Eat Well: Nice Cans

The following post was written by my mom, WWW. Thanks, mom!

A few weeks ago, as I was prying my rusty can opener apart to open a can of coconut milk, Larry heard my expletives and calmly asked, “Wendy…do you think they make a stainless steel can opener? You know, one that won’t ever rust?” I stopped my struggle and smiled at him with wonderment, as if he were suddenly bathed in heavenly shafts of light. “You are BRILLIANT! There MUST be such a thing.”

 Here’s my confession. I’m not much of a shopper so I stick with the same stuff I’ve had for years. And since I was first married, I have owned the standard, swing-away can opener —several of them, in fact, because after a few years the joints get rusty and the handles stick and the rotary blade gets dull. So, empowered by Larry’s suggestion, I immediately started googling “stainless steel can openers” and found the Rösle, the mother of all can openers. I was so excited that I dropped everything and immediately buzzed over to Sur La Table to buy one. And the first time I used it, on my unopened can of coconut milk left on the counter, I was instantly a fan.

The down side is that it’s expensive—between $40 and $50 dollars, but there are several reasons why I feel it’s worth it. First, it will never rust and that is HUGE in my opinion. Second, you position the can opener on the top of the can and it cuts the metal around the outside of the lid. This serves two purposes—the tool never comes into contact with the food in the can (making it much more sanitary) and there are no sharp edges to cut yourself on. Since the can opener never comes into contact with food, you just need to wipe off the handle and put it back in the drawer—no washing necessary.

Rösle makes two types: the one-handled and the two-handled. I bought the two-handled one because it has a special lid lifter (integrated pliers) that helps remove the lid. But as far as I can tell from reading reviews, the one-handled is just as good. These make great gifts for your favorite cooks in your life.

In honor of my new Rösle can opener and lighter eating after the heavy holiday fare, here is a wonderful salad dressing recipe from 101 Cookbooks’ Heidi Swanson —my new favorite (thanks to my friend, Lorraine, for sharing with me!).

Heidi Swanson’s Coconut Milk Salad Dressing 

I Serrano chile, stemmed and seeded
5 green onions, green parts trimmed
a big handful of cilantro
1 clove garlic, peeled and smashed
¾ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 tablespoon sunflower oil (I use olive)
1 cup coconut milk, well mixed (I use light)
1-2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, or to taste

Pulse the chile, onions, cilantro, garlic, salt, and oil into a paste with a food processor. Pulse in the coconut milk in two additions before adding the lemon juice to taste, a half a tablespoon at a time. 

Or…throw everything in a Vitamix and blend until smooth! (This will make a thicker, smooth textured dressing.)

Heidi puts this dressing on cooked beans, but I use it on raw kale, arugula, and sprouted beans to make a yummy and vitamin-rich raw salad. Marinate chopped kale in the salad dressing for a couple of hours.

...and then add the kale to your other greens and top with extra dressing, sprouted beans and sunflower seeds or pepitas. This is a really nice way to add raw kale, one of the most nutritious vegetables around, into your diet.

Chopped, marinated kale, by the way, is awesome the next day. The salad dressing keeps for a week in the refrigerator.

Enjoy! 

Love, 

WWW

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GGC

Game Night! Prep Squad (Sponsored + Sweepstakes)

My family game night is sponsored by Wii U. How U will play next! Click here for a chance to win a Wii U™ Deluxe Set and $5,000 to take your family on vacation!

This is the first in a series of posts I'm doing this holiday season for Wii U - our first ever "family" gaming system, something we've been slowly drifting toward since Hal procured an iPad last Christmas and Archer started begging to go to "friends houses" for undisclosed reasons, ahem. As you may know, I am the worst kind of planner so for our first annual family-in-town-for-the-holidays-game-night I let the kids take control of the thing.

I don't remember the last time they were this excited about something which makes it a lot easier to hand them the reins. They've been begging for a gaming system since The Cold War and I've been putting it off pretty much every day since.

Full disclosure, I have not played a video game of any kind since I was thirteen playing Street Fighter at the local pizza joint. We had Nintendo when I was a pup, but that was a generation ago. Anyway, the deal was this: no violent games (and yes, I am being a hypocrite because I used to rule at Mortal Combat) and we will be choosing games to play TOGETHER in the living room and these games will not include violence because that is just how I roll and don't even try to change my mind, it's my thing. 

SO. Nintendoland non-violent family game night, it is! 

What started as game night with the family and just my parents has taken on a kind of life of its own. My sister will be in town and Hal's friends will be joining us and we're pretty much inviting everyone we know at this point which means I've had no idea what to make or what to buy or how to organize AKA I totally gave up and let the kids (who are literally jumping up and down excited over this action) take over. Twist my arm, why don't you. 

I also thought it would be fun to let the kids do the decorating. So? We rocked some dollar store action.

ED: the dollar store is an incredible place to take kids to teach them about money and math. It's the only place I can think of where you can give a four year old a budget she can grasp. Ish.

I gave the kids fifteen dollars each and here's what they came up with:

The kids picked out tickets and confetti, silly straws and centerpieces, wigs, hats, glow sticks, party favors, more confetti, paper plates, napkins and more confetti.

And then, upon going through our thirty-items of bounty, came up with some rules which will likely change 79879824 times before we actually PLAY. They are:

Game Rules

1. You HAVE to wear a wig or a a hat when you're playing a game.
2. If you win a game you get sixteen tickets and if you lose you get three tickets and at the end of the night whoever has the most tickets gets ALL of the hats and also some pinball thingy party favors.
3. Glow sticks are for everybody except the babies because they will try to eat them.
4. Plates are for snacks and food.
5. Have fun and share.

I couldn't have planned this thing better myself. Not in a thousand years.

My ad network, Federated Media is sponsoring a pretty amazing sweepstakes to go along with this campaign. To participate? Pin your Family Game Night photos with a comment that links to this promotion. Prizes include a wiiU deluxe set and $5,000.00 to take your fam on vacation. For more information and/or to enter, go here. Good luck!

GGC