Kayaks, Campfires, and S'mores

We trekked out to Cape Henlopen this past weekend for our annual Girl Scouts trip. We had a great time and I think the girls might've actually learned a few things while we were gone. Imagine that!

The weather was beautiful for hanging out at the beach.  For September, that means sitting on the beach in a cozy sweatshirt - for adults. For teenage girls it means running into the cold water and acting like its not cold at all.  That's where my duty as Troop Leader kicks in to make sure no-one gets swept away in a tide or shivers to death.  We also enjoyed kayaking.  Last year, we were on a nearby river because of the high waves, this year, the guides decided to let us brave the waves.

Kayaking at Cape Henlopen

One of the girls was really nervous about kayaking, the tide and cold was not helping. After a few minutes in the boat, she demanded to be let out back on shore.  She watched her fellow troop members for about 10 minutes, and then softly suggested that she might try again. She took a deep breath and climbed in the boat with me and we paddled on down the shore a little ways.  When we were back on the sand she sighed, smiled, and said she was glad she tried it again.  To me, that's the whole point of these adventures - not to make them expert kayakers, but to build the girls' self-confidence and learn to deal with their fears and nervousness.

Back at our site, we worked on our camp-cooking skills.  Forget the hotdogs and pot of beans.  I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich.  Cheese and a flat-bread wrap, wrapped up in foil and thrown on the grill - it was delicious!  For dessert we had Campfire Apple Crisp. Last year we made banana s'mores and peach cobbler, we're expanding our camp dessert repertoire.

Campfire Apple Crisps

• Slice the apples, one apple per girl
• Place the apple slices on foil
• Sprinkle with oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon - to each individual's taste
• Wrapped up the foil, making sure to close the packets so any steam would stay inside
• Put the apple packets over the hot coals/campfire.

We let them cook long enough to enjoy lunch and a game of volleyball.  We opened them up and - tada! - enjoyed moist, sweet individual apple crisps.  I've mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of "let's cook with the kids for the sake of fun," but I do believe kids need to be taught to cook.  These were really easy to make and something the girls could try with their families at home, using the oven.  They can even expand their cooking by trying different fruits like  peaches and blueberries.

Do you ever outgrow S'Mores?

And as Girl Scouts, everyone's got to contribute to the event.  Our assignment was supplying the s'mores for the big campfire. Yes, chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers for 150+ girls and leaders.  Accompanied by guitar playing and campfire songs.  And as it always seems at the beach - lots and lots of stars!

Find out more about the Girl Scouts at the official website - www.girlscouts.org.

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Lemony Mango-Vodka Gelees

For one of those days, when you're thinking "whew, a nice, cool drink would be good right now," but you don't feel like pulling out mixers and liquor and shot glasses and ice.  The solution: these yummy little Jello shots!

Not that I've invented them, but they are new to me! And believe it or not, I found the recipe in Cooking Light (July 2013).  Not exactly the way I made them, but that was my starting point. CL has Lemony Blackberry-Vodka Gelees.  But my grocery store didn't have unflavored gelatin and I didn't feel like cooking and straining blackberries and waiting 6 hours; although I'm sure their version is delicious and looks real pretty.

I made them before dinner and they were ready as a nice little after-dinner treat.  And wouldn't they be fun as a cook-out dessert?  I made it in a baking dishes, then cut into squares; I think next time, I'm going to make them in little shot glasses or dessert bowls.  Try them out, let me know how you like them - or if you have your own version!

Enjoy this cool, fruity vodka gelee anytime!

Lemony Mango-Vodka Gelees

1 cup vodka

2 envelopes mango Jello  (you can choose your favorite flavor if you don't like mango)

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 cup water

• Pour vodka in a bowl. Pour in flavored Jello, mix and let sit.
• Combine sugar, lemon juice, water in sauce pan over medium-heat. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves.
• Add sugar mixture to vodka-gelatin mixture, stir.  Make sure gelatin mixture has dissolved.
• Pour into small baking dish, coated with cooking spray.
• Chill about 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

Enjoy!

Dinner to Go: Quesadillas

In the summer, its a little bit like Union Station in our house around dinner time.  Most evenings, someone is heading to practice or a game or a swim meet or music lessons or a friend's house or somewhere.  Many of our summer dinners are easy to take with us foods, or something that folks can eat whenever it is they are home without any special prep.

On swim meet nights, we need our dinner to fit both these criteria.  We are poolside for about 4 hours in the evening.  The swimmers are in and out of the pool for warm-ups and their events, and I'm trying to time when they eat based on their schedule.  The non-swimmers are lounging about, reading, listening to music, waiting for the 2 minute period that pops up every half hour or so when they have to pay attention to the swimming sibling.  And everybody's hungry.

I have a couple standards for swim nights; quesadillas is one of them.  They are probably the easiest and a great way to use up some leftovers when there's really not enough to make a meal.  Of course, I did not invent the quesadilla, but I'll share this easy method to get dinner in the picnic basket.

Quesadillas

Quesadillas served with fried plantains and sour cream. 

Basic Ingredients
Tortillas (I prefer flour, but you can use corn, too) - 2 per quesadilla
Cheese, grated - cheddar, mozzarella, Monterey Jack *you can make it easy and buy the pre-mixed, pre-seasoned packs in the grocery store cheese section

Fillings: this is the fun part - it can be whatever you want.  For meats, make sure they are cooked thoroughly as the few minutes of heating will not cook it properly.  These are just suggestions to get your thoughts going.

Meats
Chicken, chopped or cut into slender slices - perfect use for any leftover chicken
Ground beef - if you have tacos or make spaghetti sauce, cook a little extra and save
Ham - chopped or in thin slices
Steak - in thin slices
Fish - tilapia works well
Shrimp - tails, shells off

Veggies & Extras
Fresh spinach - raw works well; don't use frozen
Asparagus spears - cook first
Grilled corn
Tomato salsa
Guacamole
Black beans - cooked
Jalapeno slices

Easy to cook

Fill quesadillas with cheese and your favorite meats & veggies

• On a flat grill pan, heat tortillas.
• Sprinkle one tortilla with cheese.  Add any other fillings, generously spreading across tortilla.
• Top the cheese & fillings with the second tortilla.  Allow cheese to melt a little bit, then flip over.
• Let cheese melt and tortilla brown slightly.  Remove from pan.
• Slice into quarters.
• Wrap stack of quesadillas in foil.

Quesadilla pizza - cheese & pepperoni

Quesadilla with shrimp

If you like, you can also pack sour cream, guacamole, and salsa to serve on top of the quesadillas, too.

Enjoy!

Babysitter's Coming Chicken & Rice

If you are lucky, your babysitter is coming because you have a date or plans to go out with friends or the notion to go hang out by yourself.  Or perhaps the babysitter is coming because you have to work late or go to a PTA meeting or its your night to drive sports carpool.  But the bottom line is that you're getting out of the house, leaving the little folks home with a responsible person, and you feel it's a good idea to leave them some food.

Yes, pizza is a nice, easy choice. But every now and then, I attempt to be the good mom and cook for the little folks.  However, I have noticed that when I leave vegetables, they somehow do not get eaten when I'm not around, and that's how this recipe came about.

Babysitter's Coming Chicken & Rice

This is a one pan dish - very little clean-up!  You will need a large pan that will fit the chicken and cooked rice.

Ingredients
Chicken - legs, thighs (boneless or not, your preference) - 8 pieces
Salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder
Olive oil
Saffron or Sazon Seasoning by Goya (1 packet)
Spinach (fresh or frozen) - 2 cups
Rice (the kind that sticks together, not the instant rice) - 3 cups

• Season chicken pieces with salt, pepper, oregano, garlic powder to your taste.
• Heat olive oil in large pan.  Brown chicken lightly on each side.

• Set chicken aside. Drain oil from pan.
• Return chicken to pan and add spinach.

• Pour about 3 cups of rice in the pan. Add saffron seasoning and mix together.

• Pour water on top of all ingredients - about a finger's width above the level of the rice.

• Place lid on top of pan and let cook on low/medium until rice is done, about 30-40 minutes.  If you notice all the water has cooked off and rice looks dry, add another cup and then return lid to pan.

Enjoy!

Next Best Thing to Fried Shrimp

As much as I love the recipes with a bunch of ingredients to chop and slice and saute, some days, okay most days, I don't have time for all that.  I asked fellow school mom, Laura, for a good, simple, fast recipe and she sent me this shrimp recipe. After another week of things that went off schedule, I finally got to make it before dashing off to PTA meeting.

These shrimp were really simple and fast - it took me about 10-15 minutes to prepare them and another 10 or so to cook them.  Of course, I added a bit more red pepper to my mixture.  They came out crispy and delicious, I liked the crunchiness without the frying.  I used the same egg coating and bread crumb mixture for about a dozen chicken wing pieces, as well; they also cooked rather quickly, about 20-25 minutes and the kids gobbled them right up.

The bread crumbs I think make the biggest difference. I make oven "fried" chicken using regular bread crumbs and it comes out nice and brown, but not as crunchy as Laura's.  Good switch on the bread crumbs.  Anyway - she's guest blogging and I'm using up all the space.  Here you go...

* * *

Hi, I am Laura from Witchery in the Kitchen.  I am a stay at home mom, who loves to cook and garden.  I also love to take pictures of both and share them on my blog. Being a mom, I am constantly working to get my child to eat more veggies and other healthful foods.  As a cook, I enjoy exploring new flavors and combinations to keep things interesting. On my blog, I work to combine the two. Thank you Frances for inviting me to be a guest blogger on your site.

Do you ever have one of those days when you are trying to eat healthy, but some voice keeps whispering in your head about something on the other side of the spectrum? Um, yes of course you do. I know how it is. This particular day the voice was whispering, no actually it was speaking very loudly about fried shrimp. Fortunately, I don’t own a deep fryer, because that would have been all she wrote. I would have to do something different. So the question is how to satisfy the craving, while at the same time trying to keep within the boundaries of fairly healthy eating?

Really, this is a question I deal with all time as do most of us.  Sure, I love veggies and many healthy dishes, but I also love a lot of foods we all eat that are not so good for us.  I thought about how I deal with fried chicken. I oven bake it.  Not quite the same as real fried, but still quite tasty and much better for you.  The pluses outweigh the minuses. What’s great about this dish is that not only is it a feel good dish for the heart, it’s easy to make and clean up. 

Oven Baked Panko Breaded Shrimp

Serves 2-3

1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 egg

Salt

Pepper

1 cup panko bread crumbs

¼ teaspoon paprika

¼ teaspoon mustard powder

¼ teaspoon celery salt

¼ teaspoon garlic salt

¼ teaspoon onion powder

¼ teaspoon white pepper

Spray oil such as Pam

Cocktail sauce or other sauce for dipping

1. Pre heat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Mix the panko bread crumbs with the seasonings in large zip lock bag or shallow bowl.
3. Prepare a baking sheet lined with foil and drizzle a little olive oil on it.
4. Beat the egg with a bit of salt and pepper and pour it over the shrimp. Mix it in well to coat the shrimp evenly.
5. Working with a few pieces at a time, place the shrimp in the bread crumb mixture and press lightly to get the pieces well coated.
6. Place the coated shrimp on the foil lined pan.  Do not crowd the shrimp; make sure to leave room around each piece.
7. Spray the shrimp with a bit of Pam.
8. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes.

My own piddlin' notes: I use Pam Cooking Spray pretty much anytime I use baking sheets or the grill pan, so instead of lining the baking tray with foil, I sprayed it with Pam and the shrimp slid right of the pan.

Thanks to ConAgra Foods for my free sample of Pam Cooking Spray

Camp Cooking - Banana S'mores

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I went camping with my daughters' Girl Scouts troops this past weekend.

We went kayaking in Lewes, DE, then made our own "banana boat" desserts later

In our down time, we made a couple easy, tasty dessert treats - Peach Cobbler, (which I posted yesterday); here's the Banana S'mores.

Banana S’mores – because it’s not really a Girl Scout camp without s’mores.

The girls loved these, even the one who claimed she didn’t like bananas.

Ingredients

Bananas

Chocolate chips

Mini marshmallows

Mini graham crackers

1. Do not peel the bananas, slit them length-wise
2. Push the ends of the banana towards each other or use a knife to “open” the slit a little bit
3. Fill the banana with the remaining ingredients
4. Wrap in foil
5. Place in oven or on grill for about 7-10 minutes, depending on temperature of oven/fire.
6. Unwrap and enjoy!

with crushed graham crackers as a topping

a very chocolate-y version

I barely got pictures of the finished products before they were eaten!

Granola, peanut butter chocolate chips, and chopped nuts would also make tasty toppings for these banana treats.

Each girl made their own; it was so simple and easy, it could even be made my much younger kids, too.  I think I may even have the banana s'mores again for a troop meeting since they are simple and quick.

Mini S'mores made with the extra ingredients

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Camp Cooking - Peach Cobbler

This past weekend, I took my Girl Scout troop on our first activity as Cadettes (we just bridged up to this group this past spring) - a beach trip with about 200 other older scouts in our county to Cape Henlopen, Delaware.

Lighthouse at Cape Henlopen, DE

The weather was great and Cape Henlopen was a nice location, which I’ve never been to before.  It’s an old military base which is now used as a state park, complete with beach, fishing, campgrounds, biking and walking trails.  The girls went seining – dragging a huge net through the tide to observe what sealife they could collect, then returned it all back to the water – and kayaking.  One of the things I like about the Girl Scouts is the opportunity for girls to try things that they wouldn’t in their regular day-to-day, like the seining activity which none of my troop has done before.

We also did some camp cooking.  Although I had planned to make these treats on a charcoal fire, we lucked up with an oven in the dining hall so I used that instead to save us from the possibility of a raging wildfire (there is no patch for that in the Girl Scout handbook).  We made two desserts: Peach Cobbler and Banana S’mores. I found a few variations of these on Pinterest and internet, neither is my original recipe, but I’m going to list them for your convenience.

Campfire Peach Cobbler

I split the recipe into 2 cake pans, but it could be made in one large one.

Ingredients

4 – 15-oz. cans of peaches (light syrup)

1 – 16-oz. bottle of Sprite

1 box of yellow cake mix

1. Drain peaches and pour into baking pan.

2. Pour cake mix on top of peaches.

3. Pour soda into pan and mix with cake mix until relatively smooth and not bubbly.

4. Put over grill or into oven at 350 degrees. 

5. Let bake until done.

When we did it, it took forever to bake, as in I put it in before dinner and it wasn’t ready until after.  But I did have the oven on low because I wasn’t familiar with the controls and didn’t want to mess with it too much.  But it should take about 30-40 minutes.  It was delicious when it was finally done.

Check back tomorrow for the Banana S'mores.

Made it for breakfast - Smoothies & No Bake Oatmeal Bites

I don’t eat a big breakfast every morning and am a snacker.  To try to combat the negative effects of those two habits, I try to find quick, easy, healthy options for both – breakfast and snacks. 

My weekday breakfast is generally a cup of coffee and some mixture of these standards: a handful of nuts, slice of cheese, boiled eggs.  Actually, my mid-day snack is usually one of those things, too.  I’ve recently added two more (easy) options to the menu.

Smoothies

Whether from the mall food court, McDonald’s, or the café at the gym – I like smoothies and will happily have one in exchange for a meal, especially when it’s hot like it has been lately.  Lately, I’ve started drinking more made-at-home smoothies – it’s of course, more convenient, but also cheaper, and I can control what’s in it. It’s become easier now that I’ve left the blender on the counter, rather than having to get it out every day.  (Funny how such a simple change can alter your habits.)

I mix ice, almond coconut milk, fresh fruit (so far, I’ve tried - bananas, strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, mango), and agave nectar (to sweeten) in a blender and there’s my daily serving of fruit. 

Nutty bars

A visit to Trader Joe’s isn’t complete without a couple of bags of nuts in the cart, so I naturally grabbed onto this recipe full of nutty-goodness.  They’re great as a running out the door bite in the morning, as well as an afternoon hunger-pang filler.  And since I’ve never made a recipe I didn’t somehow tweak, my Notes & Variations are below, too.

 

No Bake Oatmeal Bites

Ingredients:

2/3 C walnuts

2/3 C almonds

2/3 C oats

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp sea salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 C agave nectar

2-3 Tbps (vegan) chocolate mini chips

Directions:

Add dry ingredients (except chocolate) to food processer and blend until everything is finely chopped.

Add vanilla, aqave nectar and blend until combined. 

Add the mini chocolate chips just pulse in. 

Form into balls and freeze for about 1/2 hr to firm.

Ready to go into the freezer.

Notes & Variations:

• Instead of regular oatmeal, I used an instant oatmeal packet – 1 is a little more than you need
• We mixed in freeze-dried strawberries (my daughter’s idea) – they are the reddish ones in the photo
• I left out the chocolate chips – gasp!  Yes, this is a first for me, I’ve never left out the chocolate chips – but I don’t like vegan chips (what’s the point?) and I wanted to make them less sweet, plus, its summer and chocolate-y things melt in the summer.
• Agave nectar is available at natural food stores, and possibly at your regular grocery store.
• I put the mixture into a brownie bites pan to freeze.  They came out in perfectly shaped square bites.
• I store them in the refrigerator.
• They are a little delicate, so if you are transporting, put them in a plastic container rather than a baggie. 

Thanx to Kenneth at Fitness Together gym for this recipe!

Enjoy!

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Easy cooking - Crockpot spaghetti

Is it just our house or is summer crazier than the school year?  We start with tennis lessons in the morning, then swim team practice, move on to the stage for play rehearsal for one while the other is at tennis practice number two, then to swim meets and basketball games or practice.  Some time in there, we're home or, at least, pass by close to our house.  We barely have time to stop and eat, so I really don't have time to cook.  Other than feeding them chicken nuggets on the go, what's the other options?  Yes - the rice pot and crock pot - busy mom's saving cooking appliances.

Here's a quick, easy dinner I put together in the crock pot.  It's sure to be in the summer rotation, along with quesadillas (quick, easy, portable, great use of leftover meats) and kimbap (or sushi rolls as everyone calls them, but with no sushi).  Try it and let me know what you think.

Crock-pot Spaghetti

1 lb. ground beef/turkey

1 box of spaghetti

2 cans of diced or stewed tomatoes

Seasoning - basil, garlic, pepper, oregano

1 bottle chili sauce or 1 can tomato paste

1.  Season and brown ground meat in a skillet, set aside.

2.  In the crock-pot, layer the remaining ingredients, with the uncooked spaghetti (break in half to fit, if necessary) on the bottom.

3.  Pour in about 1/2 can of water.

4.  Layer cooked ground meat on top of other ingredients.

5.  Turn crock-pot to Low.  Let cook for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

Everything's ready to cook - spaghetti, seasonings, tomatoes.

A few notes:

- whenever I cook ground meat, I like to cook more than I need and save some - this is great to put together some quesadillas or fried rice for a quick meal the next day.

- I used chili sauce because that's what I had in the pantry.  You could also use tomato paste.  Either will work, but you need something to thicken the sauce.

I couldn't even get a picture before they ate it all!

Enjoy!

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