Recipes

How to Capture the Everyday: Family Recipes

August 9, 2011 by melissa

Today is the sixth post in a seven-part series about Capturing the Everyday as a spin-off from my Baby Center post called 7 Ways to Capture the Everyday. If you missed last week, I wrote about keeping receipts, tickets and other memos.

So much of our lives revolve around food: eating eat, cooking it, cleaning it up when your kids go crazy with it. Do you remember your grandmother’s famous pie? Or your dad grilling out hamburgers? Or making cookies with your mom?

Food stirs up emotion in us all. And so do recipes.

While you may think your recipes are no comparison for your grandmother’s homemade _______, there’s still worth being writing down and taking pictures of. Even if you don’t cook, it’s still important to capture what a typical week night meal is typically like. Or what you typically eat on Sunday mornings with the family. So many of our family memories revolve around the dinner table so why not remember the food too in addition to the laughs (or the squeals and screams as it so happens at our house right now)?

Writing Down Recipes

I put our favorite recipes in a binder. Most of them are printed from recipe sites but some are handwritten.

Handwriting is so important so don’t forget to write some of your favorite recipes out BY HAND (even if you think your handwriting sucks). Also, families pass recipes along to one another. These days it’s often through email. Save the entire email- you may have a little piece of history blended into it. Like that recipe on the top of the right page.

It’s a recipe for a London Broil marinade. One of my sisters emailed it to me for my recipe bridal shower over 10 years ago (she couldn’t come to that shower but she made it to my big one). At the end of the recipe, she mentioned that my nephew just tried baby cereal for the first time. I cherish this email because I sense the new mom excitement in her words. My nephew? He’s 11 now.

Taking Pictures of Recipes

Well, really it’s taking picture of FOOD made from recipes. We do this a lot, especially with easy tools like Instagram.

I love seeing food pictures. Wouldn’t it be cool to see your food pictures in 20 years?

These are a family favorite called Gullets. They’re shortbread cookies you make in a waffle iron. And they are delicious.

Daddy Roo likes to make crostatas from fresh fruit (yes, I’m blessed with a hubby who loves to cook). This one was made last Christmas with blueberries from our neighbor’s blueberry bushes.

Taking Pictures of Recipe-Makers

Big Roo is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to food. He LOVES helping us out in the kitchen. In fact, I attribute him helping us out to the fact that he eats things most kids wouldn’t dare touch (chickpeas straight from the can, anyone?).

When you’re documenting your favorite recipes, don’t forget to get pictures of those who cook them. Ya know those gullets I showed you earlier? Daddy Roo’s grandmother used to make those ONE BY ONE in an old waffle iron held over a flame. How amazing to have a picture of that!

Here’s a picture of Big Roo stirring up our favorite granola recipe (it’s blurry but I love the spin effect in the bowl).

Stay tuned next week when I dig deeper into taking pictures with YOU in them. Yeah, you.

Your Kids Will Eat These: Summer Corn Fritters & Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

June 15, 2010 by melissa

I don’t typically post recipes. But when I updated Facebook and Twitter on Sunday with our meat-free dinner menu, I didn’t have the foresight to know that people would be beating down my door for these recipes (okay, okay maybe it wasn’t that drastic but I did get some hollas).

Lacking that foresight, I share these recipes sans pictures. Sinful I know, coming from a mamarazzi like me. You’ll just have to trust me that these recipes will impress your friends. And your neighbors. And maybe even your kids who think veggies are the devil.

Summer Corn Fritters
1/2 cup shredded carrot
1/2 cup all-purpose baking mix (I used Bisquick)
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg
3/4 cup cooked corn, cut from the cob (can also use thawed frozen corn)
1/2 cup shredded zucchini
oil for frying

1. Microwave shredded carrot 30 seconds to soften, then set aside. In medium bowl, combine baking mix, cornmeal and sugar. Stir in milk and egg then mix well. Stir in corn, zucchini and shredded carrot.

2. In a skillet, heat 1/3 inch of oil to 375 degrees (we don’t fry much but this has healthy VEGGIES so they cross each other out, right?). Gently spoon dollops of fritter mixture into oil and fry, turning once, until golden brown and cooked through, about 4 minutes. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle with salt. Serve warm. Makes about 12-16 small fritters.

Nutrition per fritter (serving is about 3-4): 62 cal 1 g protein 4 g fat 6g carb 11mg calcium

Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes
(These are ballpark measurements. I don’t follow an exact recipe.)

4 sweet potatoes
4-6 Tbps butter
1 small can of crushed pineapple, drained
1/4 to 1/2 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Microwave sweet potatoes for 10 minutes or until soft. Mix brown sugar and butter together (a hand pastry blender works well). Stir in pineapple.

Scoop out sweet potatoes into bowl of yummy goodness. Mix it all together. Spoon mixture back into sweet potatoes and sprinkle top with brown sugar. Bake for at least 20 minutes.

Nutrition per potato: I have no idea. Don’t think about calories this time, mmmkay? Remember sweet potatoes are magically healthy… before that butter and sugar anyway.

We rounded out our meal with an un-fancy salad. We’ll be making this meal many more times this summer I’m sure.

The Perfect Trail Mix for My Selective Nut Allergy

November 8, 2009 by melissa

Being allergic to most nuts, I have a heck of a time finding trail mix that doesn’t have almonds, pecans or other nuts that make me itchy and swollen. In fact, the glorious few that I can eat are peanuts, cashews and pistachios. I’ve never quite figured out why I can eat some nuts while others turn me into an itching, swelling beast. I think it’s the “tree nuts” I can’t eat but I don’t really have the inclination to research the birth of nuts on wikipedia.

So, I typically make trail mix myself. My favorite sweet-and-salty mix-o-goodness is one that Trader Joe’s used to carry… until they decided people who can only eat peanuts don’t need a trail mix of their own!

Now I make my own.

Equal parts of:
– Peanuts
– Dried cranberries
– Dried pineapple
– White chocolate chips

Of course, if peanuts are your arch-nemesis, then go for one of the nuts that can kill me. It’s okay, I won’t mind.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

October 30, 2009 by melissa

In food land, fall is nearly synonymous with “pumpkin”- pumpkin spice lattes (my addiction 3 years running), pumpkin soups, pumpkin pies, pumpkin cream cheese (I miss Einstein Bagels)… I could go on like Bubba from Forrest Gump but you get the picture.

Do your taste buds go numb from pumpkin overload? Mine sure don’t! So why not try these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffins? I came across the recipe from one of my favorite sites, Money Saving Mom.

Big Roo & I made them last week and gobbled them up within a few days. These muffins would be perfect for an easy camping breakfast or a mid-hike snack (provided they didn’t get squished in your backpack).

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 (16 oz.) can pureed pumpkin
1 1/2 cups oil
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 package chocolate chips (I used about 3/4 package)

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin, and oil until smooth. Add in dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake 16-20 minutes at 400 degrees. Makes 24-30 muffins.

*My heart about stopped just from POURING that much oil in the measuring cup. Some of the comments on Money Saving Mom‘s blog said they replaced the oil with applesauce with great results. I wanted to try the recipe as is first before I messed with it but I’m sure it’s YUM either way!