Delicious Nutritious

It is one of my highest priorities to serve nutritious food to these grands of mine. They eat many of their meals here, so there are definitely tons of opportunities for me to amp up the nutrition in what is served to them. They are mostly good eaters, especially good vegetable and fruit eaters, so this is a fairly easy task for me. 

A few weeks ago I was watching a replay of a Periscope presentation about healthier meal planning strategies. One of the four or five points made was to offer a veggie tray every day. That one struck me as such a simple way to have snacks, an appetizer, or even a side to your meal. Usually we only make up veggie trays or cruditè for special occasions. Why not make every day a veggie tray day? So one morning last week, I dug out the sectioned server that has a lid, and spent a few minutes cleaning and cutting up several kinds of vegetables. I had to go to work that evening, but made sure Greg and Jess knew the veg tray was in the frig for them. 

It was decimated when I got home. 

They'd had a busy evening with a parent meeting at school and wrestling practice, both at supper time, so the kids snacked on it beforehand and the grown-ups after. 

On Sunday I was getting food from the frig, and Brad asked, "Are you getting out the veggie tray? I love the veggie tray!" I didn't have one prepared, but quickly pulled out a few containers and he made his own. 

This morning it took only five minutes to pull this one together. There is the requisite broccoli and carrots, cauliflower, green bell peppers, orange and red baby peppers, cucumber, and celery sticks. Black olives fill the center spot.

I'd prefer a bit more color, but we ate up all of the "flavor bomb" cherry tomatoes (those were SO GOOD - from Sam's Club - I hope they still have them next time I go). They will inhale those black olives and the broccoli. Last week we had pea pods from our Bountiful Basket, but they didn't care so much for them. These trays are good for at least a few days, maybe a week, though the cucumbers won't last that long.

If they want, they can have some homemade Ranch or bleu cheese dressing to dip the veggies in, but lately they've been eating them plain. I would prefer they eat the veg with the dip than not eat them at all. 

With Bountiful Baskets and garden season coming up, I look forward to putting together a veggie tray each week for snacks and to serve with meals for as long as they enjoy it. I'm thinking this will be a great way to introduce new or very seasonal vegetables to try. What are your favorite veggie tray components? I'd love to hear if you have a dip suggestion or what your family enjoys for crudite. 

True Confession – I Had Crusty Build-up

No matter how hard I tried, my kitchen stove always just looked dirty. What did you think I had crusty build-up on? No. Wait. Don’t tell me. Just believe me when I tell you it was the stovetop. Thank you.

There was a baked-on crusted circle of ick around the main burner I use, and a smaller one around the burner behind. I tried scrubbing with dish soap, all kinds of cleaners, some different scrubbies – most of which I had to use so gently to keep from scratching the surface, there was no way they were cutting through the crud. Doesn’t this look just yucky?

Several days before Thanksgiving I was perusing Pinterest as I am wont to do in the late evenings before bed, and once again I see a pin for the “amazing” cleaning properties of ammonia, and how sealing your crusted stove parts in a bag with a bit of the stinky stuff and leaving overnight will “melt” all that crud away. That got me to thinking about the baked-on crusty yuck on my stove and I wondered…

I poured a tiny bit of ammonia on the stove, just enough to sit on top of the crust and saturate the paper towels, and left it for awhile. A couple of hours later, I pulled up the paper towels and wiped up the ammonia. When I did that, tiny bits of the spot were coming up, too. I rubbed at it and got a little more off, but it was obvious it wasn’t done soaking. So I repeated the saturation of paper towels, and decided to leave it overnight. Ammonia smells pretty awful, and isn’t really a great thing to breathe, so I covered the entire area with a plastic bag. That pretty effectively kept the fumes contained and I couldn’t smell the ammonia at all.

The next morning when I pulled it all up, a whole lot more of that spot flaked with the paper towels. I wiped and scrubbed and a lot of it came up, but it still needed more time. Wash, rinse, repeat, right? So I set it all up again, and this time I did the back burner, too. I was able to leave it on all day, checking every now and then to see if it was all coming up, and little bits did each time. Finally, after several hours, I was able to wipe the entire area clean. I was so excited! Greg just said, “Huh.” when I was all like, “Honey! I got that crusty, dried on spot off the stove! It’s been there for years! It’s gone!”… He didn’t care – he probably never saw all the crud in the first place.

What a little change in the kitchen, but such a pleasure to see the shiny stovetop again. Well, until the next day when I boiled over some potatoes. Argh! That’s when Greg looked at the stove and said, “Well, that just messed up your nice, clean spot, didn’t it?” Thank you, Captain Obvious. LOL. In actuality, he really was sympathetic. I wiped it up as soon as I could, and it all came clean again. Yea! As long as I keep that up, there will be no further need for the stinky ammonia, but just in case it gets ahead of me again, I’ll know how to get it off.

(You may have noticed in one of the photos above that the burner knobs are missing. They were going through the dishwasher after I used the homemade goo-gone on them to clean off the sticky ick that had built up since their last dishwasher bath. That stuff works on everything! I’ve been using it on the stainless appliances, my nice stainless tea kettle, to remove label residue from condiment jars, you name it. It works to get the goo gone, but is gentle and so far hasn’t scratched any of the varieties of surfaces I’ve used it on. Go make some – you’ll like it, too!)

So it’s been a few months since I did all this and the stove still looks pretty darn good. I am much more watchful about what is spilled or spattered on the stove and it gets wiped up immediately so it doesn’t bake on again. Even if it does, now I know how to get rid of it, and since it won’t have years to cure onto the stovetop, my bet is that will clean up much easier.

No more crusty build-up for me! Well, not on the stovetop, anyway…