I can’t stand mayonnaise. I’m just not a condiment person. Or a cream sauce person. When it comes to potato salad or coleslaw, it goes to reason that I will pick a vinaigrette over a mayo or buttermilk based dressing any day of the week. My husband fortunately knows about my (strong) anti-mayonnaise sentiments so he was wise to pick Ina Garten’s French potato salad to go with our barbeque last Sunday.
Read MoreNow that it's June, it is time to think about backyard parties. And wearing white jeans. And replacing your regular duvet cover with linen. This last one I may have done before Memorial Day.
Memorial Day weekend is usually a bust weather-wise around here, and this year proved no exception. We went to a movie at the library on Friday, then on Saturday took the kids to the theater to see Tomorrowland during yet another round of showers. Just a little PSA: this movie might be a bit scary for some kids. Like Théa. Gus, however, absorbed every single minute of it and thought it was the best thing ever. Especially the robots. With guns. It should be obvious at this point that I made a tactical parenting error taking my five-year-olds to this movie. Also your kids might not want to go on It’s A Small World after seeing this movie. I’ll leave you to decide whether that is a good or bad thing.
Read MoreIt seems like fava beans are all I see in my food porn stream around this time of year. And every year, I pin or save or drool over fava bean recipes only to find that there are no favas available where I live. Last week, I almost shouted in the market (it’s true – you can ask my husband) when I saw fava beans in stock. I had no idea what I was going to make but I bought a bag on the spot.
Read MoreSunday night was Back to School Night at the kids’ high school. This parents-only affair is held annually to give parents the lay of the land with respect to curriculum and overall expectations. I have never been.
Read MoreOk, so we didn’t eat honey-ginger chicken with lime last night. Nor did we eat shrimp and grits on Sunday. Is this a recipe review blog or what? Maybe not. Maybe it will be again, but for now, let’s call it like it is. I am in perpetual catch-up mode. It could be that I’m also in mid-life crisis mode. My youngest children want to trade in our disguised mini-van (a.k.a. Acadia) for a convertible beetle. I’m actually considering it. Why not? Like I said, possible mid-life crisis. More on this later, I’m sure.
Read MoreI like a recipe with a picture. I like to have an idea of the end goal. I am totally a planner at heart. But I chose to make roasted corn, jicama, and mango salad despite the lack of accompanying photo because I happened to have every single ingredient on hand. How often does that happen? Never.
Read MoreI have already mentioned that my husband has this thing about making ribs on Father’s Day. And, honestly, as the father of seven kids, if he wants to make ribs once a year, let him. I don’t particularly care for ribs and that does not matter in the slightest because not only is it “his day” (please, people, you and I both know that father’s day is more work for dads than the average Sunday) but also because he cooks them. Perfect. I’ll have bread for dinner.
Read MoreIt turns out, I was right. My husband did want ribs for Father’s Day. And he rocked them. But more on that later. I really wanted to try the lamb skewers that I had scheduled for Sunday, so we had a little switcheroo on the menu. Lamb skewers on Saturday night, ribs and barbeque chicken on Sunday afternoon. We were fortunate to have all of our kids at home on Saturday night (not so for Sunday), which meant another change in the menu since the farrotto recipe (via Collards and Carbonara) was not vegetarian friendly. A little flexibility goes a long way.
Read MoreWe’ve been on the road. Eating junk. That’s not to say that I haven’t been eating some pretty good stuff. I’ve mentioned the crawfish already. The wedding cake was amazing. I’m a sucker for almond wedding cake. I had a shrimp po-boy, and fried catfish, and beignets, and Rob had an amazing blackened snapper sandwich. We also ate at a cool beachside spot near Pensacola called The Gulf.
Read MoreI saw a photo of spring pea farro salad from What’s Gaby Cooking on Instagram and I had to make it. I actually wanted to make it the very day that I saw it except that I don’t live in Los Angeles, and our farmer’s markets are open yet, and there are no spring peas or pea shoots to be had in the mountains in April. And I almost couldn’t find farro. It’s ok, though. I persevered. Anything for a good meal.
Read MoreIt’s craziness here in the mountains this week. I’m pretty sure that it is warmer than it was the entire time we were in Southern California for spring break. We’ve been able to eat out on the porch and walk to the store for popsicles… I’m hoping this lasts forever.
In the spirit of spring, one of the recipes that we tried this week was Not Yet Summer Greek Pasta Salad from Joy the Baker. I L-O-V-E Joy’s blog. Her photos make me hungry. She’s funny (see especially this recent post). Oh, and she makes really good food. So it was only a matter of time before I tried her Greek pasta salad. Fortunately, my associates were up for the task.
Read MoreWe did a little switcheroo on the menu tonight because we are taking the kids night skiing tomorrow. Night skiing. How did they get old enough to go night skiing?
Anyway, through no intentional planning, I served spring on a plate tonight. We switched Tuesday night's tacos for Wednesday night's Italian. Both the penne and the asparagus salad were incredibly light but flavorful. This dinner was very refreshing, especially after last night’s burning man. I wasn’t sure how I felt about raw asparagus salad. I know. I’m the one who planned to make it, but I still wasn’t sure. And while my associates did an excellent job juicing lemon,
Read MoreWe made a slight deviation from the original meal plan last night. Both the planned recipe (Barley Soup with Chicken and Pancetta) and the actual recipe (Stuffed Chicken Thighs, La Cucina Italiana, January/February 2014, page 27) are Italian. And both call for chicken thighs and pancetta. But you know, sometimes you just aren’t in the mood for soup. And sometimes you have more people for dinner than you anticipate. And they are teenage boys so you can’t very well serve them soup or they will be hungry in five minutes. You improvise. Maybe you turn three pages back in the magazine that you took out for dinner and hey, there’s something that looks tasty. It’s tough work, this kitchen gig.
Read MoreConfession time. I can’t see and I did not cook this meal. In fact, I’m not sure that I will be cooking much for the next week. I had a little surgery on my right eyeball on Thursday. Let’s just say it was a tad more involved than I thought it would be. I’m actually squinting out of one eye with my glasses on to type this. And I look like someone punched me in the face. No joke.
Read MoreRemember weeks and weeks ago (ok, a month ago) when I said we were going to have meatloaf for Christmas dinner? Yep. We did. And it was amazing. It’s probably about time that I write a review of that dinner because you should make every bit of it.
Just for the record, meatloaf does not photograph well. It’s rather camera shy. At least for amateurs. That and I was so busy actually cooking in the kitchen that I assigned one of my sous-chefs the photographer roll. While he got some very creative shots, the color was not exactly in the appetizing category. More like old Chinese take-out menu. Totally not his fault as I didn’t change the camera settings before handing him the camera. Oh well. Never mind the photos. The food was outstanding.
Read MoreI cannot count the number of times that I have made meatballs. It feels a little cheeky to even write a post about this. I mean, doesn’t everyone know how to make meatballs? And are these the BEST EVER? No. I have made them so many times that I don’t even follow a recipe. I just throw a bunch of stuff in a bowl and go with it.
These meatballs were no different. I had intended to actually follow the recipe in Tony Chachere’s Cajun Country Cookbook, the recipe that my grandmother always used, and that I started using a million years ago. Nope. I opened the freezer to find that I had one ziplock of meat mix that really needed to be used, so I started with that. In a stroke of crazy, I noticed that I had somehow omitted onions entirely when originally making the meat mix. Seriously. How do you ignore an entire ingredient? Yep. That (and my purse) must be the sign of an addled mind. At least I am consistent.
Read MoreI need a new system. I keep saying this or that recipe was so simple. Really, do I cook anything complicated (ok, except the Christmas gnocchi, but I’ll get to that later)? Not so much. Maybe a sliding scale of easy? I’ll work on that.
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