Making fast food slowly

Happy Sunday!  This morning I got up with the girls and tried to let Daddy sleep in a little bit as I usually try to do on the weekends.  And the girls were louder than banshees, as they usually are on weekend mornings and he wasn't really able to get any additional rest :-(  At least there was breakfast waiting for him when he came downstairs!  I decided to repeat my favorite oatmeal combo from last week.

1/2 cup oats, handful of strawberries, 1/2 banana cooked in 1/2 cup skim milk and 1/2 cup water

"fried" egg topped with salsa

Decaf green

 Once we had eaten we got ready to head to the gym, and Will packed me a snack AND snapped a picture of it for me!  I like his creative use of yesterday's penguin iceberg to make a more interesting presentation.

no explanation necessary, I'll let you read the labels

 We worked out with Brad and Kim and weaseled an invite to their house for dinner tomorrow :-)  We still need to figure out what we're bringing though.  What goes well with North African chickpea soup?

Lunch!  I dumped some lentil soup on top and it was actually really tasty with the blue cheese!

Greens, orange bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, broccoli sprouts, 1/2 cup leftover lentil soup, blue cheese, 1 tsp olive oil and the last of my truffle balsamic glaze :-(

 Will also cut up some mango for me.

Mango slices

 I just now realized that I didn't snap a picture of my afternoon snack!  You'll have to picture it for yourself.  1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese sprinkled with garlic powder, parsley and oregano to make it taste like a dip, plus celery sticks for dipping.  I was GOING to put grapes in it but we're out so I went savory instead.

Also this:

1/2 Raspberry Chia Kombucha

I like the chia kombuchas a lot, but they're more caloric than regular old kombucha or KeVita so I usually just get these for Charlotte (who LOVES them).

I was super-hungry this afternoon, and my chicken would.not.defrost.  I had also promised Emily special fries so the prep took awhile, but I made to dinnertime without additional snacks. 

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you know that last week Emily's friend from across the street came over to play and brought a big, greasy bag of Burger King french fries with her :-O  I caught her slipping fries to Remy and told her to stop because Remy's stomach does not do well with grease.  The next thing I knew, she was sharing them with Emily.  A nice gesture, but I was horrified.  This was the first fast food Emily has ever had...I work so hard to keep as much of her food as possible as healthy as possible, and then someone brings one of the unhealthiest foods in the world INTO MY HOUSE AND GIVES IT TO MY KID.  I suppose I could've forbade Emily to eat them, but I don't want to make them even more desirable by not allowing it.  I told Emily they were made out of potatoes (neither of my children will eat potatoes in any form right now) but she ate them anyway.  So I sat by and gritted my teeth while the girls exclaimed over how delicious they were.  I suppose the one good thing about the whole ordeal was that Emily then asked me if I could make her some fries sometime (vs. asking me to take her to Burger King) so tonight was the night I took on the challenge.

I scoured the internet for hints on how to make oven fries crispy.  I spent what felt like an extra hour cutting the fries into tiny even strips.  I added about six extra steps to my regular oven fry-making process.  I nervously plated Emily's dinner and stepped back to wait for her opinion.

It worked!  She ate her whole serving and a second one after that.  She said they were delicious and that I was the best cooker ever.  She said they tasted just like Burger King fries.  I however, having infinitely more experience sampling fast food french fries knew that they did not, in fact, taste just like Burger King fries.  How could they, without the use of partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, modified potato and corn starch, rice flour, dextrin, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, corn syrup solids, xanthan gum and dextrose?  But they WERE the closest-tasting thing to fast food fries that has ever come out of my oven.  Even Charlotte asked for seconds!

My process (gleaned from about 10 different recipes online):

1. Thinly slice 4 russet potatoes.
2. Rinse with hot tap water twice (presumably to get rid of some of the starch?).
3. Cover with hot tap water and let sit while oven (with intended baking pans inside) preheats to 425ºF.
4. Drain water from potatoes and dry well with paper towels.
5. Pour about 1/8 cup refrigerated egg whites over potatoes and sprinkle liberally with salt.  Toss to coat.
6. Remove hot pans from oven, and spray with cooking spray.  Sprinkle with salt too to help prevent sticking.
7. Lay fries on prepared pans in a single layer.
8. Put pans in oven on highest rack for 15 minutes.
9. Remove pans from oven and flip fries (I did this very sloppily with a flat spatula).
10. Sprinkle fries with salt again.
11. Place pans back into oven for 15 minutes longer, or until fries just start to brown a bit.
12. Remove from oven and serve fries hot!

I enjoyed them as well, but I think I prefer thicker oven fries with more interesting seasonings on them than just plain salt.

My dinner:

4 oz Hillside Turkey Farm chicken breast, 3 oz "Burger King" fries, steamed collards and red kale seasoned with garlic powder and salt, a hefty dose of juice-sweetened ketchup and a Dogfish Head Pearl Jam Twenty Faithful Ale.

After drinking my beer I had an odd urge to go put on a flannel shirt and some baggy jeans.  But the urge passed, and then I just felt old.


When dinner didn't "stick", I fixed myself some bananas and peanut butter.  My diet has been seriously lacking in peanut butter recently.  I cut half a banana up and topped all the pieces with 1 Tbsp total of PB. I do this for Emily sometimes and I was hoping it would take me longer to eat and feel like more than if I just took my usual approach of smearing the peanut butter on the banana and wolfing it down in two bites.

And with that, I'm off to bed!  Emily has off school tomorrow and when I asked her what she wants to do with her day she said "Stay around the house".  I don't know if I'll grant the little homebody's request or not, I was hoping to take them to the outlets but we'll see how everyone's mood is in the morning.