Treats for Kids and Dogs

March 1! Ah, spring is – almost – in the air. I say "almost" because we just had a mother lode of fresh snow a few days ago, so no good-byes to hat hair and heavy boots quite yet. However, there's something about this time of year that makes me want to clear out all the clutter and cobwebs and get the house spring clean. Cleaning clutter is what I had planned for the afternoon, but I'm procrastinating by cooking a few new things in the kitchen. It's just more fun to cook than clean!

Two chicken dishes are on the burner right now: My daughter Emily has asked for a long time when I would make another batch of chicken satay, so she can take some to school for lunch, and I've always wanted to try making all-natural jerky as treats for our dogs, the buddies. So I started marinating chicken strips for a new recipe of chicken satay and started poaching one chicken breast to be cut into small strips and turned into jerky. It is important to precook poultry before drying it into jerky because the temperature of the dehydrator will not go above 155˚F, too low to kill salmonella.

All-natural Chicken Jerky:

Bring water to a boil and add skinless, boneless chicken breast. Simmer the chicken for about 10-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chicken breast. Remove chicken from poaching liquid and slice about 1/4-inch thick. Pat chicken slices dry and arrange on a dehydrator tray. Put into a dehydrator at 155˚F for about 4 hours to retain some "give" and chewiness. There are no flavorings whatsoever involved, just the meat, to avoid adding anything that would not be healthy for the dogs to consume.

But now on to the recipe for chicken satay. Usually, when I make this for the kids, I just sprinkle a little paprika on the chicken strips and sauté them in a little olive oil and serve them with a simple peanut sauce for dipping. Today I found a recipe for chicken satay by Tyler Florence on FoodNetwork that sounds a little more sophisticated and "adult," but still seems easy to prepare. Here is my slightly adapted version based on what I had in the fridge:

Chicken Satay:

Marinade:

1 cup low-fat plain yogurt

1 tsp. freshly grated ginger

2-3 cloves garlic, pressed

1 Tbsp. curry powder

1-1 1/2 lbs skinless, boneless chicken breast, sliced

Mix ingredients for the marinade (it will be very thick, actually) and pour over thinly sliced chicken breast, about 1/4 inch thick. Make sure to cover all chicken strips from all sides. Cover and let marinade for about two hours.

Preparation:

Heat a very small amount of oil with a high flash point in a non-stick pan and add the marinated chicken strips. I decided not to skewer the strips, but just sauté them without. This works fine for our family. Sauté strips 3-5 minutes on each side, until the meat is seared and looks lightly browned.

Peanut Dipping Sauce:

Combine:

1/2 cup all-natural peanut butter

2 Tbsp. tamari or shoyu (Japanese-style soy sauce)

1 tsp. red chili sauce

1 Tbsp. brown sugar

juice of 1/2 lemon

2-3 Tbsp. hot water

Mix all ingredients well and serve as dipping sauce for chicken strips. I will serve this dish with rice and cool cucumber salad.

What I learned from this cooking adventure:

1. Next time I make all-natural jerky for the dogs, I will try to slice the meat into thinner and longer pieces, rather than smaller, thicker pieces like today. Thinner pieces might be less of a choking hazard for little dogs. This is, of course, totally unscientific and not researched at all, just my very personal observation from making jerky and watching a large and a small dog consume the treat. Our little dog, Lenny, incidentally received his nickname "Herr Heimlich" after coughing, gagging and hacking when food got stuck in his throat the first time, and we thought we needed to brush up on our skills to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

2. Although my kids liked eating the chicken satay and peanut dipping sauce, both agreed that it made their lockers at school smell "like a skunk" when they opened it at lunch-time. (And I do always pack an icepack in their lunch boxes to keep things cool…)

Can't-Sleep Emergency-School-Lunch Tuna Salad

For some reason I can't sleep. There are too many things on my mind, and one of them is not having figured out school lunches for tomorrow. I didn't get to the grocery store, but with a few cans of tuna in the pantry, I thought I'd make myself useful at this time of day and make a tuna salad for school.

Here's what I tossed together:

1 6-oz. can water-packed tuna, drained and flaked

1 hard-boiled egg, chopped

1 stalk celery, minced

1 scallion, minced

1/4 cup cilantro, minced

2 Tbsp. canola mayonnaise

1 Tbsp. sour cream (only added because I didn't have enough mayonnaise…)

1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

sprinkling of kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

The first taste test was encouraging. I really love the fresh cilantro in the mix. The salad will be refrigerated until the morning when I will put it on sandwich bread. Hopefully, the flavors will blend even better and be a tasty little lunch for the girly-whirls.

Somewhere, I have a recipe for tuna salad that is entirely dairy-free. I'll try to find it in the morning and make that recipe for comparison. :)

Update: Just wanted to add that the girls and dear hubby really liked the tuna salad and gobbled it all up, leaving nothing for me to taste, not even a teaspoon. I guess that's a good sign.

New England Corn Chowder

Just a little over an hour ago I finished a huge 12-quart pot filled with sinfully rich New England Corn Chowder. This recipe has fabulous flavor, but it comes at a high price: the fat content makes it almost prohibitive to enjoy often.

I received the recipe a few years back from my sister-in-law Julie, and it's absolutely delicious. In addition, if you have a child with braces, like I do, this recipe can be puréed in a blender without loss of flavor. My younger daughter, the one with the braces, loves it. It makes a great school lunch, too!

Serve the chowder with a green salad and some crusty bread and you have a nice satisfying winter meal! And if you want to eat two bowls of the soup, go ahead. Just plan on spending an extra hour on the treadmill! : )

No Apple Fritters but Parmesan Spinach Cakes

This was a challenging day. First of all, the temperature was again -20˚F at 7:15 this morning for the fourth day in a row. Not even the dogs wanted to be outside to do their business. Then, after dropping the kids off at school, I swung by the old Donut Hut for the second time this week in search of apple fritters. Because of the deep freeze we're in, I've had a hankering all week for apple fritters, and all I needed were six fritters, four for our family and two for the folks next doors. I got there at 7:38 a.m. and they were already sold out. Big bummer.

At 10 a.m. I had an appointment at the chiropractor and as I backed out of the driveway, my car slid on the ice and knocked over the trash can. Trash hadn't been picked up, yet, and so the can fell over and spilled half of its contents onto the road. Under pressure to get to my appointment on time, I now faced trash on the street. I put on my hat and mittens and started collecting our trash from the icy road… Suffice it to say that I was very frustrated and, unfortunately, in a fit of anger, kicked the garbage can, which made my right toe hurt really bad… I'm sure I made myself the spectacle of the day for the neighbors across the street.

After the chiropractor, things started getting better, though. Caro, whose mother is my cousin, came for tea around noon, and I decided that we needed a little more sustenance than just tea. So I prepared a dish I've been wanting to try for a while: spinach cakes. I found the recipe in Eating Well magazine and thought it might make a really nice little lunch for the girls to take to school some day. Today was the trial run. Caro and I both loved it, and so did my husband who stole a bite or two from my plate, and the only variation one might want to try is to prepare this dish and pour it into a crust, kind of like quiche. (This is Caro's idea.) I like it without crust, however, and think it's a bit healthier that way, too. Here's the recipe from Eating Well, October 2008 issue:

Parmesan Spinach Cakes:

12 ounces fresh spinach

1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese or low-fat cottage cheese

1/2 cup finely shredded Parmesan ( I used Romano which is a little more pungent)

2 large eggs, beaten

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper

Preheat oven to 400˚F. Pulse spinach in three batches in a food processor until finely chopped. Transfer to a medium bowl. Add ricotta (or cottage cheese), Parmesan, eggs, garlic, salt and pepper; stir to combine.

Coat 8 cups of a muffin pan with cooking spray. Divide the spinach mixture evenly among the 8 cups.

Bake the spinach cakes until set, about 20 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes. Loosen the edges with a knife and turn out onto a clean cutting board or large plate. Serve warm, sprinkled with more Parmesan, if desired.