Eating Dinner With My Family

I thought I would take another post to talk about the importance of sharing dinner time with your family.  It has always been important, but in our electronic age even more so. It is so easy to immerse yourself in the fast paced constant data stream that is conveniently located in our palm.  I am as guilty of this as the most technology savvy teen.  I love the wealth of information we have at our fingertips, the games from crosswords to inane fruit slashing, and the fact that I have reconnected (albeit superficially) with old friends from high school.  I am not advocating becoming a Luddite, but I am advocating setting some time each day to turn it off, ignore your texts and updates and talk to your family.  I know it can be hard to do but it needs to be done.  I think this picture is a perfect example of why! So let's work on preventing generations of idiots!  I know it won't be easy at first.  The art of conversation is like a muscle; if yo...

Well we had a wonderful vacation to Disney and Zip lining at the zoo. We did cook but I was taking a vacation from the blog as well.  However I had to share something that I thought was really a great technique.  My friend said her mom always stuffed the chicken cavity with an onion.  YUM  and the bonus the onion chopped and tossed in some rice with the chicken drippings made a tasty side dish.   So if you are cooking a whole bird, throw two halves of an onion in it and enjoy;)

Well I had way to much good cheese left over after last night's pizza, so I decided to look for some recipes that use either Gouda or Fontina.  I find this one that uses Gouda.  Bonus, is that a stale baguette I happen to have will work in place of the bread in the recipe.  That is the only deviation i made from the recipe.  Not only was this really tasty, but it is an amazing way to use up bread and leftovers.  You can alter the ingredients however you want as long as you keep the bread to egg to milk ratio. Just an fyi here, I have seen these made with eggbeaters.  I think that would work, but cleaning up on them is a pain if you don't use extra butter to grease the pan, so don't do it for the calories;) Ham And Cheese Strata 8    large eggs 1 1/2 c  milk 1/2 t  salt 1/2 t  freshly ground pepper 4 c  Italian bread cubes (1 inch) 6    ounces Virginia ham,cut into 1/2-inch dice (...

Well, last soccer season, it was tradition to have a grilled steak salad after the weekly practice.  I am trying to get through the MANY recipes I have in the To Try folder, so I am breaking tradition. (for now)  I did however still broil a steak, but tonight I decided to top it with a compound butter I have been wanting to try.  Also I had leftover rice I wanted to use, so I made my 'fauxsotto'.  It is my silly name for an easy way to use leftover plain white rice.  I used the leftover butter lettuce from last night too; I made a salad of the lettuce, cherry tomatoes and scallions.  I dressed it with a champagne vinaigrette I made.  Because I am trying to eliminate packaged foods, I am almost exclusively making my own salad dressings.  To do this I have about 7 kinds of vinegar. You can make a great of variety of dressings and they are quite simple.  My favorite is the champagne vinegar.  This one is pretty tasty but it i...

Tonight's recipe was one we have made once before.  I loved it last time, but this time I dumped too much pasta into the sauce, almost the whole box, when it should have been 3/4 of the box.  Not having enough sauce made it a bit bland.  I will make it again, but I will make sure I don't over do the pasta.  I made the bread crumbs from the rest of a baguette we didn't finish. ( Tip: Any bread you don't finish works great like this.  I put them in freezer until I need them.) This dish is lightning fast to make!  Spaghetti With Sun-Dried-Tomato-Almond Pesto 4 Servings     1/2 c  drained oil-packed -sun-dried tomatoes (3 ounces)     1/3 c  salted roasted almonds       1    large garlic clove,sliced     1/2 c  extra-virgin olive oil,plus more for drizzling            Salt and freshly ground  ...

One of the obstacles to a great family dinner these days, is breaking the ice.  We all have such independent lives, it seems that when we sit down together, there is precious  little to say to each other and it can be awkward.  This goes away eventually, but can be a stumbling block to future dinners together.  We made the decision to sit down together for the family time and because I had seen a study showing how much more is ingested when eating and watching TV.  At first it was a lot of small talk about the day and questions  with our much enthusiasm predominated the conversation.  I decided to find ways to break the ice and get us talking.  One of our favorites was to read an Encyclopedia Brown mystery.  My husband or I will read a case (they are short and quick) while my son is setting the table or just after we sit down to eat.  After the case is read, we ask questions of each other and discuss the possible solu...

I got this recipe from Food and Wine Magazine.  I love Food & Wine.  While not every recipe is a family favorite, none have really disappointed.  This is a almost there recipe for us.  We all liked it but to tailor it to our tastes we have some suggestions and some tips if you are thinking of changing it yourself.  First of all it is spicy.  Ok for our tastes, but be forewarned that the heat does build as you are eating it.  The herbs are critical!  I am not a big fan of mint (in sweet but especially in savory), but it is very refreshing in this and a needed cooling element.  The black pepper, didn't taste it at all so next time I would leave it out.  The coppa, it wasn't well represented in every bite and sank to the bottom of the cooking pan; this made it difficult to portion it in to the dishes easily.  Everyone (but myself) added a pat of butter to their portion with great results.  (I abstained solely for the calo...

I figured I would make my first entry a list of any tips or hints to make cooking easier and just add to it as I think of them or as I use them in a recipe. They may be common sense but they were things that made cooking easier that I had to learn and/or they were thought to be by my friends and family 1)   General Keeping Fresh Herbs :  Keep your freshly cut herbs longer in the fridge by treating them like cut flowers.  Place them in a tall glass with water.  (I have my old POM  tea containers that are the perfect tall cylinder for it.  The ones in the produce section.) They will last at least twice as long (if not more) than just keeping them in the hydrator.   Tomato Paste :  I almost never had a recipe that called for the entire can of paste.  It is usually just a tablespoon or two.  I portion out tablespoons worth on to a plate and freeze them, then, once they are hard, pop them into a ziploc bag.  Now whenever yo...