What’s Cooking in the Kitchen?

My cooking routine has definitely changed since adding a new little one to the household and going back to work full-time and graduate school part-time. Now that we have a little eater, meals have to be quick to prepare and appealing to both adults and kid!

Pre-baby, we rarely ate out on weeknights. I cooked 3-4 nights a week, often trying out new recipes and techniques. Sometimes dinner wasn’t ready until 7:30 or 8:00 pm but we didn’t mind. With a little one, our weeknight schedule doesn’t allow for a lot of heavy duty cooking and we don’t want to do take-out. So over the past year I’ve slowly adjusted the routine, bringing us to our current schedule:

Thursday or Friday night: Menu planning and grocery list writing.
Saturday or Sunday morning (around 8 am): Grocery shopping.
Saturday morning (10 or 11 am): Weekly family trip to the farmers market to stock up on produce and our favorite bagels, meats, cheeses, and every so often a nice bottle of wine.
Sunday afternoon: Prep for the week! Wash, chop, cook, organize.
Weeknights: Assemble, reheat and eat! Make lunches and get organized for breakfast.

I try to cook everything we need for the week on Sunday and leave only a few things to cook during the week. If I cook during the week, it is usually something that goes in after the little guy’s bedtime. Here is a look at what we’ve had cooking recently! I’m sorry I have limited pictures – these days it’s more about getting dinner on the table for these guys.

Pot Roast in Many Ways
I cook for the week, but sometimes it can get a little boring to eat the same meal over and over again. Instead of the creativity of cooking something new each night I am having fun making variations with the original dish. This pot roast kept us well fed for many nights.

Pot Roast Take #1: Slow Cooker Top Round Roast with Vegetables
3ish pounds Top Round Roast – From Charlton Orchards (Wayland Winter Farmers Market)
16 oz sliced mushrooms
3-4 carrots, peeled and cut into 4 inch pieces (basically cutting in half)
About 10 small roasting potatoes (I used a mix of red, purple and Yukon gold)
1 medium yellow onion, quartered
1-1.5 cups water + beef base or beef broth/stock
Bay leaf
Splash of red wine
Salt

Salt the pot roast
Brown the pot roast on each side, for extra flavor (I skipped the step this time)
Add pot roast to the slow cooker and arrange vegetables around the sides of the pot roast
Add broth, wine, and bay leaf
Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours (check after 4 hours to see how tender the meat is)
Remove bay leaf and serve


Pot Roast Take #2: Pot Roast Quesadillas with Sharp Cheddar
Flour tortillas
Shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese (I use Cabot Extra Sharp or Seriously Sharp)
Leftover pot roast, carrots, and onions – chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Layout tortillas on a foil-lined baking sheet
Spread a thin layer of cheese on half of the tortilla
Top with chopped pot roast and vegetables
Sprinkle another thin layer of cheese on top of pot roast
Fold tortilla over
Bake for 5-8 minutes, until cheese is melted and tortilla is a lightly golden
Cut into wedges and serve


Pot Roast Take #3: Pot Roast Hash with Root Vegetables
Leftover pot roast, carrots, onions, and potatoes - chopped
Leftover roasted sweet potatoes and beets
Vegetable oil

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat
Add chopped pot roast and vegetables in a single layer
Cook for 5 minutes, stirring, until heated through
Press down with the back of a spatula and continue cooking for 5-10 minutes until the bottom is nice and crispy
Serve with a fried or poached egg on top – and a few splashes of your favorite hot sauce!

We served ours with scrambled eggs - I wanted to make sure the eggs were cooked through for the little guy.

What is your favorite way to repurpose food in the refrigerator? I am having a blast doing it!

Developing Flavor: Influences and Implications

Eating - it's complicated! Eat what you want? Watch what you eat? Processed or unprocessed? Organic or conventional? The decisions can be overwhelming. And that's just for deciding for yourself. For parents, there is the added responsibility for making food choices for your little (and progressively bigger) ones. For my class this semester, Experiencing Food Through the Senses, we read a fascinating book entitled Neurogastronomy by Gordon Shepherd. For one of my writing assignments, I wrote a piece taking one of the ideas presented in the book and questioning how it might affect children's flavor preferences. Below is the piece I wrote for the assignment. I'd love to hear your thoughts and questions. I highly recommend this book - really fascinating to think about how you perceive flavor.

Chapter 27 of Gordon Shepherd’s book Neurogastromony discuss why flavor matters and what implication it has for affecting nutrition and food policy. Shepherd discusses the “six ages of flavor”. From infancy through adolescence the brain flavor system is a developing work in progress (Shepherd, 2012). As a parent, I wonder how I influence my son’s brain flavor system and ultimately his flavor experience. How will his hard-wired preferences combined with my actions impact him as he grows up and develops?
How do the mother’s preferences play a role in these developing flavor images? In the initial stage, Flavor in the Womb, Shepherd discusses existing research on the topic. The infant shows a preference for flavors of mother’s food eaten during pregnancy, describing that “learning of these preferences in utero and their emotional expression are therefore incorporated into this hard-wired system” (2012). Moving through in infancy, the flavor preferences of the mother continue to affect flavor preference in the infant. Through diet, breastfeeding mothers transfer flavor influences through milk.

At the next age stage, introducing solid foods, the infant’s brain flavor system continues developing. There are varying schools of thought on starting babies on solid foods. I cannot reflect on how other cultures address this, just what I have researched in the United States as a new parent. The amount of information is overwhelming. Sources of information range from family and friends, the American Pediatric Association, your baby’s pediatrician, and books too numerous to count authored by doctors, moms, and nutrition experts. There is the “traditional” method of introducing fruit and vegetable purees and mashes starting at six months. There is also a newer method called baby-lead weaning, where purees are skipped all together and soft solid foods are introduced from the beginning. Some sources suggest solids at four months while others advocate other to wait until at least six months. There are varying opinions on what foods to introduce and what to avoid. If, as discussed in the chapter, there is a short learning period in which infants “can be trained to different flavors” of up to six months, how does the traditional recommendation to start solids at six months impact future flavor images, perceptions, and preferences?

In addition to the timing for introducing foods, how do the types of foods offered in these different approaches impact the development of flavor images? Does a baby who starts with whole squash pieces develop a different flavor image than the baby who starts with squash puree? Does the difference in texture impact the resulting flavor image? Within these various methods there is the variable of how the food is prepared or packaged. Similar to adult foods, many baby foods are packed in convenience packaging. They are single-serve, shelf-stable, portable containers. From personal experience, I have found that the flavor from a homemade mashed carrot and prepackaged 100% carrot puree are very different. The prepackaged carrot puree was much more intense. If an infant is given only these prepared foods, how will this influence their flavor preferences later in childhood and adulthood?

Does this intensity of flavor in prepared baby foods impact infant’s flavor preferences moving into childhood? Shepherd discusses research showing that children do prefer intense flavors. Shepherd states, “this makes them especially vulnerable to the main culprits we have identified as leading to overeating – sweet foods, salt, and fat – through sensations that overwhelm the brain’s control systems” (2012). He suggests that more research needed to understand why children’s brain flavor system is so vulnerable. It is interesting to think of this preference for intense flavor in childhood, in the context of plasticity of the brain with relation to food preferences. Once the preferences are developed, it is hard to reverse them. If children become sensitized to a high sugar diet, this has implications for their health as they grow up into adulthood. Sweet is the most marketed flavor toward children, with marketers using bright colors, characters, games to attract children. In addition to marketing, there are cultural meanings associated with sweets – especially with holiday foods. In daily life, should sweets be treated as a special reward, giving them special status? Or should they be incorporated in moderation as part of the regular routine. How does this impact your child’s desire for the food – and the preference and association they develop with it?

There are many unanswered questions and unknowns. As the field of neurogastromony advances and expands the understanding of the brain flavor system, it will be important to use the findings to impact policy and thinking around children’s nutrition and eating habits. Understanding the underlying systems will help to design health and nutrition guidelines and systems to support the development of healthy children. 

Bibliography Shepherd, G. M. (2011). Neurogastronomy: how the brain creates flavor and why it matters. Columbia University Press.

Smoke Siege BBQ Team: Inaugural Competition Season (Part I)

This is the first post in a series about my first experience with competition barbecue. This summer I helped my brother at a barbecue competition in Indianapolis, Indiana. While it is a little overdue, I will be posting about the experience over the next few weeks. While the weather is getting cool here in the northeast, things will get a little smoky here on the blog! 


My brother Marc is a fantastic cook - he has been since we were little. I've mentioned it before on the blog. We used to make ourselves after school snacks and dinners when are parents were busy. Except that one time he almost caught the microwave on fire, we did pretty well! Throughout college and now into being a grown-up, he has continued to expand his culinary horizons. This summer I joined him for a weekend in Indianapolis to pursue his delicious new hobby of competition barbecue.

Competition Eve - getting ready for the night ahead.

What is competition barbecue? Simply explained, teams gather to barbecue (smoke) meat for prize money and bragging rights. In reality, custom smokers are commissioned, secret spice rubs and sauces are developed, entire kitchens and bedrooms are packed up into trailers, and teams spend the weekend working hard at their craft. After a few seasons of backyard smoking, my brother gifted himself a custom smoker for his big birthday this year. Depending on who you ask, the smoker is either St. Louis Cardinals Red or Hoosier Red (we're from St. Louis and Marc is an Indiana University alumni). The smoker was custom built by Iron Hog BBQ of Kansas City.

Sunrise over the smoker. 
Saturday morning - competition day.

I flew out to Indianapolis to join the Smoke Siege BBQ Team for its second competition this summer. Our destination was New Palestine, Indiana for the "Wine, Brew & Bar-B-Que, Too" event. There are a few different competition circuits and formats. This event was a Kansas City Barbecue Society event, following rules determined by the society. For this event, 50 teams were competing for prizes in the following categories: chicken, ribs, pork, and brisket. Teams could also turn in a sauce as well as participate in a People's Choice pulled pork (festival attendees paid $5 to taste and vote for the best pulled pork). We entered all categories including sauce. Teams are provided with turn-in boxes for each category. You are judged on taste, tenderness and appearance. Appearance involves someone on the team spending a lot of time arranging curly parsley into a fluffy bed for the meat. All of the work has to be done on-site. Judging is blind, done by a panel of six KCBS certified judges (they take an oath). Points are awarded by each judge, the highest and lowest scores are tossed, and your final score is tallied. At this competition, teams were competing for a total of $11,000 in prize money across the categories. There are category winners as well as an overall competition winner.

Plush parsley prepared for presentation - thanks to Rob and Steve..

Marc had some help prepping before my arrival. The rules allow trimming and cleaning of meat before arriving on site. His friend Alan spent a few hours expertly preparing the skin on the chicken thighs and Marc trimmed the excess fat from the pork and brisket. On Friday morning, we got up early to finish blending the sauces and rubs before loading up the car and heading out. A lot of organization is required for these competitions. You don't want to take everything, but you don't want to be without something crucial to your success. It seemed like we took everything but the kitchen sink (although many teams did take sinks!). After stocking up on a few last minute supplies like water and beer we headed East to the "New Pal" Lions Club parking lot.

Teams came from all over Indiana to compete. There were a few from Michigan and even one from Mississippi! Competition barbecue is a serious hobby and even a profession for some. Teams included hobbyists like us, lifelong barbecue aficionados, and even barbecue restaurants. Team names ran from the pretty basic to the more entertaining. Names like Rob-a-cue (staffed by a very nice man name Rob), Sweet Racks and Smokin' Butts, Squealers BBQ, and the aptly named team below. A lot of tongue-in-cheek names to be found.

Set-ups ranged from tents and trailers to RVs and bigger RVs and tricked out buses. That's the range you get in the types of teams - but bigger equipment doesn't necessarily translate to better barbecue.

Local BBQ restaurant. 
The other side had 2 giant televisions.

After we pulled into the Lions Club lot on Friday afternoon we got to work setting up our spot for the weekend. We had the car, the smoker, and a pop-up tent. Marc and I worked on our own for Friday and overnight and then were joined by the rest of the team on Saturday morning. Rob and Steve showed up with the sun to start the parsley prepping and Alan and his dad joined a little later. I'll end this post with a look at our set-up. The Lion's Club provided a water hookup, electricity, and ice. We were on our own for the rest of our supplies for prepping, cooking, presenting and cleaning.

Setting up work tables and supplies.

Dish washing station - soap, bleach water, and fresh water.

Getting the meat inspected so we can start working.
Head judge checks to make sure nothing but trim work is
done ahead of the competition.

Unloading the supplies we transported in the smoker.

A look at some of the other team setups.

Lions Club lot filled with trucks and tents.

Stay tuned for the next post - prep work, a soaking thunderstorm, the cook's meeting, and cook's dinner.

Our third teammate on Friday.