High-Cal Food Chronicles: Doctored Milk

One of my friends mentioned doctoring milk with a little bit of heavy cream. I've put cream in other things (like eggs), but this is super easy!

2T added to 8oz of milk adds 100 calories and 11 grams of fat! Of course, 3.5 of those are saturated. Hopefully I'm not setting Joseph up for early heart disease.

You never can win, can you?

2,158

2,158 is the number of calories in the organic vanilla ice cream I made today. And 158 grams of fat.

It supposedly makes 5 cups, and serves 8.

We'll see. Ha!

Here's the recipe I used (modified from this Williams Sonoma recipe:

3c heavy cream
3/4c sugar
6 egg yolks
1.5 tsp vanilla

Heat cream until just before a simmer. Meanwhile, mix egg yolks and sugar until lightened. When cream is hot, temper by slowly pouring cream into sugar and yolk mixture while beating quickly. When about 1/2 is in there, pour the whole thing back into the pot. Reheat while constantly stirring until it coats the back of a spoon - about 5 minutes. Chill 3 hours. Pour into running ice cream machine and churn for 30 minutes. Try not to eat too much while you are putting it into a freezer safe container. Wait one hour. Consume.

High-Cal Food Chronicles: Super Charged Yogurt

The Cast of Characters:

Trader Joe's European Style Plain Whole Milk Yogurt

Powdered Whole Milk (found in the Mexican aisle at the grocery store)

Banana (usually 1/2 - I give Joseph the other half to eat while I prepare the yogurt)

There's no real science to this one... just dump in the desired amount. We use approximately:

1/2 C yogurt
2 T powdered milk
1/2 smashed up banana

This is about 200 calories and 8 g fat! Not a bad start to the day! Sometimes he'll even eat some scrambled egg to go with it.

And while I'm at it, I cannot believe that the organic yogurt brands add sugar to their baby yogurts (Yobaby, I'm talking about you!). Frankly, adding the fruit should be enough, but if it does need extra sweetness, I like to be able to control the amount that goes in myself, which is why I've always just made it from plain. Sometimes I add vanilla and/or agave nectar to get vanilla yogurt, as he seems to like that a lot.

The ladies at LLL last week said that he looked chunkier this month, but there isn't a marked difference on our scale at home. The doctor did actually call T.J. last week to see if we had any questions, but I haven't called him back yet. I'm very pleasantly surprised that he followed up like that. Totally unexpected.

High-Cal Food Chronicles: Quick Snacks

Even super moms like me need some store-bought items to help them out periodically.

[note: that was sarcasm]

Anyway, I thought I'd put together a list of Joseph's favorite high-cal snacks to give you ideas that don't require the stove or oven. Most of these are great on-the-go snacks since they are or can be cut into toddler sized finger foods. They make getting out of the house a little easier.

• Trader Joe's Organic Mini Sandwiches (they come in peanut butter and cheese flavor) ~$2.50/box
  
• IKEA Swedish Meatballs ~$7/bag
  
• Trader Joe's This Fig Walks into a Bar (comes in many flavors) ~$1.49/box
  
• Full Circle Organic Graham Crackers ~$3/box
  
• Organic whole milk plain yogurt with mashed banana and avocado ~$2.99/quart @ Trader Joe's for the yogurt.
  
• Chick-Fil-A milkshakes (sometimes Mama shares) ~$3.49 at Chick-Fil-A
  
• Organic white colby cheese (Atlantans, you can find this at Dekalb FM for $5.99/lb!)
• Trader Joe's chicken sausage with apple and maple syrup ~$3.99/pkg
  

High-Cal Food Chronicles: Ice Cream (Mommy Edition)

I'd been searching for an ice cream recipe to make at home - regular ice cream has so much junk in it, and the organic stuff is $6/container! My friend Kat tipped me off to this ice cream recipe - it requires no machine! Since I'd been to the farmer's market and picked up heavy cream, it seemed the perfect time to try it out.

Yields: 1 quart
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1/4 cup of sour cream
1 1/4 cups of heavy cream

Mix condensed milk, vanilla, salt and sour cream until well combined. To it add…

for CHOCOLATE variation: add 5-6 tablespoons {or more to your liking} of chocolate syrup

Mix your heavy whipping cream on high {it would love a cold bowl and cold whisk too} until stiff peeks form {3 or so minutes}. Whisk some of the whipped cream into the condensed milk mixture until incorporated and then gently fold the rest of the whipped cream in. Place in an airtight container and freeze 6 hours before serving!

The results:
I added the chocolate sauce, but it was too sweet for us. I think coco powder would be a better alternative. The mouth-feel is a bit icy due to not using a machine, and I think I could have whipped the cream a little bit more stiffly, but frankly, it's delicious! A great way to control what you are eating... if you can control yourself from eating it all!

I did buy a can of sweetened condensed milk before finding this recipe to make your own... a little bit of work, but worth it to skip the BPA laden canned stuff.

High-Cal Food Chronicles: Scrambled Eggs

Scrambled eggs are one of the easiest foods to doctor. They taste better once you add all the cream, cheese, etc... and you can add healthy stuff without making them gross!

I've been making Joseph's morning egg this week using:

1 farm's market pastured egg, lightly beaten
1 T organic heavy cream
1 oz organic white colby cheese
1 oz organic frozen chopped spinach

I put all of this in a microwave safe dish (I use a big ramekin), cover it up with little plate (no plastic in the microwave, please!) and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Stir, put it in another 30 seconds, stir, and one more 30 second shot. Fluffy, yummy, cheesy goodness.

Of course, half the time he doesn't want it. The kid is such a finicky eater! But I got my quarterly reassurance by checking out kellymom.com's page on toddler feeding. She made a great point:

"All you need to do is to continue to offer foods. Don't worry if he's not interested or takes very small amounts. Your only true responsibility is what you offer, when you offer it and how you offer it, not whether or not he eats it. That has to be up to him. Trying to force, coax, or cajole your child into eating is never recommended. Continue to nurse on demand, day and night, and trust your child to increase the solids when he's ready. As baby slowly moves into eating more solids, your milk will fill any nutritional gaps nicely."

High-Cal Food Chronicles: Mac'n'Cheese

In an effort to get more fat and calories into Joseph's diet (while still being healthy) I whipped up the following (inspired by my friend Sara):

1 box Whole Foods 365 Organic Mac'n'Cheese
2 oz organic white colby (just some left over I had)
1/4 c heavy cream
3 T butter
1 c cooked peas
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into steak-fry sized pieces
1 chicken sausage, diced small

put potato in water and bring to boil. Add pasta and cook until tender. Fish out the pieces of sweet potato (that's why you make them long) and mash them. Drain the pasta and add the cream, cheese, butter, and potato. Stir well. Fold in sausage and peas. Try not to eat it - it's yummy but will probably make mama fat.

I put the leftovers in a muffin tin to freeze and save for later meals. Joseph really liked it!