And So I Leave You with Some Brownies...

I've been putting-off this post for a while...avoiding the inevitable if you will, but after over three months of slakerdom in this space, I am officially retiring Raising Foodies (for now, because you just never know...)

I kept thinking I would come back, I did, but it just never seemed to happen. It didn't happen after a holiday filled with cooking (and eating)... It didn't happen after I made an enormous six-layer rainbow birthday cake for Millie... It didn't happen after baking spice cupcakes, a cake, and the best brownies of all-time on the same snowy, house-bound day.

So I finally came to terms with the fact that it was never going to happen, and this is my attempt at closure. (I'm a fan of therapy, can you tell?)

I am proud of what "Raising Foodies" was. I loved interacting with you guys in this space, I loved that it made me think about how we were preparing and eating our food... that it was the catalyst for the girlies to try lots of new things they may not have otherwise.

But I think what I'm most proud of is how it's changed the way we approach dinner every night as a family. Our meals now are very different than they were pre-"Foodies". They're less harried, more mindful, more wholesome. We eat out very rarely (a major change), all four of us preferring to eat at home most nights. Sure some of this can be attributed to the fact that the girls are older, more independent and amenable, making cooking easier, but I believe when you put a goal out there, when you invite others to be a part of it, thus feeling some accountability to those people, it will change you.

So thank you. Thank you for being a part of our little food adventure, for helping us change.

And as a token of my appreciation, I've leaving you with (literally) the best brownies I have. ever. eaten. (and I have eaten a lot of brownies). I made them last night, and I'm not going to lie...they were a revelation.

Oh and they were super easy too. Enjoy!

Alice Medrich's Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter and Walnuts (via Bon Appetit)


Ingredients:

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder (spooned into cup to measure, then leveled)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, chilled
• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 cup walnut pieces

Preparation:

Position rack in bottom third of oven; preheat to 325°F. Line 8x8x2-inch metal baking pan with foil, pressing foil firmly against pan sides and leaving 2-inch overhang. Coat foil with nonstick spray.

Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Continue cooking until butter stops foaming and browned bits form at bottom of pan, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat; immediately add sugar, cocoa, 2 teaspoons water, vanilla, and 1/4 teaspoon (generous) salt. Stir to blend. Let cool 5 minutes (mixture will still be hot).

Add eggs to hot mixture 1 at a time, beating vigorously to blend after each addition. When mixture looks thick and shiny, add flour and stir until blended. Beat vigorously 60 strokes. Stir in nuts. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake brownies until toothpick inserted into center comes out almost clean (with a few moist crumbs attached), about 25 minutes. Cool in pan on rack. Using foil overhang, lift brownies from pan. Cut into 4 strips. Cut each strip crosswise into 4 brownies. DO AHEAD Can be made 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.

Family Dinner...

"make dinner not war" sticker courtesy of the fantastic Jenny... and you could win one too...

We've had some pretty stellar family dinners of late...but they had nothing to do with the actual meals we've made.

Actually, they were in spite of the food, which has been pretty routine and uninventive... Let's just say our current repertoire is heavy in such mundane standbys as spaghetti and meatballs and "taco night" (and not "chic tacos", but the old school ones-- a little meat, a little cheese, a little lettuce, a crispy corn shell. The tacos of our youth. I'm not proud, but it is what it is.)

So the meals not so great, but the meal-time, pretty darn good.

We made a decision early on that we wanted to eat dinner as a family at the table at least five nights a week. It wasn't an easy decision to make or more accurately, it wasn't an easy decision to stick too; it was actually pretty easy to proclaim... See sticking to it means that sometimes we eat at 5:30, because the girls are going nuts with hunger, and if there isn't food on the table at exactly that moment (which we've affectionately dubbed "the witching hour") then surely all hell will break loose. Sticking to it also means that up until recently, (if I'm being perfectly honest here) meals are often...well, a total nightmare. Eating with small kids is hard, and messy, and hard.

Did I mention it was hard?

But, as with a staggeringly large number of kid-related experiences, one day you wake up, and well, it's not so hard anymore. All the gnashing and agonizing pays off, and it's suddenly how you thought it would be when you made that original (smug) proclamation.

And that's pretty much where we are when it comes to meal-time these days. On a typical night (and yes, there are still some exceptions when dinner is all world war II -esque) we wait for everyone to sit down at the table before anyone takes a bite (which is especially hard for Millie, but she still pulls it off sweet girl) and then we start off each meal with a little ritual -- a blessing, the clinking of glasses and a hearty "bon appetite." Everyone eats quietly for a few minutes (ok a few seconds) and then we go around and each say what was best about our day. I know, I know, it sounds a little Normal Rockwell, but it's happening. I promise.

Sure there's still chaos -- taco meat on the floor (the shop vac makes an appearance after every. single. meal.), someone screaming, someone getting up from the table repeatedly for more milk, a bathroom trip, an impromptu dance...It is not perfect, but it's good. In fact, so good, that with each passing meal I can see ever more clear glimpses of what dinner might look like in say five years.

And that I'm really excited about.

Cooking for One...

I'm lucky to be able to work out of my house a couple of days a week.

And while it's nice to not have to make the commute into the office, to be able to work in my yoga pants and to occasionally walk or ride my bike to get Audrey from school, the best part of this set-up is, by far, lunch.

I love knowing that exactly two days a week, I get to cook whatever. I. want. I get to create a little meal that is 100% completely and wholly for me. On those two days, I don't have to worry that Bryan doesn't like olives or blue cheese or tuna or that the girlies don't like, well...where do I start with what they don't like. There are no other palettes to consider, no other diners to cajole or convince into eating.

It's bliss.

Even during my most persistent cooking funks, these little meals feel inspired. I throw things in with abandon and take ample risks, as I figure if the dish is a flop, I'm the only one who will know (+ if all else fails I can eat a carton of Greek yogurt and some fruit...)

My go-to solo-meal of late is either a simple pasta with whatever is in the fridge or pantry (and usually involving some olives or few capers, just because I can) or an omelet with lots of feta and sauteed veggies. I've eaten some variation of this for the past month, and it shows no sign of waning.

So I'd love to hear, how does this work in your house? Do you ever cook for just yourself? What do you make?

Our Go-To Meal (For Now...)

Contrary to those photos above, this is not a post about asparagus. No, it's about quiche... We're having an awfully big quiche moment of late.

Specifically we're having a "quiche for dinner" moment, as I've fallen back on making it far too often than I'd like to admit lately.

It's ironic really, as quiche and I got off to an awfully rocky start, my first attempt was both comical and mildly infuriating. So after some searching, I've officially aligned myself with Rachel's classic quiche recipe (which is super easy and basic and maybe, slightly more virtuous, as she uses milk instead of cream), and then I mix up my toppings depending on our mood on any given night. My M.O. is to cut the richness of the quiche by serving it alongside a little light mixed green salad with vinagrette or some roasted aspargus and a few sliced tomatoes from our plants (above.)

The most exciting part is that the girlies. love. quiche. Especially a simple bacon or ham and cheese number (I use seaside cheddar, as it's utterly divine -- nutty + a little bit salty...perfection.) My favorite part of our quiche moment though is how whenever we have it for dinner (which as noted above is a lot) Millie chants ever so zen-like, "ohhh quiche, quiche, quiche" and then giggles hysterically like it's the funniest word she's ever said.

It's lovely.

So are you quiche peeps? What is your favorite combo?

Here's What *Could* Happen if You Grow Tomatoes

It's altogether possible (but I'm not making any guarantees) that your six-year old daughter might visit the plants every single day to check on the progress of said tomatoes...

It's also possible (but again no promises) that when the tomatoes ripen, the same six-year old girl (who doesn't really even like tomatoes -- that is unless they are grape tomatoes and she's staarrving) will lovingly pluck them off the vine, carefully rinse them off and pat them dry and then gingerly place them in a bowl on the windowsill.

And that same girl just might also declare one evening during dinner that she would like to have tomatoes for dessert.

For. Dessert.

"You know", she'll say... "just sliced up, with a little salt on top."

And then she might eat them all...every. single. slice., so that you and your husband literally have to distract her so you can get just a teeny tiny sliver of homegrown tomato for yourself.

And then you might faint. I'm just sayin. It could happen.

In Print Part II -- Kid's Cookbooks

images via edible

A while back I collaborated with my friend, photographer Richard Adams, on a piece about kid's cookbooks for the Dallas & Ft. Worth edition of Edible magazine. I am a huge fan of Edible, as it focuses on local, sustainable food and the art direction and photography is beautiful, so I was honored to be asked to contribute...

+ Audrey loved being in the photo shoot ;-)

You can click on the image above if you want to read the piece.

Cooking Inspiration (And A Shameful Secret...)

I’m about to admit something I’m not proud of.

When I was in college (and clearly not very smart) and would watch a movie in which the characters smoked a lot (say Next Stop Wonderland), I would then promptly smoke. Usually Parliaments.

Now just forget I admitted that….but there was a point in sharing this shameful secret. The same thing happens to the girlies (minus the gross cigarettes, of course) when they watch shows/movies heavy in cooking. A screening of Ratatouille always sends Audrey tearing through the kitchen drawers for various implements, whipping up a potion, the ingredients too gross to repeat here.

Recently we’ve been on a bit Little Bear kick (my girlies are addicted to that show), and as such, the girls are inspired to recreate all of Mother and Little Bear's various creations – the flying flapjacks, the cupcakes, and most recently, the homemade lemonade (there's an entire episode dedicated to making lemonade.)



We happened to get a dozen lemons in our co-op box last week, which came in handy when, after a Saturday afternoon viewing of said lemonade episode, they declared they wanted to whip up a big batch.

Out came the little juicer we received as a wedding gift a decade ago (and have used approximately three times.) Squeezing the lemons was infinitely thrilling to little Millie... We then added some cold water and sugar in the raw to the lemon juice. Again inspired by Little Bear, Audrey wanted to instead use mint and honey, which as tempting and lovely as it seemed, I nixed, as I couldn’t bear to waste all those lovely lemons if she didn’t like it (and there was a very high probability that she wouldn't...)

It was incredibly tasty and will be a perfect base for homemade popsicles once the weather gets a smidge warmer.

So, What inspires your kiddos to cook?

The United States of Snacking

my snack of choice...if, that is, I were a snacker...

I'm not so much a "snacker"... Sure I'll nosh on a handful of nuts, a few olives, maybe a sliver of cheese if I'm having a late dinner or (being totally honest here) if they're readily available, but I don't actively seek out snacks. I'm pretty much a three square meals gal...bare bones. I know, I know, snacks are healthy, they keep your metabolism going, ensure you don't get too hungry and eat like a deranged lumberjack during meal-time.

But I'm still not that into them.

My girlies on the other hand (you knew this was coming) are obsessed with "snacks." In fact, I'm not sure they really even eat meals at all. I think their caloric intake pretty much consists of a steady stream of snacks. All day long.

I am not happy about this.

Now in all fairness, some of this is out of my control. Audrey's school's kindergarten lunch time is (wait for it) 10:30...in the morning(!), and I think this somehow throws off her meal-time clock all day long. She doesn't like breakfast (I know...it's awful, I've tried everything), so her first meal is at 10:30. Then come the snacks. There's the 1:00 snack, the 3:30 snack, the 5:00 snack, dinner (which is pretty much a big snack) and then a small before bed snack.

Snack overload.

We roll pretty healthy, so snacks are usually fruit...my kiddos go through bananas, strawberries and blueberries like it's their job + some protein. We do lots of yogurt too. But still the snack thing is rather disconcerting. There has to be a better way.

To further stress me out, I just read this NYTimes article about the never-ending snack time.

So what do you think? How do you handle snacks? To snack or not to snack?

Oh Salad

There's a passage in Alice Waters and Chez Panisse where Alice muses (and I'm paraphrasing here) that given her own immense love of salad, it would be unfathomable to her that her young daughter Fanny wouldn't just come out of the womb craving it.

Lucky for Alice, this is essentially the case, and she's able to make wee Greek salads to tuck into young Fanny's lunchbox, which she happily gobbles right up.

Let's just say that's not so much what's going down at my house.

If my kiddos liked certain foods solely based on the fact that I liked them, there would be no need for this blog. They'd be happily lapping up any number of delicacies that they currently (vehemently) refuse, like, yes, salad.

I love salad in ways that a mere blog post can't adequately describe. Like Jora, I could eat it every day. In fact, if I had a pick only one thing to eat if stranded on a desert island, it would most certainly be salad...+ it's a perfect meal for when you're stuck in a post-holidays cooking rut (thank you for all your great suggestions/support for crawling out by the way, I just picked up a slow cooker cookbook, and I'm using that until inspiration strikes again...)

But the girlies, well the girlies won't touch salad.

I realize it's largely a component thing, as they like tomatoes and carrots and celery and any number of other things you'd put on a salad, but they just don't like them all tossed together with dressing (oh God no, not dressing...) oh and and stinky cheese. I think salad is infinitely better with some stinky cheese perched on top.

So for this one, (and truth be told, many others I'm sure) I'll just have to live vicariously through Alice, but I'm hoping the girlies will come around to my beloved salad... One day.

The blood oranges are gorgeous right now, so I built a salad around a couple I picked up at Whole Foods this weekend. Super simple and v. yummy.

Blood Orange Feta Salad

• One small head of butter lettuce washed and torn into small pieces
• 1/4 cup Feta cheese
• One blood orange thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup salted macadamia nuts, lightly crushed
• (this weekend I used sesame garlic SASS dressing, which is pretty much the only bottled dressing I'll buy, but my favorite dressing is below)

Dressing

• 1 cup walnut oil
• ½ cup chardonnay vinegar
• 1 tsp. sugar (or more, to taste)
• 1 shallot finely minced
• Salt and pepper to taste

A Wee Bit of A Rut...

Aran's gorgeous photo + recipe via design * sponge

So (in an attempt to go easy on myself) I'm going to chalk my forthcoming statement up to a sort of holiday food hangover...ok?

I'm not in the mood to cook. At all.

Not inspired, not dreaming up recipes, not thinking about what to make this weekend. Just plain not into it.

And yes, I really think it's partially due to all the heavy food we cooked in December. We were in the kitchen a lot the past couple of months...hosting Thanksgiving, dinner parties, Christmas Eve dinner, a Christmas day feast. Maybe I'm just burned out...oh and my jeans are awfully tight, so there's that too.

So we're not "cooking" a lot, rather we're preparing food. Simple pasta, lots of salad, big pots of easy white beans, hummus with crackers and celery, scrambled egg sandwiches, nothing worth blogging about, but it does the trick.

I'm trying to pull out friends, I am...I even spent Sunday afternoon pouring through kid's cookbooks with Audrey trying to drum up some inspiration.

So anyone else feeling this? Any tips for getting out of a January food funk?

Eating Out…With Kids

After too many sub-par meals at “kid friendly” restaurants, I:

A) came to a conclusion

and

B) made a vow

First up the conclusion… As harsh as it sounds, I’ve come to equate restaurants calling themselves “kid friendly” as typically some combo of a dumbed-down and often dirty atmosphere, broken crayons, sticky highchairs and offensive “kids” menus. The only consistent exceptions are a stable of Mexican food restaurants in Dallas that we frequent (specifically Mi Cocina and Gloria’s), which seem to have the combo of kid appropriateness and stellar food down pat.

Now for the vow… Until my conclusion is proven otherwise (really, why is this such an elusive concept??), we’ve vowed to only go out to eat if it’s a restaurant we really want to go to for the food (not because it’s “kid friendly”.) Otherwise we stay home.

Needless to say, we’ve been eating at home a lot.

We have had some surprising success at a few spots though. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not frequenting restaurants with multiple course menus or that serve a little amuse-bouche before the meal. We know our limits and try to stick to them.

We’ve had two great meals with the kiddos at Park, and Audrey and I had a great lunch recently at R+D Kitchen. Our formula is to go at a wickedly early hour (think senior citizen dinner hour in Florida.) Yep, we show up at restaurants at 5:00 pm… but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. We also come armed with our own bag of “special treats”, which is essentially a little stash of goodies like fresh crayons, new coloring books and a few small toys that don’t see the light of day unless we’re going out to a restaurant (the thrill of the new inevitably buys us at least a few minutes of mellow, content kiddos.) We’re also totally on board with the idea of aborting mission. If we sense the girlies melting down, we make it easy on everyone and ask for the check and everything gets wrapped up to go stat. Granted we’ve only had to do this once, but it’s in the arsenal if we need it.

So…spill it. How often do you go out to eat with your kiddos? Where do you take them? Do you have any strategies for a great meal out?

p.s. yes I know I still owe you my cooking group recipe for the week. It’s coming. I promise!

Fair Food

For the most part, we're pretty darn healthy eaters. The girls eat loads of fruit, mostly drink water and prefer wheat bread. We never buy soda or juice, rarely buy candy (minus good chocolate) and hardly ever eat fried food or fast food or, well junk food in general. Our issue has never been so much about the girlies being "unhealthy" eaters so much as the fact that they are supremely picky and so my mission has been to try and expand their palettes a little bit each day.

But a few times a year we throw all caution to the wind. We're not really strict when it comes to birthday parties or Halloween or Easter -- the girlies take to the treats with abandon and then the next day we go back to business as usual -- and so far, it's been a good system for us.

Our annual visit to the Texas State Fair is one of those "all wheels off" days. So enamoured we are with the culinary bacchanal that is the fair that we actually spend a lot of time plotting our food strategy beforehand. We all have our favorite (incredibly bad for you) fair food and our own little rituals for eating it. Bryan and I always go for the giant corny dogs... always. He likes his plain, I get the jalapeno cheese one -- it is spectacular, and I'm not even a big fan of hot dogs, so this is saying a lot. I also love the frozen, chocolate covered cheesecake. I know, I know... I told you, this is insanely bad for you food friends.

Audrey's go-to treats are those crazy battered chicken strips with loads of ketchup, she and Millie both beg for a giant bag of cotton candy, and we end up going home with a year's supply of peppermint saltwater taffy.

Last Friday was our yearly fair trip and after a week battling the flu, we all held back a bit on the food front. (Audrey and Millie couldn't even finish half their shared bag of cotton candy.) We were lightweights.

We'll have to make up for it next year...

When in Rome…

images by Roland Bello for Gourmet... Bello's gorgeous work is one of the many reasons I'm so, so sad Gourmet will be no longer. sigh.

Recently, Erin from of the blog Villa Pacis e-mailed me with a peek into her kitchen in Rome. Specifically she shared her family’s seven staples, which I plan to copy immediatamente…

Here’s what Erin's family can’t live without on the food front:

1. Riso Giallo (yellow rice, which is actually risotto alla milanese) the kids LOVE this. we normally serve it with prosciutto after and parmesan cheese on top.
   
2. Lentil Soup served with parmesan cheese on top and oil
   
3. Polpettine con Sugo (little mini meatballs which I lace with grated vegetables and serve with a fresh tomato sauce.)
   
4. Pesce al Forno (whatever pretty fish we find at the market in a pan in the oven with cherry tomatoes sliced potatoes rosemary salt pepper to taste and olive oil baked together.)
   
5. Pollo Arrosto (roast chicken, stuffed with garlic, lots of lemon wedges, bay leaves, rosemary, salt and pepper to taste, olive oil and a splash of beer:-) we also add potatoes, carrots, fennel and garlic bits around in the pan.
   
6. Milanese (fried or baked but when fried only in extra virgin olive oil. served with steamed greens on the side and lemon juice on top.)
   
7. Minestrone (a Sunday night staple when we take every single vegetable we have in the fridge, cut them into bit size pieces, throw in a pot where we browned 1/2 and onion, garlic and celery, cook until waters come out of veggies, stir, cover with water to level of soup desired and cook for 30 minutes on low flame. we serve it with grated parmesan cheese on top and a drizzle of fresh olive oil.

Inspiring no?

So I’m curious, what are your staples?? We’ve talked a little about go-to meals in the past, but I’d love to hear more about what you always have on hand. I really believe there’s a science to stocking a pantry and if I could just get our staples worked out and have my ten go-to meals set in stone then I think I’d have this dinner time thing beat…

The Birthday Dinner

Growing up, part of our birthday celebrations always included dinner of our choice cooked by my mother. My hubby's family had the same tradition -- he always picked crab cakes and I requested beef stroganoff, which is funny as neither of us ever eat those meals anymore, but I digress...

Today is our oldest daughter's 6th birthday, so in carrying on the tradition, I asked her earlier this week what she wanted for dinner tonight at our family party. She requested white beans and sausage pasta, which is technically two meals, but it's her day, so she can go wild.


Let me pause here to say how proud I am of her choices. Despite some evidence to the contrary on this blog, we've made progress friends, as I'm certain her request last year would have been pizza or nuggets and Annie's mac and cheese.

The white beans are just a simple pot of navy or great northern beans that we cook all day -- we just sauté some celery and onion, add pre-soaked beans, chicken broth + spices (usually some Tony Chachere's , kosher salt, some fresh ground pepper, a bit of sage...), bring to a boil and then simmer for the rest of the day. Served over brown rice, this is one of our all-time favorite meals... We love it, the girls love it, it's easy, healthy and cheap. A major win!

The sausage pasta is a new favorite we make about once a week and is pretty much a simple combo of orecchiette, turkey sausage and loads of Parmesan. I serve it with just the meat and pasta for the girlies + a side of steamed green beans, and after I remove their portion from the pot, I add sautéed spinach and asparagus for Bryan and me. Maybe by next year she'll be eating that too...

I can dream ;-)

Orecchiette with Sausage, Asparagus and Spinach

• 1 pound orecchiette
• 4 sweet Italian sausages (about 1 pound), casing removed and crumbled
• Small bunch of asparagus, trimmed into 1 inch pieces
• 1 pound spinach, washed, trimmed, and cut into pieces
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• ¼ cup organic chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon organic butter
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Place sausage in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown for about 8-10 minutes, transfer to a bowl.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente, 8-10 minutes; drain, reserving about ½ cup of the cooking water.

In the same skillet that you cooked the sausage in (don’t wash it out) add the olive oil and once hot, sauté the asparagus until almost tender, then add the spinach and continue sautéing until wilted.

Add sausage mixture to sautéed spinach and asparagus and mix together.

Add the orecchiette to the mixture. Stir to combine, adding chicken broth plus the cooking liquid if pasta seems too dry; add the teaspoon of butter, sprinkle with cheese, salt and freshly ground black pepper and serve immediately.

Eating On The Cheap...

I'm totally addicted to W. Hoddington Carter’s Extreme Frugality series on gourmet.com. I woke up at 5:30 this morning and read every. single. one. I think that detox is giving me super human energy... Seriously.

Carter's focus isn't on organic or local food, rather his goal is to feed his family of six good food, while spending as little money as possible. Their progress has been fascinating (and funny.) It's a must read.

Happy weekend...only three more days before I reunite with cheese!

What I'm *Not* Eating...

While we've definitely been eating well (fresh local veggies, homemade meals, organic meat), it's possible I've been eating perhaps... a little too well. There's been an awful lot of indulging of late, so I bit the bullet and decided to team up with my cousin Erin on a 14 day "mini detox".

We're currently on day five of not consuming any alcohol, dairy, sugar, caffeine, red meat, processed foods, flour, gluten and soy, and it hasn't been as bad as I feared. I'm not ever really hungry, as it's easy to stay full on the things we can eat like brown rice, veggies and fruit, raw nuts, organic chicken and pork, fish and oatmeal.

But I am getting a bit bored, and I'm missing cheese dreadfully...

My biggest challenge has been how to work the detox into our family eating without letting the girls know that I'm doing it. Regardless of how healthy my motivations are, I don't want to introduce either of them to anything that remotely feels like a "diet" for fear of accelerating the body image, eating disorder nightmare that they'll eventually encounter in one form or another.

So far it's been very easy to explain why I'm not having dessert, as I want the girls to know those things aren't necessarily healthy (although indulging in a quality, homemade dessert occasionally is certainly a "healthy" way to eat) but the dairy/bread questions are a little harder. I've avoided most probing by serving us all the same meal at night, and luckily many of our go-to meals (white beans with brown rice, chicken with veggies) are totally detox friendly.

Now I head into the weekend and bigger challenges -- it's always harder for me to avoid goodies on the weekend. So wish me luck and let me live vicariously through you...

What are you cooking this weekend?

The Go-To Meals and Our "System"

I'm rather addicted to Jenny's genius lobotoME notepads... love. them.

For every three or four meals Audrey turns her nose up at, we get an epic, lip smacking win.

She's every cook's dream that one, as when she does like what you've made for dinner, she tells you over and over and over...and says mmmm a lot. It's rather lovely.

When we do have one of these meal successes, I tuck it away into my go-to meal file. These make up roughly 75% of our weekly "meal plan", with the other 25% coming from "new" dishes for the girls to try. My goal is to expand their palettes a bit but not have an epic food battle every single night.

For the new things, the girls have to try one big bite. If they hate it, they don't have to eat the rest, and I try it again in a few weeks. If they hate everything else on their plate, they get one option for an alternative meal -- a bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit. That's it. Perhaps that makes me an indulgent parent, but I can't help it, I want them to eat something, and I want them to have a healthy attitude about food, to be allowed to dislike certain things. I think that's part of the evolution of our taste buds -- it just is what it is.

So do you have a "system"?? What are the go-to meals in your house?

"Sometimes Spaghetti Likes to Be Alone…”

Image from The Big Night via npr (Kobal Collection)

The title of this post bears what is perhaps one of the great cinematic food lines... It's from the excellent, lovely and hilarious movie, The Big Night.

Similar to my obsession with gastro-lit, I love food movies -- love Eat Drink Man Woman, (which I haven't seen in years but my cousin Lauri recently reminded me of in an e-mail), love Chocolate, love Like Water for Chocolate and Ratouille and even the food scenes in Spanglish... and I can't wait to see Julie and Julia.

A couple of nights ago Bob Mondello did a great piece on NPR about food on the big screen. It's a must listen!

When the girlies get a bit older, I'd like to watch a great food movie every Friday night and then cook dishes inspired by the flick for the rest of the weekend. I'm thinking a weekend of French Food following Babette's Feast -- you get the idea.

What's your favorite food movie?

Collaborative Cooking, More Leftovers Love and Some Recipes

I love collaborative cooking -- cramming into the kitchen with friends (especially if their cooking skills surpass mine, which is definitely the case with two of my dearest friends, Julie and Tim) drinking wine, bumping into each other and chatting while everyone works toward the shared goal of enjoying a lovely meal together... of creating a memory.

Our Saturday evening birthday dinner for my friend Achlee was one of these nights. Bryan made his famous fried shrimp and homemade chips and salsa; I whipped up some yummy sides (the guacamole, mango salsa, beautiful rice + spicy black beans and a cabbage/jicama slaw) and threw together a simple marinade of canola oil, cilantro, lime, Ancho chili powder and a jalapeno for the tilapia, which our friends Julie and Tim then expertly cooked.

We set up a little build your own taco bar on the island, drank lots of homemade margaritas and then finished everything off with Julie’s perfect chocolate cake.

If it had ended there, it would have been more than enough food happiness, but it turned out to be the meal that kept on giving. Sunday morning, leftover tortillas and queso fresco were scrambled up with a few eggs and served alongside the black beans – quick migas. The beans surfaced again the following day combined with the remainder of the beautiful rice and topped with the cabbage slaw and Bryan’s salsa for easy veggie tacos. And each of those meals was just as yummy as the first one.

Here are a couple of the recipes should you want to mimic this at home!

Bryan’s Homemade Salsa
This is a sweeter cilantro based salsa…one of our favorites!

• 1 bunch cilantro (tops plus 1/2 of the stems)
• ¾ large sweet onion (preferably a Vidalia)
• 1 poblano roasted on the grill and peeled
• 5-7 medium jalapenos de-seeded
• 28 oz can Muir Glen organic fire roasted whole tomatoes
• ½ Lime squeezed
• 1 ½ tsp salt

This makes A LOT of salsa… A. Lot. So you could easily half the recipe. We like the texture best if you blend in a food processor, as the blender tends to make the salsa too “mushy”.


Cabbage and Jicama Slaw

• ½ head of green cabbage -- shredded
• 1 medium jicama – peeled and cut into matchsticks
• ¼ cup cilantro -- finely chopped
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• ½ teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• Juice of one small lime
• Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Combine the above ingredients in a bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes before serving. I added a bit more hot sauce, as I like this with a bite…it was just as good the next day!

A Slight Delay and Food Confessions

I promised I'd post an update on our online cooking club, and after discovering that many of you have vacations planned before the school year starts, I thought it would be best to officially kick-off our little culinary adventure on September 1st.

I'll continue working out the details and will post a full list of participants and "rules" the week before. Then we'll post our first recipe on the 1st. Sound ok?

Now onto the confessions. I was reading our latest book club pick, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, last night, and while tucked into the chapter about our massive consumption of corn and corn-based processed foods and big agribusiness, I was mindlessly munching on a bag of microwave popcorn and sipping (wait for it...) a Diet Coke.

Yes, I know, shameful. But admitting a problem is the first step, no?

So spill it. What are your shameful "food" vices?