kyra turned a year old, we have been dealing with allergy issues. At that time, she seemed to be allergic to wheat, milk and sometimes egg. They weren't horribly severe, but they were bad enough for us to consult an allegist. Since she was on the "low" end of the scale in terms of her reactions, he recommended we keep her diet free of wheat and dairy and then in a few months, start incorporating to see what happened. We have slowly been adding things and luckily, she seems to have outgrown the allergies for the most part.

Feeding a toddler with allergies is no easy task - especially when she is allergic to wheat. It's practically in everything under the sun! I came up with a fairly comprehensive list of all the foods she could have and it made grocery shopping a lot easier. The only brand hot dog we found she could have without breaking out into hives was Hebrew National. Now that her allergies have relented a bit, I scaled back just a bit and got beef Ball Park Franks. Will she eat them? Of course not! I have created a hot dog snob!