Roasted Vegetables

What I like about living and traveling abroad is, assuming you are food-adventurous, is that you get to discover new dishes, new ingredients, new use for ingredients you have been used to eating one way (and one way only) while in your home country (gratin de choux fleur anyone?) Granted, the US is not notable for its food in general... but if you live there long enough you come to appreciate some of their culinary heritage (and ignore the rest!) Among the dishes I have come to embrace after living here for so long, is the way Americans cook their vegetables. Either they cook them aldente : for my French readers, think of cooked but crunchy (as opposed to overcooked) green beans or brocoli for instance. Or they eat them roasted with olive oil and fresh herbs (when available).
 I just think that there is nothing better than a side dish (or a whole dish) of roasted vegetables. And (and that should tell you something), even my meat-lover husband has been heard to say "c'est super bon les légumes cuisinés comme cela!!!) Mais attention: "roasted" not "grilled' (I like grilled vegetables but they definitively taste different than roasted ones...)
Despite a warmer-than-average winter and a mid-March-Summer, when it comes to in-season vegetables, I had to come up with many ways to cook roots vegetables if I wanted to make sure we were eating fresh vegetables every day. That's when rosting them came into play...  I found it easy to make (easier if you get some help pealing the veggies!!) , easy to re-heat (while not optimal, I have done it a few times to put in the kids lunchboxes) and healthy. I also found that if I could add a few potatoes among the turnips, parnsnips, rutabaga, or other funny-tasting vegetables, my childen were not complaining as much as if I left the potatoes out. Especially if I was serving a soupe de legumes... if I were adding a few roasted vegetables on top, there were hardly any complaints... So yes, I am proud to say that I have fully adopted the American way of roasting vegetables. And I am sure I convince some of you to give up your overcooked veggies! Your turn to try? Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:
- Vegetables
- Olive oil
- Fresh herbs (I like thyme or rosemary best)
- Salt, pepper
- Garlic cloves (optional)
- Shallots (optional)

• In a roasting pan, put the vegetables (cut in small pieces or strips), add a little bit of olive oil (enough to coat them nicely), salt and pepper
• Roast in the oven at 400F (200 C) for about 20mns (depending on the veggies) and stirring frequently

Spinach and Chickpeas Soup - Soupe aux epinards et pois chiche

The other day my daughter noted that "on mange beaucoup de soupe" (we a eat a lot of soup..).. Yes. Like it or not. Un peu ou pas trop.This is what happens in our family in the Fall-Winter time (and a little bit before and after that!). It's healthy, it's fast, it's a nice way to feed children plenty of vegetables at once...  so soupe au menu chez nous!! And not just for dinner (I think that I bring soup in my own lunch box about 3 days a week and if I go out, I will first look at the soups!)
I just promised to try to go beyond my usual soupe au cresson, Chinese Soup or just plain soupe de légumes when I have plenty of vegetables left with no inspiration time to make something else...
This spinach and chickpeas soup adapted from Mark Bittman has become one of our favorites and I have been serving it about twice a month (spreading it for a few meals, that is...). My children call it "la soupe verte" as opposed to "la soupe orange" (the Carrots/Sweet Potatoes Curried Soup, which by the way has been very much appreciated among a lot of my friends, relatives and other guests so try it if you have not already!!).  Orange is a sure deal (ie, no "encore de la soupe!!!).. verte is also good because they know that they'll get to eat some raisins and pine nuts with it.  That makes it fun for them and together with a fresh/toasted piece of bread and they are happily fed!
I have yet to work on having them like some of the other soups I made (cauliflower velouté, red lentils soupe, soupe a l'oignon, etc. ) but that never qualified for a "elle est bonne ta soupe, maman!!" And since soup season is far from being over in our family, I have a few more weeks to improve or to improvise! I bought a bag of yellow split peas at the Indian store the other day... that might be part of the next soup chez nous! Who knows it might well become "la soupe jaune"!! Any good colorful recipe/idea to share when it comes to soupe? Bon appétit!

Ingredients
-  1 or two garlic cloves
-  1 small onion, chopped
-  About 3 cups of cooked chickpeas (canned are fine); plus a few to garnish
-  1 pound of spinach (frozen is fine)
-  1 carrot (optional)
-  olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
-  Golden raisins and pine nuts to garnish

• In a large pot, saute the garlic and onion in olive oil
• Add the chickpeas, spinach and carrot and cover with water (about 1 liter or 4 cups)
• Cook until the spinach are fully cooked
• Using an immersion blender, puree; add water if you feel that it's too thick.
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• Serve with raisins, pine nuts and a few chickpeas.

My comments

• I have added curry powder to spice it up a little bit

Squid with Saffron Rice - Riz Safrané aux Calamars

Afriend of mine who lives in Italy gave me an Italian cooking book as a wedding present (that's almost 11 years ago!!!) Flipping through the pages recently in search for new ideas, I realized how little I knew about authentic Italian cuisine beyond the not-so-Italian dishes that are served here (or in France). It led me to wonder about Spanish food.  When it comes to Spanish cuisine, I was even more ignorant beyond the tapas, churrios, paella and jamon iberico.... . Strange in a way when you realize that Italy and Spain border France but despite this geographic proximity developed very different cuisines.
One of the spices I wrongly-I-suppose (90% of the world production apparently comes from Iran although in the US, I was surprised to learn that it is still produced in the Dutch Lancaster county (about 2hrs away from Philadephia)) associate with Spain is saffron. My mother used to have tiny tiny red boxes of saffron when we were kids and I remember loving to play with them...(as part of my love to reorganize the spices box!!) but I never realized the value of these boxes until as adult I had to face the shocking price of saffron. Tiny treasure boxes as saffron is indeed one of the most (if not the most) expensive spice in the world!

I generally cook saffron with seafood and rice (like we do in the South of France in the fish-soup Bouillabaisse) and since I have been trying to serve different seafood to my family recently, I thought that it would be a great idea to use squid instead of white fish in this dish.
I served it to my family the other day and my husband compared it to a Spanish paella (which he enjoys more than a risotto) explaining to our children what paella is really about, where it is eaten, what saffron is about, etc.. Yet the kids were more intrigued by the squid (I had asked to have tentacles as well as the head!!) which led us to talk about these little sea creatures too!!
To be honnest, this dish has nothing to do with a paella (no chicken, no shrimp, no mussels, no tomatoes) but yet again, there must be a few different paella recipes in Spain! So why not? All that I know is that we all loved it and I know that I can now put it on the list of dishes that I know will score high with my family. So if you can afford it, purchase a little bit of saffron and try it out. You won't be financially richer but you will be culinary-wise...a little bit of Spain in your home. Because no matter how long I live in Philadelphia, I will have a hard time associating Saffron with the nearby Dutch county! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:
- 1 pound squid cleaned and cut into pieces
- White rice (about a cup)
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
- a few stigma of saffron
- a cup of dry white wine (optional)
- 1 cup of green frozen peas
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil for sauteeing

• In a large pan, saute the onion, garlic and bell pepper in olive oil
• Add the rice and saute it until fully coated with olive oil
• Add 1 cup of white wine and two cups of water
• Add the saffron
• Bring to a boil and then simmer until rice is fully cooked, stirring often and adding extra liquid if needed.
• Just before serving, add the frozen peas

My Comments

• There are definitively different grade/quality of Saffron. I purchase the small Spanish Saffron from Trader Joe's. It might not be the best Saffron ever but it suits my needs and budget.
• If you like risotto-like dishes, you could use Arborio (short grain) rice. I would not use brown rice in this dish since the squid are already a little bit chewy....

What's in your double-shot-caramel Latte?

No matter how many years I have lived in the US, one thing I still don't master are the choices of coffee-drinks that Starbucks, and to a lesser extent other coffee shops, have to offer. You could write a whole decision tree to order the simplest drink like a Latte: 1) Choose your size: tall, grande, venti (why "tall" means "small" still does not make sense to me!!) 2) Choose the level of cafeine you want (single, double, decaf, caf, tea) 3) Choose the milk you want (non fat, lowfat, whole, soy) 4) Choose any other customization (with syrup, with extra foam, etc...)...!!!

I admit that I do go to Starbucks (I even have the app to pay on my iPhone - pathetic??).  I'd rather go to an independent-better-tasting coffee place but I have to say that for the sake of convenience, it's easier for me to go to the Starbucks underneath my work building. AND also, truth is that the people at the Starbucks I go to ARE so nice (well trained?) that they know me by  name (yes, I know, it's maybe because I go TOO often!!)... but hey, they are also among the few people who can spell my first name correctly, "trema" included(!!)... and I can't state it otherwise, it's a really nice way to start a work day!! 

That said, no matter how often I go (a few times a week), I still can't understand half of the orders people place. It actually amuses me to realize that no matter how many choices the menu already offers, people manage to get yet another alternative that's NOT on the menu. Unbelievable!! 

I remember reading a NY Times financial article regarding how people, especially College graduates, would be better off financially if they were to bring their own cup of coffee (or drink the one offered at work) instead of spending $$ it at a Starbucks-or-the-likes. Yet, as another financial advisor would comment, you have to treat yourself with something but that's IF and only IF you manage to save in the first place...   

Beyond the price (you pay more for a Grande Latte than for a gallon of organic milk!!), as explained in this Daily Mail article, what people should really pay attention to are the calories they indulge on when they order a Venti Caramel Brule Latte (460 calories with whole milk) or worse, the Eggnog Latte (620 calories in its largest serving with whole milk)! Imagine: more than a hamburger??? And that's not counting the calories of any food ordered with the drink!! 

That's why, when I go, I stick to my regular coffee drinks (nonfat decaf Latte or decaf Soy Latte depending on the days if you care to know) because sitting in an office all day won't make me burn the extra load of calories of the new drinks Starbucks is launching. And besides, I am not big on sugar anyway so every syrup, no matter how "skinny", taste too sweet to me!  And the few times I take my children, I make sure to order one hot chocolate (no whipped cream) and ask for it to be divided in two cups (not on the menu but they'll do it if you ask!) It has worked well for us because what I realize is what my kids really enjoy is to drink out of the cup and lid and to carry their drink outside! That makes them feel like grown-ups! Funny, isn't it? As usual, read the label and enjoy with moderation!

Yesterday With My Children We Made ..."Petites Saucisses en pâte feuilletée"

Our children had two weeks off over the Holidays and since I only had one week, that whole week was about spending good quality time with them. When school is on, I see my children but I don't have enough time to spend playing with them, except for the word games we play while they eat dinner. I do read them stories but I don't have the time to sit down and play a card game for instance, except maybe on the week-end.

So during our week off together, we played. Everyday. I took them out in the morning but after their afternoon nap, we decided to stay home and relax. And play. Le Père Noël had been kind enough to bring new games (Qwirkle, Four-square,  Uno, in addition to legos & playmobils), so we were ready to play them and have fun. It was really enjoyable...

One of the things we also did together was to cook. BUT since it was also MY vacations, I made sure that everything I cooked was fast-and-easy (with the exception of Christmas Lunch maybe!!).

One of the things my children love to eat are those little snack sausages. To make it fun, I thaw puff pastry and cut it in rubans which they roll around the sausages. We dip the sausages in mustard before so as to make them a little bit more spicy. It's easy. It's messy (YES!). It's fun, quoi! It's really enjoyable to see them master the different tasks (the little drop of water to close the dough at the top!) and love to make them. I feel that at least, they know that they can have fun in the kitchen... 

My goal for 2012 (I don't have resolutions; too hard to keep!!) : to make time for them in the kitchen because I know they enjoy being des petits marmitons. Even if it's just to mix the granola as we make it... or to help me shape the baguettes in funny shapes. This is priceless... and on top of that you can make sure that they'll develop an interest in food and therefore become better eaters. So don't wait, have fun with your kids in the kitchen. Bonne Année!!

Ingredients:
- 1 pack of snack sausages
- 1 sheet of frozen puff pastry dough- thawed
- Wholegrain mustard (or other mustard)
- a little bit of water

• Preheat oven to 400F (200 C)
• Cook the sausages according to instruction, dry them in paper towel
• Spread the dough and cut it into lengthy rectangular pieces. Ideally you should make nice triangles, but that's too time consuming!
• Dip the sausage in the mustard bowl then wrap it into a piece of dough. Place it on a baking sheet (parchmin paper or Silpat)
• Bake in the oven for about 20 mn or until golden.

Mango Salsa

My daughter is in First Grade and she is enjoying learning how to read and write. It's fun to see her being so happy to read a full sentence... and even more proud to be able to write new words. One of the games we have been playing these last few days is the "MENU GAME". She comes with her ardoise magique and asks me for the menu for the next meal. Then she gets down to the task of writing it down so that she can read it before we start our meal. This game is hard for a 6-year-old just discovering sounds. Why do "haricots" take a silent "h"? Why do French people spell onions : "oignons"? "Yaourts"? "Fruits"? This is tough! At least, since we eat a lot of veggies and most days, my children have yaourt and fruits for dessert, she gets to write it over and over again. It gets more difficult with the main dish as I try to diversify the menu and include international ingredients in our diet (curcuma anyone?)
Although she goes to a bilingual school, we have been playing this game in French only. English spelling is tough for French native speakers ("sprouts, eggplant, grapes, grapefruit, pineapple"?)... so we'll wait for a few months once the whole French potager is spelled correctly;)
Until then, here is a nice little exercise: easy for the adults who prep the food, relatively easy for the kids who want to spell (in English)... and very easy for everybody to eat with chips for an apéritif or as a side dish to fish. For those of you who want to be able to spell the French Potager by the end of the year, I wrote the ingredients in French as well. Bon Appétit!

Ingrédients:
- 1 mangue (1 mango)
- 1/2 oignon rouge (1/2 red onion)
- 1/2 concombre (1/2 cucumber)
- 1 bouquet de coriandre (a bunch of cilantro)
- Piment Rouge (Red pepper flakes)
- 1 citron vert (one lime)
- Sel (salt)

• Cut the mango and cucumber in small dices
• Slice the red onion very very thin
• Cissor some cilantro (as much as you like)
• Season with lime juice, salt and red pepper flakes.

The French love their MacDo! Si, si, hélas!

We just came back from having Phở  (a Vietnamese soup with meat/seafood (but when seafood, then it's not called a Phở)) for lunch and as we were slurping through our rice noodles and broth, we realized that it was cheaper (and healthier !) to have a large bowl of Pho (served with bean sprouts, Thai basil, onions, chilis, etc) than having a Cheeseburger & Fries at a local MacDo. 

That reminded me about a post I read a few days ago. Although it is in French and most of you might not understand it (sorry), I thought it was worse sharing with you. The first picture (above) shows the density of MacDo in the US. The second one (right) is the same but for France. Worse to read (at least to me) is that there are actually more MacDo restaurants in France than in the US (1,77 fast-food restaurants per 1 000 km² in France, against 1,3 in the US). Sure enough, the US being so much bigger than France (Texas alone is 1 1/4 times bigger than France), as the first picture showed, there are places in the West of the US where density is scarce. It would have therefore been more accurate to compare a part of the US that would look more like France as a whole... Anyhow, that does not explain why the Pays de la Gastronomie loves their hamburgers so much!  

And yet, a few years ago, as France was embracing a national-wide awareness campaign about bad eating habits, MacDo, that was pointed at, launched their own campaign. The basic message was that Eating at MacDo once a week was OK. I thought it was really clever because they were targeting two populations 1) The people who come often : for them they were warning them that it would be best for them not to come more than once a week 2) The people who never go to MacDo, hinting at them that they could come to MacDo once a week and be OK...   You could also understand it this way:  the food you eat at MacDo is not bad, it's your eating habits that might be!!   Sure enough the Menu is slightly healthier in a French MacDo than in an American one (they even sell Organic fruit juices or Organic yogurts!!)... and sure enough, going there once a week assuming that all other meals are healthy and that the person exercises regularly (!!!), it would not be la fin du monde.. And yes, for most people, it's an affordable lunch-or-dining option, which, on top of that, is extremely children-friendly!!

That's not enough to make me go though (our lunch experience today with two young kids was just as pleasant!)... I just wished there were more places to get a Phở instead! Bon Appétit!

Pumpkin Flan au Caramel

A few years ago, together with P., the father  of one of my daughter's classmate, we went to the French school headmistress to offer to start a real cafetaria. A cantine à  la francaise like the ones that are so highly praised in some US newspapers... and that a lot of very high-rank people refer to in the US when trying to solve the US school meal plan disaster! See, P. was an executive chef with lots of experience in  excellent multiple meals cooking, with all the network to source the best local produces and with running a kitchen from a beancounter standpoint! He had time to devote to this project and since I was also looking for something to keep myself busy while my two kids were in school, I was ready to help. We went with a full one-month menu that would have watered anybody's mouth....but long story short, this project did not go through. To the detriment of our children. To the detriment of the reputation of the school as well but there were reasons beyond our control. Tant pis. C'est la vie!
And to this day, I do know that the children were the ones really loosing out, mine included since they only get in their lunchbox what I cook!! Why? Because we have been invited to P.'s place a few times and every time, we had a great meal. Last time we had him and his family over, he brought exquisite Pumpkin Flan au caramel. To die for (and coming from me who does not crave sweets, this says a lot). I asked him for his recipe, which he gave me with proportions for 24 servings!!! ... After a few maths calculations (argh...why did I wrongly assumed that professional cooks in the US used the metric system???), came up with enough to make for my family and neighbor. Since I had only glanced through the recipe, I had wrongly assumed that the canned pumpkin had to be the "PIE" type... but nobody complained that it was too sweet (that's a foreign concept for my husband!!)....  It was, admitely, excellent and something great to serve in the Fall in the US to go beyond the traditional pumpkin pie!
I am so thankful that P. was willing to share his recipe. I can't wait to have another dinner at his place (or a potluck party at ours!!). At least, we know that we are not missing out!
Bon Appetit!

Ingredients (For 24 servings, you do the maths!)
- 6 cups sugar, granulated
- 4 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 3 cups whole milk
- 15 eggs
- 3 egg yolks
- 45 ounces pumpkin, canned solid (not pie)
- 3 tsp pure Vanilla
- 4 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp ground ginger
- 3/4 tsp nutmeg
- 3/4 tsp salt

Caramel:
Cook 3 cups of sugar in a dry 2-quart saucepan over moderate heat, undisturbed (!!), until it begins to melt, stirring occasionally with a fork (!!) until sugar melts into a deep golden caramel. Pour caramel into foil cups tilting to cover bottom and side

Flan
1) Bring cream and milk to a bare simmer in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, then remove from heat. Whisk together whole eggs, yolk, and remaining sugar in a large bowk until combined well, then whisk in pumpkin, vanilla, spices, and salt until combined well. Add hot cream mixture in a slow stream, whisking.
2) Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, scraping with a rubber spatula to force through, and stir to combine well. Pour custard over caramel into dish, then bake in a water bath until flan is golden brown on top and a knife inserted in center comes out clean about 1 1/4 hour.
3) Remove from the oven and place in the blast chiller until 40 degrees F. or less.

My Personal Comments

• I did not have foil cups so I used my small ramequins. Truth is that it would be easier (and prettier) to unmold if in foil cups. If you don't have foil cups, bring a little bit of water to a boil in a large saucepan and let the ramequins sit for a few minutes to melt the caramel before unmolding.
• No blast chiller in our house!! I just put the flans in the fridge once they were cold; if you live in a cold area, just let them cool fast outside before putting them in the fridge.
• I used pumpkin pie canned... and it was really good too
• I used almond milk too to lower the fat content and it turned out great too. 

Tuna and Salmon Ceviche

Until sushis became widely popular, it was really rare to eat raw fish in France. Except for their steak tartare or fresh oysters, French people don't really eat raw proteins. Sure, you'll always find one person who likes to gobble one fresh raw egg (aka gober un oeuf) but even if I can eat pretty much anything and I LOVE soft-boiled eggs, I can't gober un oeuf. Beurk...
The first time I ate ceviche was while traveling in South America (that's where it's originally from in case you did not know). My husband having lived in South America as a child enjoyed ceviche so we ordered shrimp ceviche one evening in Chile. Shrimp or fish is generally marinated in lime which "cook" them so you never have that feeling of eating raw shrimp/fish like you would if you had sashimi in a Japanese restaurant.
Like most recipes, every country in South America (at least the coastal ones with the exception of Argentina where fish is not mainstream at all),  has its own ceviche recipes. Back when we lived in Ithaca we were invited for dinner to our Ecuatorian friends' house (she really is from Argentina but being married to an Ecuatorian she had gotten used to eating ceviche, the Ecuatorian way that is). And for us who expected a raw-lime marinated-type of dish, we were really surprised to be served a shrimp soup  that had been cooked in a ketchup-based sauce topped with popcorns!! It was nonetheless very good but as you can expect, my husband who has very specific narrow ideas of what a ceviche should taste like, was disappointed! Not that he did not enjoy the dish (he liked it a lot) but this was not the ceviche he was expecting. And when it comes to food, expectations (especially the ones referring to one's mother's cooking) can be extremely dangerous! (My advice: never-ever dare trying to serve a dish that has been served to your spouse by his mother while growing up! No matter how good your recipe is, his expectations will kill your dish! The only solution, call it something totally different!!!)

Here is my brother's tuna-and-salmon ceviche recipe. He made is for us back in August (and yes, my husband liked it despite the fresh ginger and soy sauce ; his expecations were different since no shrimp were served!)  I made it again last weekend when we had a nice day that gave us a Summer day in October. It's definitively not a recipe I'll cook in the middle of cold weather... but something to keep in mind for next Summer, unless you live in the Southern hemisphere or in a climate where it feels like Summer everyday! Lucky you! Bon Appetit!

Ingredients:
- 1 pound of ahi tuna
- 1 pound of fresh salmon skin off
- fresh ginger : the quantity depends on your taste: I tend to like it a lot so I use a lot ; I grate about 1 inch.
- soy sauce to taste
- green onion (2) chopped
- 1 small red bell pepper, diced
- a few capers (optional)
- one mango
- 4 limes, juiced

• Prepare the marinade: mix the pepper, together with the mango, green onion, capers. Mix in lime juice, fresh ginger and soy sauce. 
• Cut the salmon and tuna in tiny cubes.
• Pour the marinade on the fish and put in the fridge for 30 minutes. The longer you'll marinate the fish, the more "cooked" it will be.

My Personal Comments

• If you are planning on serving it to kids (or adults who can't chew on fresh ginger), dice the ginger instead of grating it and remove the ginger pieces before serving.
• You could replace the pepper with a cucumber (if easer to digest). The idea of the pepper is to add "crunchyness" to the dish.

Scale it (up or down) but scale it, please!

My brother and his family were visiting over the Summer and one of the questions he asked us was if, after so many years in the US, there were still things that shocked/surprised us... or whether we were so used to our environment that we did not even pay attention anymore.
We got use to the big cars, gallons of milk,  having pharmacies that look more like a supermarket than a pharmacy, people eating all the time.... but here are the answers I gave him:
1) The status of the infrastructure. We live in the wealthiest country in the world... and yet when I look at the status of the bridges, when I zigzag through the Center City streets to avoid foot-deep potholes, when I see all those shredded tires on the highways, I am still shocked.
2) The ramping obesity of the population, especially among young adults and children...
3) Everybody seems to have a lawyer (and a therapist?)... to the point that part of our life is defined by what I call the "fear-of-lawsuit", which in some way limits creativity, spontaneity and research.
4) The fact that millions of Americans still lack proper access to healthcare.
5) The fact that some streets in the suburb don't have a sidewalk for people to walk on...
6) On a more funny, albeit tricky, note, the fact that it's the only country that does not use the metric system (except in scientific settings). Think about it, even the Canadians and the Australians have adopted part of it... After so many years in the US, I still can't picture out a set amount of square feet, or worse, cubic feet. The first time I sat foot on a scale in the US, I had a 1/10th of second of scare because all of a sudden I felt really heavy!!
This system is so unpractical that bypass tools were invented to simplify it: nobody knows what size a queen/king size bed is in inches and very few people know how much a cup of flour weighs... The only time Americans use (most of them without realizing it) the metric system is when they go skying. "180 skis" actually mean that the skis are 1.80m tall...

All that to say that I was REALLY happy to read an article about digital scales in the New York times the other day (disclosure: the picture of the scale on this post comes from the article)...
While I would not be able to comment on the different brands displayed in the article, the additional comment I will make is that I love to have my children use our cooking scale and start experimenting with weighing different things (I don't like it that much when everything they weigh end up on the floor!!)  For bigger kids (and adults!!) it's obviously great for calculus... So don't be intimidated; you'll see that, like with most things in life, you'll get used to it. "Most things".. I am not sure I'll be able to still get used to all my points above!
Scale it! If not for you, do it for your children...