Shoulda, woulda, coulda

I had a professor in college who wanted to eradicate the word "very" from the English language. His reasoning? If a writer had to resort to using it, then their adjective wasn't strong enough and they needed to pick another one. He was very smart.

I would also like to kill off a word. Not an obvious one, like "moist" or the love-to-hate-it "panties." The word on my chopping block is much more fraught with the poisonous nuances of guilt and shame. It's a word that I hope to erase from my vocabulary in order to lift a shroud from my life and protect my children from its dark and foreboding presence. So who gets voted off the island, sent to swim with the fishes, goes down for the big sleep?

Should.

I hate it.

Is there anything more crippling to the present moment than niggling thoughts of what you should be doing? Reading a novel when you should be starting your taxes. Checking in on Facebook when you should be writing a grant proposal. Going to a movie when you should be seeing live theatre. Eating a brownie when vegetables should be on the menu.

And the constant running list. The shoulds that always live in the background. I should:
do yoga
take the kids to the library
learn Spanish
make a grocery list
hang the pictures stacked in the closet
answer that email I've been avoiding
get a haircut
fold the laundry
sweep
buy a broom
replace batteries in all the dead toys
make a Goodwill drop
create a filing system to help out next year's taxes...

In reality, there is no such thing as a should. It is a bogus construct designed to instill unrest. Nothing is ever good enough when there is something more that should be done. Well, fuck you should. I declare you null and void.

And really, outside of this random rant, there is no such thing as a should. There is doing, and not doing. So how to kick should to the curb? Time for an action plan.

1. Question the reasoning behind the should.
Why should or shouldn't I be doing something? Outside of this moment, does anyone besides me care about the implied morality of what I am doing? Sometimes all it takes to release an old idea is to face it head on. So screw you, Nancy Reagan, I didn't always say "No" and I turned out just fine. 

2. Drop the guilty implications of should.
What is the point of "I shouldn't be doing this?" Whether it's polishing off a box of cookies or robbing a bank, either stop the action or at the very least don't ruin it by adding shame. Savor those cookies. Steal those dollars. Be in the moment. Then go for a walk or split the take with a favorite charity. 

3. Break the habit of should.
Sometimes I think I use a should for no good reason other than making myself unhappy. Not on purpose, just as a lazy form of ennui. Case in point, everyone's favorite "I should exercise more." This is not an action item, this is a way to feel less than while still watching TV. Which is lame. Let my jeans chastise me by being too tight if they must, I don't need to add insult to injury. I'm back to the idea of "do it, or don't." Exercise, or don't. Thinking on the should of the matter results in a whopping nothing. And some of the shoulds are even more mundane. Alone, "I should start packing for my trip" may not be that big of a deal, but left unchecked it can multiply into a giant list of actions that a better person would be taking while crappy ol' me just plugs along. Enough! If a giant fist punched me in the face every time I said "should," I'd stop saying it pretty quickly. I'm smart like that. Time to extend that same self-preservation skill to my general happiness and sense of worth. 

4. When saying or thinking the dreaded should, take a moment to reset.
If I "should" be sending an overdue birthday card, am I able to stop what I am doing and crank out the card? If yes, do it and move on. If no, either decide not to send a card and live with that, or decide to send the card as soon as I am able and return to the task at hand.

5. Let the "should cycle" die by not using it with my kids.
It's pretty easy to rework a "You should share with your brother," into "If you don't feel like sharing then you can go to your room and play by yourself for a while. But if you'd like to play together I'd love to have you stay here with us. Your choice." No guilt. Lesson imparted. Child retains a small sense of control and dignity.

Man, I should have made this list years ago!

Quick and Easy Sides: Roasted Kale Chips

Kale is my new favorite super food. It has replaced spinach in all of my soups and stir-fries, and I make it all the time in chip form. Thanks to my cousin-in-law Eryn for turning me on to this recipe. It makes a great pairing with the Quick and Easy: Salmon filets.

Toddler tip: We flat out lied to Jude and introduced these as green potato chips. He loves them.

ROASTED KALE CHIPS

Ingredients:
Organic kale
EVOO
salt


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Wash and dry your kale thoroughly - the leaves hide a lot of grit. Then cut off the ribs and chop the leaves into roughly chip-sized pieces.

Put the chopped kale in a baking dish, sprinkle on some EVOO and salt, mix it up and pop into the oven for 15-20 minutes. I usually give it a stir halfway through.

A note on baking dishes: This is perfect for a trusty 9x13 Pyrex dish. Don't use the dark, dented metal cake pan that we all have in the back of our cupboards. This will make the kale taste more like burnt pot. Not that I'd know. (Hey, Mom. Dad. So...what's new with you guys?)

The final result is crispy and addictive. This basic recipe also works with the addition of any spice mix you like, and was quite delicious with a little good balsamic as well. Eat up!

Beef. It's what's for dinner.

It's always a challenge finding a meal that will feed the whole family (read "Jude") and not resort to the old macaroni and cheese with peas stand-by. (One box Annie's organic mac'n'cheese made according to box directions, with a cup of frozen peas added to the pasta in the final 2 minutes of boiling.)

This fits the bill, and only takes half an hour to pull off. I really enjoy that half hour - I put on whatever album I am currently obsessed with (right now it's Bruce Springsteen's "Wrecking Ball" - so great), Gabe and the boys retreat to the basement if they are home, and I reenact my favorite scene from "Bandits." Good times.

Today I had a tiny partner in the kitchen. He also got his groove on.

MEDITERRANEAN MINI-BURGERS WITH HUMMUS AND COUSCOUS

(adapted from a Real Simple recipe and Mark Bittman's quick homemade hummus) 

Ingredients

Mini burgers:

1 lb organic, grass-fed hamburger (pink slime free, if you care)

1 1/2 TB dried oregano

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

olive oil

Hummus:

14 oz can organic garbanzo beans (drain off about half of the water, saving it to thin the hummus if needed)

1 rounded tsp ground cumin

3/4 TB lemon juice 

salt and pepper to taste

2+ TB olive oil

chopped garlic (4 cloves, or a fat teaspoon) 

box of couscous (time saver)

optional extras:

tomatoes

cucumber

green onions

feta 

Form the hamburger into 12 small patties. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Combine the oregano and cumin and coat the burgers. 

NOTE: You can do this step the night before, cover and store these in the fridge, and then make dinner after work the next night in 15 minutes.

Heat 2-4 TB olive oil in a large skillet. I use my enameled dutch oven as it reduces the amount of hot oil that spits in my face. Heat oil over med-high heat. When hot, add burgers and cook 5 minutes on the first side.

While the burgers cook, you can make the hummus and start the water for your couscous. It's an efficient use of time, and will ensure that you leave the burgers alone and allow them to get a nice crust without bothering them. A food processor or blender will work just fine for the hummus, but I do love my (as seen on TV!) Magic Bullet. 

Everything just goes right in. The joy of this hummus is that you can wing it without messing it up. It's also easily adapted - you can add tahini, roasted red pepper, whatever. 

Blend blend blend until it is smooth and oh-so-tasty. Adjust your seasonings if you need to. I top it with a drizzle of olive oil and some parsley or oregano. 

Flip those burgers! An additional 5 minutes should give you a juicy burger with a slight hint of pink. Adjust the timing to your preferred doneness. 

The couscous can cook up while the burgers finish. I like Near East - not too gummy, a variety of good flavors. Even better if you add chopped green onions, a dash of lemon juice, and additional garlic - have fun.

Toddler tip: Meals that can be easily deconstructed are easy to tone down for fickle palates, and anything with dips are a hit. Also, ketchup still has lycopenes, so in my book counts as a serving of fruits/vegetables. 

 Proof that it works:

For the grown-up, this meal is best with fresh tomatoes, and in the summer we add diced cucumbers from the garden. Feta makes this WONDERFUL and as soon as Aidan can handle dairy without spitting up this will return to our table.

Sorry to talk about spit-up in a recipe post.

Enjoy your dinner.

Quick and Easy: Salmon filets

I may not have been writing over the past week, but I have been doing. So today we get a flurry of blog activity. If I were some not-so-clever copywriter I'd call it blogtivity, but then I'd hate myself. Don't get me started on why I refuse to eat at Subway and support an establishment that utilizes words like "Febru-any."

But I digress.

I'm starting a new blog category (ugh, blog-egory) dedicated to the working parent called "Quick and Easy." These are delicious "get it on the table fast" foods that you can prepare in less time than it takes to organize your family's order and hit the drive-thru.

We'll kick it off with fool-proof salmon filets courtesy of Ina Garten. I love me some Barefoot Contessa. Thanks to Ina, I will no longer serve overcooked, under-seasoned salmon. I will give my family fish once a week in order to make us all smarter. And since this dish is so wonderful, I will now buy enough for 3 meals since Gabe, Jude and I polished off both the original dinner and the planned leftovers in one swoop. (Win!)

Toddler tip: Jude loves sharks. Sharks eat fish. So we encourage Jude to eat his "shark food" when we serve fish for dinner. Great introduction and now he actually asks for this meal.

PAN-SEARED SALMON FILETS
(on the plate in 15 minutes)

Ingredients:
Salmon
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper


Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Heat a dry oven-safe skillet on high heat for 4 minutes. (This would be great in a cast iron skillet.)

Pull your pre-cut salmon filets from the fridge. Remove the skin as it's gross and there is no place for it in this recipe. Rub the filets with EVOO and generously salt and pepper the tops.

Place filets, seasoning side down, into the hot pan and LEAVE THEM ALONE FOR 2 MINUTES! I mean it, don't peak or pull at them.

They are ready to turn over when they release from the pan without sticking and are a deep brown.

Place the pan into the pre-heated oven for 7 minutes. This would be a great time to make a salad or shoot a glass of wine before the family comes to dinner and spoils your buzz. If you want to include your significant other in the alcohol-based love, let me recommend a nice Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio with this meal.

Once you've got your drinks sorted out, remove the pan from the oven and the salmon will be rare to medium rare in the center. This is a tad too raw for my family, so I let the salmon rest in the hot pan for 3 or 4 minutes while I plate the sides. This gives us a perfect medium every time.

Melt in your mouth delicious. Enjoy your dinner.

Tonight, we eat like kings.

The best thing that has happened to our house since I stopped working full-time, besides the fact that I am no longer a raging psycho of stress, is that we eat well. Like really, really well. There is something to be said for having the Food Network on in the background 24/7 - you can't help but absorb some of the information.

An increase in my overall time to devote to cooking is also a huge factor. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to cook better food when I worked full-time. I often rushed through a dinner prep and turned out something sufficient, but I didn't have time to experiment. To perfect. To play. Now that I do, I can share the particularly successful recipes with other time-crunched parents. I cook for the greater good! (And, it's delicious.)

Finally, quality ingredients really help. A large portion of our weekly budget goes towards food, but we don't do anything anymore (yeah kids!) so we still come out ahead. Not to say that I am not shocked when 2 bags of groceries at Whole Foods tops $125, but the beauty of homemade is that leftovers become lunch. And sometimes dinner again. So, we splurge on pricey organic eats. You get what you pay for. And since I make 90% of our food I don't EVER worry about low fat. That's right. We are a full fat family when it comes to dairy and meat. And I am going to guarantee that we are still healthier than most Americans. The key is getting rid of the processed foods. I bake all the time, and Jude is very familiar with the scent of bacon, but we are in better shape than we've ever been. A valuable lesson from my Grandma's kitchen.

So, without further ado, here is last night's dinner - on the table 30 minutes after I started making it. The leftovers today were even better.

WHITE BEAN STEW
(adapted from Mark Bittman's "Kitchen Express")

Ingredients:
4 slices bacon (I prefer applewood smoked uncured)
chopped garlic (a jar of Christopher Ranch organic chopped garlic is always in my fridge)
1 can petite diced tomatoes with their juice
2 cans cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
2 cups organic chicken stock
kale
salt and pepper

Slice the bacon into 1-inch pieces and brown in a large skillet. Remove bacon and lower heat. Carefully add a heaping teaspoon of chopped garlic (approx. 4 large cloves) to the bacon grease and saute for 30 seconds.

Pour in the tomatoes with juice. Be careful! If your bacon grease is too hot, it will splatter like something crazy. (This is where a sexy apron comes in handy. Save your clothes from the grease stains while channeling your inner 1940s homemaker!)

Add 2 cups chicken stock. More if you like extra juice, less if you want a thicker stew. Add rinsed and drained cannellini beans. Salt and pepper to taste.

Once liquid is simmering add a few handfuls of chopped kale and stir until wilted.

Add bacon back to pot, saving some for garnish.

Toddler tip: If you, like me, have a child who only likes macaroni and cheese you can still make this dish! Puree a ladle of the tomato/chicken stock mixture before you add the beans. Heat this in its own skillet. Add some of the cannellini beans and season to your child's liking. For Jude we skip the kale - he only likes that roasted. (And then only because I tell him they're green potato chips...)

I serve this over baguette slices. Cut them 1-2 inches thick, drizzle with EVOO, and rub with a cut garlic clove. Place under the broiler or in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes until toasted.

The final product, I must say, is amazing, hearty family-fare. And the fat from the bacon allows your body to absorb more of the cancer-fighting lycopenes from the tomatoes - yeah bacon!

Voila! Enjoy your dinner.