Food Revolution!

Have you watched Jamie Oliver's food revolution? It just had its season finale on Friday. It was a such a great show! We all know that we have the third fattest/unhealthiest country in the world and Jamie has set out to do something about it. He is trying to show people that healthy home made food it NOT HARD to do. You don't have to be a chef to achieve quality results for your family.

Jamie started the season by going into an elementary school in Huntington WV. Huntington was voted the fattest city in America and Jamie sets out to change that, one school at a time. He looks into our countries school lunch program with shocking results. He finds and shows that a french fry counts as a vegetable (WTF?!) and strawberry milk is considered "good" for the children. Supposedly because its better that they drink milk... even if it has more sugar than a soda.

He does this fantastic demo of what goes into a chicken nugget. If you are about to eat them you may want to skip this video otherwise they will become inedible.



After I saw this I decided that the bag of Mickey mouse shaped chicken nuggets in my freezer will be our last. I decided I no longer can ignore what I know to be in those types of foods. You know, the ones we have in our homes that we can't read or understand a thing on the ingredient label. We all know they are bad for us but for the convenience we buy them anyway.

I have been making fresh meals for my family for a long time and ever freezing them so that the nights I am lazy I have something to make that is easy. How hard can chicken nuggets be to add to the list? Not hard at all I found out.

These were SO easy! I used the recipe from this book.
This is a double recipe. And I am happy to report it made three full trays. (a gallon ziplock after we ate dinner.) And G LOVED them!!

Baked Chicken Nuggets
serves 12

ingredients:
4 lbs boneless/skinless chicken

sauce option 1:
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 milk
1T+ 1 t dry mustard
2t onion powder

sauce option 2:
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup ranch dressing, bottled

coating:
2 cup bread crumbs (I used a combo of herbed and plain.)
1t paprika

Directions:
Choose a sauce and mix all ingredients with a whisk. Cut chicken breasts lengthwise into strips and nuggets. Place all of the chicken pieces in the sauce and stir well to coat. Place the coating in a bag or bowl with a lid. Place about 1 lb of chicken in the crumb mixture and shake well to coat. Place chicken pieces on Demarle silpat or spray-treated cookie sheet. Bake at 375* for 15-20 min, turning once. Remove from oven and cool on the baking sheet.

Freeze in ziplock or container for short term storage or in food saver bags for long term freezing if making many batches. Only about 300-324 cal per serving depending on the sauce.

Take a second to sign the food revolution pledge.

And for the fun of it here is the is my cranberry chicken recipe.

Cranberry Chicken

ingredients:
8 oz catalina dressing
1 pkg dry onion soup mix
1-1lb can whole-berry cranberry sauce
4 boned chicken breasts

serves 4 (I double or triple it for freezing)

Cooking day instructions:
Mix together dressing, onion soup mix, and cranberry sauce. Place chicken and mixture together in a freezer bag. Freeze in a freezer bag. (lay flat to take up the least amount of space once frozen)

Serving day instructions:
Thaw completely. Place chicken with cranberry sauce in Demarle round mold on perforated tray or greased baking dish and bake uncovered at 350* for 1-1.5 hours.

Adventures in Cake Decorating part 1

Many of you know I am crafty, and I am a bit neurotic about my crafts. I love them. Lots of them. I am always trying a new one and while it may not stay around long or permanently there will always be SOME craft in my life.

I have always wanted to learn how to decorate cakes. I tried once, WAY back in 1999 or so, and it was so ugly that I actually wrote on it "The Ugly Cake" and the boyfriend at the time and I never even cut into it. It sat in the fridge for a week until I finally got tired of looking it in all its pathetic-ness and threw it away. It was that ugly.

I never tried again. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't out of fear or anything. I guess it just never really came up again. I don't really like cake. Its a dirty little secret of mine. I prefer cookies. And those I can decorate! I love to decorate them in fact. But not that I have a toddler who will have more birthdays I figured now was the time to revisit cake decorating and take the class.

It is a Wilton class at Joann's Fabrics and a lot of fun so far. Last weeks first class we basically sat and watched our instructor demo some techniques.

This week, we had to bring a cake. We had our choice of an 8 inch round cake that would end up with a rainbow on it (dumb) or a character cake from Wilton of coarse. I chose neither. I know I know. That's what my husband said but I refuse to buy more pans that take up space when Demarle is so lovely and FOLDS! So I used this Imagine mold from Demarle. The 2008 catalog had some photos of things you could do with the mold so I chose the frog.

So I set about, and made my cake on Thursday evening because I had to work Friday and Grayson's mini party was on Saturday. (Mini because it was only two of his little friends) Then this morning I leveled and put the base layer of frosting on my frog. I only had one color of green which I didn't really like so I went to class early and picked up a darker green and mixed up my frosting colors before class.

Class was spent learning different ways to decorate like the star and some writing techniques as well as the textures of our frosting. By the end we had partially decorated the cake for this class. I had most of my green "stars" piped onto my froggies body.


I had wondered right up until I got home how I would decorate its face and such but had always heard about Fondant. Someone brought it up again in class and it piqued my interest once again. So I came home and looked up recipes online to see if it is even something I could do. Turns out there is this fabulous recipe using Marshmallows, water, powdered sugar and Crisco.

I pulled all of these things out of my pantry and started making this recipe. In it Peggy mentions you really have to grease your hands to knead this "dough". I did. I really thought I was properly greased.

I wasn't.

I stuck my hands in and started mooshing. That is about the time I figured out I have a sensory issue with gooey textures being in between my fingers. I started feeling claustrophobic and dizzy all the while determined to make this damn fondant. So I kept kneading, and feeling a little ill. I SO wish I had been able to sprout that third arm to take the photo of my hands but since they were buisy and hubby was snoring quietly on the couch there was noone to take a photo. But sufice it to say, I had NOT greased enough.

Lesson learned. I had most of the mixture stuck to me.

Then BRILLIANT me. I get the idea that there HAD TO BE A BETTER WAY. Famous last words right? So I get all cleaned up (I swear that took 15 minutes to get all the crud off my hands) and I load all my ingredients into my stand mixer. My good ol' friend who is over worked and underpaid. And for this abuse, she spit on me.

Back to the good ol Roulpat. This was getting ridiculous. right as I start to get frustrated and almost about to give up, I decide to try again. And there you have it. Isn't it gorgeous?

Then I colored it.

Then I rolled it out and cut out various shapes for its arms, legs, eyes and mouth. All went pretty well. (If you try this make sure you use gloves for the coloring portion, otherwise your hands will be lovely colors for weeks!) I made two sets because supposedly you aren't supposed to put fondant in the fridge on the cake but I have a milk based pudding filling in my cake so it has to go in the fridge. If the fondant goes haywire I will have backup.

And finally all the parts are on and cute! Voila! Here is my first cake.
I must say I am very proud of this accomplishment. I feel like I conquered something I have had on my to do list for many years. I feel even more accomplished that the fondant worked out, its not even taught in this class! They have a whole class set devoted to it.

And the best part is its not even UGLY. Not even a little bit.