TechyDad

By my parents’ house, there is a Greek restaurant. I used to order from them all the time. They would even recognize me, not by my voice, but by my phoned in order of “Spanikopita, side of rice pilaf and side of chickpeas to go” as I drove home from work. I’ve tried (and failed) to find spanikopita as good by me. Of course, any trip to my parents comes with two conditions, the first of which is that we eat at the Greek restaurant. (The second is stopping by Trader Joe’s.)

Despite my love of their spanikopita (aka spinach pie), there’s another dish that I’d love the recipe for more. Their chickpeas. When you sit down for dinner, they’ll place a bowl of these in front of you with some pita bread. My taste buds are watering just thinking of them. The chickpeas are marinated with chopped up onions in oil. My best guess is that it is olive oil with some mystery mixture of spices. (And now my nose just kicked in as I remembered their scent.) I would eat these chickpeas every day if I had the chance.

Every time I go, I tell myself that I should ask for the recipe so I can try to duplicate this dish. Every time, I either chicken out or ask so meekly that it is all too easy for them to decline.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you ever asked a restaurant for the recipe to a dish that you loved? Were you ever successful if obtaining it?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #44

While we were at Disney Social Media Moms, we were included in a dinner along with 400 volunteers. At the time, we thought that the food that we ate was part of a Robert Irvine/Dinner Impossible challenge. Sadly, it turned out not to be the case. The volunteers got Irvine’s food and we “just” got Disney food. I say “just” because the food was exceptional (as is par for the course at Disney). In fact, having seen what Robert Irvine created, I’m happier with what we were served. Still, it would have been cool to have been part of a Dinner Impossible challenge.

One dessert in particular stood out. It was a warm brownie torte that tasted like it was uncooked warm brownie batter (and I mean that in the best possible way). Here’s a photo, although Disney Food Blog has a better one.

We had gotten a couple plates of these and when the boys (who by this point in the night were exhausted) refused it, I ate the second plate. For some reason, my chocolate-brownie-lust overpowered my brain and I only realized too late that I had eaten B’s plate! I vowed to recreate the dish as soon as I saw how it was made on Dinner Impossible. Of course, once the episode aired, it became apparent that this dish wasn’t part of the show. I’m on my own now in recreating it, though I have a few ideas.

My Aloha Friday question for this week is: Have you ever recreated a dish you’ve eaten out somewhere? If so, how successful were you? If you haven’t, is there a particular dish that you’d love to be able to recreate?

Oh, and if anyone has any pointers for recreating this, I’d be happy to hear them.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #41

One of the simple things I love doing is roasting vegetetables. Roasting them brings out all sorts of wonderful flavors and is so easy to do. The basic rundown is: Slice veggies, toss in a little extra virgin olive oil, toss in salt and pepper, place on a cookie sheet in the oven until soft and delicious. I made some of these to go with dinner yesterday and figured I’d take some photos to share the details of my procedures.

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Today’s Cooking With TechyDad is a two for one deal. You might recall a few months back when we went apple picking and came home with a ton of apples. Well, they didn’t go to waste. (For the most part. A few wound up getting tossed when they went bad.) I made, among other things, homemade applesauce and crispy apple skins.

Let’s start with the apple sauce. First, gather your ingredients. Apples, sugar and cinnamon.

Next, peel and chop your apples. Don’t discard those skins, though. We’re going to use them later. Put the chopped apples in a slow cooker.

Add in a cup of sugar, a teaspoon or two of cinnamon, and a cup of water.

Next, cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

When you’re done, enjoy warm or cold, by itself or over ice cream. Oh and the juices released make a wonderful drink all on their own!

Now on to those apple skins. Cover a baking tray with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray. Place the skins on the tray and spray them with cooking spray.

Top all of this with some cinnamon sugar. (If you don’t have any, just mix your own. It’s what I do. The container’s just from a one time cinnamon sugar purchase I made years back.)

Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes until the skins get crispy. You’ll want to flip them over every few minutes to keep them from burning.

When you’re done, let them cool and then enjoy!

In the cold, winter weather, a nice, warm soup can really hit the spot. Especially if said soup is full of cheesy goodness! First, let’s gather our ingredients.

For the record, that’s 2 sticks of butter, 1 cup of flour, 6 cups of milk, 3 cups of chicken broth (or, as I used, No-Chicken Broth), 3 to 4 cups of shredded chedder cheese, two packages of frozen broccoli and salt and pepper (to taste).

Now toss the butter into a nice, big pot on medium heat and let it melt.

Once the butter is melted, mix in the flour and cook this for awhile.

Once this has browned, mix in the Chicken/No-Chicken broth and milk. (Yes, I know the photo shows 4 cups of milk. I added 2 additional cups but didn’t take a photo of that.)

Make sure you keep stirring. I’ve found that stopping stirring lets the flour/butter mixture (aka the rue) settle to the bottom of the pot. The resulting soup will be much more watery and you’ll have more bottom-of-pot gunk to clean up. Neither of these outcomes is very desireable.

You can also add in your pepper now.

It will seem like you’re stirring forever, but eventually the soup-to-be will start to bubble. Once it does, add in your shredded chedder cheese.

Resist the urge to nibble on some….. Ok, maybe just one bite. YUM!

Keep stirring until the cheese melts. This won’t take long. Once it has melted, toss in the frozen broccoli florets.

Keep stirring the soup until the florets cook. This shouldn’t take too long at all. Now simply ladle into bowls and serve. With crackers, if desired.

By the way, there’s a variation that we’ve done, which we actually like better than Broccoli Cheddar Soup. Use cauliflower florets instead of broccoli florets. Then, when the florets have cooked in the soup, use an immersion blender to puree some (not all) of the florets. The cauliflower’s taste blends (no pun intended) into the overall soup better and the pureed cauliflower is easier to sneak by fussy palates of kids. Either way, this soup is full of cheesy goodness.

Credit where credit is due: This recipe was sent to me by kileigh7.

JSL loves macaroni and cheese. If we let him, he’d eat “Mac Cheeze” for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Of course, if we let him live off of boxed macaroni and cheese, he wouldn’t be getting vital nutrients. He’s going to keep wanting macaroni and cheese, so we’ve got to somehow find a way to make it healthier. Mixing in chunks of broccoli doesn’t work. He finds those and freaks out. So what do we do? Luckily, Missy Lapine, also known as The Sneaky Chef, has an answer.

This is a very simple recipe. It only has four ingredients: Eggs, Orange Puree, Shredded Cheddar Cheese, and Macaroni.

First cook the macaroni. After all, you don’t want Crunchy Macaroni and Cheese. While that’s going on, crack 4 eggs and mix them into 1 cup of puree.

Now, mix in 1 cup of the macaroni and 1 1/2 cups of the cheese. (NOTE: Just before this point, we decided to make a double batch. Thus the sudden increase in the egg/puree level and the massive amount of muffins later on.)

Take this mixture and portion it out into muffin cups. Top with some more cheddar cheese if you like. (We did ours without and they came out just fine.)

Bake for 20-22 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

When they come out, eat.

NHL liked these. JSL was tired at the time and so cranky in general. I think the muffin shape threw him. He’s used to macaroni and cheese being slopped out onto a plate. Having it in a hand held shape was just too confusing. B and I loved these and ate…. well, we probably ate more than we should have. This recipe will *definitely* be made again and again.

As a bonus, the macaroni and cheese muffins can be frozen for long term storage. Honestly, though, I don’t think they’ll really last too long. They’re too delicious. In addition, I can personally attest to the fact that they taste good cold. *cough*late night snack*cough* The full recipe to this is available on Missy’s website.

Continuing on with Sneaky Weeky, we’ll be making Mexican Muffins today. First, we’ll get our ingredients together.

That’s eggs, egg white (well, eggbeaters since I didn’t have egg whites), cheddar cheese, salsa, tortillas, and the white puree. First we’ll crack open the eggs and mix in the egg whites egg beaters and puree.

Next, we’ll mix in a cup of cheese and a cup of salsa.

Now that the filling is done, let’s get the tortillas ready. First spray them with cooking spray on both sides.

Next, push them into a muffin tin. (Be careful not to rip them!)

Pour in some of the egg mixture and top with cheese.

Now bake it at 350 for 20 – 22 minutes. Take it out and enjoy!

When NHL and JSL bit into these, they didn’t realize that there was any cauliflower or zucchini (the white puree) involved. For all they knew, this was just eggs and cheese in a tortilla shell. However, success quickly evaporated when NHL spotted some peppers from the salsa. He quickly rejected the whole thing and JSL, copying his brother, rejected it as well. I made it again another day, this time leaving off the salsa, and had a little better luck. B and I liked both the salsa and salsa-less versions.

NHL used to be such a good eater. He would eat just about anything we gave him. Then, around when he turned two and a half, his culinary adventureness shut down. Suddenly, he developed a list of “approved” foods and vegetables were definitely *NOT* on the list.

When I first heard about Missy Chase Lapine, The Sneaky Chef, I’ll admit I was skeptical. The idea of sneaking the veggies into him just didn’t sound right. I wanted him growing up knowing that carrots, sweet potatoes, zucchini, and cauliflower were tasty as well as good for you.

Missy explained in her book, however, that sneaking the veggies wasn’t a substitute for giving kids stand alone vegetables. However, you won’t need to turn broccoli into a battle. You will know that the rest of the meal has some hidden goodness so your child will be getting good nutrients whether or not they eat their veggies. Without a ton of pressure, kids might actually be more likely to eat some of their overt veggies.

I purchased her first book and tried out a few of the recipes. I found that, sure enough, my kids couldn’t tell what was in them. So when I heard that Missy had a new book out, I just had to try it. Missy’s new book is called The Sneaky Chef to the Rescue: 101 All-New Recipes and “Sneaky” Tricks for Creating Healthy Meals Kids Will Love.

“To The Rescue” contains some improvements from the original Sneaky Chef. For example, recipes include nutritional information now. We took it out from the library and I tried a few of the recipes. As with the first book, my children didn’t realize what was hidden in their food. Whether it was wheat germ, yams and carrots in the chocolate chip bon bons or cauliflower and zucchini in the eggs, they were none the wiser. And lest you think that you need to make everything from scratch, Missy showed how to take box mixes for everything from pancakes to cake and add additional hidden goodness.

There were so many good recipes, in fact, that I decided to buy the book. It turns out that being sneaky can be good for your kids, and quite delicious to boot. I look forward to making many more sneaky meals for my children. In fact, I would recommend it for families with picky eaters of any age.

Disclaimer: This review consists of entirely my own opinion. I didn’t receive anything in compensation for this review, but decided to review the book (and recipes) because I honestly enjoyed it.

Today on Cooking With TechyDad, we’re going to make a dessert pizza. First, let’s get our ingredients out.

Next, we place our pizza crust on a baking sheet and spread half a cup of peanut butter on top of it.

Now, pour a tablespoon of honey over it.

Follow that up with a half cup each of chocolate chips and marshmallows. (Yes, I used a bit more than a half of a cup.)

Now, pop it in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

After the 20 minutes are up, take the pizza out.

It’s already looking good, isn’t it?

Now, thinly slice a banana and place it over the top of the pizza.

Let the pizza cool for two minutes, then slice and eat.

This soup has become a favorite recipe of ours. Before trying this out, we shied away from dry beans in favor of canned. Now, however, we love buying dried bean packages to cook into our Multi-Bean Soup.

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