Edible Antics - Having Fun With Food

Wild Rice and Barley Pilaf - Will This Colorful Autumn Sidedish Make It To The Thanksgiving Table?

Some people select side-dishes to serve at Thanksgiving based on taste and tradition. I have more stringent criteria. I'll caste tradition aside if a vegetable side-dish meets the following standards:

1. delicious flavor 

2. relatively simple to make

3. won't deteriorate in appearance or taste if it must wait for the rest of the food and family to be ready to eat

Additional criteria which improve a side-dish's chances of being chosen, but won't disqualify it if not met are:

1. Uses colorful ingredients reminiscent of an autumn landscape
2. Can be prepared ahead of time

With these criteria in mind, I prepared Wild Rice and Barley Pilaf in a test run for the Thanksgiving table. I found the recipe in the cookbook: Recipes for Sweetened Dried Cranberries.

I was looking for a rice dish because I wanted an alternative to Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I know the kids love them, but I can't help associating them with ready-mix concrete. I shovel them into my mouth. They plop down my throat. They land in my stomach and proceed to harden into a single, heavy-weighted mass. A belly full of mashed potatoes is like wearing concrete shoes on the inside. Don't get me wrong - their flavor is terrific, but there must be something just as tasty but lighter in effect. That's why I was looking to rice.

I knew that the mix of russet cranberries, brown raisins, charcoal-gray wild rice and cream-colored barley would give this side-dish an interesting and autumn-colored appearance. The pilaf would provide appealing contrast to white turkey.

Preparing the pilaf was extremely simple, - my kind of cooking. No, I didn't simply open cans and combine their contents as I've written about in past posts. For this recipe, I opened packages. Here are the ingredients:

• 3/4 cup uncooked wild rice
• 3 cups chicken broth (I got Swanson's chicken broth in the box)
• 1/2 cup pearl barley (I used medium grain)
• 1/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted  

Then I followed the instructions:

Thanksgiving - Thanks for the Recipes, Thanks for the Fun! Here Are Some Great Wisconsin Cookbooks In Return

Thanks for one year of food fun! Yes, Edible Antics is a year old. Who knew I'd be cooking in public? Some people shouldn't; I'm one of them. But I get paid to do it, and as you know, anyone can have blog.

So instead of telling you the latest story of what I've burned  or what questionably-edible concoction I've forced on my family, I want to thank the food bloggers and cookbook writers who've definitely improved my cooking over this past year.

First, the food bloggers. Google shows 52,600,000 food blogs in the blogosphere. Can't say I've been to all of them. And most of the ones I've visited I don't leave comments on. It's not that I'm not thankful for the delicious recipes and professional-styled food pics I see, it's just that I have nothing especially interesting to say that other commenters haven't already written. But just so I don't appear a rude voyeur, to all of you 52,599,000 other food bloggers out there: "WOW! YOUR FOOD LOOKS YUMMY! THANKS FOR THE RECIPE!"

But a special thanks goes to the food bloggers who go to the extra trouble to hold recipe round-ups. I enjoy participating in them. They get me thinking about food as art rather than quick, family fuel. Sharing a cooking theme with others is a lot more fun than cooking alone. So thank you. Listed in alphabetical order are the bloggers whose round-ups I've enjoyed:

Adventures in Gluttony

Art You Eat

Coffee and Vanilla

Food Blogga

Lucullian Delights - An Italian Experience

Ruth's Kitchen Experiment

Sweet and Simple Bakes Recipes

Wild Yeast

Winos and Foodies And a special thanks to Barbara who has used her Winos and Foodies blog to bring encouragement and financial support to people suffering from cancer. Barbara is again fighting her own cancer battle.She's losing the strength to cook and write. Her appetite is fading. But the joy of life bubbling in her blog posts and pictures is always alive in the perennial blogosphere. Barbara's enthusiasm for the good life has drawn reader after reader to her site. And now they write back, offering support. At my last look, 72 people have commented on her most recent post, wishing her well.

And that's the incredible thing about blogs. We write them alone; we read them alone. But we do it because we are not alone. We help each other cook; we help each other laugh; we help each other hang in there.

It's sort of a speeded-up version of what traditional cookbooks have always done. The cookbooks I've enjoyed most are those in which the author tells stories about cooking food. The stories bring alive the special people who created the recipes, and the loved ones with whom they shared it at family celebrations.

Here are some of my favorites in no particular order:

Pilgrim Speed Squash - Healthy Sidedish So Easy It Can Cook On A Campfire and Feed A Thanksgiving Party

Brilliance Flashes! Mother Necessity Invents Pilgrim Speed Squash! A vegetable sidedish:

• so easy I put it together in 2 minutes!
• so healthy because it has no fat!
• so nutritious because it combines pumpkin, corn, and apples
• so yummy that kids (even my kids) like it!
• so colorful it looks pretty on a Thanksgiving party table
• so loved by harried cooks because it will cook almost anywhere at any heat for any length of time

Plus, Pilgrim Speed Squash has historical significance! -The Pilgrims surely had all of the ingredients at their first Thanksgiving. If I'd been on that Plymouth Rock, you can be sure I would have been cooking up Pilgrim speed squash on a campfire.

Here's the history of Pilgrim Speed Squash. Last Tuesday afternoon was sunny and warm. Meteorologists throughout Wisconsin were sounding warnings of winter doom to come Friday. I had one last chance to cook on a campfire. All summer I'd intended to cook a meal in our backyard fire pit. And all summer I'd done other things instead.

So when the kids got home from school I announced that dinner would be roasted hot dogs over a campfire. Lauren (9) and Dave (5) were excited to help me get the fire going. Since the yard had so many leaves and sticks I didn't need the charcoal and newspaper. (I'm not very good at building campfires - I cheat often.) The dry leaves got burning fast, and soon we had a blaze. I was so impressed by my success, I started telling the kids that this was just like the Pilgrims would have done it. (I left out the part about the Pilgrims not having a half pack of matches.) Yes, I told the kids, we were going to cook a meal like the Pilgrims would have cooked.

"They had hot dogs, Mommy?" questioned Dave.

"Venison strips," I replied. "Same thing."

Once the fire burned down a bit I put a large potato wrapped in foil into a pocket of embers.

"They didn't have foil either, Mom," said Lauren. "And their potato wasn't from Korea." Lauren is at that endearing age which relishes facts rather than romance.

Of course, a regular sweet potato could cook in the fire, but I had just bought a Korean sweet potato from Lee's Oriental shop. My good friend from South Korea, Kyong A, turned me on to Korean sweet potatoes. They have thin, reddish skins and yellow flesh. They are so tasty that they are best enjoyed without butter, or salt, or pepper, - (condiments I always put on regular potatoes). Plus the kids like them better than all other potatoes too!

After the potato had cooked awhile, it was time to get the hot dogs. The kids had been having such a great time poking the fire and throwing sticks on it that I didn't dare leave them alone with it. I insisted they come inside with me to get the hot dogs. They did, but I wasn't fast enough. Minutes later the kids ran outside. I called after them not to go near the fire. They went to the swing set on the other side of the yard. I had some time, but not much. The lure of the fire was too strong for prolonged resistance.

I'd already gotten the hot dogs on to a tray but realized that our meal lacked a healthy vegetable. What did I have that could be cooked on a campfire, and I could put together fast?!!! I checked outside, they were still on the swing set. What?!!! Plus, I'd foolishly been turning this meal into a history lesson. What did I have that the Pilgrims would have eaten?!!!

Cranberry Coffee Cake and Hot Coffee - Signals to Relax in Holiday Foods

Sunday I baked this cream cheese, cranberry coffee cake and took it to Judy's house. We joked that Judy was practicing for the holidays because she served her guests a giant, noon-day feast, royally finished-off with apple pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate petifours, vanilla ice cream, and my cream cheese, cranberry coffee cake. With satisfied bellies, we sat around the oak dining table, enjoying steaming cups of coffee. Yes, we were relaxing on a Sunday afternoon.

We kept saying we should do this more often. We felt so calm, just hanging out eating and talking. I guess we all were practicing for the holidays. I mean, folks say the purpose of the holidays is to relax with people we care about. Holiday foods are our signal that the day is special. Time to forget chores. Time to relax.

But Judy's feast was a gigantic signal. No wonder we don't relax more often if our signal takes that much time and effort to make. We need a smaller signal.

Recipe fo Ham, Broccoli and Wisconsin Cheddar Quiche - Nutritious, Entertaining Way to Multi-Task

Preparing this recipe for ham, broccoli and Wisconsin cheddar quiche is one way to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously. If you're a whiz at driving kids to school, holding a conference call, applying cosmetics, and eating breakfast simultaneously, all while you're planning the night's dinner, you'll appreciate how this recipe lets you do several tasks at once. Here's what making ham, broccoli and cheddar quiche let me do:

1. Prepare nutritious family dinner, -one that they'll actually eat. Major challenge.
2. Use up left-over ham and 1/2 an onion.
3. Prepare for upcoming holiday entertaining by digging out recipes that people over 20 enjoy, are attractive, and which can be made ahead of time.
4. Join blogosphere buzz about having fun cooking and eating great food.
5. Cheer on Wisconsin cheddar cheeses!!!!!

Cheering on Wisconsin cheddar cheese is the easiest of the 5. Wisconsin cheese makers won first place in 5 out of 7 categories for cheddar cheese at the World Championship Cheese Competition held in Madison, Wisconsin this year. Wisconsin is the Dairyland State. People come here for cheese like they visit France for pastries and Italy for wine. Our lush grass, happy cows, and dedicated cheese masters are appreciated the world over. The new, artisanal cheeses produced on small Wisconsin farms have gourmet lips smacking for more. Check out the Cheese Underground for news on the latest finds.

So when I read that Adventures in Gluttony is celebrating cheddar cheese this month, my Wisconsin cheese loyalty insisted I participate. This recipe for ham, broccoli, and Wisconsin cheddar quiche is my entry. Here's the link for the blog's cheese of the month challenge.

I chose this particular recipe to participate because it's a way to get my kids to eat the left-over ham and half an onion occupying the refrigerator.  As 9-year-old Lauren said when she saw the quiche appear from the oven, "I can't wait to eat it!" Yes, my kids like this quiche! Lauren explained to 5-year-old Dave, "It's good for you. It's got vegetables, cheese, meat, and grains in it." Dave was unimpressed, but I felt happy that Lauren had been listening to at least some of my frequent talks on nutrition.

I like to make this quiche when entertaining company for brunch. I also make it when I have house guests, and I want to feed them something besides cold cereal for breakfast and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. These are our daily fare, but I don't like to push them on company. I typically make two quiches at a time because I want left-overs. This left-over quiche tastes good after it's re-heated in the microwave.

Click on 'Continue reading" for the recipe:

Change Everyday Meat and Potatoes Meal Into Fun Election Party Dinner!

Next Tuesday is election day! Who will move to the White House?

We've borne nearly two years of presidential campaigning. But after next week, campaign TV ads, speeches, phone calls, and yard signs will evaporate. Yesterday, one political reviewer wondered aloud to her radio audience how she will fill her time. Time? Time to celebrate!

And somewhat more than half of all Americans will be pleased with the election outcome. Which Americans will throw celebratory parties and which will throw commiserating parties is still in suspense. But regardless of outcome, election night in the U.S. is party time!

However, for must of us it's also a work-night, school-night, and in-every-other-way-ordinary Tuesday night. Got to feed the kids and get them to bed. So how will we - the folks on Main Street -celebrate?

A patriotic cake with red, white, and blue frosting always works. But do you have time to make one? We have to make nutritious dinners regardless of current events. So here's an idea for suping up the mainstay of Main Street, that classic of American, middle class tables - the United States of America meat loaf! You all know how to make one, so I won't bother giving a recipe. (In case you want to try a new recipe however, here's a link to a wonderful meatloaf recipe.) So here's how to change meatloaf into an election-party centerpiece.

It's all in the hands. Yes, it's gross, but effective. Mix up your favorite meatloaf recipe. Oil a baking sheet. Put the meat on the sheet then mold it into the shape of the political party that you want to win the election. I thought the molding would be difficult, but it was really easy. I made donkey and elephant-shaped loaves amazingly fast. Raw meat is a surprisingly easy medium to sculpt in. Really, you can shape these in no time.

To keep the appendages from over-cooking, I covered them with foil. I baked them without sauce on top because I didn't want the elephant and donkey to look bloody. After cooking and picture-taking, then I put on the kids' favorite meatloaf sauce, Cranberry Topping.

While the meatloaf baked, I made mashed potatoes and broccoli spears. These were for making the White House. Again, use your hands to form the mashed potatoes into the White House shape. (Mashed potatoes, being slightly sticky, are a bit more resistant to sculpting than meatloaf, but still workable and you're kids will think it's cool.) The bonus comes from the broccoli shrubbery. Kids are much more willing to eat broccoli if they think it's inedible trees and bushes.

Eyeball Cupcakes in Red Jello Cauldron Scare Halloween Party Children

Our Halloween party is the weekend before Halloween when friends come to carve jack-o-lantern pumpkins, dress-up in Halloween costumes, and eat fun, Halloween party food.  Our children think that Halloween party food should be SCARY! not beautiful. So this year we created eyeball cupcakes in a cauldron of red jello and gummy worms. 

It was easy to make, and a lot of fun to eat. I got the recipe for the cupcakes from the blog Sweet and Simple Bakes. And I'm entering these eyeball cupcakes in their Spooktacular Halloween Cupcake round-up. The recipe is for an easy-to-make white sponge cake that tastes delicious. I used half the cupcake batter to make 12 mini-muffins. 9-year-old Lauren used the rest to make a single-layer pumpkin cake.

I used Rombauer and Becker's Joy of Cooking (1976) recipe for Boiled White Icing. This icing looks shiny - just like eyeballs. I bought red, brown, and blue gel icing for the eyes. I should have used black gel icing too, but used black frosting for the eye pupils. Lauren wanted the black frosting to decorate her Halloween pumpkin cake.

While we were baking and icing the cakes, our red jello was setting in a cast-iron pot the 'fridge. Before it was completely firm, we took it out and stirred it to look like blood. We added gummy worms to make it look extra disgusting. I placed the iced cupcakes in the jello, then drew on the irises, pupils, and blood lines.

Cake Decorating, Raising Animals, and Carnival Rides - Ways We Teach Children Life Skills

I think we trick our kids. We lure them with sweet flavors, bright colors, and creamy, soft textures to make them learn the hard skills life requires. At least, that was my impression after seeing the fun, elaborately-creative cake decorations on display at the Dane County Fair in Madison, WI. Children in 4-H clubs throughout the county competed for prize ribbons in cake decorating by artistically coating pieces of Styrofoam with colored frosting. The designs they painted on their simulated cakes, cookies, and cupcakes celebrate our life-changing moments and major holidays, -birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, Valentine's Day, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, harvest time, Christmas, and even April Fool's Day -that day we play tricks on each other and laugh.

Recalling my own efforts to make King Lingonberry and a spiced nose cake made me appreciate the skills these children exercised in creating their masterpieces. First, the children had to choose the occasion they wished to celebrate and then look inward to tap their unique creativity. They needed to imagine, in fine detail, each colorful image they wished to paint. Then they had to plan exactly how to re-produce that image in frosting. Construction of the imagined final product had to be translated backward into a step-by-step series of actions. The tools needed to be gathered, - the workplace organized.

Then, for most, the hard work began. Any ease in seeing something gave way to the challenge of making it. Eyes, brain, muscles, hands, -the whole body had to coordinate its movements to precisely layer the frosting. Mistakes inevitably happened. Frustrated emotions were curbed and problem-solving practiced. How could the mistake be fixed? If it couldn't, then how could the design be changed to turn the blemish into an asset? Distractions occurred and had to be ignored, -attention continually redirected to the task, hour after hour. Each child gave a day of his or her life to creating the Styrofoam cakes on display at the fair.

Elsewhere in the Exhibition Center and outside in the fairground barns, children were practicing other life skills. They were grooming and showing the animals they had spent months raising. Some children showed their pet cats, rabbits, and guinea pigs. Others showed commercial livestock, -their beef and dairy cattle, pigs, sheep, lamas, goats, and poultry. The children were tested not only on the physical condition of their animals, but on their own skills in showmanship.

I watched the nervous intensity that the children focused on their animals,-readying them in the stalls, and showing them in the ring. This was serious business. Months of daily labor would be judged over the course of a few minutes.

Why Fireworks on the 4th of July?

(To see the patriotic parfait, skip the politics and scroll to the end.)

Over 70 fireworks displays will fire Wisconsin skies between now and July 6th. The celebrating started last Saturday with Madison's huge Rhythm & Booms music and fireworks festival. Yes, we're lucky here in Wisconsin. Our flooded fields turned Wisconsin's fire-danger pointer to low.  Stars & Stripes Sugar Cookies

Not so in some parts of the U.S. where dry conditions, especially in California, have caused communities to cancel 4th of July fireworks. Other communities canceled the show because of fireworks' high and rising costs. I know that the explosion of 20 fireworks warehouses in the Chinese port of Sanshui earlier this year was terrible, but still, it would have been cool to watch from the other side of the bay.

Another rising concern about fireworks, although I'm not sure it has caused any display cancellations, is the significant amount of greenhouse gases they emit. I was not the first to Ask Pablo how much carbon dioxide 4th of July fireworks spray into the atmosphere. Pablo calculated that the carbon emitted from fireworks in 2006 was 60,340 tons, which he describes as "more than 12,000 cars emit in a year, or the emissions from 115,000 light bulbs left burning for a year!" He went on to describe the additional pollution caused by the dangerous gases, heavy metals and toxins which also explode in the fireworks. "Bummer, man." is all I can say.

But whenever I'm faced with bad news, I give it a spin and see if I can look at it another way. So here goes. Let's consider WHY we're so busy lighting fire in the sky. Why? - because we ourselves are bursting with energy. We're HAPPY and we're CELEBRATING!

And why are we so happy? - because we are not blowing each other up. But we could be. The gunpowder used in fireworks, explained Pablo, is exactly the same as is used in fire-arms, - you know, handguns, missiles, and the like. Fox News reported that no fireworks will explode over Iraqi skies this summer. Instead, the explosions come from the IED's on the roadsides. The U.S. military has issued over 200 purple hearts since the war's start. How many more purple hearts have actually been earned? in 2003, Human Rights Watch reported:

Extensive research at five hospitals and morgues in Kirkuk and Mosul suggests that the high civilian tolls can be attributed to general lawlessness after the collapse of local authorities; the ready availability of weapons and ammunition; and the vast stores of ammunition and ammunition components left behind by the Iraqi military, including landmines, rocket-propelled grenades, and other explosives. 

Many of the victims have been children who play with explosives or pick up unexploded ordnance (UXO) as toys and sustain serious injuries as a result.

Yes, children are injured by guns here in the U.S. too, - but not nearly in the same proportion as in Iraq.

Life Stages of Father's Day Gifts - What To Give Dad This Year?

A dad is one of the hardest people to get gifts for. Why? Because if a dad needs something small and relatively inconsequential, he'll never mention it. The family is more likely to hear about the grander toys a dad desires - such as a boat, car, stereo equipment, golf clubs, etc., all of which are usually out of the price range of most devoted offspring.

So what gifts do offspring give a dad on Father's Day? Reflecting on this question, I realize that Father's Day gifts go through life stages. Whether or not fathers go through life stages, I haven't a clue. But their Father's Day gifts definitely show a progression.

New fathers often get apparel sporting cute slogans, such as 'World's Best Dad", "Super Dad", "You can't scare me, I have a daughter", or "I'm (insert child's name)'s Daddy". The particular slogan and clothing item selected thus reflects the new mom more accurately than the new dad. But most dads don't mind, and will wear it anyway. Many even like it.

When the child has grown sufficiently old enough to receive an allowance from dad, Father's Day gifts take a marked turn south in quality, but leap upwards in sentiment. The scribbled, stick-figure pictures on construction-paper cards are attached to overly-wrapped, drug store purchases. For years, my dad got English Leather soap and aftershave. Originally, he may have mentioned to my mom that he liked the brand. Little did he know that he would be awash in English Leather for the next 10 years. My friends gave their dads dime-store ties, and hardware store work gloves and grill brushes.

Meanwhile, my 30-something mother was giving her dad a better-quality tie, book, or shirt. And by the time I was 30-something, my dad was getting those too. "What a GREAT shirt!" he'd declare. And we were all pleased that he liked this shirt's subtle stripe which distinguished itself from last year's subtle stripe.

But as years pass, offspring slowly give up the ruse that one more shirt really makes Dad's day. That's when gift certificates become a popular Father's Day gift. After I gave my dad his first Father's Day gift certificate to a book store, my mom said he really had a fun time with it. "He so rarely goes shopping for himself," she told me, "He enjoyed slowly browsing through books and picking out ones he wouldn't otherwise have purchased." Great. The next few years of Father's Days were covered. Dad got gift certificates.

But then more years pass. The family home is chocked so full of stuff that no one can even account for all that is there. Yes, it's a lifestyle, - the American lifestyle. And I think Father's Day is an American invention. At this stage, my mom urged me to give consumables, - gifts like food, plants, and golf balls. I consider books on current politics in this category too. So now Dad gets these (well, maybe not the plants.)

What's the next stage? - I can't answer that yet. But the range of possible Father's Day gifts in the current stage is enormously broad. In our world of Internet shopping, I can send Dad books and food he's never even heard of. I'm good to go for lots more years, and I hope Dad is too!