Dogs and Cats

I get asked a lot about what to feed cats and dogs.  I suppose it makes sense, I’ve had animals all my life and this year is the first year in 17 I haven’t had a Great Dane in my house.  My search for better food for my pets was spurred by a Great Dane who was allergic to everything – and I mean everything – and a cat with diabetes.

When I was researching food ingredients, the first thing I found out is that both cats and dogs don’t tolerate corn very well.  Finding food without corn can be a challenge - especially years ago, when even the most expensive foods still had corn.  And when you have a Great Dane who consistently throws up entire bowls of food because she’s allergic to corn, the search becomes urgent.  I went with an all meat, raw diet for a while – which was time consuming, messing and smelled awful, but solved a lot of problems.  In the end I felt like they weren’t getting all the nutrition they needed.

I was grateful when I found foods for both my cats and dogs that were very basic – meats, vegetables and brown rice.  All things that everyone in my menagerie tolerated well.   And as more people discovered these types of diets, the prices have come down, which is great, because I’ll have Great Danes again and they can polish off 40lbs of food pretty quickly.

So if your dog or cat has intestinal problems or behavior problems, both of which can be caused by food sensitivities, try cutting out the corn.  My Dane was truly allergic to everything – oatmeal, white rice, beef, grass - it took some time to find a diet she could tolerate, so don’t give up.   When you find the right diet and their fur gets soft and shiny, they shed less and are generally healthier, you’ll know you’ve hit it.  I was able to control my cat’s diabetes without insulin shots by experimenting with her diet, so it was more than worth it.   And in the long run, less expensive than lots of vet visits and insulin.

Fat Tuesday -Pasta Jambalaya

A quick and easy jambalaya flavored dish for Fat Tuesday.  Serve with corn bread and broccoli or spinach for a quick dinner.

 

Pasta Jambalaya

• 12 oz penne pasta
• ½ tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 tsp crushed garlic
• 1 tsp Cajun or Creole seasoning
• 15 oz can black beans
• 14 oz can diced tomatoes
• 4 oz can chopped green chilies
• 8 oz sliced carrots
• 4 oz smoked sausage, sliced
• 4 oz shredded Mexican 4-blend cheese

saucepan

 

Cook pasta according to package directions.  Drain well.  In saucepan, heat oil and sauté onion & pepper.  Add garlic, Cajun seasoning, tomatoes, chilies, beans, carrots and sausage.  Bring to a low boil, reduce heat, add pasta and let simmer for 10 minutes. Serve with cheese as garnish.

Spring Training and the Garden

Once again, the first signs of summer have arrived.  Baseball spring training and garden catalogues.  I love summer.  I love baseball.  I LOVE gardening.  I’m an optimistic and lazy gardener.  I start early, before the last frost.  I prefer raised beds, so I can prep the soil with a deep layer of good organic material.  If I can’t wait and plant early, I use various measures to protect seedlings from frost, most involve plastic and water.  Most importantly I mulch heavily and continue to mulch over the growing season.  This is where the lazy part comes in.  The rest of the season I water minimally and rarely weed.  I figure I give my plants a good healthy start and then it’s up to them to thrive!

The anticipation of a garden harvest is joy.  Nothing tastes better than foods made with fresh garden ingredients.  Salsas are magnificent with garden tomatoes, cilantro, green onions, jalapenos and maybe some tomatillos.   Salads are full of flavor with greens freshly cut, tiny cucumbers, sweet peppers and whatever else I might be inspired to plant.  Fresh peas and pole beans, anything you buy in the store pales in comparison.  And at the end of the season, when tomatoes are abundant, I cook, puree and freeze the bounty to tide me over until about…. January.  This is why February finds me longing to start my garden NOW!

I come by it naturally.  My dad plants enough garden vegetables to feed most of the neighborhood and my mom comes up with fabulous ways to use them.  And who do you think  taught me how to extend that great flavor through winter?!  And nothing beats my mom’s cucumber, tomato, onion salad.   A summer favorite.

So if you’ve never gardened before, why not try it this summer?  Start small.  Get two large containers.  In one, plant a variety of lettuces, in the other a tomato plant, I suggest Early Girl for beginners.  Buy a healthy tomato seedling for greatest success your first time out.  There’s a new item out that I’ve been wanting to try, it’s an upside down tomato planter, this may be the summer I do.  Most garden catalogues carry them now.

Okay, with that, I’ll dig through my recipes and find something appropriate February.  It won’t be as exciting as fresh summer salsa, but it’ll be tasty.  Until then…

A Novel Idea

I learned to cook at a very early age.  My godmother gave me a children’s cookbook for my 9th birthday and I think I tried every recipe in it before my 10th.  It was about the same age that I began to notice that some of my favorite books contained intriguing ideas for recipes and some even had recipes written in with the story.

I learned the best ever burger recipe from Trixie Belden.  I learned about spoonbread and butterbeans from Scout and Jem Finch.  Stephanie Plum made me crave meatball subs and cabbage rolls.  And author Jennifer Crusie creates entire novels around cooking and taste treats.  There are so many others, but that’s off the top of my head.

Pork Floss?!?

Looking for something daring?  How about Pork Floss?  Sounds intriguing and next time I’m at the Asian market in my area, I might try it and let you know what it’s like.  But if you get daring or have had it before, love to hear your comments on it.

Tropical Menu

Pork Tenderloin w/Mojo Sauce & Chutney

     Baked Sweet Potato w/ Curry Butter

          Steamed Sugar Snap Peas

              Key Lime Pie

 

Pork Tenderloin w/Mojo Sauce & Chutney

• 1 cup olive oil
• 1 tbsp crushed garlic
• 1 cup key limejuice*
• 1 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1-1½ lb pork tenderloin
• 8 oz jar pineapple or mango chutney

sauce pan and roasting pan or casserole dish

 

Sauté garlic & olive oil in saucepan. Add limejuice & spices.  Bring sauce to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Place the roast in a covered ovenproof casserole.  Pour 1 cup of the Mojo sauce over the pork.  Cover and bake at 350° for 40 to 45 minutes, until internal temperature is 140°.  During cooking, baste the roast twice. Let set 10 minutes before slicing into medallions, serve with remaining Mojo sauce & chutney.  Start checking internal temperature at 30 minutes.  I’ve never had a pork roast cook the same amount of time yet.

 

Baked Sweet Potato w/ Curry Butter

• 4 small sweet potatoes
• ¼ cup butter
• ¼ – ½  tsp curry powder

Bake at the same time the tenderloin is cooking. Approximately 45-60 minutes, until you can easily pierce w/fork.  If you have metal skewers, place potatoes on the skewers (usually 2 can fit on each skewer) this will speed up cooking time.  Melt butter, add curry and let cool.  Slice open cooked potatoes and add dollop of curry butter.

 

Key Lime Pie

So easy, yet sooo good!

• 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 6 tbsp Key limejuice*
• 9 inch graham cracker piecrust
• 4 oz whipped topping
• 1 lime, sliced

Preheat oven to 250°

Combine milk & yolks with mixer until well blended.  Add limejuice, mix well.  Pour into pie shell.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Let cool, then spread whipped topping over the top, garnish with lime slices, and refrigerate until served.

* you can substitute regular limejuice if needed.

 

Hope that helps you get through another cold February week.

 

Valentine’s Peanut Butter Cookies

I go through cookie phases. They last months at a time. I always try to keep cookies in the cookie jar – I like having something to offer people when they stop by – and my friend gave me a cute flamingo cookie jar that begs to be filled with tasty treats.  My standard is chocolate chip cookies, over the holidays it was oatmeal in various forms and lately it’s peanut butter cookies.  Which works out, because my favorite Valentine cookie is Peanut Butter with Chocolate Kisses:

Peanut Butter Cookies with a Kiss:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1-1/4 cup flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 48 chocolate kisses, foil removed

mixing bowl and cookie sheet

Thoroughly cream butter, peanut butter and sugars.  Add egg and vanilla, mixing well.  Combine dry ingredients and slowly stir into creamed mixture.  Mix well, dough will be stiff, if not add a bit more flour.  Shape into 1″ balls and place on cookie sheet.  Press an unwrapped kiss in the center and press down.  Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.  Cookies will be light golden color, kisses will not melt.  Cool slightly before removing from cookie sheet, or else they will fall apart.

If you don’t want to do the kisses, roll balls in sugar before placing on cookie sheet, flatten with a fork in a criss-cross shape and bake as above. 

Best served with a cold glass of milk.

Recipe from What’s 4 Dinner Solutions’ Valentine Menu

Happy Valentine’s Day – A Tribute to Dads

I’m of two minds on Valentine’s Day.  I find nothing redeeming about a day of forced romance.  Nothing.  On the other hand, a day whose theme is love, that I can support.  Can we have a few more of those days?

So in honor of that I’d like to send Valentine’s out to a few special men.

First, to the dad I met a couple of weeks ago, when his 4 year old daughter, peddling away on her bike, speeding ahead of him, despite still having training wheels, stopped me in my tracks.  I was doing my 15 miles, slowing so as not to startle her as I went by.  As I passed her, she called out, “hey, you wanna race?”  I couldn’t resist, I went back, waved at her dad and talked to her while we waited for him to catch up.  She told him we were going to race and he valiantly tried to talk her out of it, I could see him struggling with how to gently guide her in a direction without squashing this wonderful spirit she had.  She and I raced, several times, before I raced her back to her dad.  She was reluctant to let her new friend leave, and again I marveled at how this dad struggled with how to let me escape and still honor her outgoing nature, gently guiding her in another direction.  I have a feeling he’ll be doing that a lot, her spirit will be fine and he’ll be gray before she’s 6.

To the dad at the craft store.  He was in the doll clothing aisle with his daughter, very seriously discussing each outfit with his very young daughter, pointing out the pros and cons.  Not mocking, no sense of panic that he was trapped in a doll aisle, no rush to end the experience.  They might have even still been there when my friend and I left the store.

To the dad in the grocery store, shopping with his two young sons.  He was showing them the unit price label, showing them how prices can be deceiving and you need to look at how many ounces were in the jar and how much it was per ounce.  Then quizzing them on several items, to reinforce the lesson.  Math and shopping savvy in one lesson.  Great job!

To my own dad, who is spending today delivering flowers all over town.  He’s retired, as only he can retire, working part-time out in the community.  In a time when it wasn’t necessarily the popular position, he always told me I could be anything I wanted to be, a simple statement that colored my entire view of the world I grew up in.

And finally to my brothers who are great dads themselves.  Proving that real men know how to get down on the floor and play with their kids.

Those are my ingredients for a true Valentine’s Day.  Later, I’ll get you some real recipes.  Until then….

Random Notes

I’ll look for a tasty recipe to post this weekend to get your week off to a good start.  In my opinion, cooking a dinner for two is much more romantic than going out to dinner on Valentine’s, when the food is mediocre and the waitstaff over burdened.   Candles, linen napkins and quiet time together works for me.  Fight the peer pressure!

I’m also looking at becoming active in Kiva.org and would love to hear if anyone has any experience with them.  Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

One last random thought.  I’ve had pets my entire life and have become an expert at removing pet stains.  I’ve found that hydrogren peroxide removes just about any stain.  I keep some in an opaque spray bottle (can’t be exposed to light, that’s why it comes in a brown bottle) and use it liberally.  I was pleasantly surprised when I was shopping the other day and saw they were now selling it in brown spray bottles.  Obviously others know my secret! 

I’m thinking I’ll look for one  of my international recipes (maybe an entire menu) so you can have a special theme dinner one night this week.  Until then, happy Friday the 13th!

Washday Beans and Rice

Did not mean to go away for so long. I switched DSL providers and what should have been a 3-day event, turned into a 10-day ordeal.  Without further ado, here is the great, inexpensive beans and rice meal.  Add cornbread (those $0.60 Jiffy boxes are great) and you’ve got a tasty dinner.

 

Washday Beans & Rice:                        

• 1 cup rice
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup chicken broth                               
• 14oz can red kidney bean           
• 4 links Italian or Andouille sausage (sweet or spicy) – slice each link into 4 to 6 pieces
• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• 1 tsp to 1 tbsp Cajun Creole Seasoning* (start with tsp and work your way up to taste)
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 large green pepper, chopped
• 1 large tomato diced (or 14 oz can of diced tomatoes)

2 quart saucepan

deep skillet or Dutch oven

 

Combine rice with water & chicken broth in a saucepan, cover.  Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, cook until all the liquid is absorbed (about 20 minutes). Meanwhile, heat oil in skillet (medium-high temp); add onions & sausage, cook until sausage is done in the center, mix sausage, beans, seasoning and tomatoes together into saucepan.  Keep heat low and let simmer 10 minutes to let flavors blend.  Serve beans mixture over rice, add cornbread and honey.

*You should be able to find Cajun spice in most grocery stores, but if you cannot find this seasoning, mix equal parts of the following together and store in an airtight container:  paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, lemon zest, black pepper, red pepper, allspice, thyme, ground cloves, mace, cayenne, and crushed bay leaf.