When it's too hot to cook...

It is a cruel trick that during the season that blueberries are at their peak, it's way too hot to turn on the oven to turn them into a crisp or a pie. Best to pack them off to the freezer to be used later in the fall, leaving a few pints back to sprinkle on cereal or mix into the pancake batter.
If I could come up with a way to make a blueberry dessert on the grill, I would be thrilled. Instead, they end up in my oatmeal at breakfast, and they taste almost like dessert.
Here's how to do it:
     Microwave 1/3 cup of oatmeal with 2/3 cup of 2% milk for two to three minutes in the microwave. Keep an eye on it so that your bowl doesn't runneth over. Cleaning up oatmeal goop is a good way to get your morning off to a bad start.
    Use potholders to take your bowl out of the microwave; it will be hot.
     Next, sprinkle about 1/2 cup of fresh blueberries (or thawed blueberries) onto your oatmeal, and add some chopped pecans or walnuts, if you have them. Don't bother with brown sugar or maple syrup unless you have an extreme sweet tooth; the sugar in the milk makes the oatmeal quite sweet, as do the berries. Let the heat of the oatmeal cook your berries for a minute or two, before you dig in. It's like eating blueberry crisp for breakfast, but way more healthy!

Tater Tots: It's what's for dinner.

I am a food snob. Not terribly so, but somewhat. I have never been above making fun of what my co-workers bring for lunch, or talk about cooking for dinner. One particular casserole recipe always made me roll my eyes and feel superior. My friend Kathy calls it “cowboy casserole,” and I used to make fun of her for cooking it. My brother calls it Tater Tot Casserole; he is a big fan. His friend Ben’s dad, who was the epitome of a low life, used to make it for them dinner sometimes when Matt and Ben were kids. The fact that it contains Tater Tots and creamed, condensed soup, and was the culinary signature of a man who ought to have been in jail for child neglect was enough for me to write it off as something that I would NEVER even try.

And then I started cooking for a picky 14-year old boy, who turns his nose up at anything containing onions, spice or anything “weird.” I am used to people loving my cooking. I am not used to people looking like they’re going to throw up all over their plate when they taste what I’ve made for dinner. My brother used to actually do that—throw up all over his plate. At his daycare, they had a rule that everyone had to at least try what was on their plate. But they didn’t make Matt follow that rule.  I have discovered that Matt and Peter’s tastes are similar, so I find myself often wondering, “Would Matt eat this?” when trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I find myself buying mac & cheese, Hamburger Helper, and various other foods that just seem wrong to me.

Tater Tot Casserole has become a staple in the house, though. It’s gluten-free, so my step-daughter can eat it, and the combination of meat, cheese and potatoes is actually pretty delicious. I’ve found that if I chop them finely enough, I can sneak some onion and mushrooms into the ground beef or sausage, while it’s browning, and no one complains.  I’m sure it’s not health food, but it’s not terrible, either. And, no one looks like they’re going to hurl. Success!

It's not as bad as it looks. In fact, it's amazing.

There are some foods that just look disgusting. When I was in college, a friend of mine insisted on eating sausage gravy and biscuits every time we went out for breakfast.  I could barely stand to look at it, and I never, ever entertained the idea of trying it. Lumpy wallpaper paste looked more appetizing.

However, I have been converted. It happened strictly out of politeness.  I was a guest at someone’s home, they proudly served it as a special treat for breakfast, and I have better manners than to turn up my nose at someone else’s cooking.  And now, all I can say is, “Yum!”

My favorite variation involves that scrumptious pairing of pork and apples. While the crumbled sausage is frying, I add some apples slices and shallots, and sauté until everything is caramelized. A little black pepper and thyme go into the mix, and then a sprinkling of flour to make the roux.  Milk or half and half is added to make the gravy, and I let the whole thing simmer while the biscuits bake. I’m a Bisquick girl (or rather, the Aldi version of Bisquick,) while my mom swears by the rolls of refrigerated biscuits from Walmart. A Southern friend of hers tipped her off to the Walmart biscuits, and Mom claims that no one has more authority on the subject of biscuits than a gal from the South.

I love this breakfast when it’s chilly, and I know I have a long day ahead of me. It’s one of those “sticks to your ribs” kind of meals, and feels both decadent and folksy. I've been converted.

No flour OR sugar? You've got to be kidding.

 When I accepted a marriage proposal from a man who had two teenagers, some of my friends and family were a little scared for me. A lot scared, in fact.

"There's a special place in heaven for the step-parents of teenagers," my mother told me, jokingly. However, after teaching high school for 17 years, I was pretty sure I could handle it.

"But they don't go home at the end of the day," one of my friends said to me.

"There won't be 34 of them in the same room, either," was my retort.

I'm only a month into this whole step-mom thing, but so far, the biggest challenge has been cooking. I love to cook, but I am in an unusual situation. My step-daughter, Hannah, who is 15, is gluten-intolerant. For a person who considers her stand-mixer with dough-hook one of her most prized possessions, this was hard for me to take. I didn't realize how often bread and rolls and pasta and tortillas played backdrop to the meals I cook, until they were off limits. And while there are gluten-free alternatives to these items, they are often expensive and a bit questionable in texture. Anyone who has ever substituted a veggie burger for a real hamburger, expecting the same experience, knows what I'm talking about.

But, Hannah loves to cook, and is willing to experiment to find what will work. Last week, she invited a girl friend over to make home-made pizzas for dinner, and while shopping for supplies at the grocery store, she knew exactly which gluten-free pizza dough mix yielded the best results.

Gluten-free cooking often means that instead of pasta or bread, grains and rice provide the new backdrop to our meals, instead. Quinoa and brown rice are becoming my new "go-to" staples, which is probably a whole lot healthier for the entire family.

Add into this mix my step-son, Peter, age 13, who was diagnosed with type one diabetes less than a week after Geoff and I married. The day he was diagnosed, Peter and his dad came home from the hospital with a binder about three inches thick; a how-to manual for managing diabetes. All of the information about testing blood sugar levels, counting the carbohydrates in a meal to calculate the proper insulin dosage, and what and when Peter could eat was absolutely overwhelming. Peter took all of this like a champ, never complaining, and instantly incorporating the numerous blood sugar tests and insulin injections into his routine like it was no big thing. For me, the challenge was to figure out what I could do to make life normal for Peter.

Probably the biggest challenge for Peter was not having to stick himself for his blood tests and injections, but rather that he couldn't eat whenever he felt like it. I don't think any of us realize how much we "graze" during the course of a day, unless we're not allowed to. Peter's doctor told us that he should take an insulin injection before each meal, and before bedtime, to manage his blood sugar. He could not eat unless he took insulin to help him convert the carbohydrates in the food, and he could only take insulin every four hours. So, between meals, there was no snacking.

The doctor did give us a list of "free" foods, meaning they had no carbohydrates, so Peter could eat them without taking an insulin injection. The list read like a manual from those high-protein diets. Hard-boiled eggs, cheese sticks, peanuts and beef sticks were the main items, and all I could think was, "Well that doesn't seem very healthy!" In later weeks, we learned from the diabetes education team at the hospital how to account for other snacks, but at first, things looked pretty dismal.

In the days following Peter's diagnosis, we religiously studied the labels on pre-packaged foods, the nutritional content of different restaurant offerings, and used various internet sites to calculate the nutritional value of different recipes, fresh fruits and vegetables, and we all began to think about the make-up of our food a bit more. Just as Hannah's gluten-intolerance means that everyone in the family is eating a lot less by way of refined flour products, Peter's diabetes will make us all think twice about nutrient-devoid, carbohydrate-heavy food choices.

"What on earth do you cook for them?" one of my friends asked, horrified, when we met for a girls' weekend. In truth, it has been fun modifying some of my old favorite recipes. My most recent success came in the form of gingerbread waffles. I have a recipe in my Harrowsmith cookbook that I have been playing with for years, adding whole wheat, reducing oil, and otherwise trying to improve its nutritional content. The first time I tried a gluten-free version, I used rice flour, but wasn't particularly happy with their grainy texture. This week, I used a mixture of almond meal and gluten-free baking mix, and replaced most of the oil with canned pureed pumpkin. The almond meal certainly changes the protein to carbohydrate ratio for the better, and while there's not enough pumpkin to count as a whole serving of vegetables, I figure that the little bits add up. Besides, they still had that decadent breakfast treat feel to them, which was exactly what I wanted.

Sauteed apples make the perfect topping to my modified gingerbread waffles.

Cooking is one of the ways that I show people I care about them. Making my dad his favorite chocolate chip cookies before he went away for a hunting weekend, baking bacon and ham filled sandwich rolls for my brother to take on the Chicago to Mackinac sailboat race, finding an elegant cheesecake recipe for my mom's birthday are just things that feel natural to me. I am finding that this form of affection is also helping me to navigate the tricky terrain of step-parenthood. Catering to my new family's nutritional needs is one of the most non-threatening ways I have found to show them that I care about them.