One of Jack’s favorite meals is sushi.

It’s great to introduce expensive food to your kids when you have one. You are so proud of their diverse tastes that spending $8 dollars to watch them basically crush a california roll and sprinkle it onto the floor at a Japanese restaurant seems worth it.

But when you have four kids, it stops looking like money well spent for the sake of an exposed palate and starts looking like you are throwing money down the drain.

Still, I want my kids to be adventurous eaters, especially in my favorite area of foray – asian food.

So lately I’ve been making sushi at home. It’s actually pretty easy. I’m going to show you how right now…

Tonight I made California rolls. For those, you will need:

1. Rice. Brown or White. I use sushi rice but if you can’t find it Arborio rice works great too. I used that tonight.

2. Rice wine vinegar.

3. Sesame seed. The black ones look really great mixed with the yellow ones, but I could only find yellow so I used that. You could skip these all together if you wanted to.

4. Avocado.

5. Cucumber.

6. Crab Sticks. I just buy the imitation ones from the supermarket.

7. Nori. This is the seaweed paper.

8. Bamboo roller and plastic wrap.

Cook the rice according to the instructions. I have a rice cooker because I’m a good Chinese daughter. In my world it’s right up there on the level of toaster oven and microwave. Definitely not an optional appliance.

When the rice is done put a couple of sprinkles of rice wine vinegar. I made rice out of 2 cups of uncooked stuff, and added about 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar.

Then, since everyone seems to be rolling the sushi inside out (with the rice on the outside), I cut the nori in half and put it, shiny side down, on a bamboo roller that was wrapped in plastic wrap.

Next put enough rice on the nori to cover the whole thing.

Then wet your fingers with water and spread rice out evenly on the nori.

Please do not get grossed out by my black finger nail. I slammed it in the bathroom door on one of my more “over tired mom days” a few weeks ago. Twice. It’s slowly turning completely black and half of it has come off already. I heard it may never grow back. Which makes me glad I’m already married off because I’m sure ten fingers and nine nails would be a deal breaker for some.

Next sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Now flip it over. Fill the other side with avocado slices, crabmeat, and cucumber. (I peeled the cucumber, deseeded it, sliced it into long strips.)

You can see my nori ripped. It doesn’t matter, it did not effect the rolls at all.

Next use the bamboo roller to roll it all together.

Finally, using a sharp knife, cut the roll into bite size pieces.

There are a lot of ends, uneven bits of sushi wrap that still taste delicious. Sometimes I can make a whole meal out of them! The rice made about 8 logs. It was enough for dinner for everyone (it was served with some other things) and some leftovers for Jack’s lunchbox tomorrow.

I know it was a good meal because when I snapped this photo there was absolute silence at the table…

California rolls, Edamame, and Pot Stickers.

I probably should make a comment about Jack dressed at the Ultimate Spiderman, Ben the Hulk and Aaron’s favorite way to wear his shirt, with one arm in and one arm out. Let’s just say I’m just happy they are all actually wearing some sort of clothing for this picture. And that no one is crying or complaining about the menu for once.

My New Year’s goody bag included Red Cabbage, Celeriac, Sunchokes, Sweet Potato, Red Onions, Carrots and Watercress.

The red cabbage was used for Za’atar Spice Roasted Red Cabbage Steaks.

I really enjoyed this dish, a great find and something I would do again!

The sunchokes made another side dish. Sliced thin and roasted in the oven with simply olive oil, salt and pepper. They were okay, but since they looked like potatoes but didn’t taste as creamy or starchy that was kind of hard to get my head around.

I added the celeriac and carrots to a minestrone that I ate all week. Paired with some crusty bread is a meal I never tire of.

Sweet Potato always gets eaten in our house. This time we decided to have another thanksgiving night, sometimes one thanksgiving turkey dinner is not enough! Why should we only spoil ourselves with marshmallow topped sweet potatoes once a year?

Red onions were used in an egg salad and also in a “everything left in your crisper” salad along with the Watercress.

People always ask what salad dressing I use when they try my salads. Here is my secret: dijon mustard, any vinegar, and olive oil. So simple! This salad I used a special bottle of olive oil my friend Hedy brought me. Yum!

This week we received Green Cabbage, Rainbow Carrots, Sweet Potatoes, Candy Onions, Baby Leeks, Red Beets, Purple Turnips and Brussel’s Sprouts.

I was able to pull the rainbow carrots, sweet potatoes, red beets, purple turnips and brussel’s sprouts together along with garlic, the thyme and sage from previous fresh picks deliveries, olive oil, salt and pepper in a big batch of roast vegetables that I’ve been eating my way through all week.

The onion got used in my lentils with cauliflower, potato and spinach dish I found in my Forks Over Knives Cookbook.

Finally, the leeks and cabbage were also used in another recipe from the same book, millet and cabbage.

This week: Green Cabbage, Daikon, Purple Top Turnips, Flowering Kale, Butternut Squash, Cilantro, Horseradish Whips, Red Potatoes, and Scallions.

I’m pleased that all the veggies were local this week. But secretly I wished they were more un-pc and gave me stuff I could figure out how to use.

My internet search told me that flowering kale is basically a decoration, and I couldn’t find a single thing on horseradish whips. All I know is that I don’t really like horseradish. But I will eat a boat load of it on top of gefilte fish because as bad as horseradish is, gefilte fish is worse.

In the end I folded my cards on this item. Fresh picks beat me, they finally sent me a veggie I could not figure out how to use.

As for the other stuff, I couldn’t help looking at the list and realizing I could dump a bunch of it into a soup. Butternut squash, Kale, Turnips, and Cabbage all can be put together along with just about any other vegetable you can find to make along with some onions, garlic, and dried seasoning to make a nice veggie soup.

So, that leaves scallions, cilantro and daikon.

I’m in love with cilantro nowadays. I used to hate it but it’s grown on me lately. I chopped the entire thing up for a taco fiesta one evening. You can put it in pico de gallo, guacamole, and I even like to add it to my brown rice with a little lime juice a la Chipotle style.

Daikon and Scallions went into my fake pho recipe.

I think the cold weather is making me soup obsessed.

I didn’t post any pictures of the soups or taco night. I took a few, but they came out very similar to the Martha Stewart tweets that have been made fun of this week and so I wisely deleted them.

This week we received a box of all local vegetables – Beauty Heart Radish, Butternut Squash, Beets, a Red & Green Pepper, Romaine Lettuce, Red Potatoes and Carrots.

Immediately I put the beets in the oven to roast while I was making chicken pot pie for dinner. I ended up eating them cold one lunch, drizzled with balsamic and honey.

I used some of the carrots, the red and green pepper, as well as the beauty heart radish in the pot pie. I was very excited when I sliced open the radish. The inside looked like a watermelon!

All the veggies actually went together nicely, which makes me think pot pie is another way I can empty my crisper if I need too…

The rest of the carrots and the potatoes were put into a minestrone soup that has fed me for days. And for one night, my entire family as well.

Pumpkin was diced up and roasted in simply olive oil, salt and pepper. I ate it, as well as the twins.

Finally, the romaine got used for salad.

Yellow Onions, Sweet Dumpling Squash, Kale, Romaine, Spinach, Broccoli Raab, Daikon Radishes, and Corno de Torno Peppers.

First thing I did was make Kale Chips. I had something else in mind, like a soup, but it was warm out and I was missing a veggie for that evenings dinner so I whipped them up at nap time.

Next I hacked away at the Squash, getting the hard shell off with my Chinese chopper knife. It was paired with some of the sliced onions. I sauteed them together in a bit of butter, brown sugar, salt and pepper, put the lid on and let them cook on a low temperature for about 20 minutes. It was so good I didn’t even share.

I had to use the last onion in zucchini cakes. I had apple sauce from apple picking that needed a partner!

The radish was added to a pot roast. Carrots, celery, and potatoes all went with it to make this one pot meal.

Romaine was tossed in a salad. Everything I could find in the crisper with some mustard vinaigrette.

Spinach was wilted with some left over chicken, mushroom and onion. I used this as a filling with cheese in crepes for dinner one night.

Broccoli Raab unfortunately was wasted, wilted before I had a chance to figure out what to do with it. Same with the red peppers. I’m going to have to be quicker next time!

After leaving the apple orchard with $44 dollars worth of apples, you are probably wondering, what happened to the apples?

Good question. I quickly went to work on getting rid of them all.

Luckily Jack had snack week the very next day, so we sent him in with 30 apples.

Next I put 9 in an apple pie. It was very pretty but I forgot to take a picture. I thought about it a few days later but it was already gone. It was also very tasty.

Next I made apple sauce in the slow cooker.

It required about 14 apples, if you add the diced apples with the apples I blended and HAND STRAINED to get apple juice. (I don’t have a juicer.)

It was the most delicious apple sauce I had ever tasted. I used it on these zucchini cakes.

Sometimes I ate it with greek yogurt too.

Another 6 apples were used to make an apple tart.

I cheated, that’s store bought puff pastry. I just sliced apples then sprinkled with sugar, dotted with butter and baked. When it looked done I took them out and brushed them with apricot jam.

Two were sent to Ben’s school for his apple tasting experiment.

More were sent in school lunches with peanut butter dip.

Seriously at this point I feel like I am the apple queen. I mean, look how many clever and delicious ways I’ve managed to make my family and friends eat all these apples! I was so confident.

Until I looked in the apple orchard bags.

I still had HALF LEFT!

HALF! What was I going to do with another whole bag?

I needed more recipes that used at least 10 apples or more.

I googled my way into making caramel apples next.

I found a recipe with 5 stars that I was sure would be a winner. How could sugar, corn syrup, heavy cream with some salt possibly go wrong?

All you do is boil it all together then let it cool a bit, dip the apples and add toppings. That would be a ton of fun for the older kids!

I got it all set up on this rainy Saturday afternoon…

Doesn’t this look like fun? I couldn’t wait to have a blast with the kids.

Well, unfortunately it was not fun. It was messy, and sticky, and the caramel didn’t stick to the apples. Neither did the toppings. Next thing I knew  the kids were upset that they didn’t look like the store bought ones, and I was upset that I couldn’t find a single funny thing about it. Are these the ugliest caramel apples you’ve ever seen or what?

The toppings are on top because I had to keep pulling them off the bottom and sticking them on top.

It reminded me of the last time I tried to work with a melted dipping type topping. Cake pops.

Remind me not to work with melting and dipping things again. I’m terrible at is.

Okay, I’d better get back to googling. This defeat will not make me forget I need to finish that last bag of apples!

This week corn, radishes, green beans, green cabbage, turnips, cilantro and mixed salad greens.

The green beans and corn were steamed right away and used for side dishes for dinner that very evening.

I also picked cucumbers and the radishes. The next night I added them to the mixed greens with some shredded carrots and sesame seeds for an Asian inspired salad.

Turnips would used in a Chorba soup. I didn’t add any meat, which I think was a mistake. Otherwise it turned out good.

Cilantro was used on night in a pico de gallo for a quesadilla topping. I finished the leftovers with blue chips.

Finally, I added the green cabbage to a Colcannon recipe, using turkey bacon instead of ham…

Anjelica’s recent departure is having much more of an impact on me than I expected.

I knew it would be more work in the afternoons, but I didn’t realize my entire daily schedule would change.

I used to cook dinner in the afternoon. Right before we ate it. Anjelica would take the twins on a walk or out of the house and the older boys would do homework, play, or mess with electronics. Now that time is too hectic.

I’ve been trying to fit in a lot of prep work in the mornings. I’ve also been trying to find ways to cook less and get more out of it, without losing variety.

This morning I made a simple tomato soup that I will use twice, once with grilled cheese and the next night with alphabet shaped pasta. It’s so easy, want the recipe?

First I chopped up an onion, red pepper, and three cloves of garlic…

Sauté in olive oil for about 10 minutes to soften, then add a box of chopped tomatoes….

Keep it on the stove in a low boil for another ten minutes then add a tablespoon of  sugar, salt, pepper. Add three cups of chicken broth. I use “Better than Boullion” because I live in a city and space is tight. you can store a whole lot of chicken broth if you don’t need to find space for the liquid part!

Mix it in, then turn off the fire. Add dried basil. About a tablespoon.

Let it cool. We’ll blend it later.

Did I mention I baked some premixed cookies for dessert while I was doing this? I never cook one thing at a time when I can cook two. Or three.

They were ready to come out of the oven now.

It’s easier to cook with just the twins are around, but not by much.

Here they are throwing my keys in the garbage.

Later while I was waiting for the soup to cool, I decided to whip up some oatmeal for breakfast for the week. I chopped up two cups of dried apples, one cup of dates and added a whole cinnamon stick to the slow cooker. It’s another recipe from “Forks Over Knives.”

The twins pushed the dining room table chair over and figured out they could do this…

And this…

I still managed to great the oatmeal going. Another great meal that will last me for breakfast all week. The chopped up fruit and cinnamon stick went in…

Then a cup of steel cut oats…

Then four cups of water…

Slow cook on low for three hours.

When its done it looks like this…

I put it in the fridge and nuke individual servings all week.

Now it’s time to change two stinky diapers. And change Sam’s entire outfit, since he just grabbed a glass of water and dumped it all over himself, the counter, and chair.

Back to the soup. Time to whizz it in batches in a blender. 

I put it in the fridge until supper time. Next on the agenda, time to feed the twins lunch and put them down for a nap. I have exciting plans for nap time. I’m going to do laundry and clean up the 30 or so books they pulled off my bookshelf while I was putting away the groceries.

Here is dinner tonight. The soup served with grilled cheese on whole wheat bread…

So simple, but so delicious!

Growing up my mother cooked dinner for us every night. I can remember many of her ‘go to’ dishes, including her fried rice. Sometimes she would serve it with a side of sliced tomato, seasoned simply with salt. The juicy sweetness of the tomato balanced out the dry, savory taste of the rice. When I saw the heirloom tomatoes below, I knew I didn’t want to lose any of it’s character by cooking it. A simply slice and season would do.

Red Cabbage, Yellow Onions, Lacinato Kale, Heirloom Tomatoes, Arugula, Basil, Scallions, and Chinese Eggplant.

If I felt that way about the Tomatoes, I felt completely oppositely about the Arugula. What would I do with this bitter leaf? I’ve been using a new cookbook lately, inspired by Angelica’s viewing of the documentary “Forks Over Knives”. They published a companion cookbook that hasn’t excited me since Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s Appetite for Reduction. This one is simply called, Forks Over Knives The Cookbook.

In the end I found that you could use Arugula in Pesto. I whizzed it all up, along with the Basil to make two cups of Pesto. I used one cup of the pesto on whole wheat pasta with the Green Beans.

Chinese Eggplant and some of the Scallion were cooked into my favorite Chinese dish, “Yu Shang Qie Zi”, a spicy SiChuan dish. It was like reliving a very fond but different memory from the tomato one. A memory of my days in China. I used to come home after work and pop into my local diner and order this for 8 Kuai (1 US Dollar!). It would last me two nights. Then I’d go back and order one of the other three dishes I knew the Chinese names for. Ben liked this dish so much he asked for it again.

I braised the red cabbage with red wine and mustard, adding onion, carrot, celery and green apple. Lovely.

That leaves my Kale. I used it in another Forks Over Knives recipe, “Vegetable White Bean and Hash”. I included, among other things, a sweet potato, white beans. It went great with a poached egg for breakfast.