Nopales Salad (AKA Cactus Leaf Salad)

 

The fascination with cacti began with our trip to Albuquerque in March. Looly, Bean, and Roo had never seen a cactus in person and found it highly unlikely that such menacing plant life actually existed outside of cartoons. This is somewhat ironic since from my vast research (Wikipedia) I know that prickly pear cacti are a prominent feature at Illinois Beach State Park just north of Chicago. Apparently we don't get out much.

They were already impressed. Then I told them we could eat the beasts.

The first challenge was buying prickly pear leaves, or nopales. Note I didn't say we had trouble finding cactus. Buying the dang things, however, proved a bit of an issue, being that no one, including the manager of our local Dominick's grocery store seemed to have the faintest idea how cactus pads might have made it inside their store, let alone what to call them, or how one might go about ringing them up at a cash register. Many tense moments passed before I agreed to a haggled price of 88 cents per pound. Is this a fair price for nopales? I've no idea.

Slicing off thorny spines with the Santoku occupied the next half hour. I didn't even impale myself. Much. Then I gave each child a small sample of raw cactus to try which they promptly spewed back at me with tortured grimaces and vile curses. Turns out chopped raw cactus is a little slimy. Just saying.

That was the moment I realized I didn't know what I was going to with all this cactus. Back to the Internet. Someone mentioned that boiled nopales taste a little like green beans so I decided to trust them and put together a salad.

Note: I started with 8 cactus leaves. You probably don't need that many. As it was my first time I'm pretty sure I shaved off way more leaf than I needed to in order to avoid eating spines later. There are a few YouTube videos of people cleaning cactus leaves much more efficiently that I did. So as I was saying...

Nopales (AKA Cactus Leaf) Salad

5-8 prickly pear cactus leaves (nopales), spines and edges removed, sliced into small strips or pieces
1 medium onion (half to boil in water with nopales, other half chopped for the salad)
1 Tbsp. salt
1 large tomato, seeded and chopped
1 red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 medium ripe avocado
3 Tbsp. cilantro, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. fresh oregano, chopped
1 serrano pepper, seeded and minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 lemon, zest and juice
1 cup queso fresco, crumbled
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add half an onion, 1 Tbsp. salt, and the nopales. Boil about 12 minutes. Be careful it doesn't boil over.
2. Remove nopales from stove, drain, rinse in cold water. Discard onion.
3. Combine cold nopales, chopped onion, tomato, bell pepper, avocado, cilantro, oregano, serrano pepper, garlic, lemon zest, and queso fresco in large bowl and toss together.
4. In separate bowl, whisk lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Pour over salad and toss to coat.

Gotta admit, even I'm a little impressed with me. Isn't it lovely? And it tasted awesome. Next time, tortilla chips on the side.

Traversing the Restaurant Scene with Food Allergies

I want my kids to see the world before they're too cool to hold my hand. I want them to run their fingers along the weather-pocked stone of the Mayan temples I keep telling them about. I want them to know the sharp sting of black sand on the soles of their feet and the cool melt of ahi on their tongues. They should be sticking their noses into steaming pots of dal in India and sampling nshima in Zambia where their father was born. Our passports are up to date. I even bought a new bathing suit but sadly we won't be boarding an Airbus any time soon. Damn you, food allergies. I want to go on vacation!

OK, so we're not quite ready to tackle international travel yet, but as I mentioned in a previous post, we're inching toward mobility. Over the course of the past four years of dealing with Roo's allergies (now down to eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, beef, and peach) we're starting to get the hang of this eating on the road gig.

First things first. When we go to a restaurant we always have Roo's epi-pens and Benadryl. Always.

We call ahead whenever possible to get a rundown of how the restaurant handles allergies, what food items are safe, and what type of oil they use to fry stuff. We do not call to ask these questions at 7:00 pm on a Saturday night.

Once we get our menus, we ask all of the allergy questions again and compare answers. Often they are not the same as those received on the phone.

We keep an emergency snack bag in the car with a few small items in case we can't find something safe and need to buy ourselves some time. This bag contains fruit snacks, pretzels, and Dum Dum lollipops at a minimum. Bananas and turkey roll-ups do not keep well in the car. 

When someone, say a busy waitress, takes time to find out once and for all if there is egg in the fusilli pasta and returns with the label torn from a box, we do not let this act go unrequited. We are chronic over tippers. This is not a bad thing.

And we're learning to relax.

Eating out with food allergies is a risk but so is everything else worth doing. Every time Roo works his way across the monkey bars I worry that the kid before him had peanut butter on his fingers. Every time Looly goes on a play date I worry that there's an unsecured firearm in the house. Every time Bean opens our back gate on a stormy day I worry a gust of wind is going to smack the iron handle into her teeth. But somehow the monkey bars get crossed, the play date gets played, and the gate gets secured once more.

I guess that's what we do. I can't protect them from everything. For Roo, eating buttered noodles and broccoli from a kids menu is just one of those things.

Goldilocks finds her Apron

When you're 5 (or 35), a large part of kitchen success centers on wearing a cute apron.

All aprons are not created equal.  Some droop low and gape at the chest leaving flour and chicken stock to trickle down your shirt. Some hike up high on the clavicles, never resting comfortably against a necklace or collar.  Others are made of flimsy fabric that provides little protection to cashmere against an assault of stewed tomatoes. Too long, not long enough, too plain, too ruffly, too stiff, and someone please tell me, what is the purpose of a half-apron in the kitchen?

Then there are the ties. Listen up, apron makers of the world, apron strings must be sewn to tie comfortably behind the back of the wearer without a clothesline's worth of excess. Alternatively, the strings may be precisely long enough to wrap around the waist once and knot at the belly button. A rough average between these two lengths is unacceptable. 

Good news, Goldilocks. We have found our perfect porridge!

Cute, right? These aprons are from Forshee Designs on Etsy.com and they are awesome.

Bright, modern, custom fabrics, sizes that make sense for growing kids (none of this fits ages 2-12 nonsense), adjustable velcro neck straps, and perfect tie-length set these lovelies apart in our drawer full of cast-offs. Check them out in action. 

Bean's Vanilla Night

Bean loves Horizon Vanilla Milk boxes so imagine her delight when she found out we could make vanilla milk at home using the Mexican Single-Strength Vanilla Extract she picked out at Penzey's earlier this month.

Bean's Vanilla Milk

2 Cups milk
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract (not imitation)
sprinkle of ground cinnamon (optional)

Warm the milk over low heat in a saucepan. Add sugar and stir until dissolved. Stir in vanilla. Pour into pretty cups and top with a smidgen of cinnamon if you like.

To up the fancy factor, we served the milk warm in the same tiny green teacups I used to drink from at my Grammy Arta's house when I was Bean's age.

Why yes, that is a pink monkey nightgown on Roo.

Since warm vanilla milk is best sipped alongside a tasty treat, we made heart-shaped shortbread cookies dipped in dark chocolate.  We used this simple Shortbread Cookie recipe from JoyofBaking.com and Bean was thrilled that we got to put her vanilla to work again. The cookies were crumbly, buttery, and delicious.

Looly and Roo measuring flour

Their perfectly measured 260 grams

Bean and her own vanilla

Ready for the oven

Why not dip a few pretzels too?

yum!

Still to come, Looly's Vietnamese Extra Fancy Cinnamon.

Operation Kumquat

Have you ever eaten a whole kumquat? You should. 

In a continuing effort to expand the culinary horizons of my berry-crazed fruit worshipers, we sampled our first kumquats this week. When I say "we" I mean it. Neither Mufasa nor I could remember having tasted a kumquat before.

These olive-sized beauts look like baby oranges and are completely edible. You can eat the rind, which proved an endless source of delight to my children. The thin orange peel is sweet and floral, which is a very good thing since the juicy inner pulp can be shockingly tart.

I took one bite and just about sucked my cheeks down my throat. The pulp was so acidic that I considered scrapping the experiment with the kids all together. But then I ate another one. Three kumquats later, my lips and tongue numb, I was completely addicted.

Kumquats!

 As an added bonus, slicing these little lovelies gave us a chance to sharpen our knife skills.

By the way, this Kuhn Rikon serrated paring knife is my absolute favorite for teaching kids how to cut. It's sharp enough that it glides through the skin of most fruits and vegetables but not so sharp that it draws blood with any frequency. It's small enough for little fingers to handle, cheap enough that I don't worry about throwing it in the dishwasher, and it comes in bright colors that kids love to use.

Time for the taste test...

Bean preferred the sweet rind to the pulp.

Seriously sour. He ate four.

Bean liked the sweet rind. Looly and Roo fell hard for the acrid pulp and spent the afternoon trying to outdo one another's sour face. Between the three of them, they finished a pint.

Pork Chops ala Roo

Last night Roo got to try out the Pork Chop Seasoning he picked out on our trip to Penzey's earlier this week. He handled the meat while Bean took over preparations for a Lemon-Feta Orzo Salad. All I needed to do was steam a little broccoli and dinner was done.

My little pork chop seasoning pork chops

Bean has mastered the Microplane

Sous chefs

Here's a glimpse at Roo's not-so-secret recipe.

Pork Chops ala Roo

8 boneless pork loin chops, 1 inch thick
3-4 Tbsp. Penzey's Pork Chop Seasoning, but be careful.  If you don't love salt as much as Roo does, decrease this to about 2 Tbsp. It is salty!)

Dump Pork Chop Seasoning in a clump on top of pork chops. Rub, scrub, wallow, and bathe the chops in seasoning on all sides until your mom say that's enough. Grill in a grill pan until done.

Bean's Lemon-Feta Orzo Salad

1 package whole wheat orzo
1 lemon (zest and juice)
1/2 Cup feta cheese, crumbled
2 Tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped
2 Tbsp. Olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook orzo according to package directions, drain, rinse in cold water, drain again and transfer to large bowl
2. Zest lemon, set aside the zest, and squeeze juice into a small bowl
3. Add olive oil to lemon juice and whisk together
4. Pour lemon-olive oil over orzo, add feta cheese, lemon zest, parsley, and mix. Season to taste with salt and pepper

Dinner is served!

Kid Cultivation

Well Fed Garbage has become Kid Cultivation!

Despite the recent name change our garbage can still eats pretty well sometimes. This week it was chicken, rice, and broccoli casserole. White people food. When will I learn that any time a recipe calls for a can of cream of mushroom soup, I need to just stop. Seriously.

Still, it's exciting to be focusing on the thrill of food again. Reading back on some of my older posts I'm struck by what a whining, driveling fool I sound like sometimes. And while I can't promise that's going to change, I can promise that we're having a lot more fun in the kitchen these days. 

Yes, Roo still has food allergies, eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), textural sensitivities, and barfs a lot, but for the moment, he's under control. He can't eat peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, beef, or peaches. So that leaves about a billion other things he can eat.

Mufasa's controlling diabetes with diet and exercise alone. No easy feat and he's rocking it with no help from his cake pop-crazed housemates. 

Looly prefers ice cream and pizza to salmon and Brussels sprouts but her self-control is unparalleled. Who eats half a cookie?!

Bean, my little Beanie Bean, dream child of culinary delights, counts kale, lima beans, pickles, hard boiled eggs, avocado, and filet mignon among her top 10 foods and is just about always willing to try a bite. Thank you for having been born.

And as for me, I'd still love to lose 5 (meaning 10) pounds. At some point I am going to have to face the cruel reality that two nightly servings of salted caramel gelato are not part of a healthy weight loss plan. Fortunately today is not that day.