We took a parenting class at church.  They taught that if a kid wants to help you with a task, just let them help.  It doesn't matter if you can do it faster or better.  The teachers said that the time will come when they won't want to help you, so when they do you need to let them!  Apparently all my kids are at the helping age because I always have helpers in the kitchen.

Yes, all the boys have knives.  It worked out great.  So don't be afraid!


 Yikes!  Be afraid!

Get your helpers to hull your strawberries.  That's a fancy way of saying get rid of the leaves.  Then chop up the strawberries.  This recipe is perfect for kids because it doesn't matter what size they chop them up or if the dice is uneven.  It's all going into the blender anyway.


Add sugar to your strawberries and mix.  I added about 1/4 cup to 3 or 4 cups diced strawberries.


Taste test it if you want!  Then let it sit in your refrigerator for about an hour.


On to the pineapple!  Pineapples are in season right now.  If you can't find a ripe pineapple and your pineapple is still pretty green, you'll want it to ripen on your counter for a day or two.  You know a pineapple is ripe when the bottom smells like a delicious pineapple and it has a nice yellow tint to it.

This pineapple is perfectly ripe.  Let's cut it up!  I had my helpers watch since I used a BIG knife.  Safety first!  Cut off the pineapple's top and bottom.


Then slice off the outside inedible layer.


Poor pineapple!  You're no match for my big knife!


Cut the pineapple into four long spears.


Then cut the core out of each spear.  I know it looks like I'm about to slice off my knuckle.  I didn't.  And Steve was a great cameraman!


Then slice each spear into two or three long spears.


Next, cut each spear into 1" chunks.


After an hour in the fridge, check out your strawberries!  See that juice at the bottom?


The sugar combined with the strawberries to make a delicious strawberry juice.  These strawberries are perfect for strawberry shortcake (but that's a different recipe).


Add some of the strawberries and juice, and some pineapple to the blender and mix until it is creamy.  Add a couple scoops of vanilla ice cream and mix it up.  You're done! I fed this to my family after a hard day's work in the yard.  They said it was the best smoothie they ever had.  Since it's actually a milkshake I don't know how to take that...  They said I was the best mom in the world so if you want some appreciation, this is the recipe for you.


Strawberry Pineapple Milkshakes
Serves 3-6
2 pints of strawberries
1 pineapple
1/4 c. sugar
several scoops Vanilla Ice Cream

1. Hull and chop strawberries.  Mix with sugar (about 1/4 cup sugar for every 3-4 cups strawberries).  Let sit in the refrigerator for one hour.
2. Chop pineapple.
3. Add strawberries and juice, and pineapple to a blender and mix well.  Add several scoops of ice cream.  Serve and bask in the glory of your admiring fans!

And remember, a pineapple should never touch human skin:

This recipe is fast, easy and cheap.  It was invented by my Mom, and I tweaked it a little bit.  Time to get New Mexican for dinner!

I mentioned before that I almost never cook with fresh meat, it's usually frozen.  For chicken, I like to buy 10 lb. bags of frozen chicken breasts from CostCo.  These are boneless and skinless and cost $2/lb, or $20 for the whole bag.  This is a great price for NM stores and it means I always have frozen chicken in my freezer.

Depending on the size of the chicken breasts, you'll need 2 or 3 or 4 chicken breasts.  It really depends on how much meat vs. vegetables you want.  I like a 50-50 mix.  Put your chicken breasts on a plate and thaw in the microwave for 2-3 minutes.  You may want to flip them over halfway to help them thaw evenly.


While you're waiting for your chicken to defrost, slice up 1 yellow onion, 1 green bell pepper and 1 red bell pepper.  The onion and green pepper are both very affordable.  The red on is the more expensive item in this recipe.  If you don't want to pay twice as much for the red pepper as the green pepper, you can substitute a green pepper for the red pepper.  I usually see green peppers for 50 cents, and red peppers for $1.69.  A great sale price for a red pepper is usually $1 or less in NM.

This recipe is also a great freezer meal.  If you see red and green peppers on sale, buy several.  Slice them up and put each one in a sandwich baggie.  With frozen chicken and peppers, half your meal is ready in the freezer anytime you feel like fajitas.

Put a couple tablespoons of oil in a skillet and heat to medium high or high.  When it is hot add all three vegetables (frozen or fresh) to a skillet and saute in oil until caramelized and tender.  Here is how they look when you start sauteing.  If it looks dry in the pan just add in some more oil by the tablespoon.  Stir the vegetables occasionally so they won't burn.  Slice up your chicken while your vegetables are cooking. 


Here is a picture when they are done.  You can see a little bit of char on the peppers and the onions are light brown.


Remove the vegetables from the pan, add some more oil and then add the chicken.  Some of that caramelized goodness will still be on the bottom of the pan so just stir around the chicken and it will pick it up and flavor the chicken.  Sometimes frozen chicken lets off a lot of moisture.  If you have a lot of moisture in the bottom of the pan, take a paper towel and soak it up (just like soaking up hamburger grease in the previous post).  When the chicken is just done, add about a cup of your favorite salsa.


Let it cook for a minute or two at a simmer to thicken the salsa and coat the chicken.  Use a salsa you really like since the flavor will condense.  If you have people in your family that don't like a lot of spice, use a milder salsa.  You can also use less salsa, or none.  Then other people in the family can just add salsa to their finished fajita.  We like it mildly spicy so 1 cup of a medium salsa pleases everyone in my house.

Then add the vegetables back in until they reheat.  Time for fajitas!


There are three kinds of flour tortillas.  Let's call them Daddy, Mommy and baby.  Daddy size (also known as "Burrito") and Mommy size ("Homestyle") are great for this recipe.  Baby size ("Gorditas") are a little too small for this recipe, but would still be delicious.


Warm your tortillas in the microwave until heated through.  When top with your chicken mixture, shredded cheese, sour cream, guacamole and/or more salsa.


Let's have a fajita folding lesson!  Fold up the bottom (to catch the deliciousness, you don't want that goodness dripping on your plate, then you have to lick your plate like Jason).


Then fold one side...


Then the other!  How easy is that?


Now who can tell me the NM state question?

Easy Fajitas
Serves 4-6
2-4 chicken breasts
1 yellow onion, sliced
1 green pepper, cut in strips
1 red pepper, cut in strips
1 cup salsa
6 tortillas

Toppings:
Salsa
Sour Cream
Cheddar Cheese
Guacamole

1. Defrost chicken breasts.  Cut vegetables.
2. Heat oil in a skillet to medium high or high.  Saute vegetables until tender and caramelized.  Remove vegetables to a bowl.
3. Cook chicken until just done.  If there is a pool of liquid in the pan, drain it or soak it up with a paper towel.
4. Add salsa and simmer for a minute or two until salsa is thickened and reduced slightly.
5. Add vegetables back to pan until heated through.  Serve with warm tortillas and toppings.

I've made Spaghetti Sauce from scratch.  It was delicious, but it was also time consuming.  My family is big on pasta.  Since we eat Spaghetti about once a week I had to find a better way.  This is the better way!  It's also very college friendly and budget friendly.  Enjoy!

Anytime you're making pasta for dinner, your first step is to get your water on the stove to boil.  There's no sadness like having a pot full of spaghetti sauce ready to eat and you're still waiting for your water to boil.

Remember those bags of frozen hamburger?  Get one out, defrost it and brown it in a skillet.  Mine is 3/4 pound but meat lovers will love a whole pound or more.  I know how to drain the fat off hamburger meat without a strainer (that dirties a dish, and dishes are a pain).  After browning, if there is some fat in the bottom, scrape all the meat to one side, drop in a paper towel and then tilt the pan to the empty side and sop it up with a paper towel.  If the paper towel gets saturated just get another.  Then use your spoon to scrape the paper towel around the bottom of your pan.  No more grease!  Then throw it away, it's not an ingredient in our recipe.



You know how regular canned sauces are watery?  I hate it when there is a pool of tomato water until my pasta.  This ingredient will fix that problem and change your sauce woes forever.  Add one can (6 ounces) of tomato paste.  Mix it around (it will be paste-y) and let it cook for a minute.


If you're doing it right, your toddler will look like this.  Todders know when you are less than 20 minutes from dinnertime and usually decide starvation has come for them.  Resist to urge to feed it!  Don't look into those sweet eyes!  Focus on cooking!  Hang on, little buddy!


Next, add one can of spaghetti sauce.  Both Hunts and Del Monte are good, I have Hunts since I bought 24 cans at a Smith's Case lot sale.  Your pasta water is probably boiling about now so add your pasta in your pot of boiling water (not in the tomato sauce!) and let it boil.  The Spaghetti sauce can simmer on low heat until your pasta is done.  I usually cover it with a lid.

 How about some bread sticks with that?  Check out my fancy bread.

Yes, it's hot dog buns.  Whenever we have hot dogs inevitably my kids want it bun-less.  We always have leftover buns.  I just throw them in the freezer and wait until Spaghetti night.  This recipe also works perfectly with a loaf of french bread cut in half lengthwise. No waste here!


Jason made up this recipe and we love it.  You'll need butter (preferably at room temperature), Garlic Salt, Parmesan Cheese and Oregano.  I once tried fancy, grated, fresh Parmesan Cheese for this recipe and it wasn't as good.  The kind you see in the picture works great.  Save your money and go with this stuff.


Butter your "bread sticks", sprinkle on Garlic Salt, then Parmesan Cheese, and then Oregano.  It's not a science.  Just imagine yourself eating it and that's how much you put on.  If it's too bland, next time add more garlic salt.  If it's too salty, next time add less garlic salt.  Channel the inner scientist in you and experiment to find out what your family likes.

Then broil it either in a toaster oven or in a real oven for 2-5 minutes.  Don't walk away!  Watch it closely!  Don't answer the door!  Set a timer!  It can go from pale to "call a fireman" in a minute.  You'll want it golden brown, like this:

I put it on a paper towel to keep it from getting soggy while it's warm.  Serve your pasta, Spaghetti meat sauce and garlic bread with a side salad and some steamed vegetables.  So easy!

Since your toddler didn't starve to death, he can join you for dinner.  This is what a happy, well fed toddler will look like after surviving those last 20 minutes.

You may not know it, but many of you ate this sauce when we stayed in the house in St. George for Summer and Stuart's wedding.  I doubled it and made two loaves of french bread into garlic bread.  I even brought frozen hamburger with us to cook.  You all liked it!  This recipe is great for a Harper crowd.

No toddlers were harmed in the making of this recipe.

Mary's Spaghetti Sauce
Serves 6-8
1 pound dried spaghetti
3/4 - 1 pound ground beef
1 can tomato paste, 6 ounces
1 can Spaghetti Sauce, 15 ounces

1. Start a pot of water boiling for your pasta.
2. On high heat, brown your ground beef.  Drain (or use your paper towel to sop it up).
3. Lower the heat to medium or medium high.  Add tomato paste and mix well.  Let cook for 1 minute.  Be careful that it doesn't burn.
4. Add spaghetti sauce and let simmer, covered, on low heat until pasta is ready.

Jason's Garlic Bread
Hot Dog buns, or French Bread, or whatever leftover bread you have
Butter, at room temperature
Garlic Salt
Parmesan Cheese
Dried Oregano

1. Lay out your bread on a cookie sheet covered with foil (for easier clean up!).
2. Spread with butter.
3. Sprinkle with garlic salt, parmesan cheese and oregano, to taste.
4. Broil for 2-5 minutes (my oven takes about 3 minutes, my toaster oven takes 5) until golden brown and delicious.

I almost never buy meat to cook it fresh the same night.  I try to go to the store as little as possible because it takes time and energy.  I like to save all my energy for cleaning my house.  When I say "cleaning my house" I really mean wasting time on the internet.  Kidding!

Jason takes care of our investments, and I play the meat stock market.  Buy low, eat high!  When I see hamburger on sale (a good price in NM is $1.99/pound) I buy a bunch.  Last year I saw $1.69/pound a pound and bought 30 pounds.  It was expensive to buy such a large quantity, but then I didn't have to buy meat for quite a while.  I freeze it in Ziploc sandwich baggies and then defrost it as I need it.  Here's what it looks like:


I used to freeze it in 1 pound portions, but my family doesn't eat a lot of ground beef so I freeze is in 3/4 pound portions and it works great for recipes that call for 1 pound.  It's also good for my budget!  So for that 30 pounds of meat, I had 40 baggies of beef.

I use a cooking scale to measure out portions, but if you don't have a scale you can just divide up your meat by eye.  If you buy a 5 pound tube of hamburger, you can divide it into 5 baggies (or more for smaller portions).  Then put it in a sandwich baggie and smash it flat.  It defrosts better if you spread it out in the bag.  Avoid freezing a baseball shaped piece of meat, it's a pain to defrost.  Try to get out all the air to cut down on freezer burn.

If you don't have a full sized freezer and 6 people in your home, you probably don't want 30 pounds of frozen meat.  Just buy meat in smaller portions.  Even with a small freezer, you can make space for 5-10 sandwich baggies of meat.

To cook it, put it on a plate and microwave it for about 2 minutes, flipping it over halfway.  It will be mostly thawed, maybe icy in the middle, but still raw.  Then plop it in a skillet and cook it up.

You can also use this method for cuts of chicken.  I also freeze whole roasts in gallon size Ziploc bags.  When I want to cook a roast I just put it frozen into my crockpot and cook as directed in my recipe.

I don't freeze fish or expensive cuts of beef like steak.  Those are the meats I like to cook same day since they are best fresh.

When I get low on hamburger I start to watch sale prices.  When the price goes down, buy buy buy!

Dannie will probably tell you that this is Aunt Zoe's Cherry Tart, but to us Harpers it will always be "Dannie's Cherry Tart."  This is a classic Harper recipe and the perfect way to kick off our food blog.  Who's hungry?  Let's get started!

You'll need sugar, flour, butter, pecans, Dream Whip (only one box, not two like in the picture), cream cheese, vanilla, milk and cherry pie filling.  It's best if you leave your cream cheese and butter out to soften for a couple hours ahead of time.

There are three parts to this recipe: The crust, the cream filling, and the cherry goodness.

First, start with the crust.  If you didn't leave your butter out to soften (you rebel!), just cut it into 6-8 pieces, put it on a plate, and put it in the microwave for about 8-10 seconds, give or take depending on your microwave power.  It should be soft to the touch but not liquid.  Like butter.


Add your softened butter, flour, sugar, and chopped pecans to a 9x13 inch glass baking dish. Your dish does not need to be greased (now is a good time to preheat your oven!).

Then get yourself a cute assistant and get her to mash it up.  It should be crumbly, it will look like sand with pecans in it.  The butter will be a great moisturizer for us desert dwellers.

Dannie taught me to gently pat it down.  Don't press it hard or it will be too dense.

Bake it for 10-20 minutes at 400 degrees (my oven took 17 minutes for golden brown perfection).

While it's still warm, take a fork and run it through the crust.  You'll crumble it up into nice bite size pieces.  Then pat it back down (gently! Unless you like chewing a brick) and let it cool completely.  It will take about one hour to cool down on the counter (or faster in the fridge if you're not patient, or have an angry, hungry  mob of Harpers waiting for Cherry Tart).


While the crust was baking, my cute assistant and I worked on the cream filling.  Dream Whip isn't a familiar ingredient to many of us.  I usually find it in the baking aisle near the Jello mixes.  It comes in a box with two envelopes of Dream Whip mix inside.  You'll use two envelopes of mix (sold together in one box of Dream Whip) for this recipe.

Mix the Dream Whip according to the package directions with a mixer (add milk and vanilla, and then mix for about 4 minutes, until it thickens and forms peaks).  You can mix both envelopes at once.  It will be creamy and white (like something dreamy and whipped).  Then add sugar, cream cheese and more vanilla and mix until smooth.  It's very important that your cream cheese be at room temperature or when you try to mix it in it will look like cottage cheese.  Your Cherry Tart will thank you for leaving the cream cheese out at room temperature for several hours.

When you're done it will look like shiny frosting and have about the same consistency.



When you're done mixing, get a second cute assistant to clean your beater.

If your crust still isn't cool, put your bowl of cream filling in the fridge.  When the crust is cool just pour it on top and spread it over the crust.


Next, add your cherry pie filling with a spoon.  Dannie taught me to put them on 2 cherries at a time.  But it was late so I plopped on 5 or more at a time.  It all tastes the same when you eat it!  But her's will be prettier!

Look at those layers of goodness! Now chill it for 3 hours.  Or not, I won't judge you.

Next, feed it to a Harper.  They will thank you!

Since Dannie taught me this recipe I have made it twice.  Once when we lived in Indiana and then this time just for the blog.  She's the expert and Mom makes it best.  However, if you live far away and long for a taste of home, make a cherry tart!  I forgot how easy it is!  It makes 2 or 12 or 16 servings depending on your weight loss or gain plan.

And now for the prizes!  As the winner of our first food blog contest, for naming this blog, Summer will recieve a box of Dream Whip and two cans of cherry pie filling, and maybe some other non-perishable ingredients if I can fit it in the box.  Not only did Summer show great creativity in choosing a name, but she took into account our Harper Trek-i-ness.  Good job, Summer!

For submitting name ideas, our runner up is Heidi.  She received a box of Dream Whip and also did a good job modelling her prize. Thanks, Heidi!
Here is the full recipe:

Dannie's Cherry Tart
Serves: 12 (or less, I won't judge you)
Time: A couple hours since you have to let the crust cool.  Never too long to make a Harper's day!

Crust:
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup pecans, chopped
2 cups flour
1 cup butter, softened

Topping:
2 envelopes Dream Whip, sold together in one box
1 cup cold milk (according to Dream Whip directions)
1/2 tsp. vanilla (according to Dream Whip directions)
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla, in addition to vanilla previously added

2 cans cherry pie filling

1.    In a 9x13 inch pan, crumble crust ingredients together and lightly smooth onto bottom of pan.

2.    Bake at 400 degrees for 10-20 minutes, until browning on sides and top.  My oven took 17 minutes.

3.    While still warm, crumble and gently pat onto bottom of pan.  Let cool.  It takes one hour to cool on the counter.

4.    Mix Dream Whip according to directions on package.

5.    Add cream cheese, sugar and vanilla; mix well.

6.    Spread over cooled crust.  Spoon cherry filling to top of filling.

7.    Chill for 3 hours and serve.