Dinnertime

What I Made for Dinner: December 12, 2011

2011-12-12T23:10:00.000-06:00

Clam chowder.

I was trying to copy some delicious clam chowder Alex had at Bluezoo at the Dolphin resort at Disney World. We went to Orlando last week for a theme park extravaganza. Extravaganza! Hoo boy.

Theme parks, they are not my thing. I know many people adore them, and certainly there is much to adore. I can appreciate Disney's charms, but given my druthers I would never ever go there. I would go anywhere without insane crowds and price-gouging and rides that simulate near-death experiences. But where are my druthers, anyway? I haven't been able to find them since I had three kids.

So. Orlando.


With the family. Everything looks dark next to Cinderella's Castle. Everything in the whole world.

There's an awful lot there; we saw the main Disney parks and the Universal park. Disney, of course, is gargantuan and thrilling, with marvels around every bend. It takes at least three days to do it justice; four days would be better.

Universal-Not-Disney-Islands-of-Whatever, as far as I'm concerned, is all about Harry Potter World.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter beautifully realizes parts of the books and films. It's a must for Potter fans, and certain of us at Chez Dinnertime are Potter-obsessed. The Harry Potter World is good for a solid three to four hours of fun. Universal does offer much more than the Harry Potter part, mainly thrill rides and carnival games. The kids had fun there, but from what I could tell it's basically Worlds of Fun, on crack, with better character licensing.


My niece and nephew were there too. Importantly, not one of those children is actually permitted to watch The Simpsons.

The children were delighted to be in either park. Every part of those parks made them unhinged with joy. They goaded each other onto scary rides and congratulated each other on surviving. The big ones encouraged the little ones. The little ones gave the big ones an excuse to meet Goofy. Disney knows how to make sure kids are happy. They enjoyed several days of wild enthusiasm, and that right there was worth the trip.

Here are the main things to know about the Orlando parks, both the Disney and the Not-Disney:

You should expect to just bring all your money and leave it there. All of it. Resistance is useless. You will want to buy your kid a hat and a shirt and a wand and a character set and a sword and a key chain and a glowstick and sunglasses and a jacket and a stuffed animal. In the moment, those purchases will seem necessary and prudent. Yes yes yes, we do not want to raise spoiled, entitled children, and as parents it is part of our sacred duty to set limits. I would submit that once you have set foot in one of these parks, that ship has sailed. Teach restraint and solid Puritan work ethic some other time.
You should be prepared to walk a half-marathon every day you're in a park. It would be only about five miles, but you must do a lot of zig-zagging to avoid people on mobility scooters, doing a solid fifteen miles an hour and heading right for you.
With very few exceptions, you should not eat any meals inside the park. Snacks, sure, who can help it? Ice cream, just delightful. Candy, especially, is first-rate. Harry Potter World has a Honeydukes that just about lives up to its legend. But life is simply too short to eat an entire meal there. (Notably, the Disney parks have a couple of high-quality places to eat. The restaurants in the World Showcase part of Epcot, while pricey, offer delicious food. And we had an excellent lunch at the Tusker House buffet at the Animal Kingdom park.)


You and thirteen of your closest friends can meet Mickey Mouse at the Tusker House and then write a rhyme about it.

For meals, the hotel restaurants are the name of the game. We had excellent meals--really, really good food--at every resort restaurant we tried. We ate at Waves (at the Contemporary Resort); 'Ohana (at the Polynesian); Il Mulino and Kimono (at the Swan); and Bluezoo (at the Dolphin), where Alex got that clam chowder. It came in a bowl bigger than his head.

We took small children out for fine dining, including upscale sushi, and it worked out fine. The restaurants at the Disney resorts have nice kids' menus and may offer half-portions of regular food.

Anyhow, we made it back in one piece. And when I went grocery shopping, what hey, Costco had clams! So I thought I'd try it. It was pretty good for a first attempt, but it was no Bluezoo.

What I Made for Dinner: November 22, 2011

2011-11-22T19:12:00.001-06:00

Baked rigatoni.

This baked rigatoni wasn't for our dinner; it was for some friends whose young son is gravely ill. I made the same thing a couple of weeks ago for different friends under similar circumstances.

Bringing food. Huh. It's a nice tradition; I do it a lot. It seems completely inadequate right now.

As a lawyer, I'm trained to figure out a way to solve problems. I am an extremely pushy, anal-retentive, overfunctioning lawyer-mom. I am not good with situations where there is nothing to do but hope for the best. Right now, there is nothing much else to do. That is unacceptable to me.

So what else is there? Well, at least my friends could have a nice meal. Maybe it would make them feel a little better, and maybe they'd be a little more well-nourished, and maybe that would give them just a little more strength to cope with the unimaginable.

Baked Rigatoni (serves about 6)

32-ounce can crushed tomatoes
4 Tbsp olive oil
one bunch each fresh basil and oregano
kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
1 pound rigatoni
1 pound bulk sweet Italian sausage (optional; for veggie rigatoni, omit the sausage)
3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup grated parmesan cheese or Italian 5-cheese blend
1 sweet onion, diced
1 cup carrots, diced
1 sweet bell pepper, diced (optional)
2 cloves garlic, minced (more or less to taste)
2 Tablespoons flour
3/4 cup milk (low-fat works fine)

Note: This recipe can be frozen before baking. When baking, preheat oven to 375.

1. Make the sauce. In a pot, combine the crushed tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, the salt and pepper, and the fresh herbs. Cover and simmer while you prepare the rest of the dish.

2. Meanwhile, boil water for the pasta. Cook the rigatoni until just short of al dente, about six minutes. Drain and set aside.

3. While the pasta is boiling, heat the remaining olive oil in a large, deep pan. If using sausage, brown it until it's cooked through, remove from the skillet and set aside. In the same pan over medium-high heat, saute the onion, carrots, garlic, and bell pepper (if using) until the vegetables are very soft.

4. When the vegetables are very soft, sprinkle the flour over them in the pan. Saute, stirring constantly, until the flour is light brown and begins to smell a little nutty. Add the milk and boil, stirring, until it is very thick.

5. Remove the tomato sauce from the heat; remove the herbs and discard. Add the tomato sauce to the vegetable mixture in the pan. Add two cups of the shredded mozzarella and stir until combined.

6. Assemble the final dish: In a large bowl, combine the cooked rigatoni, sausage (if using), remaining mozzarella, and tomato mixture. Stir gently until evenly combined. Transfer to a 9-by-13 baking dish and sprinkle with the grated parmesan. Bake for 30 minutes covered with aluminum foil, then remove foil and bake for about 15 minutes more, until the cheese has started to brown.

What I Made for Dinner: November 17, 2011

2011-11-18T09:59:00.001-06:00

Chicken pot pie.

Used the leftovers from Monday night. Delicious, comforting, and hearty. Alex says pot pie is his favorite dinner; I wish he had told me that before. I'll have to make it more often.

My mom and dad joined us for dinner and insisted on talking about Thanksgiving. We will host it, as usual, but my enthusiasm is just missing this year and I've been denying the need to plan the meal. I need some inspiration.

So: If anyone is reading, what's your favorite Thanksgiving recipe? What's your least favorite? What do you consider the most unusual food to make it onto your Thanksgiving table?

What I Made for Dinner: November 14, 2011

2011-11-14T20:31:00.001-06:00

Chicken with forty cloves of garlic.

This was so great. (It's just roast chicken on a bed of garlic cloves, really not complicated.) But would my three children eat it? Oh ho ho ho noooo. No they would not.

Josh is getting big. He is a ~~Tween~~ ~~Pre-Teen~~ whatever, he's eleven. He does not want to hang around the boring stupid house on a Monday night and eat boring stupid roast chicken. He got a better offer; he went to the school skating party to hang out with his friends and eat pizza.

Eli looked at the chicken and looked at me and raised his left eyebrow and took a drag on his cigarette and said, "You must be joking." I mean, no he didn't, because he is four. But he clearly would have if he were a thirty-seven-year-old British guy. So we gave him a hot dog and apples.

(I know you're not supposed to fix special meals for children who are difficult eaters. Be steadfast! Be resolute! I know. But the child's pants won't stay up. All his bones show. Resolute is easier said than done.)

Alex probably would have eaten the chicken, but he knew one brother was getting pizza and the other brother had a hot dog and, you know, forget it.

Well, it was delicious, anyway. The recipe is here, and worth a try.

What I've Been Doing: September 26, 2011-Now

2011-10-21T13:12:00.001-05:00

I've been cooking, but not writing. There's no excuse. Some highlights, with more to come soon:

I made Amanda Hesser's ginger duck and a couple of honey challahs for Rosh Hashana. We had a big meal with lots of lovely, interesting people and skipped religious services entirely. It was great.
I used the leftovers to make a fake duck pho. I winged it. Ha! (This is a recipe for a real duck pho, but who has all those ingredients on hand? Not me.)
Leftover challah really does make superior French toast or pain perdu or bread pudding or whatnot.
We went out for Yom Kippur break-fast, and I didn't fast anyway. I am having some Problems With Religion at the moment. I don't want to talk (or write) about it because it makes me sad.
When your herb garden continues to go berserker, you keep eating things with herbs. Fresh tomato sauce with basil and oregano; herbed potato and cheese frittata with dill and/or thyme; cauliflower risotto with fried sage leaves.
My brother-in-law sent a selection of fine California cheeses and my mom made a beautiful chicken parmigiana meal for my birthday. My sister wrote about it. I am getting so old, but yes, it does beat the alternative.
Eli has added scrambled eggs to his ridiculously short list of acceptable foodstuffs. All may not be lost with him, dietarily, but I'm trying hard not to get my hopes up.

So that's it for now. Will search for inspiration in the days ahead.

What I Made for Dinner: September 26, 2011

2011-09-26T21:59:00.000-05:00

Pasta with roasted tomato sauce and leftover pork chops; lettuce and tomato salad with vinaigrette.

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a terrific piece by Mark Bittman destroying the notion that fast food is cheaper than home cooking. It's funny, because just last week I was having a conversation with my mom about how food insecurity seems to intersect with a loss of ordinary cooking skills. If you don't know how to cook, then you can't stretch your food dollar. We discussed this while I made stock from the carcasses of two chickens she had roasted for us.

Now, we are not food-insecure at chez Dinnertime. We can afford all the groceries we want, and we have many choices of pleasant and clean markets at which to buy them, and for these privileges I am grateful all the time. I am thankful when I shop and again when I cook, which is almost every night.

Still, I am frugal. I have written before about how much my inner-Depression-era-housewife hates waste. In fact, one of my first posts was about making soup from asparagus stems. I plan our meals weekly so we don't buy too much. I have studied and admire Hillbilly Housewife's $45 emergency menu, though thankfully I've never had to try it. Importantly, I use leftovers.

One thing the New York Times article omitted is that when you cook at home, you sometimes get leftovers for another meal, reducing your food costs even more. Leftovers plus an open mind and a little skill can yield stocks, soups, tacos, pot pies, pasta dishes, quesadillas, pizza toppings, delightful sandwiches, and on and on as needed. But to use leftovers, the cook has to be creative, flexible, and not a snob. Food Network and foodie culture generally don't promote these characteristics, unfortunately. They are essential to the home cook.

Tonight's meal had three cheapo elements: pork chops left over from Thursday, roasted tomato sauce made from scratch, and homemade vinaigrette. We had only two boneless chops left over, but when sliced thin and tossed with the pasta, they made a perfectly hearty meal for four of us; we could have served a fifth person if he ever ate anything besides chocolate milk and air.

The recipe for the pork chops is here (and they were delicious). Here's the recipe for the roasted tomato sauce:

Six to eight Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise
One Tbsp. olive oil
One Tbsp. brown sugar
kosher salt to taste
1/2 cup red wine

One Tbsp. minced garlic
One Tbsp. capers
Two Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley, or about two tsp. dried
Two Tbsp. chopped fresh basil, or about two tsp. dried
*Note: The last five ingredients are optional; the roasted tomatoes will make a tasty sauce without them, or with only some of them, or with different amounts to taste. See, creative, flexible, not a snob: essential.

Preheat oven to 400. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and place tomatoes, cut side up, on the baking sheet. Sprinkle evenly with the oil, brown sugar, and salt. Roast 30-45 minutes until tomatoes have begun to render their juices and blacken in spots. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly. *At this point, if you aren't making sauce right away, the tomatoes and pan drippings can be transferred to a plastic container and frozen for future use.*

Transfer the tomatoes and their pan drippings to a blender or food processor and puree. Put the puree into a medium saucepan with the wine, garlic, capers, parsley, and basil. Simmer for about 20 minutes. Serve tossed with pasta (penne is good) and leftover pork chops, sliced thin. If necessary, thin the sauce with a little of the pasta cooking water before serving.

What I Made for Dinner: September 14, 2011

2011-09-14T20:04:00.003-05:00

Crock pot pulled pork with carrots and potatoes.

This is not the first dinner I have made in weeks, really. I promise. I have made many wholesome and well-balanced meals since school began and the Fall Insane Activities Schedule kicked in.

This one was nice because it only took about fifteen minutes to set up in the crock pot, and we get a twofer. There are enough meat leftovers for another meal, probably pork quesadillas, later on. I also appreciate the rebellion, no matter how petty, of getting home from Wednesday night Hebrew school and feeding everyone a nice hearty roast pork meal.

Crock pot pulled pork (serves 6)

2.5 pound pork shoulder (butt) roast
4 medium potatoes, cut into 2-inch wedges
8 ounces baby-cut carrots
one sweet onion, sliced thin
one Tbsp. minced garlic
1/2 cup red wine
one cup chicken broth
Large bunch of fresh thyme sprigs, or about two Tbsp. dried
kosher salt and black pepper, to taste

Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Season the pork roast with the salt and pepper, then brown the roast on all sides. Meanwhile, put the potatoes, carrots, and half of the chicken broth into the crock pot. When the pork roast is deep golden brown on all sides, remove it from the pan and into the crock pot on top of the vegetables.

Keeping the pan over medium-high heat, add the garlic and toast for about a minute, just until fragrant. To the hot pan, add the wine and the rest of the chicken broth; bring to a boil, scraping up any drippings stuck to the bottom. Boil for about five minutes, then pour into the crock pot. top with the thyme.

Cook at the crock pot's lowest setting for 8-10 hours. Before serving, remove the roast from the pot and shred the meat. Serve the meat with the gravy from the pot or with barbecue sauce.

What Happened to Josh at Camp: July 2011

2011-08-31T20:43:00.000-05:00

Edited October 29, 2011 to add a brief update: A couple of weeks ago, in mid-October, we learned about three other kids from our congregation who came back from GUCI extremely sick due to neglect by the infirmary staff. They were all at camp at the same time as Josh, under the care of the same camp nurse, and their stories are similar. Last week, we finally got a letter from the camp director. He says he's willing to come meet with us to discuss what happened. Hey, it's cool, it only took three months for him to respond.

It seems to me that what happened to Josh was likely part of a much larger problem at GUCI. I hope the director is willing to investigate fully and figure out how to make sure that kids are safe and well-cared-for at his camp in the future. They sure weren't last summer.

**************
This post is not about dinnertime. This post is about why I wouldn't send my children, or anyone else's children, or my now-deceased dog back to Goldman Union Camp in Zionsville, Indiana.
_______________________________________________

When a kid goes to camp, he expects to have a great time with his buddies away from his annoying and embarrassing family. That is really about it. And how hard is it for camp to fulfill every ten-to-fourteen-year-old's dream of shedding the Mom who insists on humming show tunes in the grocery store? That's the easiest thing in the world.

For the kid's parents, the expectations are higher. Camp courts the people who write the checks: "Camp's most important goal is insuring the safety and wellbeing [sic] of every camper." . . . building identity . . . self-esteem . . . Yadda yadda yadda. Camp's marketing materials promise your child a transformative experience in a secure environment. That mission--well, that's a pretty big undertaking. And if something goes wrong, at the very least, the absolute bottom, you would expect that the camp administration would work hard to make it right.

But oh when push comes to shove, as we discovered through unfortunate and alarming experience, the promises in the marketing materials mean not a thing. The camp director--a rabbi who, frankly, should know better-- and the administrative personnel he supervises will refuse to accept any ownership or responsibility if something should happen to go wrong. They won't be there for the kid or his family. They will be too busy covering their own asses.
__________________________________________________

Josh got sick at camp. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we heard from the infirmary staff that Josh was throwing up. We figured he had gotten some kind of stomach bug that he was having trouble shaking off because of various camp factors--heat, bad food, constant activity, little sleep.

But when we picked him up, it was obvious to us--and Josh's pediatrician later confirmed--that the puking had another cause. Josh was in the middle of a massive asthma attack, coughing so hard he was retching.

The camp nurse had lost his rescue inhaler. The infirmary had no record of ever giving him his rescue inhaler. It might have stopped the asthma crisis, maybe not. We'll never know. He never even had a chance to find out. He got sick at camp, and the camp staff let him stay sick and get sicker.

When we got him home, he was a mess. He needed antibiotics and nine days of Prednisone. Nine days! Our ten-year-old had 'roid rage. He also needed a thirty-minute nebulizer treatment every four hours, which meant he had to spend about two and a half hours of every day for two weeks sitting in a chair with a mask on his face. He wasn't allowed to go outside or exert himself or even talk loud, because that set off coughing fits.

We called and talked to the nurse and the assistant camp director, both of whom claimed we never sent Josh's rescue inhaler to camp. Then they found it, and claimed they never gave it to him because he never asked for it. Nice.

We wrote to the camp director with our concerns about what happened. In reply, we got a glib letter back not from the camp director, but from his boss. The letter claimed that whatever happened to Josh, it wasn't Goldman Union Camp's fault, and anyway maybe nothing at all happened to Josh.

The camp director has never spoken to us about this situation. He left me a voice mail about how he had been sick. Again, nice.

No one apologized to Josh. No one from camp ever said, "you know, this summer obviously did not go as it was supposed to for Josh, and for that we're sorry." No one acknowledged that they fell short of the promises in the camp brochure. No one even called to see how he was feeling.
_________________________________________________

(You'd think, maybe the camp nurse would call? Out of professional curiosity? Nope.) _________________________________________________

It has taken me a month to be able to write about this. It has been a difficult time. At first, Josh was terribly ill and we had to tend to him. Mostly, though, it has been tough to sort through my feelings (anger, disappointment, sorrow, more anger, grief, loss, betrayal, oh there's anger again, hey!) enough to tell the story coherently.

Possibly the worst part of all of this? Josh wants to go back to camp because of his great friends. And we cannot, as responsible parents, ever send him back to that camp. We might consider other camps, though. We are looking and thinking about it and hoping that what we encountered at GUCI is the rarest possible exception, and not the rule.

What I Made for Dinner: August 25, 2011

2011-08-25T21:35:00.000-05:00

Potato and asparagus frittata.

Chuck and I thought this was delicious. I mean really, really good for a weeknight dinner. Josh and Alex didn't want to eat it. Too much green, not enough pepper, at one point someone complained that the toast was too cold, who knows? Who cares?

In the middle of dinner, I made them read a newspaper article about food insecurity among children in our county. I am becoming a crotchety old lady (or a depression-era housewife) for real.

They stopped complaining but they still didn't eat it.

What I Made for Dinner: August 13, 2011

2011-08-13T23:04:00.002-05:00

Italian feast.

The boy is back from camp, school starts on Monday. A little end-of-summer celebration with family seemed like a fun thing to do. Here's the menu:

Antipasto platter: assorted cheeses, olives, fried sage leaves, prosciutto, salami, dates.
Fettuccine alfredo.
Penne with olive oil, raw tomatoes, and torn basil leaves.
Grilled chicken spedini with garlic-lemon sauce.
Salad of mixed lettuces, sweet onion, and tomatoes with vinaigrette.

Bonus: It's finally cool enough to sit outside in the evening! It was a lovely time.

What I Made for Dinner: August 8, 2011

2011-08-08T22:44:00.003-05:00

Hummus, pita, falafel, tabouli, and Greek salad.
Why did I make this Mediterranean feast from scratch on a Monday? I can't honestly answer, I cannot. But there I was at 9 a.m., making dough for fresh pita bread. Hmm.

It could be that, simply, this week is not last week. Because last week was a very poor showing of a week indeed. Maybe someday I will have the words to describe last week, but not right now. So. Last week of summer vacation for the kiddos and for me. A break in the heat wave. Why not?

What I Made for Dinner: July 28, 2011

2011-07-28T21:13:00.000-05:00

Arugula salad with tomatoes and olive tapenade dressing.

It's not as much fun to cook when my junior gourmand is away.

Josh has been sick at camp, which I know because the camp doctor keeps calling me. So I know how many times he has thrown up. Josh, I mean, not the doctor, although I suppose the doctor might be throwing up too because honestly? I doubt he would tell me that. The doctor says Josh is kind of sick but not really and there's no reason for us to come get him early. So why call me, then? Perhaps the doctor owns some investments in Pfizer Inc., maker of the fine product Xanax®.

(I am positive that's not the case. I know the doctor, a delightful older gentleman from, judging by his accent, Kentucky, is just keeping me informed. He does not mean to freak me out. He is taking better care of Josh than Josh would get at home. Puking at our house does not earn a child a trip to the doctor. It earns the child a day in bed with some Sprite and no food for six hours.)

So anyway, I've been making these simple little dinners because no one here really wants to eat much. BLTs, various salads, that kind of thing. But I am planning a little feast for our camper's triumphant and puke-free return.

What I Made for Dinner: July 18, 2011

2011-07-18T20:05:00.003-05:00

Crock pot jerk chicken with brown rice salad.

Last summer, when I started moaning about how it was too hot to cook, several friends and my mom gave me suggestions for tasty, light dinners that didn't require a lot of stove time. One of the best suggestions was to use the crock pot, which generates little heat and requires almost no fussing or attention.

I used a jarred Jamaican jerk sauce, diluted with a little orange juice, and didn't bother browning the boneless/skinless chicken breasts first--I just threw 'em in and turned on the crock pot. And then we went to the pool, where I floated with my toes dragging along the bottom like a hippo. When we got back, the delicious chicken was ready!

I served it with this cold rice salad and chunks of mango.

Brown rice salad (serves 8)

One 14-ounce box instant brown rice
One can black beans, rinsed and drained
3 sweet bell peppers, preferably mixed colors, diced
One jalapeno, seeds removed and diced
One bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
3 ears sweet corn, kernels removed
3 scallions, white and green parts, minced

Cook the rice according to package instructions; remove from the heat and let cool. While the rice is cooling, prepare and combine the other ingredients and make the dressing. When rice has fully cooled, add to the other ingredients and toss with dressing.

For the dressing:
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lime juice
2 tsp kosher salt
black pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and whisk.

What I Made for Dinner: July 16, 2011

2011-07-16T18:46:00.003-05:00

Sandwich wraps and apple slices.

It's too hot to cook and we just got back from vacation. I think I performed admirably under the circumstances.

What I Made for Dinner: July 8-10, 2011

2011-07-12T22:09:00.000-05:00

Spaghetti sauce; homemade pizzas; prime rib and mashed potatoes.

All of these dinners are Josh's favorites. He got to choose his last meals before going away.

Last meals. For the love of Pete, we didn't send him to prison. He's spending a month at the delightful summer camp where I made some of the happiest memories of my childhood. We dropped him off today. The place looks astonishingly unchanged since the last time I saw it, which was 1987. 1987, holy Meatballs.

(That was the year Fink beat The Stomach.)

Sending him to camp at every step of the way--the decision to do it, getting him ready for it, driving him there, leaving him there--has been, shall we say, fraught. I posted a long time ago about the expense, and how much it worried me--but some generous Jewish community grants helped with that, at least for this year. It's impossible to know if a kid is really emotionally ready to spend that long so far away from home. This kid has never spent the night at a friend's house and now he is three states away and he can't call home, even. But, we figured, some people need to just take the plunge.

Shopping with him, then packing his clothes into footlocker and duffel, I flashed back to my own summers at camp where I was constantly anxious about having the right clothes, the right goddamned Swatch. My experience won't be his experience, I know that, but still. There are ghosts. Ghosts of a teenage girl's adolescence are the worst fucking kind.

The drive to camp wasn't much fun. Everyone was on edge, the younger brothers finding inventive ways to harass everybody, Josh flying off the handle in predictable response, Chuck and I gritting and gritting and gritting our teeth (note: remember to make dental appointments) and only occasionally losing our shit, miraculously not at the same time.

We dropped him off today. At first he panicked about being the youngest or the oldest or whatever, I wasn't listening too closely but I reminded him that even though he's going into fifth grade he's old enough to be a very young sixth grader so he fits with both groups and that seemed to defuse whatever thermonuclear device was about to go off in his mind. We went to his cabin and unpacked while he met the other boys. All his stuff fit on two shelves. We hung up his nicer shirts. I reminded him where we put his socks. He was quick to say good-bye, dismissive even, which is how I hoped he would be. He wanted nothing less than a hug from his mother.

I have an inside source who told me he seems to be doing fine so far.

After dinner, we took Alex and Eli out for ice cream, and I looked at my watch and realized it was probably evening snack time at camp. I hope he got ice cream for evening snack.

And oh, sweet Lord, I hope he remembers where his pajamas are.

What I Made for Dinner: June 28, 2011

2011-06-29T19:48:00.001-05:00

Outdoor paella.

This is a project I've been wanting to do for a long time. During my semester abroad in Spain, a mapache's age ago, one of the best meals I had was a picnic where we made paella on an open fire. Now, of course, a million years later and in my suburban backyard, I am not allowed to have an open fire. But I do have the Weber

which is very nearly as good.

I have made paella on the stove top, but it is not as good as outdoor paella because there is no smoke and because the pan doesn't get hot enough to give the rice a burned crust on the bottom (the socarrat, a word I just know off the top of my head and was not required to Google). The Weber fixes both of those problems.

Here is how I did it. (Photos are by Josh! Didn't he do a nice job?)

Over extremely hot prepared coals, I heated olive oil in my paella pan, then added chicken breasts cut into two-inch pieces and some large-diced Spanish chorizo.

I browned the meat for a few minutes, then added a large sweet onion, minced. After the onion softened, I added garlic and a generous pinch of saffron that had been soaking in a little hot water, along with the water.

Then tomatoes and bell peppers went in.

All the while, I kept stirring. Cooking over the hot coals adds a bit of urgency to the operation. Things happen very fast. I was glad I thought ahead so that I had all my ingredients measured and ready to go before I started cooking, because there wouldn't have been time to run into the house.

After the tomatoes and peppers started to yield their juice a bit, in went the rice.

That's a generous bunch of herbs going in with the rice: fresh parsley, sage, and oregano, chopped.

I stirred everything to coat the rice, then added chicken broth, shook the pan a little to distribute things evenly, and then left it alone until the rice had absorbed the liquid. When the liquid was almost gone, so it looked like there was about three or five minutes left, I laid some shrimp on top.

Delicious!

Here I am, ~~trying not to burn~~ stirring paella, ever so much older and fatter than I was in Spain.

What I Made for Dinner: June 23, 2011

2011-06-23T20:27:00.000-05:00

Unbaked lasagna with asparagus and chives.

To my utter shock, the children actually ate this. It was, after all, delicious. Recipe is here.

What I Made for Dinner: June 21, 2011

2011-06-21T21:27:00.000-05:00

Crispy pan-fried rainbow trout.

I regrouped. My dad came over and fixed my literal hack job. The trout was delicious; I served it with savory matzo meal pancakes and a salad of savoy cabbage, almonds, and mandarin oranges.

What I Was Going to Make for Dinner: June 20, 2011

2011-06-20T18:35:00.000-05:00

Crispy fried trout and zucchini fritters.

Several weeks ago, my dad and Josh went on a fishing trip. They had Tremendous! Success! In that they actually caught some really gorgeous trout. Thus Josh, at ten, has already experienced more fishing success than either I or his father ever have or are ever likely to.

Tonight, I wanted to cook those gorgeous fish. But I don't really know how to fillet, and I am afraid--ashamed to admit--that I fucked one of them up beyond use. I am heartsick about it. I have been crying about it for a full hour, in fact.

I can't even talk about it anymore. Here's a picture of Josh's fine work before I got hold of it.

What I Made for Brunch: June 19, 2011

2011-06-19T13:06:00.000-05:00

Cheddar grits, potato and egg casserole, bacon, Belgian waffles with whipped cream and strawberries.

So yes, I will make a lovely breakfast for Fathers Day, but the fathers have to come to my house and get it. The cheddar grits were particularly nice and I think they'd be good for dinner some time.

Cheddar grits (adapted from Diana Rattray at Southern Food)

6 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill yellow grits (polenta)
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 eggs, well beaten
16 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon minced garlic

Bring water and salt to a rolling boil; gradually stir in grits with fork. Cook, stirring constantly, until all water is absorbed. Remove from heat and stir in butter a tablespoon at a time. Stir in the beaten eggs, working quickly and stirring constantly so eggs will not clump. Stir in the cheese and garlic. Put into a greased 2 1/2-quart casserole. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 to 20 minutes.

Serves 8.

What I Made for Dinner: June 5, 2011

2011-06-05T22:04:00.000-05:00

Herb-roasted salmon; penne with roasted tomatoes.

Right, then! That was awful, let's not have a month like that ever again. Back to more interesting topics: My herb garden.

It has gone, in a word, bananas. I can't explain it, really. It's been unseasonably hot. We water when we remember. Harsh conditions for young plants, but look:

gardening at night

See, unaccountably lush. So tonight, I roasted cherry tomatoes (store-bought, alas: not a homegrown tomato in sight yet) with oregano and basil until the tomatoes burst. I covered some gorgeous, wild whole salmon fillets in olive oil and a mix of chopped dill, thyme, and oregano; covered it lightly with foil to keep the herbs from scorching; and roasted it in a hot oven. It was delicious. So so nice to make dinner again. So civilized. (The children ate it, by the way.)

Herb-roasted salmon

Two pounds salmon fillets, preferably a wild Pacific variety (I used Copper River; Costco has so many surprises)
One tablespoon olive oil
Several bunches fresh herbs: I used thyme, oregano, and dill
One lemon, thinly sliced
Kosher salt and ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 450.

Line a baking tray with parchment paper and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Place the salmon fillets skin-side down on the paper and drizzle the olive oil over them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Roughly chop all the herbs and combine until you have about a half-cup of chopped herbs. Spread them evenly over the salmon, lightly pressing them into the flesh. place the lemon slices in a row on top of the fillets. Cover the fillets lightly with aluminum foil and roast for 20-25 minutes.

I Miss Making Dinner: May 23, 2011

2011-05-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

The month of May, my Hell Month, is almost over. Almost, almost. Still some big things to get through, but I'm almost there.

May is scattered and busy. I dislike scattered and busy. I want to be able to focus on just one or two things at a time but instead, May demands that I manage loads of work and loads of volunteer projects and the garden and birthdays and more work and trips out of town and the computer breaking down and the car breaking down and the yard and the kids' end-of-school activities and OH MY GOD PLEASE MAKE IT STOP but of course it does not stop.

May is expensive. Expensive makes me nervous. May is the month when it seems we hemorrhage money into the garden, the yard, things that need fixing all at once. Expensive computer repairs, car repairs, home repairs. Important gifts: Graduations, appreciations, weddings, babies. We are too busy to fix dinner so we get carry out. My inner Depression-era housewife is horrified.

May requires that I neglect things I hate to neglect. How long has it been since I made dinner? Or baked anything? The boys missed the last two weeks of religious school because, literally, no one was available to transport them to and from the synagogue. Working out is right out. The crazy circus balancing act that is May requires letting some things go, but I hate that.

May has ruined my head. Of course I got a cold. My nose keeps bleeding for no reason, I suppose just because it can. I haven't been able to hear properly since a plane trip a week and a half ago. At night, my brain functions like an Outlook calendar, pinging me with alerts and reminders. At two a.m. And three a.m. And four a.m. All in all, my head is entirely too high-maintenance. I would like a replacement head.

But: Light at the end of the tunnel! Last night I managed to fix a nice dinner, the first in weeks, to celebrate my dad's birthday. (Belatedly. Of course.) Chicken parmesan made with homemade tomato sauce, which came out beautifully. The herb garden is going gangbusters and oh boy do I have plans for all that goodness. Eli and I made it to the gym this morning. Tonight I will roast chickens so we can eat off the leftovers for the rest of the week, because I really cannot take any more pizza-Chinese-Indian-Thai takeaways.

Summer will come. Summer will come. Summer will come.

Why I Won't Be Making DInner: May 2011

2011-05-02T08:46:00.000-05:00

I can't keep track of dinner until May madness is over. Grading, preparation and travel for a conference, the kids' end-of-school activities, the final preparations for Cub Scout day camp, Eli's birthday, several other fun but time-sucking events--they will all keep me from much cooking, and certainly from writing about it here.

The good news is that after a fun Friday evening with Holly's family, we busted ass and planted all weekend. The herbs, vegetables, and flowers are all in the ground. We're worn out and back-sore, but accomplished. If the plants thrive, I can look forward to new cooking adventures in June.

What I Made for Dinner: April 20, 2011

2011-04-20T21:25:00.000-05:00

Matzo pizza.

It's time for my annual effort to adhere to some kind of religious tradition. On Passover week, I always try to omit leavened foods (with varying degrees of success). I appreciate the tangible way, every time I think about what to eat, that it reminds me to consider freedom and slavery and ancestry. Eating matzo is almost literally the least I can do. I'm very interested in making my own, like Eli's friend Asher did with his mom, but that will have to wait for another time.

Matzo, it turns out, is an excellent base for pizza. When topped with tomato sauce and cheese, then baked on a sheet pan at 400 for about seven minutes, it takes on the approximate texture of St. Louis-style cracker crust. Not half bad.

What I Baked: April 16-17, 2011

2011-04-17T21:07:00.002-05:00

Water park cake.

Make that, completely insane water park cake. I have so much work to do right now. Instead, I spent the weekend making this cake for Alex's birthday party:

Thoroughly ridiculous, especially because I have no cake-decorating skills. I was inspired by this cake, but obviously I have no ability to make it as shown.

First, I made a base of a sheet cake, then put a round layer on top. I froze the round layer and then cut an oval out of it and scraped out the cake, creating a depression about an inch and a half thick.

That's blue Jello in the middle. Blue Jello! How disgusting!

Then I made cute little people out of fondant. That was pretty fun.

Again, I have no skills. But I like the flowers on the girl's swimsuit, and I like how they are muppet-colored. Multiculturalism!

Assembly: I covered all remaining surfaces with large amounts of blue frosting. The slide, the ladder, and the orange person's raft are all made of Airheads candies. The slide platform is two ice cream cones frosted blue with spray-on food coloring. Here's one more view of the finished product in all its artificially-colored glory, which is considerable if I do say so myself.

I thought eating-wise, the cake was nauseating. But Alex thought it was really cool and the kids seemed to enjoy it. I must remember to apologize to their parents for any unpleasant or surprising after-effects of so much blue food tint.

What I Made for Dinner: April 13, 2011

2011-04-13T22:19:00.000-05:00

Chicken quesadillas and chocolate-cherry cake.

Alex is eight today! This was the dinner he requested. He was born eight years ago this morning, just two weeks after we moved into this house. He waited ten days past his due date, which gave me a chance to unpack. He is thoughtful like that.

This boy. It's hard to describe your children. I watched him play soccer last weekend and I spent the whole time wondering: How did he get so tall for his age? Where did that come from, the drive to run and be aggressive and get to the ball? (Italics because to me, those are foreign-language words.) When did he start calling his friends "Dude"?

About Alexander at age eight: He gets vastly pissed off when he screws up, or when things don't go right. He usually gets over it quickly. He can be a real grouch. He gets presents for his brothers. He likes digging in the dirt. He spends a few minutes of special quiet time with our dog every morning. He has been unreasonably enthusiastic about his corrective orthodontia. I suspect--based on hearsay--he has a spectacularly foul mouth for an eight-year-old, but he hides it well from me and Chuck.

He is the very best person in the whole world to give gifts to.

Happy birthday to my middle monkey.

What I Made for Dinner: April 5, 2011

2011-04-05T21:52:00.000-05:00

Penne with bacon and brussels sprouts.

Listen: When you get home from work late and you're all flustered and you have fifteen minutes before everyone gets home from soccer and they're going to be starving and you really want to have dinner ready for them when they get home?

Don't make this.

What I Made for Dinner: March 27, 2011

2011-03-27T21:00:00.000-05:00

Chili con carne with guacamole.

A dinner to eat while bummed out.

Bummed because it got seriously cold yesterday, like the lovely early spring we've been enjoying was just a cruel tease. Bummed because the hyacinths were fooled, too, and now will surely die, and maybe the redbuds along with them. Bummed because it freaking well snowed this afternoon, canceling the first soccer game of the spring season. Bummed most particularly because, dammit, Virginia Commonwealth? Really?

(I couldn't even watch. I folded laundry, made the chili, made banana bread, and finally just went upstairs to watch Hoarding: Buried Alive because I couldn't stand to watch this fabulous season end.)

Sad Day Chili (serves 4)

1 lb. ground beef chuck
1 lb. ground pork
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 large sweet onion, diced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
16-oz can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
28-oz can diced tomatoes
12-oz bottle Boulevard wheat beer
2 Tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. cumin
2 dried chipotle chilis, whole
kosher salt and black pepper, to taste
2 Tbsp. bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

In a large dutch oven or soup pot, brown the beef and pork, breaking up with a wooden spoon. Remove the meat with a slotted spoon and set aside. Pour off all but one tablespoon of fat from the pot.

Add the bell peppers, onion, and garlic to the pot and saute over medium-high heat until softened. Add the remaining ingredients except the chocolate, return the meat to the pot, and simmer, covered, for at least one hour, preferably three, or as long as necessary while you wait for something unpleasant to end. Thirty minutes before serving, check the chili's consistency. If it is too soupy, remove the cover and allow it to reduce to the desired thickness. Remove from the heat, remove the chipotles, and add the chocolate right before serving, stirring until the chocolate is melted and distributed evenly.

Serve with guacamole and shredded cheese.

What I Made for Dinner: March 25, 2011

2011-03-25T18:43:00.000-05:00

Mini lamb burgers with tzatziki, chickpea salad.

Can't write much. Watching basketball. Recipe is here.

Rock Chalk.

What I Made for Dinner: March 17, 2011

2011-03-17T19:29:00.001-05:00

Chicken with potatoes and peas.

It's a little bit Irish, just like our family. (The recipe is in the March issue of Everyday Food.)

St. Patrick's Day always makes me think about our family's ethnicity. We are crazy-mixed up. On Chuck's side, we're Irish, English, and (allegedly) Native. On mine, we're Italian, German, Russian, and Polish. (There might be French in there, one of the great-great-grandmothers, but she was from Alsace way back when so I think it counts as German.) For the boys, their smorgasbord-style ancestry means they can claim whatever they want. St. Patrick's Day and Purim, all in one week.

Unrelated: My spring break starts tomorrow, kicked off with a load of basketball and this nice dinner. I will be spending the break grading papers. How glamorous. Will anyone be around this week and free for lunch?

What I Made for Dinner: March 16, 2011

2011-03-16T19:55:00.000-05:00

White bean and artichoke risotto.

Two-thirds of our children are away. The big boys are with their grandparents for a couple of days. We're 66% lighter in the child department.

It's like having the weights removed from your bat. Eli doesn't eat anyway, so Chuck and I have been enjoying some grownup food at a nice, civilized dinner hour. There's wine. There's even a little Christopher Elbow ice cream for dessert.

(We shared some of that with the littlest monkey.)

What I Made for Dinner: March 1, 2011

2011-03-01T19:13:00.000-06:00

Hamburgers, sauteed peppers, pickles.

I made pickles this afternoon!

It only took an hour from start to eating them. They were fantastic.

What I Made for Dinner: February 25, 2011

2011-02-25T19:09:00.000-06:00

Chicken and corn fried rice.

Josh has a friend over and they're having so much fun they asked if the friend could stay for dinner. I said of course, but I was already making dinner and I worried he might not like what we were having. Joshy and Alex are used to eating my weirdo cooking. Their friends, maybe not so much. Most kids like to eat familiar food.

He ate enough to be polite, and he said it was good. He's a really sweet kid. They're watching Doctor Who DVDs in the basement.

Next time we'll just scrap my dinner plans and get a pizza.

What I Made for Dinner: February 22, 2011

2011-02-22T19:30:00.002-06:00

Potato-leek soup, cheddar cheese toasts, mixed green salad.

I made this beautifully simple soup last night while we watched college basketball. The plan was to get home from work and heat it up--but I stayed too late at the office and I realized I'd need some help. I called home for Josh.

I'm impressed: He's been learning to cook just a little, most notably last weekend, when he made some very nice scrambled eggs. So now he knows how to turn on the (gas) stove and regulate the flame. He said he'd take care of it, no problem, and I hung up the phone. Then I had the rest of my drive home to consider the possible outcomes:

A. I enter the house to perfectly-warmed, fragrant soup.

B. The soup spills all over the place on its way into the pot, and I enter the house to no dinner and a hysterically-crying ten-year-old helper.

C. He turns on the gas but the igniter fails, the house fills with gas, I enter the house to find everyone suffocated, whereupon the house explodes and burns, taking the neighborhood with it.

I needn't have worried. He did a great job (and Deanna supervised closely). Delightful soup on a chilly night.

Potato-Leek Soup (adapted from David Lebovitz)
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
6 leeks, white and light green part only, washed and sliced
several sprigs fresh thyme, a handful of fresh Italian parsley, and two bay leaves, tied into cheesecloth or wrapped in a paper coffee filter and tied with a string
1/4 tsp ground cayenne
3 cups chicken broth
3 cups water
2 pounds potatoes, peeled and cubed (I used klondike rose, and I bet yukon gold would be good)
Kosher salt and ground black pepper, to taste
3/4 cup heavy cream

1. In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat.
2. Add the leeks. Cook the leeks over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until they’re completely soft and wilted. Don't brown them.
3. Add the broth, water, cayenne, herb packet, and potatoes.
4. Cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender when poked with a sharp knife, about 30 minutes, depending on how small you cut the potatoes.
5. Remove from heat, remove the herb packet and puree the soup (I used my trusty immersion blender). Stir in the cream. Taste and stir in salt and pepper as needed. Serve hot.

What I Made for Dinner: February, 7, 2011

2011-02-08T14:53:00.000-06:00

Lemon and rosemary roast chicken and root vegetables.

The next couple of weeks at work will be packed so I'm trying to cook a lot when I can and leave myself some leftovers for easy, super-fast dinners. A good-sized chicken with potatoes, carrots, and onions will give us a couple of meals for about $15.

I have been so busy with work lately because this semester, I am trying out a full-time schedule. It's an adjustment. (Working all the time is hard, whine, sniff.)

I have been working part-time for ten years, ever since I went back to work from my maternity leave with Josh. Before we had kids, I was a litigator and I loved it, but I knew I would never be able to keep up with that workload after we had children. After Josh was born, it was clear I had been right: There was just no way I could balance full-time lawyering with full-time parenting.

Does writing that out loud, in front of God and everybody, mark me as some entitled brat? I hope not. I think it marks me as sort of, well, limited. People with kids usually hold full-time employment as well. I will always count it as something of a personal failure that I couldn't figure out how. But at any rate, I torpedoed a promising career and went to part-time law practice, eventually quitting entirely when Alex was born a couple of years later.

The funny thing was, when Alex was a toddler I glimpsed my future and cringed a little. Josh was starting Kindergarten; before long, both boys would be out of the house all day and then what would I do with all that time? Not only was I unable to balance family and law practice, I was also unable to visualize my relevance as a stay-at-home mom to kids who wouldn't stay home with me. Damn kids, with their constant up-growing and ceaseless education-needing and continual mom-dumping.

So I could see I would be stuck, neither here nor there. And the economic pressure to get back to work was growing, along with my own nagging sense of urgency not to waste--what? My education, my potential, my earning power, something. (Something that doubtlessly, once articulated, would make me sound like an entitled brat.) Clearly, I needed to go back to work. Work outside the home, work not with my family, work I had to shower and dress for, work someone hopefully would pay me for.

The part-time teaching job I found when Alex was two, and continue in, has been just an unbelievable stroke of good fortune. Along with our fantastic nanny, my job has allowed me to hit that balance between being present for my children and devoting myself to interesting, productive work in the wider world. It even seamlessly accommodated the addition of Eli! This semester, though, a colleague is on leave and so I picked up an extra class. So now I'm busy, because working all the time is hard.

All of this seems like a long way around the barn to explain why I roasted a chicken on a Monday night. Really, it was just for the leftovers.

What the Hell I've Been Doing for Three Weeks: January 12, 2011-February 1, 2011

2011-02-01T12:15:00.003-06:00

I have been making dinner. Almost every night, actually. I've been baking, too. But I've also been writing a bunch of stuff for work, and then I don't want to write anything else in my free time. I'll get back to it in a little while when my work project is done.

Last time, I wrote how it would be stupid to own things like snowshoes because we usually have dry winters here in Dinnertime's little part of the Great Plains.

It turns out, that was a stupid thing to write.

Stay warm, y'all.

What I Made for Dinner: January 11, 2011

2011-01-11T21:16:00.000-06:00

Cream of cauliflower soup with garlic croutons; cinnamon apples.

We have had two snow days so far this week. Snow days are fun for about twenty minutes. That's how long the boys want to go sledding before someone (a) gets snow on his face or (b) gets ice crusted under the cuffs of his snow pants or (c) has to pee. (Twenty minutes is also, coincidentally, how long it takes to dig out the snow gear and bundle them up before they can go outside for Big Snow Fun.)

I bet snow days are great in, like, Telluride. Even, maybe, in upstate New York, where I lived until I was nine. If everyone has four wheel drive and is going ice skating or snowshoeing or skiing, then hell yeah, a day off school sounds good. (I don't know whether they have snow days in those places.) But here in the great plains, we do not do snow activities. There are no mountains, of course. Our ponds are not to be trusted for skating because we have frequent thaws throughout winter. It doesn't make sense to own snowshoes and the like here--we just don't get enough snow.

Anyway, even if we had those things, yesterday and today would have been too cold to use them. This afternoon found the boys and me huddled in the basement, wrapped in blankets, watching movies. When I finally had to unhuddle to fix dinner, all I could think of was: Hot. Hot soup. Hot toast. Hot apples.

Cinnamon apples are something our nanny, Deanna, came up with to give the boys for after-school snacks. They are really good!

Cinnamon apples (serves 4-6)
3 apples (Fuji, Gala, or Pink Lady work best), cut into half-inch cubes
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (and if you want to get fancy, 1/2 tsp ground cardamom, 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg, and a pinch of ground cloves for good measure)
1 Tbsp butter

Combine all the ingredients in a large, microwave safe bowl. Toss to coat the apples. Cover and microwave for five minutes on high. Allow to stand for ten to fifteen minutes, until apples are tender. Stir and serve.

What I Made for Dinner: January 9, 2011

2011-01-09T19:39:00.001-06:00

Pasta with brussels sprouts and bacon; marinated mushroom salad.

I find recipes in many unusual places. In this case, it was a 2004 Martha Stewart Living magazine Alex found in the craft bin while we were looking for pictures of green things to cut out and glue onto a bucket. We are making a green bucket. It's a Cub Scout project, so we cannot just go and buy a green bucket. Buying a green bucket would be ridiculous. Instead we must make one out of a white bucket and many small scraps of green paper.

So I found the recipe because its greenness attracted me. Not for eating, but for bucket-transforming.

When I announced I was making this dinner, I got a lot of pushback. "I won't like it! I don't want it! Can't you make something else?" But Martha and I were vindicated: The big boys ate seconds. Eli even ate the bacon and the pasta (separated and not touching each other, of course). It was delicious--much too good for a Cub Scout bucket.

Pasta with Brussels Sprouts and Bacon (serves 6) (adapted from Martha Stewart Living, November 2004)
7 slices low-sodium bacon, cut into large dice
2 tsp minced garlic
half of a large sweet onion, diced
1.25 pounds brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
1.25 cups chicken stock
1 pound penne
half cup grated parmesan cheese, more for serving
1 Tbsp chopped fresh sage leaves

Bring a large pot of water to boil. In a large pan over medium heat, cook the bacon, stirring occasionally, until crisp. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

If necessary, add oil to bacon fat in pan to equal about 2 tablespoons. Add garlic, onion, and brussels sprouts. Saute, stirring, until the onion softens and the sprouts turn light golden brown. Add chicken stock and season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer until most of the liquid has reduced, about ten minutes.

While the sprouts are simmering, cook the pasta. Reserve one-half cup of cooking water and drain. Add the pasta and reserved cooking liquid to the pan with the sprouts. Add cheese, 2 tablespoons oil, sage and bacon; toss to combine. Serve, passing more parmesan cheese.

What I Made for Dinner: January 4, 2011

2011-01-04T19:33:00.000-06:00

Spinach and white bean stew with garlic toast.

I have a cold that has settled, uncomfortably, in my larynx and threatens hourly to move several inches downward and become a real problem. To its credit, my immune system did spectacular work all through the month of December, so I suppose I can't really object to its taking some well-deserved time off.

Anyway, I made this stew from Smitten Kitchen (except I used spinach where she used chard) and it helped, a little.

What I Made for Dinner: December 28, 2010

2010-12-28T22:28:00.000-06:00

Family spaghetti sauce with meatballs and Italian sausage; mixed green salad.

We had a rare treat tonight, as Chuck's parents, brother, aunts, uncle, and cousins joined us for dinner! That side of the family always gets together at his Aunt Sharon and Rita's house, but tonight they bravely ventured from midtown out to the western suburbs. We talked and talked and drank lots of red wine. I don't think anything too scarily suburban happened (although I guess I might not even notice if it did).

My family's four-hour spaghetti sauce is a great way to feed a crowd. All the meat cooks in the tomato puree and seasonings so at the end, you wind up with a very rich stew-like tomato gravy and--bonus!--only one pot. (To feed fifteen, I used three pounds of ground chuck for meatballs and twelve Italian sausages.) It's really very low effort and who doesn't like pasta and meatballs?

I hope we get to do this again, and I mean soon. These people are fun and they bring the fun with them even if they do have to trek west.

What I Made for Dinner: December 22, 2010

2010-12-22T19:01:00.000-06:00

Roasted steelhead trout with roasted turnips and red onions over a bed of wilted spinach.

We keep on keepin' on here at chez Dinnertime. Today was grey and cheerless, with nothing in particular to do after the boys' haircuts this morning. Around 3 I thought, we need some cheering up--so I made a fire and put on Elf--le film and started looking for recipes, and this is what I came up with.

Tomorrow comes Nana Jean's memorial service. We'll need some baking and like a cord of firewood to get us through.

What I Made for Dinner: December 20, 2010

2010-12-20T21:02:00.001-06:00

Chicken tacos.

The story of the chicken that went into these tacos goes back to Friday night.

We had big plans for the weekend: a party on Friday, another on Saturday, friends to see and places to go. We had all the grandparents conscripted as babysitters. But on Friday morning, we got a call from my mother-in-law. Chuck's grandmother Jean had become very ill, the prognosis was poor, she was in the hospital and would we be very upset if she had to cancel that evening's babysitting?

Well, needless to say our weekend plans changed. On Friday evening, though, with Jean hanging in there, we still needed to go out and take care of some things. So my parents stepped into the lurch, showing up on Friday afternoon with groceries. "I'm making roast chicken," my mom said. "Don't worry about it. When do you think you'll be home?" When we arrived home that night, we discovered that she had roasted not one, but two chickens. "You might need the leftovers," she said. "You can always freeze them." Better yet, she hadn't thrown out the carcass of the one they had eaten. I knew they would come in useful.

On Saturday, Jean was failing. They had brought her home and the family had gathered to wait. We rushed to get ourselves and the kids dressed and out the door and as we left, I thought, "is there anything we can bring over?" Terrible, this time of year, to have an empty cupboard; I'd just finished grading papers, and there had been no time to bake (or to cook anything at all; I see the last time I posted here was December 7). We hadn't yet even done the grocery shopping. Then I remembered a complete roast chicken dinner I had frozen a while back. The bird, vegetables, potatoes, everything sitting in its aluminum pan in the deep freeze. I grabbed it and we went over to the house, where it became our offering.

Jean died early Sunday morning. We will miss her awfully. She was tough and funny and loving, the kind of grandmother who played ping-pong with kid-Chuck even when her hands were so gnarled with rheumatoid arthritis that she could scarcely hold the paddle. The kind who didn't blink an eye when he brought over his Jewish girlfriend to meet her on Christmas Eve, the kind of grandmother who suggested it would be nice to light a menorah at her house on Christmas Eve when Chanukah fell at the same time.

Dinnertime still arrives, and someone still has to make dinner. On Sunday, I took the chicken carcass left from Friday night, threw it in the crock pot with some celery, carrots, onion, potatoes, and herbs, and left it so no one had to worry about dinner. Tonight, the other leftover chicken got stripped down and combined with scallions, lemon and lime juices, and canned diced green chiles for tacos.

My friend Allison and I were talking about roast chicken the other day. We both make it a lot, and we bring it everywhere: when someone is sick or hurt, when someone has a new baby. (And I remarked, if someone thinks my roast chickens are gross, they'd better tell me, because otherwise I'll just keep giving them away.) It seems so irrelevant in many ways, really, all the cooking. But when we came home on Friday to discover that my mom had left us roast chicken in the fridge, we both felt loved and cared for. That's the feeling I hope people get when I leave them food. It's how I hope my kids feel, or at least how they'll remember feeling when they look back someday. Like someone cared enough about them to roast them a chicken sometimes, and then to turn the leftovers into tacos.

What I Made for Dinner: December 7, 2010

2010-12-07T20:50:00.000-06:00

Baked ziti.

This week I will be cleaning leftovers out of the freezer. It's always an interesting exercise to go spelunking in there. Last time I served this particular baked ziti (or, rather, its ~~much~~ younger self) the kids wouldn't eat it, but tonight they thought it was great. I don't know what that says about my cooking.

What I Made for Dinner: December 2, 2010

2010-12-02T20:28:00.001-06:00

Latkes and applesauce.

Happy Chanukah!

What I Made for Dinner: November 29, 2010

2010-11-29T21:20:00.000-06:00

Patty melts; salad of bibb lettuce, cucumbers, and pickled red onion.

Oh, Everyday Food. Where would I be without you? Sometime I am going to spend a week making only dinners suggested by you.

What I Made for Dinner: November 23, 2010

2010-11-23T21:32:00.001-06:00

Eggplant parmesan.

I made a discovery tonight! As part of the lead-up to Thanksgiving, I wanted eggplant parmesan (meatless, vegetable-based) without all the fat from the fried eggplant. (I also did not want to stand at the oven frying because certain people in my house need a lot of supervision right now.)

So instead of frying, I tried breading the eggplant slices and then roasting them in a very hot oven. It totally worked! The eggplant slices became soft but not mushy and they had a nice crisp, golden brown crust. Innovation!

(Incidentally, this recipe is a little time-consuming. I probably wouldn't have attempted it on a regular weeknight. Tonight it worked because I'm in the middle of grading papers right now and I knock off pretty early from that, otherwise I start seeing double and reading the same sentence seven times.)

Eggplant parmesan with tomato sauce

For the sauce:
Two 28-ounce cans of roma tomatoes
Two Tbsp olive oil
Two cloves of garlic, minced
One bunch fresh basil

In a food processor, puree the tomatoes, along with all the juice in the cans. Put the tomato puree and all the other ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until thickened, about 30 minutes.

For the eggplant parmesan:

One or two globe eggplants, about two pounds
2 tsp. kosher salt
Three eggs, beaten
One cup flour
One and a half cups plain dried bread crumbs
Half a cup grated parmesan cheese
One to two cups shredded mozzarella cheese, depending on how cheesy you like it.

Slice the eggplant crosswise into 3/4-inch slices. Sprinkle kosher salt over the slices and place them in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels. Let them stand for about 30 minutes (for instance, while the sauce is cooking).

Preheat oven to 450. Bread the eggplant slices: dip each one first in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. After each dip, shake off the excess. Place the breaded eggplant slices in a single layer on a baking tray lined with aluminum foil. Roast for about 10 minutes, until the slices have turned golden.

Lower the oven to 350. Coat the bottom of a non-stick 9-by-13 pan with about one cup of tomato sauce. Top with a layer of eggplant. Top that with about a cup and a half of sauce, followed by 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. Add a second layer of eggplant, followed by the rest of the sauce, 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese, and finally the mozzarella. Bake about 30 minutes, until the cheese is golden and the sauce bubbles.

What I Made for Dinner: November 22, 2010

2010-11-22T21:05:00.000-06:00

Greek salad.

Eli and I spent the day gearing up for Thanksgiving! First thing was to make some honey challah so it can get nice and stale for Thursday's bread pudding. I had fun making bread with him but at a certain point he just became disgusted with the process. "It's too messy, Mommy. I'm going to wash my hands and then I can just watch you."

What I Made for Dinner: November 21, 2010

2010-11-21T18:18:00.001-06:00

Cream of cauliflower soup and garlic bread.

My goal this week leading up to Thanksgiving is to make easy, low-effort dinners. This is a new one for me but it was a big hit and really simple to put together, so it goes into the rotation.

Cream of cauliflower soup

One Tbsp. butter
One large head of cauliflower, roughly chopped
One medium onion, roughly chopped
Two garlic cloves, sliced
about 1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
32 ounces (4 cups) chicken broth
12 ounces beer (I used Boulevard wheat; I think any kind of pale ale or lager would work fine, but dark beer would ruin the soup's color.)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup fresh dill, minced
salt and pepper to taste

In a soup pot over medium heat, melt the butter along with 1/4 cup water. Add onions, garlic, and nutmeg; cover and cook until the onions are soft, about five to ten minutes. Do not allow the onions to brown or caramelize. Add the chicken broth, beer, and cauliflower and bring just to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, until the cauliflower is soft, about fifteen to twenty minutes (the time will depend on the size of the florets). Remove from heat and puree the mixture (I used my super-handy immersion blender, but a food processor would work just as well). Stir in the cream, dill, salt, and pepper. Serve hot. If necessary, re-warm the soup over low heat.

What I Made for Dinner: November 18, 2010

2010-11-18T21:12:00.000-06:00

Vegetarian three-bean chili.

This chili might be a contender at our synagogue's chili cook-off in February. I have started testing some recipes and so far this is my favorite, not counting the pork-based chili con carne I made last week, which cannot participate in the cook-off for fairly obvious reasons.

What I Made for Dinner: November 15, 2010

2010-11-16T08:38:00.002-06:00

Roast chicken and vegetables.

I love Monday nights when no one has to be anywhere but home.

What I Made for Dinner: November 14, 2010

2010-11-14T21:00:00.000-06:00

Butternut squash baked risotto.

I really love getting Everyday Food magazine. Sometimes it's just for ideas or reminders of things I already know how to make but have forgotten. Sometimes, though, it prints a recipe that I've never heard of before and I think: Oh where have you been all my life.

This recipe? Is one of those. It's in the November issue, which is well worth the newsstand price. I love risotto but making it means standing at the stove stirring, so you can't do anything else such as making sure that an accident-prone three-year-old doesn't knock his own teeth out.

Sigh. Never mind.

Anyway, why have I never thought of baked risotto? No stirring. The most time-consuming part of this meal was breaking down a butternut squash into one-inch dice.

Then, I sauteed diced onion, added thyme, rice and garlic, added a little wine. The standard risotto beginning.

I stirred in some chicken broth, some spinach, and the squash, covered the pot and popped it into the oven.

It baked for about half an hour, during which time no one lost any teeth at all

and when it was finished, I stirred in grated parmesan cheese and topped it with some crispy fried sage leaves.

Everyone loved it. It's going into the rotation. Thanks, Everyday Food!

What We Made for Dinner: November 8-12, 2010

2010-11-14T20:38:00.000-06:00

Some good things.

Because I was out of town last weekend, Chuck had to do the grocery shopping, and thus the menu planning for the week. When I got home on Monday afternoon, I was so impressed! We were all stocked up with ingredients for interesting, healthy meals. Based on his meal planning and shopping, I made:

Monday: Eggs in a nest and hash browns.

Tuesday: Homemade pizzas, one with turkey pepperoni and one with caramelized sweet onions and goat cheese, served with mixed green salad and roast asparagus.

Wednesday: Nothing. On Wednesday, I had to work late and Chuck had to get Josh from Hebrew school, which is across town and doesn't let out until 6:15. Chuck and Josh picked up sandwiches for everyone on the way home.

Thursday: Hamburgers, homemade Yukon gold potato chips, salad of field greens and spinach with apples and goat cheese. For Veterans Day, we always celebrate with my in-laws, and my father-in-law gets to pick the meal.

Friday: Stuffed artichokes and crab bisque. The crab bisque in The Martha Stewart Cookbook is unbelievably easy and delicious.

I clearly need to go away more often.

What I Made for Dinner: November 7, 2010

2010-11-07T19:27:00.000-06:00

Strip steaks, roast potatoes and asparagus with grape tomatoes, sourdough toast with roasted garlic.

My mom and I are in upstate New York, visiting relatives. My cousin Nina recently added an adorable new baby to go with the adorable old baby she already had. My cousin Nora just got engaged and bought a house. It's always nice to catch up with my aunt and uncle. And my grandmother isn't going to be around forever, as hard as that is to contemplate. So we try to get up here when we can.

I love seeing these folks but I always have such houseguest guilt: Honestly, we invade their house, take over the bathroom, get out all the extra bedding, and drink all the liquor. What's the upside for them, really?

Well, at least I can cook for them.

Roast potatoes and asparagus with grape tomatoes (serves 4-6)

about one pound variety of potatoes, such as fingerling or yukon gold, sliced thin
2 pints grape tomatoes
one pound asparagus spears, trimmed
one tablespoon minced garlic, or more to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt and ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400. Line a baking tray with aluminum foil.
In a mixing bowl, toss together the potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, and two tablespoons of the olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and distribute them in a single layer on the baking sheet. Roast for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, toss the asparagus with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add the asparagus to the baking sheet and stir everything around. Roast for another 15 minutes.

What I Made for Dinner: November 4, 2010

2010-11-05T10:05:00.000-05:00

Chili con carne.

The weather has finally turned here on the Great Plains, and it's chili season again!

*happy chili dance*

The secret to terrific chili con carne is to stir a little bittersweet chocolate into the chili right before you serve it. I learned that from Martha Stewart and once again, she is right right right.

What I Made for Dinner: October 31, 2010

2010-11-02T15:16:00.001-05:00

Deli sandwiches, roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie.

Of course I would never make a normal dinner on Halloween. The kids have candy to beg for!

Eli ate only pie. He's on soft foods for a while, having bashed his mouth in a nasty fall on Saturday afternoon. There was screaming and a visit to the ER (our first!!) for stitches to more or less reassemble his lower lip. His whole mouth is so swollen he can't close it to swallow his own spit. The photo above, mercifully, minimizes the damage; I can't even post a close-up, it looks so horrible.

It would have been great if he had wanted to dress up as a zombie, like his brothers did. Instead, he was Paul McCartney. With a fucked-up mouth.

Why I Haven't Made Dinner: October 21-28, 2010

2010-10-28T23:10:00.001-05:00

It's fall! Halololoween is a-comin! And we got stuff to do! Scouts parties and soccer team parties and PTA parties! Parties, people!

(Also I have been grading papers. But mostly, parties!)

What I Made for Dinner: October 20, 2010

2010-10-20T19:24:00.000-05:00

Beef stew.

Okay, the beef stew was, in fact, very tasty. I'm feeling much less grouchy with a day's distance from making the damn thing. It was really nice to have a healthy, hot meal ready for the family to eat in the twenty minutes we had to eat dinner between Hebrew school and basketball practice.

So I can say it was worth it, although I still maintain it took way too long to assemble it last night. (Plus, the cookbook's proviso "Like all stews, this one gets better with age, so . . . cook it a day or two before serving" is ridiculous in the context of a busy family's Crock Pot cooking.)

I will try it again, but next time I'll try a few modifications to see if I can make it more quickly.

What I Made for Dinner: October 19, 2010

2010-10-19T23:19:00.000-05:00

Eggs in a nest, hash browns, fruit salad.

This dinner was lovely and easy, unlike the insane project I undertook tonight to get tomorrow night's dinner ready.

Too tired to describe it now. That stupid Art of the Slow Cooker book got me again. At least this time, I wasn't all dressed up and rushing to get to work. I am beginning to doubt that the author, one Andrew Schloss, has ever actually talked to anyone who uses a Crock Pot about why, and under what circumstances, a person might use such a device.

What I Made for Dinner: October 18, 2010

2010-10-18T20:59:00.000-05:00

Chicken salad.

So last week, when I turned officially too old to eat road food anymore, I didn't feel like celebrating. (I really like road food, after all.) But my family insisted and on Saturday, when we got back from Omaha, we went over to my sister's house for dinner.

My mom, in planning the menu, had asked what my favorite foods were. If I could eat anything at all, what would it be, and they would try to make it happen. So, you know, sort of like the last meal request for death row prisoners, which may or may not hold a metaphor for my fortieth birthday.

Anyhow, here is what I settled on, which also likely would be my last meal request if things ever went horribly wrong: Martinis and cheese selection to start. Main course of roast chicken and root vegetables. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting for dessert.

Of course, my mom and my sister made it happen, and we got to bring home the leftovers. How I love the leftovers from this meal. (Obviously not a concern in the last-meal scenario.) Out of the leftover chicken I got two lunches of chicken salad (the mayonnaise kind) and this dinner, which was a romaine lettuce salad with apples, artichoke hearts, sweet onion, and avocado, topped with chicken and cheddar cheese, dressed with dijon vinaigrette.

What I Made for Dinner: October 17, 2010

2010-10-17T20:35:00.000-05:00

Tilapia and shrimp with vegetables in packets.

We went on a little road trip with the kiddos this weekend on a visit to the fantabulous Omaha Zoo, and I am not kidding when I say the zoo makes a trip to Omaha worthwhile from just about anywhere.

But the road trip means two days of road food, and I recently became officially too old to eat like that anymore. Jeez. So I liked this light little meal as at least partial redemption. The recipe says to add just white wine to the packets, but I added soy sauce and lime juice as well for a more Asian flavor, and I served the fish with brown rice.

What I Made for Dinner: October 12, 2010

2010-10-12T20:58:00.000-05:00

Chili and cornbread.

My parents joined us for dinner tonight and with the mail we got a DVD about summer camp, so tonight's dinner conversation was all about camps we've known and loved. I went away to camp for a month every summer from the time I was twelve until I was too old to go anymore. I've always figured my kids would go someday, too.

I can't believe it, but Josh and Alex are about that age. That snuck up on me.

So for Jewish children in our area, there are two main options for summer overnight camps. Both are hideously expensive. Hideously expensive! There arises the first dilemma: Even if we can scare up the cash for camp, wouldn't it be better--wiser, more prudent--to save it for something else? I mean, there's no question: Yes It Would. College leaps to mind. Braces. Alex's grownup teeth are beginning to look, shall we say, exciting. Cars and the attendant teenage male driver liability funds. Bar Mitzvah parties. Or, or, or any of the other very real, impending, and expensive needs in our children's futures. Times three.

The second dilemma exists only if we ignore the first. I don't know if I can ignore the first. But anyway, which camp? Goldman is my camp alma mater, so I would love to send them there. But it's a little far away. Also, it might not be a great fit for my boys--a little too religiously intense, maybe too much arts and not enough lake. Sabra might be more fun for them, and it's about a thousand times easier to get them there, but it's even more hideously expensive than Goldman and I don't know as much about it.

Oy. Vey.

What I Made for Dinner: October 11, 2010

2010-10-11T22:19:00.000-05:00

Penne with roasted tomato sauce.

Here is a fantastic, easy tomato sauce perfect for a weeknight. (And I used up a bunch of basil and oregano out of the garden, too.)

6-8 roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise
2 T brown sugar
2 T olive oil
kosher salt and black pepper to taste

about 1/2 to one cup of fresh basil leaves
about 2 T to 1/4 cup fresh oregano leaves

Preheat oven to 425. Line a rimmed baking sheet. Place the tomatoes, cut side up, on the baking sheet. Drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle them all over with the brown sugar, salt, and pepper. Roast them in the oven until they begin to brown, about 20-30 minutes.

Place the roasted tomatoes in a food processor. Add as much of the pan drippings as possible. Add the herbs. Puree until more or less smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning.

What I Made for Dinner: October 10, 2010

2010-10-10T19:12:00.000-05:00

Biscuits and sawmill gravy; broccoli slaw.

My children were ravenous this evening when they got home from late-afternoon soccer games. Famished as though they hadn't had lunches of pizza and fruit, snacks of cheese and granola bars. "What is going on, you guys? Why are you so hungry?" "We just are! When is dinner gonna be ready?!" No patience at all, and they both ate more than I did.

We love this dinner but I just can't bring myself to make it more than once in a great while. I reduce the fat a little by using turkey sausage, but honestly, when there's a pint of cream in the gravy and six tablespoons of butter in the biscuits, how much difference does it really make? Let's all focus instead on the delicious and wholesome broccoli slaw.

Broccoli slaw (serves 6-8)

One 12-ounce package broccoli slaw (includes shredded carrots and red cabbage)
1/2 cup sunflower kernels
4 green onions, sliced thin
One 10-ounce can of mandarin oranges, drained and coarsely chopped

dressing
3 T olive oil
1.5 T lemon juice
1 T orange juice
1 t grated orange peel
kosher salt and ground black pepper to taste

Combine the dressing ingredients in a sealable plastic bowl; seal it and shake it until combined. Combine the slaw ingredients in a large salad bowl; pour the dressing over and toss.

What I Made for Dinner: October 7, 2010

2010-10-07T20:46:00.000-05:00

Lemon-artichoke chicken.

There used to be this great restaurant called Paradise Cafe on Massachusetts Street in Lawrence. It was kind of a hippie place with a smallish menu, but what they had was usually really tasty. My favorite thing there was the artichoke chicken, a tender chicken breast with artichoke hearts in a savory cream sauce, served over brown rice.

Paradise went out of business a long time ago. I have never been able to find a recipe that comes close to that artichoke chicken. This one was closer, but still not quite there; maybe it needed a little more cream.

Lemon-Artichoke Chicken (serves 4-6)

4 boned, skinned chicken breast halves (about 8 oz. each), rinsed, dried, and cut into 2-inch chunks (alternatively, leave them whole and pound them to an even thickness of 1/4 to 1/2 inch.)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter
2 14-oz cans quartered artichoke hearts, drained
1/4 cup cognac or dry sherry
2 tablespoons grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup heavy cream (or half-and-half, in a pinch)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350°.
Sprinkle chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. In a saute pan, melt the butter and saute the chicken until well browned. There should be crust in the pan. Transfer chicken to a 9- by 13-inch baking dish and add artichoke hearts.

To the saute pan, add the cognac, lemon peel, and lemon juice. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring and scraping to remove the browned bits in the pan. Allow to simmer for about five minutes, until the cognac no longer smells strongly of alcohol. Remove from heat. Add cream and stir. Pour sauce over chicken and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake until sauce is bubbling and golden brown on top, 20 to 25 minutes.

What I Made for Dinner: October 6, 2010

2010-10-06T21:14:00.000-05:00

Bagel egg sandwiches and fruit salad.

Schlepped Eli across town to preschool first thing this morning then hauled ass all the way downtown for a doctor's appointment then drove the 35 miles to work where I met with stressed-out students all day and then the 35 miles back to temple to pick Josh up from Hebrew school and then rushed across town home in time for Alex to get to Scouts and then I made scrambled eggs which takes no time at all but now I am so tired I can't see straight.

What I Made for Dinner: October 5, 2010

2010-10-05T20:50:00.000-05:00

Baked salmon with breadcrumbs; gnocchi with broccoli and roasted tomatoes.

Apparently it's not only herb-preserving time here at Chez Dinnertime, it's also freezer-cleaning time. A couple of salmon filets in this bag, a couple in that one, and ho! what's this? Gnocchi left over from ages ago! Sounds good to me!

What I Made for Dinner: October 4, 2010

2010-10-04T22:20:00.000-05:00

Strip steaks with chimichurri.

Time to preserve the herb garden! I froze four gallon bags full of parsley, made about two pints of chimichurri (parsley, oregano, onion, and garlic in red wine and olive oil), froze several quart bags of sage leaves, and put up a pound and a half of thyme-sage compound butter.

I have so much basil I don't know what to do with it. I can't just let it all go to waste but we'll never eat that much pesto.

What I Made for Dinner: September 23, 2010

2010-09-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

Slow cooker chicken dinner.

You know how sometimes you start a project without realizing just how involved it's going to be, but then once you've started you can't stop? That's this dinner.

In response to my pathetic whining all the time about being rushed in the evenings, my mother tactfully presented me with a new slow cooker cookbook.

I looked through it last weekend. It's a beautiful book, filled with artistic pictures and the earnest insistence that Crock Pot cooking is not careless or sloppy. The author believes it can be just as delicious and even artful as the best cooking, as long as you choose your ingredients carefully and do the right prep work. Maybe I should have sensed that the author's goals and my goals for a slow cooker are not the same.

Immediately, I saw several recipes I wanted to try, and I vowed to be organized enough to put up dinner in the slow cooker at least once this week. (That's the thing about the Crock Pot. You have to put food in it in the morning, or even the night before, which means you have to think far ahead of when you want to eat it. Is the meat defrosted? Are the vegetables in the fridge not rotten? Is it safe to chop onions before you've had your coffee?)

Anyhow, I went and bought the ingredients for the chicken dinner recipe: chicken parts, potatoes, carrots, onion, celery. Then, I figured, on Thursday morning before work, I could assemble them in the crock, and we would all come home, at our various times, to a lovely dinner.

I should have known when Step One was "make a spice rub" and the recipe emphatically suggested pre-boiling the potatoes. (Why, when they're going to boil for the next eight hours, I have no idea.) But I had already unwrapped the chicken, which was approaching a week in the fridge anyway. Too late to stop, I thought.

So I stupidly pressed on and forty minutes later, there I was in my dress, with my apron on, browning chicken and vegetables, watching the clock. Slow cooking indeed. I grew resentful as I cooked. Is there any point at all to a kitchen convenience device if using it is wildly inconvenient? (Deanna came over to watch Eli and about burst out laughing when she saw me. Working hard to keep a straight face: "Do you usually wear an apron?" Oh dear.)

At least there was an upside.

The flavors were delicious, the chicken and veggies were tender, and the cooking liquid reduced into a rich gravy.

But maybe the slow cooker is best for busy weekends, when you have the mornings to set the thing up.

What My Mom and I Made for Dinner: September 21, 2010

2010-09-21T22:57:00.000-05:00

Spaghetti and meatballs.

Oh I thank God all the time that I have my parents and they're around a lot. I could not do without them. For example, this evening. Between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. I needed to supervise homework-accomplishing, get Alex some new shoes, and make dinner. That's like nothing! Totally doable! I didn't even have to do the soccer-practice run tonight!

But then, Eli's toe. Oh dear Eli's toe. Poor baby dropped a Stanley "FATMAX" industrial-strength tape measure on his own poor toe sometime this afternoon.

(Seriously, Stanley Black & Decker, Inc.? FATMAX? That's honestly the best your branding people could come up with?)

His toe, it was okay with ice on it but then he tried to run and it hurt too much and he sat down on the floor and cried. He put his blankie over it and wouldn't let me see it. He flinched when I touched it. He asked his grandma to kiss it to make it feel better so she kissed it and asked if it felt better and Eli said yes but you could tell it did not.

While I figured out what we should do, my mother made meatballs.

I did not want to go to the ER. In my experience, when a person has a broken toe, the ER doctor looks at it and goes, "yeah, it's broken" and then tapes it to its neighbor toe and then you have to pay $300. Not Worth It in the extreme. My mom agreed. Our pediatrician's office, open for a crucial four more minutes, confirmed that unless the toe turned interesting shades of black, tape would take care of it (tape and a stiff shoe! Who knew?).

While I taped the one toe to the other toe, my mother busily browned meatballs and Italian sausages.

Then my mom and I took Alex to get shoes, Josh went to practice, and my dad stayed with the newly-taped and feeling-much-better Eli. ("I think his toe feels better," my dad remarked when we returned. "It's pretty hard to make him sit down." Tell me about it, Dad. Tell me about it.)

See? I couldn't manage without my parents.

We got back from the shoe store in time to make a quick tomato sauce. It's not as good as one that simmers for several hours, but it's pretty good anyway.

Quick tomato sauce

One can good-quality whole roma tomatoes
1/2 cup white wine
1 Tbsp. minced garlic, more if you like
1 medium onion, quartered
salt and pepper to taste

Browned meatballs or Italian sausages, or a combination (optional)
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

Put the tomatoes in a pot, squeezing them through your hands until they're pretty well squashed up. Add the remaining ingredients except the butter and simmer for 20-30 minutes, or longer if you have it. Remove from the heat, remove the onion pieces, and stir in the butter. Tonight, I also added a large bunch of oregano and basil from the garden, removing it before serving. I have made the sauce without any herbs and it's just as good.

What I Made for Dinner: September 20, 2010

2010-09-20T18:34:00.000-05:00

Paella.

Monday night paella with chicken, chorizo, scallops, and shrimp.

What I Made for Dinner: September 13, 2010

2010-09-13T21:53:00.000-05:00

Chicken Caesar salad with tomatoes.

I like that my kids will eat salad for dinner, even if Alex just eats the chicken and croutons and picks around the pesky vegetables. I like to pretend he eats some vegetables accidentally. Everyone likes a Caesar, and it's a good way to use up cold cuts or leftover chicken (or ham or whatever) if you have them.

There's not that much to say about evenings at our house these days. There's at least one kid's activity every weeknight, with the intermittent one-two punch of extra meetings and events on top of activities.

I hate to keep complaining about our schedule, because it's tedious and also seriously? That right there is a first-world problem if ever there was one. "I hate to rush dinner because I have to drive my child to his soccer clinic." Wherein "dinner" is a well-balanced, nutritious meal and "drive" refers to my own nice car and "soccer clinic" speaks for itself. I also hate to complain because I realize, or maybe just assume, that everyone else maintains a similar schedule.

So I will not complain. But I will ask, if anyone is reading: How the hell do you manage? How do you ferry everyone to and fro and keep them, and yourself, calm, sane, and nourished? And I will say this: Taco Bell cannot be the answer.

What I Made for Dinner: September 12, 2010

2010-09-12T22:48:00.000-05:00

Artichoke dip; grilled Italian sausage, peppers and onions.

The three-cheese artichoke dip seemed like a really, really great idea at 5:00 this afternoon.

Several hours later, my stomach is telling me, "YOU WERE WRONG."

What I Made for Dinner: September 11, 2010

2010-09-11T19:33:00.000-05:00

Eggplant parmesan.

Ohhhhhh cheesy goodness. It was a pain in the ass to make, but worth it.

What I Made for Dinner: September 7, 2010

2010-09-07T23:07:00.000-05:00

Nothing.

My goddamned refrigerator broke today. I don't want to talk about it.

Over the long weekend, I made a lot of great stuff, but none of it for dinner. I made applesauce from the four hundred apples my mom and dad picked from their trees. I made honey challah for Rosh Hashana dinner, which thankfully we're having at my sister's house. I made a yeast-rising apple coffee cake with honey glaze, also for tomorrow night.

Luckily, the challah and the cake don't need refrigeration. The applesauce is in the deep-freeze in the garage, which appears to be working although at this point I'm taking nothing for granted.

What I Brought: August 30, 2010

2010-08-31T14:09:00.000-05:00

Roast chicken and vegetables.

It's pretty common practice, when a friend has a new baby, to bring over a meal to help out. What about when a friend has two new babies? What if they're not babies, exactly, but regular preschoolers with preferences and demands and attention-spans and large reserves of energy? What if those preschoolers are fluent in a language that isn't English? What then?

Well, I mean, I don't know. But my friend has additions to her family, so the boys and I trundled over there yesterday with a roast chicken dinner in an aluminum pan for them. (It's the easiest thing. If you're making one chicken dinner, it's almost no extra effort to make two. Much easier than a casserole, in my opinion.)

Those kids are adorable. My boys were very into them. Josh and Alex were quite concerned about the no-English thing, so they decided to do their part--they spent most of the visit pointing to various things and naming them. Josh focused on the more utilitarian: "This is a book! Can you say 'cupcake'? 'Dog'? 'Bathroom'?" Alex tried a didactic approach: "Here is a dinosaur. They are extinct. That means there aren't any alive anymore, so you don't have to worry about them." Actually, now that I think about it, Eli's method might have been the most effective: He grabbed all their toys, one by one, and yelled, "That's my [goat, tractor, stroller, purse]!!!"

To me, despite the obvious differences, it seems shockingly similar to bringing home a newborn. Whenever we brought home a new baby it was always completely disorienting, almost like living in someone else's house. (When we brought Josh home, because he was our firstborn, it was like living in someone else's house where you had agreed to take care of their pet giraffe--which is to say, I spent a lot of time secretly wondering if I hadn't ruined my life by taking on this huge and bizarre commitment.) It took a couple of months (or, in Josh's case, like six) until the new baby became part of the routine, fitting into the landscape of the home. And then, of course, we couldn't even imagine living without them.

So a chicken dinner and an hour of entertaining mayhem with the boys seems like a pretty small contribution, but I'm willing to do what I can. At least I know of some people who will provide free English lessons of questionable method and effectiveness.

What My Mom Made for Dinner: August 28, 2010

2010-08-29T20:56:00.000-05:00

Spaghetti and meatballs.

Someone at our house had a big birthday.

Birthday boy picks the menu (which is why my mom, pictured above with Josh, made dinner--he loves his grandma). I made the cake. He picked one out of this month's Bon Appetit magazine, Christina Tosi's chocolate-malt cake. The recipe is a little bit elaborate, requiring several steps, and I was intimidated at first. But when I read the part about the chocolate-malt crumbs, I realized the recipe was suggesting making your own Whoppers.

Ha.

Instead, I used Whoppers someone else had already made--quite well, as it turns out--and crushed them in the food processor. Everything else was easy.

Happy birthday, kiddo. You're pretty impressive so far. I hope the next ten years go as smoothly as the last ten.

What I Made for Dinner: August 24, 2010

2010-08-24T21:39:00.000-05:00

Frozen ravioli with brown butter-lemon sauce.

This dinner is a good one when you have only fifteen minutes to make it between getting home from work and everyone rushing out of the house to go to a Cub Scout meeting.

(By the way, I read a magazine article a while back where the writer or interviewee or someone advised that the first thing to do when you come home from work is put a pot of water on to boil. It turns out, that is excellent advice.)

While the ravioli boils, melt a stick of butter over medium-high heat and let it cook until the foam subsides and it starts to smell nutty. Take it off the heat and add the juice of one lemon, salt, and pepper. I think it would be good to add some fresh thyme alone with the lemon juice, too, but I didn't try it this time. Drain the ravioli and toss it with the butter sauce.

What I Made for Dinner: August 22, 2010

2010-08-24T21:32:00.000-05:00

Tomato-herb bruschetta; crab cakes; spaghetti with basil pesto; blueberry cake.

So amid all the late-August transition insanity, we planned for ourselves one peaceful oasis: Dinner with Allison and Mark. They brought the wine, I made the food. And even though we were at our house--a house full of children who continue to demand food, attention, a bath, stories before bed even though Mommy and Daddy are Entertaining, isn't that ridiculous--it was just a delightful evening, fun and happy, the perfect antidote to this stupid time of year.

Of course I forgot to take pictures.

What I've Been Making for Dinner: August 17-21, 2010

2010-08-24T21:20:00.000-05:00

Oh, things. You know how it goes.

Actually, I've been making dinner. A couple of taco nights here and there; some breakfast-for-dinner; there was teriyaki salmon in there someplace. I'm not that excited about my dinners because other things have intervened. What's been on my mind:

Alex had kind of a rough start to school. I think things are adjusted now, at least to where he's okay with them, but it took an enormous amount of drama and emotional energy to get there.
I've started back to work after a long and relaxing summer break. Working all day is hard. Waah.
The kiddos' fall schedules may kill me. I am trying hard not to freak out about the family being over-scheduled.
The transition back to the school-work schedule, combined with the impending start of preschool, has Eli all discombobulated. The potty training suffers accordingly.
I could use a better rice cooker.

One bright spot has been Alex hitting a growth spurt that has made him hungrier than I've ever seen him his whole life. One night last week--a breakfast-for-dinner night--he ate a full plate of bacon omelette and zucchini hash browns and fruit salad, and then an hour later asked if I would make him a peanut butter sandwich. And some milk. And maybe the rest of the fruit salad. He's so hungry that he's forgotten to be picky: Note that he actually ate the zucchini hash browns.

So that's kind of cool.

What I Made for Dinner: August 15, 2010

2010-08-15T18:36:00.000-05:00

Zucchini "latkes."

It is zucchini time here at chez Dinnertime. Last night I made traditional sweet zucchini bread with chocolate chips and dried cranberries. I also made Joy of Cooking's savory zucchini-cheddar bread, which was pretty good with a fried egg on top for lunch today. Then tonight, latkes made with shredded zukes in place of most of the potatoes (I put in some shredded potato for texture). All hail the humble zucchini!

In other news, school starts tomorrow. There will be tears (mine).

What I Made for Dinner: August 9, 2010

2010-08-11T20:16:00.000-05:00

Poached salmon, pasta con broccoli.

The fish I ate in Alaska was the best fish I've ever had. Having grown up in the Great Plains, I'm not a huge fish aficionado, but I know good stuff when I get it. (And I've eaten some good stuff, by the way: clams and lobster in New England, red snapper in Bali, blue crab in Maryland, seafood paella in Barcelona. I used get around a little before I had kids.)

But this Alaska fish! First off, we went hiking in Tongass national forest

Sitka spruce, hemlock, guide

and the guides had a cook camp where they made this delicious clam chowder over a fire.

The secret was a load of dill and the smoke from the fire. Yummmm. They also served smoked salmon, which was great. Firm, smoky and salty but not overpoweringly so, and not remotely fishy.

Then we went to the Crab Cracker Seafood Bar, where I ate grilled-halibut tacos. Simple, right? But the fish tasted so fresh, clean and delicate. The Crab Cracker was also where Alex discovered his deep affinity for fish and chips.

In Juneau, Jenna had scouted for us a restaurant called Hangar on the Wharf. It had a fun pub-and-grill atmosphere with a pretty view, where the kids could watch seaplanes come and go. I got a macadamia-crusted halibut filet. It was delicious, but even more remarkable was the beer,

Kodiak Brown Ale from Midnight Sun Brewery in Anchorage.

Our last land meal in Alaska was at the Skagway Brewing Company. The salmon sandwich there is seriously one of the best pieces of fish I've ever tried, and I don't think it was just because I'd had a couple pints of Spruce Tip pale ale (no picture, of course).

All of this is to say, I miss the fish. Can't get the fresh stuff here on the prairie. But you can go to Costco and buy a nice big bag of frozen wild Alaskan sockeye salmon. It defrosts into beautifully pink fillets that you can poach according to this recipe, and then while you eat you can consider the privilege you had, just a few days ago, to see a river so full of salmon that you probably could have reached in with your bare hands and pulled out a couple.

What I Made for Dinner: August 8, 2010

2010-08-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

Chicken and black bean enchiladas.

It's post-cruise clean living Day No. 2, and I found this recipe for veggie-rich enchiladas. But I don't want to write about them.

I want to write about United Airlines. Two days later, I am still appalled at the way every United Airlines employee we encountered treated us as we flew out of Seattle. I have to say: Our luggage made it home, our flights were on time. But just because an experience could have been worse doesn't mean it was good.

I've thought about how to respond. What do you do, when you've been on the receiving end of awful customer service? Usually, I do nothing. I don't write letters or whatever; I just move on, having more important things to think about. For some reason, though, Friday keeps bugging me. Maybe it's because United Airlines' crappiness will now forever be a part of my family's story of our fabulous trip to Alaska, and boy do I resent that. Maybe it's because they made my kids' lives just a little bit worse on Friday. Who knows.

Anyway, when we were Juneau we met up with my dear friend Jenna, who happened to be there at the same time. Jenna co-writes one of my favorite blogs, the Haiku Diaries. She and her co-author explore haiku to its fullest possibility as a succinct, disciplined approach to describing events in their lives. And I was inspired. Boy, was I. The following is going to United's corporate headquarters.

A Haiku Series for United Airlines by a Passenger on Flight 742 from Seattle to Denver on August 6, 2010

Dear Marlys Z., you

Are the Service Director

at Sea-Tac Airport

Marlys, you were so

Mean to a soldier with her

Makeup smeared from tears

Marlys, you could not

Remember what time it was

Although we told you

You insisted she

Was too late to check her bags

Which was just not true

You laughed and laughed as

Though your idiocy or

Her plight were funny

I said, "the lesson

Is never fly United"

To comfort the girl

Marlys Z., you turned

And walked away, snarking

"See if I help you"

Marlys, you did not

Help us even though we stood

in your line for hours

Half of your kiosks

Stood idle on a Friday,

While hundreds waited.

Friday is Cruise Day

You seem to be an awful

Service Director.

The gate agent was

Mean too; she would not allow

pre-boarding with kids

The flight attendant

Shouted her way down the aisle

While our young son slept

I begged her to shh

"If he wakes up, we'll all suffer"

She just sneered at me

"I have to sell my

items," she snarled at me like

sleep was strange to her

(Maybe she hates kids

Maybe she hates parents, or

Maybe she hates sleep)

She managed not to

Wake him up, poor three-year-old

Stuck on her airline

Still, the worst one was

Marlys Z, back at Sea-Tac,

Hating passengers.

What I Made for Dinner: August 7, 2010

2010-08-07T21:56:00.000-05:00

Pasta and meatballs with fresh summer tomato sauce.

First of all, the explanation of the preceding post: I was taking a break. Get it?

It's a yolk.

Hee!

So, what were we doing the past few days? Why wasn't I cooking?

We were here:

And here:

We cruised to Southeast Alaska. And while we were there, we ate well. Everyone has heard the stories: The all-day buffet, the snacks served on deck, the constantly-replenished drink, the five-star dining. It was more or less true.

On the ship, they served baked Alaska.

(I'm not the only one who can crack yolks.)

Chuck and I took a tour of the massive galleys and admired the scope of the food-prep operation.

Those baskets? Also made from bread.

And, of course, we chowed down on the buffet.

All buffet, all the time. Alex's vacation began the minute he realized he could get whatever he wanted, all on his own. The food on the ship was pretty dang tasty. (The food off the ship was terrific. More on that another time.)

Of course, that means now that we're home, we must take some careful measures to ensure that our pants will continue to fit. To that end, this dinner was very moderate: small, low-fat meatballs and fresh summer tomato sauce made with tomatoes and basil from the garden, which did just fine while we were gone thanks to some help from the neighbor kids.

This was just a spectacular vacation and I would encourage anyone to visit Alaska because the things you see there you just can't see anywhere else, and it's amazing and gorgeous.

(The only downside was our trip home on United "Total Bastard" Airlines out of Sea-Tac "Ninth Circle of Hell" "Airport." I would encourage anyone to avoid both no matter what. Maybe next time we'll go through Vancouver or something. On some other airline.)

Why I Won't Be Making Dinner: July 29, 2010 - ???

2010-07-29T10:15:00.000-05:00

What I Made for Dinner: July 27, 2010

2010-07-28T10:39:00.000-05:00

Crock pot French dip sandwiches and tomatoes stuffed with hazelnut breadcrumbs.

Summer swelters on and I continue to seek dinner recipes that won't heat the house too much when I prepare them. Thank God for the crock pot because we can be at the pool while it cooks. Just can't bring myself to serve cold cereal for dinner, as someone suggested in the comments. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

What I Made for Dinner: July 26, 2010

2010-07-27T09:30:00.000-05:00

BLTs on sourdough.

I spent a fantastic weekend at the lake with girlfriends. What could be better? We talked and talked and talked and swam and read magazines and shopped a little. My current life is a little girlfriend-deprived; all my free time is spent with boys doing boy things. Last weekend, no one shot me with an imaginary gun or practiced armpit-farting. Not one person peed on the wall. The break was--I would say refreshing, but really life-giving would probably be more accurate.

Because we are sensible, budget-minded women, we rented a condo and cooked for ourselves (other than one very expensive, not-very-good fiasco). What did we cook? Well, I would show you but I failed to take even a single picture. Mostly, though, our meals involved unbelievably delicious, perfectly ripe tomatoes from an Amish farmstand, and bacon. Lots of bacon. Mmmmm bacon.

When I got back, I had some of those tomatoes left over. And how could I deprive my family? A BLT is the best way to showcase fresh summer tomatoes. I still have a few left and I will be using them this week because I refuse to throw such gorgeous things away.

What I Made for Dinner: July 22, 2010

2010-07-22T19:26:00.000-05:00

Open-faced croque-madame sandwiches.

Hot and humid today. Who wants to cook? Even more significantly: Who wants to eat in this weather? (Okay, okay; I'll concede that I usually want to eat even in this weather.) But didn't everyone learn from last night that water balloon fights are better than dinner? Didn't I take them out for ice cream at 4:30 for the express (if unstated) purpose of spoiling their appetites for dinner?

We did; I did. None of it worked, none of it ever works, and they still expect food to be served at some point between 5 and 8 p.m.

This sandwich is a low-key, superfast, hot-weather version of a classic croque-madame. The classic version involves a butter-rich sauce and requires three separate pans, the oven, and two separate cooking processes on the cooktop. Too heavy; too much heat; too much effort for this weather.

My version is much lighter and takes like seven minutes, about the length of time it takes to fry an egg. For each sandwich, toast a slice of sourdough bread. While it's toasting, melt a little butter in a non-stick pan and start frying an egg in it. While the egg is frying, top the toast with a couple of slices of good-quality smoked ham from the deli counter. Top that with one or two slices of your preferred hard cheese--classic is Swiss or gruyere, but I used colby-jack because I am not French and it's 102 out and screw it. Microwave it just until the cheese starts to melt, maybe 30 seconds--don't let the cheese get runny (again, with the microwave? Not French, 102 out). When the egg is done to your liking, put it on top of the sandwich, add salt and pepper to taste.

What I Made for Dinner: July 21, 2010

2010-07-22T11:02:00.000-05:00

Chicken shwarma burgers with tzatziki, Greek salad.

My friend Nikki and her adorable family joined us for dinner, as well as swimming and water-balloon fights--dinner was a pale cousin to all the other activities. They are visiting from California, which is so far away and it's really too bad because this morning Eli keeps asking when he can see his new friends again. Hopefully it will be soon.

Max's Birthday Chocolate Chip Cookies (makes about 15 large cookies)

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup golden or dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 T. vanilla
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1 1/3 cup best-quality semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375.

Stir together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, stir together butter, sugars, and vanilla. Add egg and yolk. Beat well to make sure the egg is evenly distributed. Stir in the dry ingredients. Fold in the chocolate chips until incorporated. Drop batter in scant 1/4 cup rounds onto a lined baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes, just until the edges begin to turn golden. They'll seem underdone but they're ready. Cool on a rack.

What I Made for Dinner: July 15, 2010

2010-07-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

Pulled pork tacos and broccoli slaw.

So yes, okay, I cooked something even though it was hot out. But! But! It cooked low and slow in the oven while the boys and I went to the pool, so it doesn't really count.

What I Made for Dinner: July 14, 2010

2010-07-15T10:51:00.000-05:00

Hummus and pita, cucumber salad with yogurt-dill dressing, cherries.

It's getting into too-hot-to-cook territory. Par for the course here in high summer on the Great Plains, and I am actually so ready for it after all the rain and unnaturally cool weather!

It was funny to hear my east coast friends and family fuss about their recent extremely hot weather. They're not really used to it, and they were pretty miserable, and I certainly can understand that. It's all about expectations, though. Here, there's not much to do when it rains. If it's hot and dry, though, well--we have a sprinkler system, access to two pools and a water playground, and the possibility of visiting two (very expensive) water amusement parks should things get desperate. We get out early in the morning to play outside and do the gardening. I am fully equipped for hot and dry. And I'm also ready to make dinners that require little or no heat to prepare. Bring it on.

What I Made for Dinner: July 13, 2010

2010-07-15T10:44:00.000-05:00

Crab cake with basil aioli; salmon fillets en papillote with citrus beurre blanc; salad of shaved asparagus, sweet corn and goat cheese; peppermint-chocolate cake.

Just an ordinary Tuesday night at chez Dinnertime.

Ha! No, it was my Mother-in-Law's birthday. Since we really can't go anywhere nice for dinner (because one of us who shall remain nameless refuses to sit through a meal, ahem) I wanted to make her something special. I served the crab cakes as a first course.

The best thing about this dinner is that although it looked fancy, it actually came together very quickly (and while I was refereeing grouchy, post-camp children). I got the crab cake recipe off the back of the crabmeat jar; here's the fish recipe and the aioli recipe. I made the fish packets (a total of about 15 minutes) and set them aside; made the crab mixture and started frying cakes (15 minutes to make the mixture, another 15 to fry them); while the cakes were frying I made the aioli (5 minutes). Then I served the crab cakes and put the fish in the oven, where it baked while people were eating. So, a pretty nice birthday dinner in about an hour!

What I Made for Dinner: July 12, 2010

2010-07-13T10:09:00.000-05:00

Chicken cutlets served over spinach; salad of chickpeas, artichokes, and avocado.

I made twice as much chicken as I thought we'd eat, hoping to freeze some for future use. But Alex and Josh just kept eating!

They are attending this great day camp run by our school district, and every day they come home full of thingstheyhavetotellmeimmediately, and famished to boot. (For Alex's part, that might be because he spends his lunch period impressing his friends with armpit farts instead of eating.) When they're this hungry, they're more likely to try new things--so they didn't even question the bed of spinach and we ran out of the chickpea salad, too.

What I Made for Dinner: July 11, 2010

2010-07-13T09:59:00.000-05:00

Tomato-basil bruschetta.

I'm a little pessimistic about our tomato crop. We've had a ton of rain, which means our tomato plants are delightfully big and green and happy--with no flowers. The few tomatoes they've produced so far have all gotten blossom-end rot. Such a bummer. If the rest of July dries out, we might still have a chance, I guess.

The exception:

Our grape tomatoes seem pretty happy. And the herb garden loves all the rain!

What I Made for Dinner: July 8, 2010

2010-07-08T19:20:00.000-05:00

Frozen chicken patty sandwiches, carrots and ranch dip.

What, I'm gonna cook? Chuck and Josh went to Scout camp. My eaters are gone.

(To be fair, Alex is a pretty good eater--but he's also perfectly happy with this kind of thing.)

(I ate leftover Indian food.)

(They come back on Saturday.)

What I Made for Dinner: July 6, 2010

2010-07-06T23:19:00.000-05:00

Orzo with chicken, corn, and poblano peppers.

I wanted to make a fried rice dish but I forgot to make the rice.

I'm having an off week, I think. Today the children and I had a lovely day walking around campus until after lunch, when I pushed my luck and took them to an art museum. That was a mistake. They liked the painting of Salome with the Head of John the Baptist but after that it was all way, way downhill. I didn't even have the good sense to leave early.

Oh, well. At least dinner was good; the orzo was even better than rice would have been.

What I Made for Dinner: July 5, 2010

2010-07-06T09:01:00.001-05:00

Mushroom-ricotta quiche.

You know what's really not good for dinner? Mushroom-ricotta quiche.

What I Made for Dinner: July 2, 2010

2010-07-02T20:13:00.001-05:00

Pasta with grilled chicken, asparagus, and green onions.

So the conference was excellent, both the setting and the content. But the food? Not so much. First off, when this

is the view from your room, you should be able to guess without asking the ballpark figure for a nice on-site meal, say a salad followed by some poached grouper and roasted potatoes. FOUR MILLION DOLLARS, PLEASE. The fine-dining places at the resort were out of the question for us. (Even ordering a simple chicken sandwich with a side of fruit made me cringe a little.) The conference included a few meals, but they offered pretty unremarkable food.

(Second, I thought it interesting that the resort didn't feature local foods at any of its restaurants. The food was the same stuff you could get just about anywhere. Given that kind of generic menu-planning and the prices, I concluded that you don't go to Marco Island for the cuisine; you go for the manatees and beaches and dolphins and margaritas. And you really shouldn't be eating anyway, you in the swimsuit, but if you absolutely must, something fried is probably just around the corner.)

So it was nice, tonight, to be home with my grill and my inexpensive, readily-available groceries. Everything got tossed in olive oil and lemon juice, grilled, then tossed with pasta and more olive oil and lemon juice. It was delicious and nowhere near four million dollars. No manatees here in the Great Plains, though.

What I Made for Dinner: July 1, 2010

2010-07-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

Chicken quesadillas and watermelon.

It has been a full, delightful week since I last made dinner, and the reason is that we were here:

Marco Island, Florida

and I can't even believe my good fortune in getting to go to such a place for work. For work! Really!

We got back this afternoon and of course there's laundry galore to do, not to mention a week's worth of "Mom! Mom! Look at me, Mom!" to catch up on. My parents, who (blessedly, graciously) stayed with the boys while I conferred and Chuck wave-ran, left the raw materials for me to make this nice, simple dinner, otherwise it would have been a Sonic night.

What I Baked: June 23, 2010

2010-06-23T22:33:00.000-05:00

Zucchini bread.

A few people have asked me to share my zucchini bread recipe, and I always like to be helpful! Of course, zucchini bread recipes abound. I like this one because it incorporates a lot of healthy ingredients and its texture is pretty cake-like.

Zucchini bread (one loaf)

1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 cups oat flour (or whole-wheat, but I like the flavor of oat better)
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup shredded zucchini (about one medium zuke)
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, and salt. Add the shredded zucchini and toss to coat. In a separate bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs and buttermilk and whisk until combined. Add the dry ingredients and stir gently until combined. Fold in chocolate chips and dried cranberries. Scrape the batter in the prepared loaf pan and bake for about one hour, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

What I Made for Dinner: June 23, 2010

2010-06-23T22:07:00.000-05:00

Tilapia in foil packets, roasted new potatoes, fried banana peppers.

It's Farmers Market Wednesday! Our local farmers market gets crowded to the point of impassibility on Saturdays, but Wednesday mornings are clear sailing and if you get there early enough, it's not even that hot. Today's haul included green onions and teeny-tiny little red potatoes and long, slender, pale-green sweet banana peppers. The boys secured fresh cinnamon rolls and honey sticks and a promise to return later with an insulated cooler so we can load up on butternut squash ravioli.

I suspect every Wednesday from now on will be Farmers Market Day.

Incidentally, I got recipe ideas for the fish and the peppers from the July Bon Appetit, which did not steer me even one bit wrong this time (and out of which I want to make every single recipe this summer).