Fake-it Crab Alfredo

Real Simple magazine features something they call “fake it” recipes, or shortcut versions of the real deal. I am a moth; they are a flame. Fake-its infiltrated the Family Recipe Box a long time ago, out of necessity more so than lack of skill I may possess. For instance, I love the real-deal shepherd’s pie, but the fake-it version I found takes a fraction of the time and three ingredients to make – very important considerations for a working mom with a limited time slot in the grocery store.

The other day, I called upon another fake-it to get me through a supper during the weekday: crab alfredo. It contains neither real crab nor true-blue alfredo sauce. But, it does contain plenty of opportunity for Elli to lend a hand.

Crab Alfredo

1 package imitation crab meat
1 jar light alfredo sauce
2 cups bite-size pasta
1-2 tsp Italian seasoning
Parmesan cheese
½ cup mozzarella cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, tear crab meat into bite-size pieces and heat alfredo sauce in small sauce pan over low heat. When sauce is heated through, add crab, seasoning and cheeses; stir well. Drain and rinse pasta; pour sauce over pasta and toss to coat. Sprinkle with additional Parmesan cheese, if desired.

This recipe has many of Elli’s favorite things: sprinkling, stirring and cheese being the top three.

She pounced on the chance to climb up her “steps” (step ladder) to help me prepare this dish.

“Crab alfredo,” I told her.

“Fray-der,” she repeated. She still tends to pick up only on the last word uttered, unless any word prior is one that she is already familiar with. In other words, don’t try to hide the word “cook” between long phrases. It doesn’t fool her.

As the pasta boiled, I showed her how to tear up the crab meat, and there was no holding her back. She attacked it like a grizzly. She even piled the meat into a little pile on the cutting board. She does the same thing with her stuffed animals in the middle of her room.

Yes, a few pieces of meat did end up on the floor, and more than a few in her mouth, but one package of crab meat goes so far, it wasn’t much of a loss.

She helped me pour the alfredo sauce into the small sauce pan. As a reward for her proficient pouring skills, I let her taste the sauce.

Like honey to a grizzly. She proceeded to lick the sauce off the jar lid, and then off the scraper.

That’s my daughter.

I went against the recipe’s advice to heat the sauce prior to adding the other ingredients to let Elli help me do the sprinkling and stirring. The distraction of sprinkling and stirring meant I averted my 1-year-old dipping her face into the pan of sauce to eat more.

She helped me add in the crab meat.

“Feel how that’s smooth?” I asked her.

“Moof.”

“Right, smooth."

Next came the seasoning. As she lifted it out of my hand, I asked her, “Feel that, Elli? Feel how that’s rough?”

“Yeah,” she said.

"The seasoning is rough; the crab is smooth.”

Next came the cheeses.

I put the bag of shredded cheese in front of her and asked her if the cheese was smooth. Had she not been preoccupied with grabbing handfuls and tossing them onto the casserole, I’m positive she would have answered yes.

She has skill at transporting cheese to where it needs to go. She has practically mastered sprinkling the Parmesan from the Costco-size container roughly half her height.

Stirring she still needs help on.

“Use both hands,” I told her, and placed my hands over hers on the spoon handle. She does okay for one or two revolutions, but then pulls her hands away. One day she’ll get it.

As I finished up the process, heating the sauce and draining the pasta, Elli worked on dipping the scraper into the alfredo sauce jar and pulling it back out again.

The game kept her occupied until it was time to set the table. It’s amazing how kids can be fascinated with the simplest things.

Fisher-Price undoubtedly makes a toy that works the same hand-eye coordination skills. But why go for the real thing when the fake-it is just as good?

Things Elli could do:

• Tear crab meat
• Eat crab meat
• Pour alfredo sauce
• Eat alfredo sauce
• Sprinkle in seasoning, cheeses

Fake-it Crab Alfredo Overall Ratings
Elli-friendly cooking: 4
Elli-friendly eating: 5
Fast: 5
Frugal: 5

Where I buy:
Costco: Parmesan, pasta
Hy-Vee: light alfredo sauce
Aldi: crab meat, mozzarella cheese

Chris Tomale Pie

Our family menus tend to revolve around the easy and the comforting. Time and energy override adventurous undertakings. Before I had kids, I did go more adventurous, trying my hand at making a crab bisque, which required the Old Bay seasoning I mentioned earlier that is now like a lawn ornament in my spice cabinet.

Today, I tend to find easier recipes for dishes that I love to eat at restuarants. Tamales, for instance. Love tamales, but who, other than the lady at our favorite Mexican restaurant, has the time to make them from scratch? So, I went the easier route and pointed my compass toward Tamale Pie.

Elli told me she wanted some "moosik" while we cooked, so I took her over to the stereo to pick out a CD.

“How about Chris?” I ask her.

“Tiss!” she replies.

Chris it is. Chris Tomlin, Hello Love, that is. Elli and I both started to bounce when the high-energy first track began to play.

Sing, sing, sing,
And make music with the heavens
We will sing, sing, sing

Stir, mix, bake
And make Tamale Pie with conviction
We will prep, cook, eat

Tamale Pie

1 lb lean ground beef or turkey
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 15 oz can black beans, rinsed, drained, slightly mashed
1 15 oz can pinto beans, rinsed, drained, slightly mashed
1 can stewed tomatoes
1 6 oz can tomato paste
1 11 oz can whole kernel corn
¼ cup sliced black olives
1 small can green chilies (optional, and in our house it always is)
1 8.5 oz package corn muffin mix
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
Paprika to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 2-quart baking dish; set aside. In large skillet over medium heat, cook meat, onion, garlic until meat is brown. Drain meat. Add chili powder, cumin, black beans, pinto beans, tomatoes, paste, corn and olives; mix well; heat through, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, in bowl, beat egg; add milk and corn muffin mix; stir until just moistened; mix in cheese. When meat mixture is heated through, pour into baking dish. Spoon corn muffin batter over top. Top with paprika. Bake, uncovered, for 25 minutes or until golden.

This recipe is a cocktail of two recipes because I couldn’t make up my mind. One, a vegetarian version, is from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, and one is from the Taste of Home’s 1999 Quick Cooking. I’ll let you guess which ingredients came from which recipe.

I usually pick recipes that I think Elli will be able to help with at many steps along the way. Otherwise, she gets bored, food gets thrown, no one’s happy. But this recipe, to my pleasant surprise, allowed Elli to help out at virtually every step.

I did some prep work before I brought her into the kitchen, though, like chopping the onion in the food processor, and getting the meat started. I also opened all my cans. Why? Let me introduce you to my can opener: unpadded, hand-crank style, bought-at-garage-sale-in-1996-for-a-quarter old school. I keep blister relief treatments on hand.

While the meat, onions and garlic cooked, Elli helped me “slightly” mash the beans in a medium mixing bowl. And by “slightly” I mean “almost completely.” That’s what you get with a toddler, though. It all works out.

Instead of adding the beans, et al., to the hot skillet, I had Elli help me first pour them into the mixing bowl. She commanded the can of corn. And, unlike the Birthday Pizza Pie Incident, not a single olive hit the floor.

I added the mixing bowl mess to the skillet, and as the mess was heating through, we turned our attention to making the corn muffin batter. She poured in the mix, stirred in the milk and egg. I actually had her help me crack the egg on the side of the bowl. She did great!

And I practically let her go solo on the cheese. She lost control over one handful, but other than that, all went well.

I did intervene with the paprika sprinkling, though. She hasn’t quite distinguished the difference between “sprinkle” and “turn canister upside down and let it rain.”

I was so proud of her. She is really gaining skills by the day, both physical and verbal. She repeats the name of every ingredient and some she can recognize without any prompts from me. What's even better, I can tell she is proud of herself and more confident in what she can do.

This called for a celebration.

With the Tamale Pie in the oven and half a CD left to listen to, I enticed Elli to a dance. We jived our way through two songs, including the upbeat title track. Elli can pick up small parts of songs, and for the title track of Chris' CD, the thing she picked up was when "Tiss" belts out, "Hello, Love!" She really liked that part. 

Though a far cry from a traditional tamale, we enjoyed this dish very much and have voted it into the Family Recipe Box. It was unanimous that the cornbread crust was the best part.

Things Elli could do:

• mash beans
• pour canned ingredients into bowl and mix
• help crack egg
• mix cornbread batter
• put cheese into cornbread batter
• sprinkle paprika

Tamale Pie Ratings

Elli-friendly cooking: 4
Elli-friendly eating: 5
Simple: 4
Fast: 3 (prep time isn’t bad, but counting cook time, it’s about 40 minutes total to make)
Frugal: 5 (lots of ingredients, but all inexpensive)

Where I bought:
Hy-Vee: everything except milk
Costco: milk

Hearty Pepperoni and Cheese Bake

The other day I was searching for a new recipe to try and came across one that I thought showed some promise.

1 ¼ pounds ground beef sirloin

Yes.

3 cloves garlic

Mm’hmm.

1 teaspoon sugar

Gotcha.

2 tablespoons soy sauce

I’m all over it.

2 tablespoons fish sauce

Halt.

I don’t know what fish sauce is. It could be quite delightful, or it could be as delightful as lutefisk. Either way, it appeals to me very little for various reasons. Chief among them: I’m guessing fish sauce comes in quantities larger than 2 tablespoons, so what would I possibly do with the remainder?

I once drove to two different stores trying to find a can of Old Bay seasoning that I used precisely once in five years. Maybe I'm too picky. Maybe I'm too American. Maybe I'm simply too practical to drag a toddler through a store looking for an ingredient that I'll likely never use again.

Whatever the case may be, fish sauce, our chances of connecting are very slim.

You will be replaced in this family meal by an old friend. Cheese.

Cheese I know. Cheese I love. Cheese Elli loves. Bring on the cheese.

Hearty Pepperoni and Cheese Bake

8 oz. mostaccioli or any bite-size pasta, uncooked
26 oz pasta sauce
3 oz sliced turkey pepperoni, cut in half
4 oz cubed Mozzarella or Provolone cheese
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

Heat oven to 350. Cook pasta according to package directions and drain. In large bowl, mix pasta, sauce, pepperoni, cubed cheese. Transfer mixture to 13x9 baking dish. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until cheese bubbles.

I cut this recipe out of an American Beauty ad in a Sunday paper coupon circular. It’s now taped to an index card in the Family Recipe Box.

This was the first dish I ever made my husband, before he was my husband, when we were dating. We’ve loved it and each other madly ever since. It seems fitting that our daughter come to love it too.

Truth be told, I thought I would be cooking this meal alone because at the time I started boiling the pasta, Elli was engrossed in a music DVD. But she figured out what I was up to and came in the kitchen almost dismayed that I had brought the pans out without telling her.

So, I put her apron on her. She poked me in my stomach, commanding me to put my “apin” on as well. I obliged and helped her climb up her “steps” (step stool) to reach the counter.

As the pasta finished boiling, I had her help me transfer the cheese and pepperoni from the cutting board to the bowl.

Most of the cheese made it. What she didn’t put in the bowl she shoved into her mouth. She grew rather testy when I took the rest of the cheese away.

Did I mention she loves cheese?

She then helped me pour the pasta sauce into the bowl and stir up the ingredients. She is a stirring maniac.

When the pasta was done, I poured it into the bowl and mixed all the ingredients together.

“Ot! Ot!” Elli said, waving her hand over the bowl as the steam billowed off the pasta.

“Yes, hot,” I confirmed. “We don’t touch hot.”

“No tooch ot.”

“That’s right. No touch hot.”

Elli then helped me pour the pasta mixture into the baking pan.

Then she took a hold of the Costco-size can of Parmesan cheese, about half the heighth of herself, and sprinkled the cheese over the top of the mixture.

After that, the pan went into the oven, and Elli went back to watching her DVD, and I was left to warm up some frozen vegetables alone. Who would have thought a child would disappear from the vicinity of vegetables. That has to be a first.

The dish turned out just as tasty as my husband and I remembered it being those many years ago. And for Elli, who ate nearly all of her serving, it was a winner too.

Things Elli could do:
Stir ingredients together
Taste-test the cheese, and pepperoni
Spread pasta mixture in pan
Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over pasta mixture

Hearty Pepperoni and Cheese Bake Ratings


Elli-friendly cooking: 4
Elli-friendly eating: 5
Simple: 5
Fast: 3 (borderline rating; it takes a good 40 minutes from start to finish)
Frugal: 5

Where I buy:

Aldi: Mozzarella block, pepperoni, pasta sauce
Costco: Parmesan cheese (we go through a lot), pasta

S'more-tilla

One concept I want Elli to understand early is that of a servant’s heart: serving others not out of selfish gain or a need for praise, or because a celebrity makes it vogue, but out of love.

This week I was humbled to serve lunch to those in need at a local church’s soup kitchen. I was put on coleslaw duty and somehow managed to be the only one on the line that shift to get reprimanded by the chef, twice. Turns out I was too generous in my portion size, and a lot of the coleslaw went to waste. Oops.

That day’s lunch inspired me to perpetuate the love, first by looking for opportunities to serve at a soup kitchen again and second by having Elli help me prepare a special treat for Daddy.

Daddy had to work that night, and it was just Elli and me for supper. We ate a simple meal involving cheese rollups made with tortillas. As I was asking her to please keep her food out of her hair, I realized that I had a practically full pack of tortillas to contend with.

My solution: Elephant Ears.

My favorite cookbook of all time is the 1999 Taste of Home’s Guide to Quick Cooking produced by the Aid Association for Lutherans. By now my mom has figured out that I quietly slipped this cookbook into a box when I was packing up to move out of the house many years ago. She has quietly ignored my crime.

One of the recipes is called Quick Elephant Ears, although the product goes by various names. They are fried tortilla halves rolled in sugar and cinnamon. Like a sopapilla but only in the respect that it’s fried and has sugar and cinnamon.

Knowing Daddy is a sugar fiend, I wanted to soup it up for him. And so were born S’more-tillas.

S’more-tilla

2 burrito-size flour tortillas, halved
½ c sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons oil for frying
Chocolate chips
Miniature marshmallows

On large plate or in a pasta bowl, mix sugar and cinnamon; set aside. Heat oil in a medium fry pan over medium heat. Place one-half tortilla at a time into oil. Fry for a few seconds on each side, or until tortilla begins to bubble. Remove tortilla from oil with tongs and press each side into sugar mixture; set onto another plate and quickly place 4-5 chocolate chips and 4-5 marshmallows into center and fold tortilla in half. Serve warm.

 I named the ingredients as I set them on the counter in front of Elli.


“Sugar. Oil. Chocolate,” I said.


“Too-ger. Oh-ell. Cha-ket,” she repeated. She didn’t even try to say “marshmallow” but she sure ate them well.

Her favorite part was mixing the cinnamon and sugar.

“Mix,” she said, right on the mark with her pronunciation. And mix she did. Repeatedly. I’m pretty sure she’s a rightie, because that’s the hand she always chooses to use to pick up the spoon, unless, of course, she’s using the spoon to bang on something. Then it doesn’t matter.


She is also suddenly ambidextrous when the bag of chocolate chips is moved from her right side to her left in an attempt to get her to stay out of the bag.


This was a very easy recipe for her to help with. Obviously the frying part and the dipping into the sugar mixture I took care of, but she was able to help tear the tortillas and load up the chocolate chips and mini-marshmallows.

I made an extra S’more-tilla for me to taste-test, as well as a mini-Elephant Ear for Elli to eat.

The one mistake I made with this is cooking and eating this snack right before bedtime. To counteract the effects of the sugar, the spun sugar and the chocolate sugar, I literally had her run through the house. Fortunately, she thought it was a game and laughed her way from room to room, chubby legs pumping and curly locks bouncy the whole time.

“Eddi run!” she said with her heart-melting smile.

She fell asleep almost instantly at bedtime.

We left a plate of the S’more-tillas for Daddy, who was very appreciative of the special gift. Anything that comes from the heart and has Elli’s touch will always be a treasure to him.

Things Elli could do:

• Tear the tortillas in half
• Stir the sugar and cinnamon in bowl
• Sprinkle on chocoalte chips, marshmallows
• Grab chocolate chips and marshmallows from bag with impressive agility and speed

S’more-tillas Ratings

5 being the best

Elli-friendly cooking: 5

Elli-friendly eating: 5

Simple: 5

Fast: 5

Frugal: 5

Where I buy

Aldi: Tortillas, cinnamon, oil

Hy-Vee: sugar, chocolate chips, marshmallows

Two-for

I also came up with another, shall we say “sophisticated” twist on the classic s’more.

Graham cracker halves

Fresh strawberries, halved

Cream cheese icing

Spread layer of icing on graham cracker. Top with strawberries. Enjoy.

It’s like a strawberry cheesecake but without the diet-shattering consequence.