Eating Dinner With My Family

I asked my husband to pick dinner often, he is completely daunted by the attempt to choose something we haven't made.  Only recently did he discover, that I was ok with him just picking a protein or even a genre (if you will) of meal.  I would be happy if he said: Salad, Thai, Fish, anything that can help me narrow down the myriad of choices I have lurking in my to try file or pintrest boards!  Well he took the new information and said,  uh... salad, to which I responded by filtering the to try recipe to the salads and asked him to look and see if anything sounded good.  Of course he choose the chicken taco salad.  Taco salad....  the only "salad" that has more calories than a happy meal!  And, chicken :/.... Again:/...  but I asked for it so I am going with his choice.  Then I pull up the recipe.  It is TWO friggin pages long!!!  Ok, breathe, we have 90% of the ingredients, and I opted for the rotisserie chicken instead of coo...

I swear there is a burger conspiracy out there. Or maybe it is perpetuated by the ground beef people.  Eight buns in a pack and most families hover around the 4 mark.  Now we have to have burgers again right?!  I adore burgers but twice a week is bit much every time we have burgers.  (the boy's favorite food and what I craved when I was pregnant with him)  So I let my boy check out the to try file for burgers and he chose this Salmon (no surprise there) burger from Happy Valley Chow .  It was very good!!  (and it showed those ground beef conspiracy nuts what's what ;) My husband cooked again since I am still feeling a bit yucky, and he was really impressed how well they held together!  They the mayo was perfect and I totally loved it.  We all totally loved the burger.  (Even the girl)  I am keeping a short post; I'm turning in early.  I need to be rested and have my strength for tomorrow's Gator game.  We are ha...

I really have to say I dug these sandwiches.  Yes, I am going to complain about some things, mainly so if you make these, you won't have reason to be annoyed with them, but this is an awesome take on a Bahn Mi type sandwich.  Now we adore bahn mi, so this was going to be a popular dish in the house, but because we are going to compare this to one of our all time favorite meals, there could be some disparaging comments.  There weren't! We all enjoyed it, a lot!  Ok on to the complaining! If you follow the cooking directions, you need to cook the chicken in one batch.  If you split it in to two batches, like I needed to because of the  size of my grill pan, you will have some burnt mayo in the bottom for your second batch.  It wasn't horrible, but it was a bit smelly and stuck to some of the second batch chicken.  Also, the shallots cooked way faster than the chicken and they were almost, and by almost I meant just over the line burnt!...

The boy and I really liked them.  My husband said they were good but not that great, but I think the fiasco he had cooking them on the grill colored his judgement.  You see, pesto is a good percentage of oil and when you put oil soaked burgers on a gas grill, the oil cooks out, and causes a big mess and a big fire!  So, he was a little annoyed with the burgers before he even tasted them.  He said I should warn any of you who might attempt the burgers (and I do recommend that you do:) most emphatically not to cook them on a grill but on the stove in a pan.  No, it wasn't a top 10 burger, but still good.  The boy ate 1 1/2 before we had finished our first, and that is saying something! Caprese Burgers   2 Cup basil leaves 1/4 Cup salted roasted almonds 1 garlic clove 1/2 Cup extra-virgin olive oil plus more for brushing 1/4 Cup grated Pecorino-Romano cheese Salt Freshly ground pepper 1 Lb ground beef chuck 1 Lb ground beef sirloin 8...

My husband loves NPR and as a result, I do too.  I adore the Splendid Table and that is where this recipe came from.  The only issue I had with this recipe is the cheese did not guild the pasta, more like clumped a bit and stuck to the bowl and utensils but in the end it was yummy so I forgive them for having me picture each noodle being sheathed in a cheese coat.  The kids really dug it too.  The  boy ate a monstrous portion and, adjusting for size, so did the girl!  The girl also punctuated her bite with phrases like "this is my favorite pasta," " can we have this for breakfast."  You get the picture.  It was also pretty easy to make.  They said that the sauce could sit on the stove for a hour before using, so I had it working and done before the boy was home from karate, and had the water at a simmer covered, so when he was home, all I had to do was cook the noodles.  It was also economical.  The huge portion of pasta, which...

I thought I would surprise my husband with another tagine tonight.  He could not stop raving about how awesome the Lamb Tagine with Dates, Almonds and Pistachios was, so I thought another was in order.  I wanted to do one that wasn't quite as sweet.  I picked this one.  I happened to really like it, as much as the last one, my husband thought it was good, but preferred the sweeter first one.  I did have one small issue, I didn't have any couscous!  Now it was recommended to eat this with a bread for scooping up, but as I am not a baker, and I assumed I still had couscous, I didn't shop or plan for anything beyond the tagine itself.  Fast forward to the end of the cooking time for the tagine, and I am getting ready to make the couscous that I discover I don't have.  My husband suggests that we throw in the butternut dumplings we had earlier in the week.  So, I throw those in for about 15 minutes just to heat them up.  It worked, but next...

We loved dinner, despite the fact that just now, I am realizing I omitted the peanuts by mistake.  It was fast, easy and a great dinner on this hot summer night.  The only thing I think you should take care to do, is to make sure to really break up the pork in to small pieces.  Not only does that insure cooking it all the way through, but the size works best in the fragile lettuce leaves.  I made the boys rice to go with it, but I didn't need it.  My son and I both rated it 4 stars, and my husband, who ate it reheated, loved it but wouldn't rate it as he tried it reheated.  It would make a great appetizer too.   It was a super simple take on the more laborious chicken lettuce wraps. Thai Ground Pork Salad 2 Lb ground pork 2 garlic cloves minced 2 small shallots minced 1 large jalapeño seeded and minced, plus sliced jalapeño Juice of 1 lime plus lime wedges, for serving 2 Tbl Asian fish sauce 1 Tsp light brown sugar 1 Tsp Sriracha (chil...

I had some butternut squash from my Front Porch Pickings basket, and I was browsing Pinterest for ideas. I came across a pin for butternut squash stuffed shells with a lemon sage brown butter sauce. I planned on using the recipe as a guide, but I kind of just made it up as I went along. The main thing I used the recipe for: the brilliant suggestion of adding lemon zest to the filling. I also took the sauce and cooking time from the pinned recipe. They were pretty similar in the end. The main thing I did really different, was I mashed the squash.  I liked the texture better that way.  Next time I would change the sauce.  The butter sauce didn't do anything really, so I think I just might make my sage cream sauce and put a dollop on top of each shell next time.  The best thing about this dish is the squash;  I thin I will replace 1/2 the ricotta in my stuffed/layered pastas from now on with roasted squash.  It was tasty and it adds some vitamins and lightens ...

I had some lovely baby eggplant from my Front Porch Pickings basket, and while I would have loved some baba ganoush, I knew I would be the only one happy about that. I dug this out of my to try file; it was from Emeril and I got it off the food network site. It was a little work, mostly because of the chopping, but I think it was totally worth it!  I don't care for sausage, the boys don't care for eggplant, but we all devoured it. Even the baby girl ate well and that is impressive. It is totally rich, so all you can eat is about 2 shells, and I did tweak the recipe a bit based on how much eggplant I had, but it makes way more than 1/2 a box of pasta worth of shells.  If I had used the full amount of sausage and eggplant, I would have used an entire box of shell easy, but I would have needed a larger pan, or made it in two batches.  I really like this, and think I would be good without the sausage and more eggplant, or mushrooms in place of the sausage, or with veggie saus...

My daughter, looking over my shoulder as I try to decided tonight's dinner, sees green pea soup, and declares that's what she wants.  Ok then.   I really enjoyed it, and if you omit the optional creme fraiche, and cooked the leeks in oil, it would be vegan.   One thing to note, my beloved immersion blender failed me!  It didn't make the smooth purée I wanted and it flung a good portion all over the place.  Next time I will use the blender and make another dish to insure less soup flinging and a better consistency.  Also, I didn't read the recipe correctly at first and had dumped in the salt and 2 cups of low sodium broth before I realized that the store bought stuff needed to he diluted and as a result it was on the salty side. All in all a solid 4!  Maybe even a bit higher...  I'm not feeling great today and that might cloud my perception but I'm sticking with the 4, for now:) Green Pea Soup   1 Tbl unsalted butter 1 medium leek root ...

Don't let the length of the recipe daunt you!  It was less of a process than it appears, and even if it was difficult, it was pretty much worth it.  If I were to make any criticism of it at all was that the reduced braising liquid was still pretty runny and the sandwich was a huge dripping mess.  Correction a huge, dripping, tasty mess.  My husband wanted something crunchy in the sandwich, but that didn't stop him from having 2 ;).  We all agreed it was a solid 4 stars.  The only possibly difficult ingredient to procure is the pomegranate molasses.  If you can't find it locally, you can get it on line but I made my own.   I had made it for a Lebanese fried fish  ages ago, and finished it off tonight in this Shawarma.  The tahini sauce was wonderful and I am looking forward to having it on my sandwich at lunch tomorrow. Braised Lamb Shawarma For the lamb 4 bone-in lamb shoulder chops (about 10 -oz. each) 1 Tbs. vegetable oil mor...

I need to clean up the food I have accumulated.  I buy frozen, scallops in this instance, on sale and forget about them.  I need to make a serious attack on the freezer!  So, I pulled this Bay Scallop Pan Roast out of the to try file.  I also had a Spaghetti Squash from Front Porch Pickings I should use as I am getting another one Friday!   My darling husband offered to cook, and I totally took him up on it as I was tired from a long hot day of ropes course and ziplines at Zoomair!   I had put the squash in earlier, so dinner came together pretty quickly too.  I like that about this squash recipe; it is nice that the roasting can be done way in advance if necessary since the strands get warmed up in the sauteed shallots.  The scallops were pretty awesome too!  I was thinking 4 mushrooms were going to be too few, but they gave it flavor without overpowering the scallops.  A solid 4 all way around. Bay Scallop Pan Roast ...

At first, I was thinking this was a bit plain because of its simplicity, but the boys loved it!  I had gone light on the pepper since the three year old can be picky.  Once I added a few grinds of pepper, it really began to grow on me. I started it out as a 3 but we ended up at a 4. It doesn't reheat too well and it's pretty rich, so I would say this makes 6 servings with a salad.  I think I still think of it as a 3.75 but considering how much the boys enjoyed it, I rounded it up to a 4. Bucatini With Pancetta, Pecorino And Pepper 1 Lb bucatini perciatelli or thick spaghetti 2 Tbl extra-virgin olive oil 5 ounces pancetta sliced 1/2 inch thick and cut into 1-inc 1 1/4 Cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano plus more for serving 1 Tsp freshly ground pepper Salt 1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta until al dente. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the cooking water. 2. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large, deep skillet. Add the pancetta pieces and c...