Beef Stew, Black Bean Chocolate Cherry Cookies, Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies, Honey Sesame Chicken, Broiled Teriyaki Mushrooms, and Quarantine!

On the plate:  Beef stew, black bean chocolate cherry cookies, chocolate oatmeal cookies, honey sesame chicken, and broiled teriyaki mushrooms (with asparagus)

Soundtrack to cook to:  Yikes!  It's been a tough week with a cranky and sick toddler.  Thus, I either cooked and did prep work while he was sleeping (in silence), or we listened to his music class's CD - Music Together: Bells...gotta appease the little one with his music if I want to even try to cook anything.

Oy vey!  What a week!  Y'know, a kid really suffers when he/she falls ill.  However, whenever one of my mommy friends says that their little one is ill, of course I ask how the little one is, but then I ALSO ask how the parent is feeling.  Because although the little one is not feeling well, that also means that the little one isn't sleeping (which means the parent isn't sleeping), and is a little crab apple (which undoubtedly makes it to be a difficult time for the parents as well).  I feel for the child, but my heart goes out to the parents as well.  So yes, we had a sick child this week, and not with any run-of-the-mill runny nose, but pneumonia...and a scare of the measles.  Needless to say...it's been a tough week.
Here's a picture of me and Alexander, cheesing for the camera before he got sick:

Isn't he cute?  I like that you can see his two front
teeth in this picture.

Since Alexander was sick and was running a fever earlier in the week, he didn't have a lot of energy.  This gave me the opportunity to go onto pinterest.com a lot and pin a bunch of recipes that were easy to make and didn't require a lot of my time.  I was seduced by this one picture of a delicious looking lamb stew and immediately had to make this recipe - it would be mine, oh yes, it would be mine.  I went to Trader Joe's because they're the only grocery store in our area that sells food and wine (because Massachusetts sucks in the fact that they aren't allowed to sell alcohol at grocery stores).  Unfortunately, they only had beef stew meat and thus, I made beef stew.

As I said earlier, I was seduced by this picture of the food and was obsessed with having that meal in front of me as soon as possible.  So much so that I was completely blinded by the fact that this recipe was quite labor intensive!  Let's just say, that 1 hour and 10 minutes later, I was done with the prep work!  Yes, I said it, PREP work!  Can you believe it?  Yes...I was seduced and mislead by a beautiful and gorgeous picture of food, but once I started, I couldn't stop.  (Thankfully Alexander slept for 2 hours that day and I did all of the prep work and still had time to get a quick workout in as well.)

I got 3 lbs of beef stew meat that was really nice and lean.
Salt and pepper the meat and braise the meat in small batches
in a large pan that has olive oil in it.
*Note:  While the meat was browning, I cut up my vegetables -
any way that you can save time - do it! 

The recipe only called for onions, garlic, and carrots, but I LOVE
mushrooms and thought some celery would go along with
this stew as well.

After all of the meat is browned, put the meat in the pot as well
as all of the vegetables.  Cook the vegetables for about 8-10 minutes.
Now can you tell why this took me so long??

I love Australian reds and decided that a nice and spicy Shiraz
would go well with this dish.  This is a nice and relatively inexpensive
shiraz that's good to drink and good to cook with.
*Remember that when you're cooking with wine, you'd better like the
taste of it, because that flavor is going to be infused into the food that
you are eating as well.
Since I had 3 lbs of meat, I decided to put 3 cups of red wine.  Once the
wine is in the pot, you're supposed to let it reduce by half.  (This
takes a while.)

Now that the wine has reduced, put in some rosemary and freshly
chopped sage.  Put the lid on the dutch oven and cook it for 4 hours
at 275 degrees F.

Oh.my.lanta!  Heavenly!  The beautiful stew meat falls apart so
wonderfully and the house smells so awesome!  I chose to serve
the stew over some brown rice.  This made enough leftovers for 3 nights
of dinner and I swear that the 3rd night tasted the best!  If you have
the time to make it, it's a dish that's well worth it!

That same day, I was feeling rather ambitious and also wanted to make some cookies.  I was intrigued by a recipe for black bean chocolate cherry cookies.  I've made blondies using garbanzo beans and they were so yummy!  Thus, I figured that I had all of the ingredients at home already, so why not take a shot at making black bean cookies?  They're a nice way to get some added protein into your little ones (or big ones for that matter) and the overall recipe is actually pretty healthy.

In a food processor, mix together 1 can of cooked black beans,
cayenne pepper, salt, and unsweetened cocoa powder. 

Once the previous mixture is combined, pulse in 2 eggs,
vanilla extract and maple syrup.  After those are all mixed in,
stir in some cherries and dark chocolate by hand.
Drop the batter onto parchment paper, sprinkle the cookies
with a little bit of salt, and bake them for 15 minutes at 375 degrees F.
*Note:  You can place the cookies near one another, as they
will not spread when they're baking.

The end result!  A fudgy, cherry and chocolatey treat.  These
cookies tasted and felt more like brownies.  They were pretty
tasty after they got out of the oven and even a few hours afterwards.
However, the person who wrote the recipe recommended that
the cookies be stored in a refrigerator.  I will say, that after being
stored in the refrigerator over night, the cookies didn't taste that
great the next day.  I even tried warming them up and they
unfortunately didn't have the same flavor or texture as they had had
from the previous day.
*Recommendation:  If you make them, then serve them ALL that same day.

"Hey Mom!  I heard that you were baking cookies!
Can I have one?  Pleeeeeeease?"

"What?!  Beans IN the cookies?  I'm not so sure..."
*Note:  Alexander really liked them that night,
but definitely not the next day - so much so
that he was hesitant to eat any other cookies
offered to him the following day.

As for the rest of the week, Alexander's health unfortunately took a turn for the worse, as his fever persisted for two days, he was wheezing, and had a productive cough.  Thus, I had to take him to the doctor's office where they told me that he had all of the symptoms of pneumonia, but they didn't want to call it pneumonia (however, my mommy radar was going off like crazy, saying, "It's pneumonia!  Just say it!").  He was put on antibiotics, oral steroids, and was given a nebulizer that he had to take every 4 hours.  I was thinking, "Great!  How am I going to get this 20 month old to sit still for 20 minutes with this contraption strapped to his face??"  Being the mommy that is quick on my feet, I said to Alexander, "OOOH!  Alex!!  Look!  It's a new TOY!  Look at your new toy!  You're such a lucky boy that you get to play with your new toy while you watch Little Einsteins!"  He fell for it - hook, line, and sinker....and boy was I lucky that he did.  Every time he passed by it, he would say, "Toy??!"  (As in, mommy, I see my toy, can I play with it?)  To which I said, "Oh Alexander, you can play with your toy in another three hours."

Mommy, baby, stuffed penguin, and a nebulizer.

In an attempt to redeem myself (since the bean cookies didn't turn out like I had hoped they would have), I felt it necessary that I should make a new batch of good tasting cookies.  I was really jonesing some chocolate and fell upon a nice and easy recipe for chocolate oatmeal cookies (an all-time favorite of mine).

In a small bowl, whisk all of the dry ingredients (except for the 2 sugars)
together.  Then, in a mixing bowl, cream 2 tbsp of butter with the two sugars.

Once you have creamed the sugars and butter, mix in the egg,
vanilla, and 1/4 cup of apple sauce. 

Then, stir in the flour mixture, 2 cups of oats, and 3/4 cup of
semisweet chocolate chips.  Drop the cookies onto a silpat or parchment
paper and bake them for 12-14 minutes at 375 degrees F.

Mmmmm!  Redemption complete!  These got rave reviews from
both of my boys...so much so that I had to make another batch
two days later.  They satisfy your chocolate cookie craving without all of the guilt.

Quarantine!  I don't know who it was worse on...me or Alexander.  It killed me that we couldn't do our normal weekly activities and I know Alexander was starting to get antsy to get out of the house once he started feeling a little bit better.  So below are a couple of shots of how we killed time in the Franses household when we were quarantined:

But first, here's a cute little video of Alexander doing 

a "downward dog" yoga pose that he learned in his daycare.

Playing around on the 2nd floor

Coloring on his art easel

Crawling around in his tent and tunnel

Peek-a-boo!!

Peek-a-boo Take 2!

Alexander, popping out of the other entrance!

You can't catch me!

Back to coloring and taking a drink break

Sneaky little guy

Running around - where's the sick kid?

"Red!"  Very good!!

Yoga move #2 - this kid has some really great abs

Playing with the chalk side of his art easel

Modeling his "downward dog" position

Downward dog Take 2 - yes, he's balancing on his head - because he's that awesome

Onto another dinner - another seduction that I had from pinterest - honey sesame chicken.  The picture looked absolutely delectable and for ONCE, this recipe was actually really easy to make and didn't require a lot of my time.  To my surprise, it only took 15 minutes of prep work!!  Now THAT'S my kind of dinner!

In a small bowl, mix together 1 chopped onion, 3 cloves of minced garlic,
ketchup, honey, soy sauce, and crushed red pepper flakes. 

I bought the boneless skinless chicken tenders and simply seasoned
them with salt and pepper.  Place the chicken in a slow cooker and
top them with the sauce.  Put on the lid and cook the chicken on low for 4 hours.
After the 4 hours, take the chicken out and dissolve 4 tsp of cornstarch in
6 tsp of water.  Pour the cornstarch/water mixture (a.k.a. slurry) into the sauce
and cook the sauce on high for 10 minutes.  While the sauce is cooking,
shred the chicken (which is incredibly tender at this point and does not take
a lot of effort).  Then, throw the chicken back in the sauce and coat the
chicken pieces evenly.

While the sauce was cooking, I coated some baby bella mushrooms
with a mixture of teriyaki sauce, sesame oil, sugar, and rice wine vinegar.
Put them under the broiler for 5 minutes, turn them over, and broil for another 5
minutes.  I also cooked up some asparagus (gotta have something
green on the plate) and tossed them all together before serving.

End result:  Absolutely delicious and meaty without the meat.
I topped the dish with a little sprinkle of sesame seeds for a little crunch.

Here's the honey sesame chicken.  I served it on a bed or brown rice
and it was so sweet, savory, tender and delectable.  So fantastic and
definitely a staple in this household.  You can't beat 15 minutes of prep time!

Here's a video of Alexander, feeling much better, and having a conversation with our soap dispenser:  

Lol!  Kids are hilarious!

I was so thankful for this week to end.  It was nice to spend so much time with Alexander, but the poor guy was so sick and I was just waiting for him to finally get healthy.  Thank goodness this child is back to normal and is feeling much better.  This household can now finally get back to normal as well. :)  Until next time...

Love and kisses,

Nikki