Mom?? Is There Anything To Eat Around Here?? Tales of A Hungry Teen

Taco Salad, salsa, & chips

 As I putter around the Little Kitchen getting my lunch containers washed and ready for tomorrow's lunch and pondering the much asked question "What should I make for dinner?"   I hear a key rattle in the lockset of the back door...next comes the click of the door handle turnings.  The door opens and in comes the plodding footsteps of my lumbering teen age son.  Sounding like the call of the wild I hear "Hello!?"  After a quick verbal exchange circling around our days, homework, and what's new, the big question he is dying to ask finally surfaces: "Do we have anything to eat around here?  I am starving!"....

Well, it has started again...my 15 year old son came home from school absolutely ravenous!! While this in not completely unusual, he was just that much more hungry than normal.  He exclaimed that he had eaten all of his lunch at school today and was still hungry.  Most days he comes home and has a snack.  No problem here.  Most kids (and adults) require a little snack to get them through to dinner.  However, he will come home, make a chicken ceasar salad or some other fairly decent snack.

We keep already cooked and sliced chicken breast in single serve portions in the freezer so he can just thaw them in the microwave.  While his chicken his thawing, he prepares his salad with already washed, dried, and stored in fridge romaine lettuce, dressing, some cheese, croutons...all the fixings.  Of course he still eats a full dinner with us later.  Even my son seemed confused by how hungry he was today.  I do try to keep the fridge and freezer stocked with items he can quickly assemble and eat.  This is especially helpful when he has a baseball practice or team workout!  Yes, that is correct, I said baseball.  I realize there is a thick blanket of snow on the ground right now but currently his team practices on skill develpment and strengthening indoors. (They will also get to travel far enough South on their spring break to play in the States where it will already be warm enough to play outdoors.)

Big pot O' taco meat

 Here is our new idea for this week of feeding frenzies!

• Cook up a big batch of taco meat and store it in the fridge.  Add your favourite taco seasonings.  This can also be stored in single serve (1/4 cup or 1/3 cup) portions and frozen for quick heating in the microwave.  Ideas for taco seasonings can be found here.

Taco meat for the week:

In batches, fry up a large family pack of ground beef, transferring cooked meat to a bigger pot.  While the meat is cooking, add some finely diced onions, garlic and green pepper.  (sneak in those veggies if you have to!)

Mix together in a bowl:

• 2 tbsp dried red pepper, crushed
• 2 tbsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp cumin
• ½ tsp  kosher salt
• 1 ½ tbsp paprika

Start by using about 1 tbsp seasoning per pound of meat.  Taste and adjust seasonings. Add more hot peppers if you wish. 

•   Cut up favourite toppings for tacos and taco salads (peppers, shredded cheese, onions, tomatoes, pickeled peppers).  Store the toppings in baggies or containers and place them in a basket in the fridge.  Keeping everything in one basket makes it easy to take that basket out, assemble your taco, salad, or other food item.
• Add a package of taco shells or flour tortillas to the basket.
•  
• Store the taco meat next to the basket.
•  
• Store a big bunch of pre washed lettuce on top. 
• Let your teen make a taco, taco salad, or even a danged quesadilla for snack or for lunch.

basket o' toppings with flour tortillas

  The salsa was made with a little help from Epicure.  It is a simple, easy way to make salsa.  I use a can of no salt added diced tomatoes, some diced peppers, diced onions, and the Epicure spice mix....voila!  Tasty salsa to go with taco week.

My son's taco wrap, chips and watermelon

Bacon Makes everything Better: Bacon Laced Macaroni and Cheese

During my attempts to keep a group a hungry teens fed, I whipped up a big batch of macaroni and cheese.  I made it even tastier by adding bacon! mmmmm......bacon..... I know for a fact there are people out there who thick we eat bacon all the time.  Rest assured, we don't.  We wish we could eat bacon all the time but we don't.  I mean who doesn't wish they could eat bacon everyday?  I really don't think my arteries would love me for that.  Yes, I have made a few posts about bacon lately, but we really don't eat bacon that much.  We are just on a bacon kick.  My original mac n cheese recipe can be found here. This turned out to be such a hit, my son sent leftovers with his guests!

Hickory smoked, pepper crusted bacon....mmmmmmm

Bacon Laced Macaroni and Cheese - please note, there is nothing really health about this recipe...it is just darn tasty....
Printable recipe
You will need:

• ½ lb bacon, cut into pieces and fried crisp. (Save the bacon in a safe spot, away from bacon lovers to prevent unwanted snacking)  Feel free to use more bacon if you would like more bacon in your mac, or just some to snack on as you go...
• ¼ cup bacon fat
• ¼ cup butter
• ½ cup flour
• 4 cups half and half, warmed
• 1 healthy squirt of hot sauce (tobacco or sirracha)
• 1 healthy squirt mustard (yellow, Dijon....whichever you have)
• 2 boxes macaroni (tonight I used cavatapi, they were both just under a pound of pasta each)
• 3 cups Grated old cheddar
• 1 cup Grated Gouda (reserve a small amount of both cheeses for the bread crumb topping)

Topping

• ½ cup panko bread crumbs
• 2 or 3 tbsp bacon fat (or olive oil, or melted butter)
• ¼ cup asiago

Assembly

Butter a 9 x 13 baking or casserole dish and set aside.

Put a large pot of water on the stove to boil.  Cook the pasta al dente so it won’t be soggy after baking.  If your package of pasta has a minimum boil time, use the lowest time it gives.  Drain well and put aside until the cheese sauce is ready. ( I usually just dump the pasta into the pan I am going to bake it in.) 

Cheese sauce

While the water is heating, in a large saucepan, melt the butter with the bacon fat so you can start your bechemel sauce.

Add ½ cup flour to the pot to make a roux.  Stir the fat and flour together and cook for couple of minutes.  This will cook out any raw flour taste.

While whisking, pour in 4 cups of warmed half and half, whisking to prevent lumps.  (I find that when I use the milk cold from the fridge, the roux seizes up and gets too lumpy to stir into a smooth sauce.)  Also add the hot sauce and the mustard.

Continue to heat and stir over medium until the milk thickens.

Once the sauce thickens, add the cheeses and stir to melt.

Pour the cheese sauce over the pasta and stir.  I like to save a dish and combine the pasta and the sauce in the dish I will be baking it in.

Add the reserved bacon pieces (or what is left of them after everyone walks by and eats some), and stir to combine.

Now it is time to make the delicious crumb topping...mmmm... Idea!!  Some tomato slices would be awsome on this!!

Mix together the ½ cup of panko bread crumbs with 2 or 3 tbsp of bacon fat (or use oil or melted butter).   Use enough to get the bread crumbs damp.   Add the ¼ cup of asiago cheese and the little bit of reserved grated cheese to the bread crumbs.

Sprinkle the top with the bread crumb topping.

Bake in a 350 degree oven until hot, bubbly, and the topping is a nice golden brown.

Heavenly Devil's Food Chocolatey Goodness

Tonight my son is having his buddies over to celebrate his birthday.  I'm not sure if 15 year old boys officially call it a birthday party, but there is a room full of teen age boys playing video games and eating tons of food in my house.  I didn't make a huge shaped or a really fancy cake this time since I made the baseball cake last weekend.  My son and I decided to go with devil's food chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing.  Devil's food chocolate cake just happen to be one of my favourite types of cake.  I have tested this recipe with different ratios of butter and oil for maximum tastiness and moistness.  Ultimately this family favourite has been adapted from Martha Stewart.  As usual this recipe has been doubled to produce maximum chocolatey goodness.  These little bundles of chocolatey goodness just happened to be served at my friend's wedding with rave reviews.  I have also made them for the wedding of a friend's son, also to rave reviews.

Devil’s food cupcakes

Shopping and prep list

Yield: Approximately 60 cupcakes

Printable recipe

• 1 ½ cups Cocoa powder
• 1 ½ cups Hot water
• 6 cups Flour
• 2 tsp Baking soda
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• 2 ½ Salt
• 2 cups Butter
• ¾ cup Canola oil
• 4 ½ cups Sugar
• 2 tbsp plus 2 tsp Vanilla
• 8 Eggs
• 2 cups Sour cream, full fat

Devil’s food cupcakes

this mixture will be smooth like chocolate but won't taste like chocolate!

In a bowl whisk together until smooth:

• 1 ½ cups cocoa powder
• 1 ½ cups hot water

Mix in another bowl: 

• 6 cups flour 
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder  
• 2 ½ tsp salt

·         

Melt together:

• 2 cups butter
• ¾ cup canola oil
• 4 ½ cups sugar

Beat the sugar/butter/oil mixture in the bowl of stand mixer until cooled (about 5 minutes).  When you first start mixing the sugar, oil, butter mixture it will look like this:

The start of mixing

After a good 5 minutes of mixing, it will turn a nice, pale yellow colour and will look more like this:

After 5 minutes of mixing

Adding the chocolate mixture after the eggs and 

vannilla

Add to the bowl of the stand mixer:

• 8 eggs, one at a time until blended
• 2 tbsp plus 2 tsp vanilla 
• Chocolate and water mixture you made before

·   Beat until well blended then alternate the additions of:

• 2 cups sour cream, full fat

the last of the flour

with additions of:

• the flour mixture until both are gone (about 3 additions of each)

Scoop into lined cupcake pans and bake at 35o degrees F for about 20 minutes.

Once the cupcakes are cool it is time to ice them.  We just can't have plain ol' chocolate cupcakes now can we? I  have been looking for a recipe for cream cheese frosting for a while. Some research dug up many different ratios of cream cheese to butter and icing sugar.  I browsed for a while before adapting what I found to suit my needs. (each set of underlined words leads to a cream cheese frosting recipe)

Cream cheese frosting

In the bowl of your mixer, blend together until smooth:

• 1 brick cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened

Once the cream cheese and the butter are well mixed and smooth, add and continue to mix:

• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

When the milk and vanilla are will mixed in, add 1 cup at a time, mixing thouroghly after each addition

• 4 1/2 cups icing sugar

Frost your cupcakes as you please!  I like to use a piping bag with a large star tip on it for nice swirls of icing!

Racing Through Cake Week!

My nephew loves Hotwheels cars so much that when I asked him last year what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, the answer was an undeniable, "A hotwheels cake pease Anty Wori"  And really, who am I to say no and deny this adorable little guy the cake of his dreams?  Challenge accepted!!

1. Bake 2 round cakes
2. Trim off a small bit of the edge of each cake to make it flat and so they will fit together
3. Use one of the pieces you trimmed off the round cakes to form a bridge that will complete the figure 8 race track.
4. Crumb coat your cake with a layer of icing.
5. Roll out the fondant and gently cover the cake.  Take care to smooth out the fondant.
6. Using the pans as a guide, cut out a template for a figure 8 racetrack to use as a tracer.
7. Roll out the black fondant and use the template and a paring knife to cut it out.
8. Gently lay the track on the cake.  Brush a tiny bit of water on under the black fondant so it will stick to the fondant below.
9. Roll out the yellow fondant.  Using a paring knife, cut out some small yellow dashes to use as traffic lines.
10. I then printed out the logo, cut out the letters and used them as a tracer.  Using a paring knife, trace the letters and the flame portion of the logo in the fondant colours of your choice.
11. Rember to use a small brush of water to help the fondant pieces stick to each other.
12. Wash up a couple of cars to put on the cake!

 This year my nephew has asked for a monster truck cake..... I am still in planning mode but I will let you know how it goes!

Hot Diggity Dog Cake....More Cake Walking: A bonus post!

Ok, it is Thursday night already and I just couldn't wait to share more cake.  This one was especially fun to make!! This cake was my first ever shaped cake!  Hubby asked me if I thought I could make a hot dog shaped cake for his boss's birthday.  They have a tradition at his work where they go to Costco for hot dogs for lunch.  The request for this cake was to have his boss's favourite hot dog toppings.  This cake took planning, drawings, and some research...by research I mean watching "Ace of Cakes".   My biggest fear for this cake was delivery...would it hold up or fall apart?  It all held together and I am told everyone enjoyed the cake.

the 'naked dog'

One of my challenges was getting the fondant icing colours the right shade.  It was also fun to mix and knead the fondant and play with the colours.

The 'bun' was actuall y2 cakes that I baked in loaf pans.  I turned the loaves on their sides with the bottoms together and cut out the notch to rest the wiener.

The weiner was actually 3 twinkies with ends trimmed and iced together, then rolled in fondant.

I continued to play with fondant colours so I could make the different toppings.  This was actually a lot of fun attempting to make things like pepper rings, ketchup, and relish to top off the giant dog!

The ketchp and mustard were both buttercream icing.

The relish was green icing gel with chopped up yellow and green jelly beans mixed in!

The onions are white chocolate chunks

The Jalapenos and pepper rings are all cut out from fondant.








This cake was fun to make.  I especially enjoy people's reactions to it.  "That's a cake?"