This past week we became foster parents for the first time. That is, fosters of two shepherd mix puppies that are about 3 months old. I have been volunteering at the SPCA of Westchester since the beginning of the year, and I love it. I’m a dog walker, and I also help the dogs learn more “adoptable” behavior (like, not lunging at the front of their cage and barking their heads off when someone comes close) using clicker training. Taking in two foster pups was the next step, and these dogs — named Monkey (the darker one) and Pouch by my boys — were fantastic sweetie pies.
Because they are not yet housebroken, we had them gated into our entry/dining room, which has a tile floor. This also meant there were two safety gates separating my kitchen from the rest of the house, with eager-to-play puppies in between. So, the dogs became yet another reason to make a quick batch of pasta for dinner rather than having a meal plan and cooking something more well-rounded.
They are definitely my cutest excuse for not cooking yet. The pups were reluctantly returned to the SPCA Thursday morning, and they found new homes the same day. We miss them, but I’m trying to teach the boys that it’s OK for an experience to have been both happy (having them) and sad (returning them) at the same time. We did a good deed fostering them, and we do hope to foster more dogs in the future.
Yesterday, I made a fresh batch of chicken soup, and tonight I roasted Brussels sprouts and cauliflower. We may actually be on our way back to a varied diet. I’ve made a promise to myself to create a meal plan for this coming week. If you want to help me out, let me know what you’ve been cooking — I could use some inspiration.
If you Like Chick in the Kitchen on Facebook (go head, click Like, I’ll wait…), you know I was in Maui on vacation for a week. My sister, who is living in Australia, met me and my parents there to celebrate my dad’s birthday. Believe it or not, Hawaii is pretty much a half-way point between New York and Brisbane. It was a heck of a long flight, but even if Maui wasn’t enough of a draw, spending a week with my sister was! It was fun to have my nuclear family together again — we laugh a lot.
“Practice Aloha” is a slogan created by Mark Ellman, a Maui chef. We ate at one of his restaurants, Mala Ocean Tavern, and in terms of creativity and flavor it was by far our favorite restaurant on the island. Our waiter, Jeremiah, definitely had the aloha vibe down. Practicing aloha is open to interpretation, but it essentially means putting a positive vibe out into the world by treating everything around you with love and respect. That includes people, animals, and our environment. Mala’s menu reflects this, and we especially loved the Stir Fried Brussels Sprouts with Sesame Seeds, Fresh Mint & Crispy Wontons.
We also had a chance to eat at Aloha Mixed Plate (my favorite for laid-back island vibe, great drinks, and delicious chicken, all on an outdoor patio overlooking the ocean); Cane & Taro (my dad had some rockin’ huevos rancheros); Leilani’s On The Beach (we had coupons for free Hula Pie — “This is what the sailors swam to shore for in Lahaina” — Oreo cookie crust, macadamia nut ice cream, fudge topping, macadamia nuts sprinkled on top, and whipped cream FTW!). Hula Grill and Roy’s – Kahana Bar & Grill were just OK.
We did spend a full day driving the Road to Hana, which is a 1.5-lane wide road traversing the north side of Maui in a series of blind curves and switchbacks. It is not a drive for the faint of heart, and my dad did a fantastic job keeping us safe. The Twin Falls farm stand photo above is taken just at the start of the trip. We’d packed a picnic lunch from Safeway the night before, as there is not much in the way gas stations or food along the drive. And as far as waterfalls, well, the four of us are a little jaded. We’ve spent a lot of time in Ithaca, NY after all, and there are some spectacular waterfalls there too.
At the end of that day trip we stopped in a cool little town called Paia, where Mama’s Fish House is an institution. We had our second chance to sample poi here, which is a traditional, bland porridge made of pounded taro root. This version was thicker, described as “one-finger: by our waiter because you eat it by dipping just one finger inside. We’re previously eaten a much looser version at Aloha Mixed Plate. Really, there is nothing offensive about poi, since it barely has a flavor. My sister didn’t mind this second version though, and was the only one of us to finish the small sample they gave us. Here’s the poi, looking as pretty as it can look:
There were two more fun food highlights. First, we had an opportunity to tour the kitchen of the Sherton Maui, where we stayed. I love a good behind the scenes tour, plus I am fascinated by how restuarants can cook for such huge amounts of people. Conrad Aquino is the executive sous chef there, and he definitely exudes the idea of practicing aloha. He was incredibly good-natured, always with a smile on his face, and seemed really excited to show me, my mom, my sister, and one other guest around the inner workings of the kitchen. Look at the size of those whisks and dough hooks in the back corner! They dwarf my own KitchenAid many many times over. (They actually use an industrial-sized Hobart mixer.)
After the tour Conrad cut up several fruits for us to sample. We tried rambutan, guava (I didn’t care for it), and an apple banana (I wrote in my notes this was a “vanilla banana,” but I think I got it wrong). We also had a jambong, which is like a less-tart, enormous grapefruit:
My favorite new fruit, though, was the chiamito, or star apple. The flesh was lightly sweet and very soft, but not slimy (though I think it looks that way):
Conrad also made us a delicious upside-down tart in a pan. He layered the supremed (sliced) jambong and Granny Smith slices in a skillet, then sprinkled them with sugar and dotted them with butter (and not with a light hand, I must add!). The prepared puff pastry cut to size was placed on top, and allowed to cook. The finished dish was flipped out of the pan upside down, so the fruit — beautifully arranged — was on top and caramelized. Just to gild the lily, it was served with a scoop of vanilla and macadamia nut ice cream. Wow. It was delicious, and Conrad graciously gave us leftovers to bring out to my dad since it was his birthday that day. Although we never got a chance to eat in the resort’s dinner restaurant, we found both of their bar menus to be generously portioned, with plenty of lighter and vegetarian options. It was easy and pleasant to eat lunch at the resort — we didn’t even have to get out of our lounge chairs if we didn’t want to.
On one of our last days in Maui, we hit a local farmer’s market nearby. I have to use the term “local” loosely, since there were bananas from Ecuador for sale amongst the Hawaii coconuts. I did treat myself to a young coconut for $4. The gentleman you see here cut a hole in the top so I could stick a straw inside and drink the coconut water (it’s not cream at this point). Then when I was done he chopped the whole thing open so we could scrape out the meat. It was more fun than delicious — my sister says the coconuts she gets in Brisbane are infinitely better. We also bought a couple of coconut bagels (does that mean I can no longer call myself a New Yorker?), which were barely sweet plain bagels with a sprinkle of dessicated coconut on top. Not bad, actually. We also bought some local cheddar and made a breakfast out of all that, along with coffee and chai from the Bad Ass Coffee Co.
I used the word “paradise” a mind-numbingly large amount of times on this vacation. It was truly a vacation of a lifetime, and I’m thankful to my parents for helping my sister and I get out there with them. They deserve an enormous Hawaiian “mahalo” — thank you. There are so many pictures that could sum up the aloha I felt on the trip, but this one is a favorite. I’m going to keep trying to practice aloha, even now that I’m far from that island paradise.
I posted 40 meal plans this year, which means I was on top of dinner more than 75% of the time. That’s a lot of planning for dinner! The number also surprised me, because — at least during this fall — I felt I’d let meal planning get away from me. It’s helpful for me to look back and realize I did do a good job, overall.
I spent more time on other Chick in the Kitchen outlets this year than ever before. You can follow me on Twitter, Like me on Facebook, and follow my boards on Pinterest as well. I hope you will. I often post items in those three places that won’t necessarily make it onto my blog, and I love interacting with my readers on Facebook, especially.
As in the past two years (2009 and 2010), I took a look at my site statistics to get a feel for what you were reading. This year, the majority of my traffic came from the U.S. and Canada, with the UK, Australia, and Germany rounding out the Top 5. A little more than half of my traffic comes from search results, and almost 30% comes from referrals (someone linking to the site).
In fact, I’m making the Gigantes to bring to our friends’ house on New Year’s Eve — it will help offset the enormous quantity of pigs in blankets we’ll eat.
With that, I wish you a happy and healthy 2012! Thank you for reading and sharing with me.
J. and I took the boys camping for two nights in Fahnestock State Park a few weeks ago. He and I had both occasionally gone camping in the past, but we’d never done it with the kids, and they were really eager to go. We’d planned for our inaugural camping trip to last just one night, but this campsite required a two-night reservation and we figured we might as well try it. It was a blast. I turned off my phone as soon as we arrived, and kept it off through the weekend. It was incredibly relaxing to be in the moment with my family, only worrying about why the fish weren’t biting and whether we’d run out of marshmallows.
We needed two breakfasts, two dinners, and a lunch. We were able to drive our car right to our campsite, so we didn’t need to pack light and could bring an insulated cooler. For dinner the first night, we had skirt steak and potatoes. J. had trimmed and marinated the steak ahead of time, then vacuum-sealed it in two packages for travel. (We wound up not needing the second package on that first night, so we grilled the leftovers for breakfast the next morning. Steak for breakfast? Yes!) I very rarely cook potatoes at home, but I got it into my head that I wanted to bake a few over the coals of our campfire. I’d seen a video on Campfire Baked Potatoes, where you slip slices of onion into slits in the potato before baking. I drizzled the Yukon Golds with olive oil and sprinkled on a little salt, then wrapped them well in aluminum foil. They were incredible, and we will definitely make them a camping staple. Dessert? S’mores, of course. Over the course of the weekend A. developed a marshmallow rule: you could roast 1 after breakfast, 1 after lunch, and 2 after dinner. We thought marshmallows after breakfast seemed totally reasonable while camping, so we obliged.
Our second dinner didn’t work out as well. My boys don’t eat hot dogs (actually, since we went on this trip A. has tried and now likes them) but we wanted to do something fun with campfire cooking. I thought about bringing dough and making pizzas over the fire, but chickened out before we left and thought Boboli pizza crusts would have a lower fail rate. The trouble was, we couldn’t get the heat right. The crusts burned before the cheese could melt, and the boys really didn’t eat theirs. With a little practice and the use of our cast iron pan, I was able to get mine cooked a little more evenly, but it was not an experiment worth repeating. Still, no one went hungry — it just meant we got to dessert more quickly.
Our breakfasts were simple. We used a Coleman single-burner propane stove to boil water for coffee (Starbucks VIA packets) and hot chocolate. On the first morning, we attempted to make pancakes on the stove as well, but they did not work out — we couldn’t keep them from sticking to the cast iron pan. No worries, we had leftover steak and challah rolls from the night before. On the second morning we stuck with cereal and protein bars. We kept our one lunch simple: bagels, hummus, and a big bag of cut-up vegetables. We’d also brought fruit and some granola bars, and popped popcorn in a pot on our stove.
Although it was a little tricky finding food all four of us would enjoy that would also travel well, I think we were successful. I’m on the lookout for more campfire recipes, though. I started a board on Pinterest about camping food and I plan to bookmark recipes I think we’d enjoy as I find them. Have a good campfire meal to share? Please let me know!
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more about me and CITK, and keep in touch:
Want to Try
Moroccan Chicken Tajine: I recently had a chicken tajine dish at Fig & Olive in Scarsdale, and wanted to recreate something similar at home. This is an Ina Garten recipe, and she never fails me.
Conrad also made us a delicious upside-down tart in a pan. He layered the supremed (sliced) jambong and Granny Smith slices in a skillet, then sprinkled them with sugar and dotted them with butter (and not with a light hand, I must add!). The prepared puff pastry cut to size was placed on top, and allowed to cook. The finished dish was flipped out of the pan upside down, so the fruit — beautifully arranged — was on top and caramelized. Just to gild the lily, it was served with a scoop of vanilla and macadamia nut ice cream. Wow. It was delicious, and Conrad graciously gave us leftovers to bring out to my dad since it was his birthday that day. Although we never got a chance to eat in the resort’s dinner restaurant, we found both of their bar menus to be generously portioned, with plenty of lighter and vegetarian options. It was easy and pleasant to eat lunch at the resort — we didn’t even have to get out of our lounge chairs if we didn’t want to.
On one of our last days in Maui, we hit a local farmer’s market nearby. I have to use the term “local” loosely, since there were bananas from Ecuador for sale amongst the Hawaii coconuts. I did treat myself to a young coconut for $4. The gentleman you see here cut a hole in the top so I could stick a straw inside and drink the coconut water (it’s not cream at this point). Then when I was done he chopped the whole thing open so we could scrape out the meat. It was more fun than delicious — my sister says the coconuts she gets in Brisbane are infinitely better. We also bought a couple of coconut bagels (does that mean I can no longer call myself a New Yorker?), which were barely sweet plain bagels with a sprinkle of dessicated coconut on top. Not bad, actually. We also bought some local cheddar and made a breakfast out of all that, along with coffee and chai from the 
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more 
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