MomOfLittleFoodies

For me today, it's been Cinnamon Graham Crackers (a Mexican brand that's lighter and crispier than US brands), half a bag of 365 brand Cheese Puffs, a venti Caramel Frappucino and BBQ pork chow mein. At least the chow mein I made myself.

I try to balance on the fence so to speak, when it comes to convenience vs. size. For home snacking, I buy things in bulk... I buy things like pretzels, tortilla chips and crackers in bulk. At the same time, I do keep a small amount of single serve items on hand for those mornings where I don't have time to bag up 8 portions of whatever for lunches and snacks for school. I do, however, only buy the single serve items on sale. If it tells you anything, I have 4 kids, ages 11 (boy), 9 (boy), 6 (girl) and 3 (boy). In a typical month, we go through 12 lbs of pretzels, 6 lbs of tortilla chips, 2 costco sized boxes each of ritz crackers and oreos and about 12 boxes of cereal. This is supplemented by any baking that I do and fresh fruit for snacking. I buy the pretzels in 6 lb bags that cost about $5 each.

We've never had a lot of disposable income, so I try to make the best of what I can afford. I have a lot of friends who don't or can't bake, so any baked good I bring them is appreciated, even if it's something as humble as my own pumpkin muffins, oatmeal muffins, or a loaf of bread.

We're eating out less, not buying coffee at places like Starbucks (McD's makes a decent cup of coffee). When we do eat out, it's more cheap ethnic or fast food... places like Pho houses, taquerias and Jack-in-the-Box. Perversely, we're not saving much money in this endeavor, as my preteen sons eat like they have hollow legs. What is getting saved in the eating out department goes towards regular groceries.

Here's a weird one. I was shopping at Marukai when I was in Southern California visiting my parents, and I found foil pouches of dried mitsuba leaves, along with pouches of dried yuzu. I ended up buying some of both. I figured I can use the dried yuzu for whatever I would use fresh citrus rind for, but I have what I'm going to use dried mitsuba leaves for.

The fried rice we make at home uses short grain rice... the only things I use long grain rice for are pilaf, Mexican rice, and Arroz con Pollo.

I'm in the same fried rice school as Lilja. I grew up with both the "take out Chinese" style fried rice, and the white fried rice. My kid's favorite fried rice is white rice, chopped bacon, peas, garlic, salt and pepper... it's my husband's specialty (along with pancakes and scrambled eggs). It's pretty much the same as his mom's recipe except that she adds eggs and carrots, the latter of which are always undercooked. My sister-in-law takes pretty much the same recipe, but uses Chinese sausage instead of bacon. My favorite fried rice is one that I get at a Vietnamese restaurant in the city my parents live in, which sadly, I only get to go to twice a year.

I'm half Japanese, half British/Scottish/French. There was a pretty large span of years where the only tofu I would eat was the stuff on inari-zushi. To be completely honest with you, I'm still very picky about how I'll eat it tofu. I outright will not eat cold tofu.

The only thing green from cans that I'll use are pickled jalapenos, green olives and tomatillo salsa. Other canned veggies that make an appearance in my pantry are beans (because I don't generally have the time to soak dried ones), tomatoes, corn, black olives, pumpkin, bamboo shoots and pumpkin. Oh, and the occasional can of canned mushrooms that I use in my MIL's pilaf recipe. Typically if the veggie is too expensive to buy fresh, I'll choose frozen over canned first.

I'm not someone to cast away something I like just because I think someone would laugh at me for still liking it. Although I do enjoy things like a nice crusty french bread, brie cheese and pears to snack on, there's still a time and a place for a bag of Cheetos and a Coke.

Maybe it's a regional thing? My parents live in the Los Angeles area, and their Albertson's is actually pretty nice. Large produce section, decent selection of specialty items, well organized. I've been quite impressed with it. It's a fairly new Albertsons and it's HUGE. Certainly carries more of a selection than the Stater Brothers stores in the area.

My sister gave me $25 to shop at Marukai with... I ended up getting some pantry staples, some new bowls and some extras I normally wouldn't have gotten. Needless to say, I spent over that $25. My uncle and auntie gave me a Cuisinart Waffle Iron, which is destined for the "regift" pile as I already own two waffle irons. With a Bed Bath and Beyond gift card, I bought some neat bamboo cooking utensils, new cutting boards and new measuring spoons.

I've gone through 3 large bags of Japanese rice crackers this week. Today I have eaten a sunflower seed butter and strawberry jam bagel, a banana, a mug of jasmine tea, a bowl of "instant" udon, a pepsi, a handful of Sees Little Pops, a breakfast sausage patty sandwich and a Sourdough Jack burger and curly fries from Jack in the Box. Not gourmet, but pretty satisfying.

Beer, soy yogurt, nucoa margarine, butter, dill pickle slices, spanish olives, milk (of the cow and soy varieties), heavy cream, beer, orange juice, sausages, bacon, various lunch meats (ham, turkey, salami), baby carrots, green onions, pepperoni, cheese (medium cheddar, parm and shredded mozzarella), cream cheese, salad dressing, prewashed salad greens, rakkyo, umeboshi, benishoga, mae ploy, barbeque sauce, eggs, mayonnaise, pilsbury crescent rolls, pickle relish, grape jelly, salsa, egg nog, spinach dip, morello cherry preserves, capers, udon noodles, thinly sliced pork and a few other things I don't remember off the top of my head. We keep regular milk based yogurt (typically yoplait) and our sodas in a mini fridge. I believe we also have apple sauce, iced tea and half a small melon in that fridge. In the freezer on top of the big fridge, I have frozen hash browns, frozen potato wedges, chicken nuggets, mochi, sausage, a turkey, a partial salmon fillet, egg rolls, pot stickers, lumpia, ground beef (both raw and cooked), edamame, ginger, frozen tomato sauce, various "ice cream" (milk, soy, coconut and rice varieties), a chunk of soy mozzarella, ramen, various kamaboko, various frozen veggies and a small bottle of Bushmills. I know I'm missing stuff here. I have 4 kids, 2 of which have food allergies, so we typically have some pretty weird stuff hanging around the house.

The combination of pineapple with any kind of cheese in an abomination. Pineapple with ham is okay. Cheese with ham is fabulous. Cheese with plasticky mozzarella cheese is vomit worthy.

This year it's looking like egg nog, sugar cookies and mini cream puffs (of the storebought variety).

The first time my sister-in-law went to Peru, she came back with a Peruvian cookbook with the recipes in both Spanish and English. The English versions of the recipes calling for cabrito (goat) made me giggle, because it got translated as "kid". I think I teased my kids at least once about making "Kid Stew". The translation for "avocado" threw me too... it got translated as "avocado pear".

I've got a child with life-threatening shellfish allergies, and the "I'm allergic to shrimp, so please add prawns" thing had me laughing so hard I was crying. What kind of rock did that idiot crawl out from under? The paella without shellfish and rice had me crying too... that would leave what? Vegetables, sausage and chicken?

The pho looks like a pretty good version of the pho ga that I get at the pho restaurants here. My husband prefers the beef pho though. The Indian curry looks good, but really caught my eye was the chapati (the flatbread) served with it. I love homemade chapati, which remind me of the homemade wheat flour tortillas my neighbors used to make. edited to add- I looked at your blog entry about it. Those Okinawan donuts made me feel homesick too. The Buddhist temple that my grandparents attend in Los Angeles has a big 2 day festival for Obon every year, and Okinawan donuts are sold there. When I was a teenager, I loved to eat them. I haven't had one in 10 years.

I mix my curry with my rice at home, because I typically serve it in a bowl rather than on a plate. At restaurants where it's served on a plate, I don't mix it with the rice. I generally use S&B Golden Curry at home, because it's the only curry blocks that I can find that are peanut free. It's also what my mom used when I was a kid, because it was the most readily available in regular grocery stores.

Cheap and edible (but not fabulous) food has it's place. For me, Mother's Circus Animals are a nostalgia thing. I openly acknowledge that they're not the best cookies I've ever put in my mouth, but eating them reminds me of being a child picking through the "Cookie Parade" bag for the Circus Animals... and those memories can be comforting.

I'm going to agree with Hiroyuki on this one... I'll pass on the shoyu and sugar on my mochi. Shoyu alone, yes. Sugar alone, yes, but not both at once. My husband and older 3 kids eat their mochi with shoyu and sugar though. When I was a child, my grandmother used to buy 10-12 pounds of mochi from mochitsuki (a fundraiser) at the Buddhist temple she attends in Los Angeles. She was always horrified that my brother and I would pull a piece of mochi out of the freezer, microwave it until soft, and sprinkle sugar on it. That was something that I think my dad (not Japanese) taught us to do.

Some people have odd "secret ingredients" in their chili. I've been warned more than once by food allergy education and advocacy groups to be careful about giving my son chili made by others as peanut butter is occasionally used as a thickener in chili.

ADHD isn't on the autistic spectrum. That said, you might also want to look into the Feingold program. I know a few families that have benefited from Feingold. edited to add, GFCF pizza is hard to do because there really isn't a good casein free cheese substitute that both melts well and tastes good.

It's been a couple of years since my youngest weaned, but even now, the smell of breast milk is associated with the byproducts of said breast milk. That said, I did have to taste breastmilk a few times to make sure that breastmilk I has stored in the fridge or freezer hadn't turned. Pumping breastmilk isn't easy... a company would need a whole city's worth of lactating mothers to produce enough milk for commercial purposes.