After making my strawberry freezer jam, our neighbor (a young, single lady) came over with two more bags of strawberries! She also gave us some strawberry plants, as hers are spreading too far.

I decided to try the Small Batch Strawberry Jam recipe that I’d seen at Cooking Up a Story, and made three jars of jam plus a little extra for the refrigerator. This recipe requires no pectin, which means the jam is a little runny (or may even turn out to be syrup). However, no pectin also means you can make it any time with any amount of berries; you don’t have to worry about measurements.

I did include a few partially green berries, on the advice of another website, because they are supposed to contain a small amount of pectin.

The canning process was totally not scary. I did buy a jar lifter and canning funnel, but I just used a stock pot I already had, with a small round rack (which I also already had) in the bottom. You do want a rack of some kind in the bottom so that boiling water can circulate under the jars. I should have bought the magnetic lid lifter as well. Trust me, you’ll want one.

The jars successfully sealed (POP!), so now I’ve got five half-pints of freezer jam and three half-pint jars!

From what we’ve seen (and there’s only one episode to go), Oliver did a great job developing relationships with people in Huntington and getting them to try cooking and eating his dishes.  He’s gotten both grade school and high school students eating healthy foods at school, although budgeting has been an issue, and one school cook in particular has been resistant to his methods.

The big question remaining is “Will this have a lasting effect?” I’m sure they’ll be addressing this in the last episode — although it’s really only been six months or so, and that’s not much time for creating or measuring lasting change.  This AP article cites a survey which says that children at the Central City school we actually buying fewer lunches after a month on Oliver’s program — they were bringing lunch from home instead.  Hopefully things have gotten better since then. The AP article also reports that the school principal has enthusiastically embraced healthy eating and has lost 20 pounds.

Although I agree that school food should be healthy, I think Oliver could have devoted more time to helping people eat healthy foods at home, too.  If parents aren’t willing and able to support healthy eating, kids aren’t going to be interested either.

Sarah Gilbert, a writer, locavore, and parent of three boys, has written about how families can eat Food Revolution-style on a budget. Her recommendations so far include eating seasonally and getting a handle on snack foods.

I’m also a fan of the Six-O-Clock Scramble, which helps me to cook healthy food with fresh ingredients, even on busy weeknights.

So how can we pass these ideas along to others? I’d love it if you’d share a link to this post (you can use the buttons below to tweet, share on Facebook, etc.), but I’m thinking about non-internet methods, too. What about teaching kitchens, like Jamie’s Kitchen in Huntington? Would people come?

Don’t forget to sign Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Petition! Our collective voice matters.

As a busy mom, what’s a typical day like for you?
I’m really disciplined about my time which helps me be super-productive most of the time.  After I eat breakfast, drink coffee and help kids get off to school by 8:30, I take my dogs for a walk in the woods, often with a friend (this is my prime social and exercise time) for 45 minutes to an hour.  Then I spend most of the day from 9:45 to 3:30 or 4 working while the kids are at school, with breaks for lunch, a shower, and a snack or other sanity break.

After the kids get home I try to stay off the computer and have a little time to engage with them and/or drive them or pick them up from activities (we carpool as much as possible).  I also use the afternoon time to spend at least 30 minutes on home-related stuff like dealing with the mail, cleaning off the counter and conquering items on my to do list.  By 6 or 6:30 I’m making dinner, depending on what we’re having and what the carpool schedule is like, and we usually sit down for dinner at 7:00.

After dinner and after the kids go to bed I often read and respond to personal emails for 20 minutes or so.  I try to go to bed between 10 and 11 depending on what time I need to get up the next morning.  Of course if the kids are sick or I’m travelling or anything else comes up, the schedule gets turned upside down.

How old are your kids now? Do they help with meal preparation?
Solomon turns 13 this month and Celia is 10 (she’ll be 11 in May).  These days they have a fair amount of homework and sports and music practice so they often don’t have time to help with dinner during the week.  They usually take turns setting the table, though, and if either of them is finished with all their responsibilities they like to help with dinner.  Celia likes to make salads and loves to bake, while Solomon loves to peel potatoes and other vegetables, squeeze citrus, and other hands-on tasks.  He’s also my videographer and editor for cooking videos.

Your new book (SOS! The Six-O-Clock Scramble To the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners For Busy Families) focuses on making meals more environmentally friendly. What else would you like to tell us about the book?
I’m really excited about the new book—it comes out next month, just in time for Earth Day.  The book has new recipes (about 300 of them) and some great strategies for growing your own herbs, composting, eating sustainable seafood and more meatless meals, deciding when to buy organic, and other earth-friendly tips and suggestions.  It’s also seasonal to help you shop locally and enjoy the best flavors, and it has a fabulous seasonal fruit and vegetable chart to help you plan your meals and grocery lists.

Do you have any plans for adding breakfast and lunch menus to The Scramble?
Not at this time, but we may be adding a dinner party planning feature and we have a new app coming out soon to help people use their grocery lists and menus on their iphones and other “smart” phones.

Thank you, Aviva! SOS! The Six-O-Clock Scramble To the Rescue comes out April 13, 2010 and is available for pre-order on Amazon.com (affiliate link).  If you’re interested in trying The Scramble meal-planning service, use the promo code GLKAT4852 to get $3 off on a 6 or 12 month subscription. I don’t get anything for recommending it, and I don’t get anything if you sign up. I’m just a satisfied customer.

Here’s how our evenings go: I leave work somewhere between 4:30 and 5:00. I weave through neighborhoods and past traffic on my Xtracycle (rain or shine), and pick up my two older daughters at their after-school program.

I ride home carefully with both girls on the back of the Xtracycle.  We check the mail and park the Xtracycle in the garage.  By this time, it’s probably almost 5:30.  If I’m feeling energetic, I start getting dinner ready; if not, I take a few minutes first.  My husband picks up our youngest at daycare, and arrives home soon after we do.

And yet most of the time, we eat tasty, healthy dinners with fresh fruits and vegetables.

I don’t know if I could do it on my own. I mean, I could, but The Six-o-Clock Scramble is what really keeps me going.

The Scramble is an online meal planning service. For about $5 per month (depending on the length of your subscription), you get five pre-planned dinner menus each week, along with a complete shopping list.

Do I always like the menus provided? Do they always work for me? No! And that’s why The Scramble is really cool.  It’s super-easy to swap out a meal you don’t like for one that you do, and create a custom menu plan. The website will create a custom grocery list based on the recipes you choose (although you do have to choose from the ones on the site; you can’t put in your own).

Sometimes I even skip the whole weekly menu and create my own custom plan. For instance, one week I looked at the calendar and knew that I wouldn’t have time to mess with anything unfamiliar or time-consuming. So I went to my saved recipes (yes, you can save your favorites) and chose five easy, familiar dinners that everyone likes.

You can also search the recipes on the site for specific dishes. You can search for certain ingredients, or for low-fat, low-sodium, meatless, etc.

All of the recipes on the site are designed to be healthy. Goldfarb usually keeps the salt content down (and of course you can leave out salt in most things if you need to). She also includes significant helpings of fruits and vegetables. Most of the main dishes contain 1-2 servings of fruits or vegetables, and she also includes side items, which are usually fruits or vegetables.  I often reach the grocery store checkout line with more produce than anything else, which pleases me.

What are the meals like? Tonight we had maple-soy glazed salmon with rice and stir-fried sesame-soy broccoli. Another family favorite is Italian Sausage Linguini with Grated Carrots, served with a green salad.  Most take 30 minutes or less to prepare.

Could I find good recipes and make my own grocery lists? Sure, but it would take a lot longer, or I’d forget to make a list and end up buying the wrong things.  The price is worth it to me.

Aviva Goldfarb is the founder of  The Six-o-Clock Scramble and the author of a cookbook by the same name. Come back Monday for an interview with Goldfarb, including information about her newest cookbook, to be released 4/13/2010.

Visit The Six-o-Clock Scramble website for more information or to subscribe.  Want to try it? Use the promo code GLKAT4852 for $3 off a 6 or 12-month subscription. I don’t get any compensation for recommending The Scramble, nor do I get anything if you sign up. I just love it, so I’m telling you about it!

Then, this past week I saw a suggestion from the local Master Gardeners’ twitter account:

Cover crop that feeds nitrogen to your soil? Plant fava beans now for spring eats, plant tomatoes when they’re done. Bam! Bam!

That sounded good. I Googled “how to grow fava beans” and found Harvest to Table, which told me that fava beans are a perfect cool-weather crop.  The site also told me how to plant and grow the beans, how many to plant per person in the family, and that they can be eaten fresh or can be frozen, canned or dried. I already knew that fava beans could be used to make both hummus and falafel, which are favorites of mine.

I didn’t, however, click the link for how to prepare and cook broad beans and fava beans. It didn’t worry me. I’ve cooked beans before.  So we planted them on Saturday. But on Sunday, my sister asked me “Have you ever actually cooked fava beans before?”

“Um, no,” I answered. “What?”

“Aren’t those the ones you have to shell twice?” my mother interjected cheerfully.

“Yes,” Wendy answered, explaining that while you’re supposed to be able to just eat them unshelled when they’re young, with mature fava beans “you have to shell them and then cook them and then shell each one individually.”

Uh oh.  We didn’t say any more about fava beans.  I looked it up later on Harvest to Table, and it’s true. Mature fava beans have to be removed from the outer pod, just like shelling peas, but then you have to cook them and “skin” them before eating.

That will be time-consuming. Perhaps we can just pre-cook them all and have a skinning party!

I’m still pleased to be gardening again.  And it’s not just fava beans. We’ve got an 8 X 8 raised bed (it’s the one that had pumpkins last year), and this time I’ve divided it down the middle with a small footpath, and then into squares à la Square Foot Gardening with twine.  My youngest helped me set up the squares; she handed me nails and cut the twine with scissors.

One row of squares is all fava beans, planted four seeds to a square.  There’s also a square each of carrots, lettuce and scallions. We planted these with some old-ish seeds to see if the seeds are still good. If they are, we’ll plant more (and if they’re not, we’ll open a less old-ish packet).  And we planted peas along the wire trellis.

In addition, the daffodils are blooming! I don’t do flowers in a big way, but I do like to have something blooming, and the daffodils are super-easy (as in, I do nothing whatsoever with them except deadheading).

I know some of you probably live in the land of still-frozen ground (I’m in zone 8, by the way), but is anyone else planting or starting seeds now?

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Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/foodista/ / CC BY 2.0

Later, I looked for a cooking method or recipe for Sunburst Squash. I found out that it’s really just a variant of pattypan squash. This post by Leslie Seaton at three bowls scared me, since she said it was bitter and she really, really didn’t like it. But I figured she could have gotten a bad squash. I did see some other interesting recipes, like this one for baked stuffed pattypan squash, with sausage in it (second recipe down). I only had one squash, though, so in the end I decided to just slice it and stir-fry it with some Italian sausage, peppers and onions.

I tasted one slice of squash raw, and found it had a mild nutty flavor. I tasted another piece half-cooked, and it did taste bitter, like Leslie had described. But once the squash was fully cooked and soft, it tasted fine again, with just a few bitter pieces. It went well with the Italian flavorings, and my family ate it with no complaints. Would I buy it again? You bet! I might even be willing to grow it.

So tonight, I spent half my food prep time washing and prepping spinach leaves for my faux lasagna.  Here’s how I did it: I filled a clean sink with cold water, cut the bottoms of the spinach stems off, and dumped the leaves into the water. Then I swished the leaves around, and most of the dirt/sand rinsed off and settled to the bottom of the sink.  And then I picked it over, leaf by leaf, to make sure they were really clean, and patted them sort of dry with towels. Cloth towels. Oh, and I tore the rest of the stems off the leaves, because stems are yucky.

I guess that’s the slow food way.  It’s not too bad.  I didn’t totally hate it, and I even had it done before anyone else got home (husband was picking up the kids today).

Do you prepare your spinach differently?  Do you eat spinach? Am I totally insane? Wait, don’t answer that one.

What’s Hungry Monkey?  Originally, Matthew told me he was writing a cookbook, but Hungry Monkey is much more. It’s a memoir of exploring food with a child, recipes included. Oh, and I’m in it. Page 190.

…my sister-in-law Kathleen, a working mom with three adorable girls…

Thanks, Matthew.

I also had the privilege of testing some of the recipes in the book before publication. My favorite? Super-easy and delicious Penne With Brussels Sprouts and Bacon (page 89).  This is the best way to cook Brussels sprouts ever, and quick enough for a weeknight.

I promise, you will love the food.  But I also giggled through the whole book.

Solids are messy and complicated. I’m thirty-three years old and I still dribble them on my shirt several times a week.

And it resonated with my own experience. You see, Matthew doesn’t believe in special foods for babies and children.  Well, except for breastmilk and formula (although he admits to tasting it).  The book begins with Iris’s adventures in breastfeeding, and progresses to the baby food stage and beyond.

The First Rule of Baby Food is that there’s no such thing as baby food.

Matthew and Laurie (my sister) mostly shared whatever they were eating with Iris, cut into small pieces or mashed.  Parents and would-be parents, this is the way to go! It’s easy, nutritious (well, depending on your diet), and it’s what your kid really wants anyway. Haven’t you seen them reaching for your food?

That said, Matthew did apparently take to preparing foods that both he and Iris could enjoy for lunch (he’s the at-home parent during the day), like Baby Creamed Spinach and Baby Chicken and Mushrooms.

And then in chapter 3, he admits to sometimes using canned chili and frozen foods!  Gasp!  Matthew, Laurie and Iris live in the real world, too!  I’m so relieved.

If you have kids and love food, this is the book you’ve been waiting for. Or that you didn’t know you were waiting for.

Matthew and Iris will be appearing on CBS’s The Early Show this Tuesday, May 19 (check your local listings; it’s on from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 am. Pacific).  Matthew is also visiting several West Coast cities to read from Hungry Monkey and sign books (mine is charmingly autographed by both Matthew and Iris).  Portlanders, he’ll be at Annie Bloom’s on June 2 at 7:30 p.m. (and on AM Northwest that morning).  You can also get more of Matthew and Iris on his blog, Roots and Grubs.

I knew I’d better use those greens right away; otherwise, I’m likely to let them rot in the fridge. I also had half a pound of bacon in the freezer, so…bacon and mustard greens for dinner!  We had a large noon meal today, so this dish plus bread and butter was plenty for us.

I made this with just one bunch of mustard greens, but one bunch cooked down is not much, so I’m doubling it to two bunches for the recipe.  Of course, the size of your bunch may vary, and you could use any type of greens.

Mustard Greens with Bacon and Onions

2 bunches mustard greens
1/2 pound bacon
1 onion (I used brown, red is probably good too)
1 tablespoon vinegar (I used rice vinegar, but whatever)
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Wash greens and tear into small pieces.  Place in a large (3-4 quart) pot and cover with water.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer.

Meanwhile, put all of the bacon in a large frying pan (I use cast iron) over medium-high heat.  I used the swirl method of cooking bacon, which means you don’t have to muck around with laying out the slices and flipping them over. You just separate the slices and throw them all in the pan and stir frequently until cooked.

Remove bacon and set aside (crumble when you get a chance).  Chop the onion and cook in the bacon fat until it starts to brown.  Remove pan from heat. Add vinegar and brown sugar to onion and bacon fat and mix thoroughly.

Drain greens in a colander, pressing to remove additional water.  Toss with onion mixture and crumbled bacon.

So, thank you to Native American Momma for bringing attention to Meatless Monday.  Here’s a recipe for the dish I made tonight.

Tomato-Lentil Soup

1 regular-sized can of chicken broth
2 cups water
1 lb. lentils
1 onion
1 tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp dry basil
1 15-0z can diced tomatoes
1 16-oz can tomato sauce

In a 3-quart or larger pot, bring chicken broth and water to a boil.  Add lentils.  Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 20 minutes or until soft, adding more water if necessary.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high.  Peel and chop onion; saute until translucent.  Add cayenne pepper, basil, and salt and pepper to taste.  Saute together for another minute or so.  Add tomato sauce and diced tomatoes and mix well.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes or until lentils are done.

Add tomato mixture to the lentils and mix thoroughly.  Let simmer together another 15 minutes.

Serve with croutons or crackers.  6 servings.

UPDATE: D’oh!  Someone just pointed out to me that chicken broth is NOT vegetarian.  Duh.  Sorry!  I just grabbed what I had on the shelf.  To make this truly vegetarian, you’d have to use vegetable broth or plain water.