Crazy Town has a new name: Sick Town. First it was James with goopy eyes and nose and a terrible, sneezy cold. Up next, Pickle, who had high temps and a hacking cough for five days (and counting). Mr. Klein was out of commission today. I am trying to mentally fight off any bugs roaming around my body, but these viruses the Klein boys have had are doozies. That means lots of hydrating food: juice, fruit, veggies, soup and smoothies. It also means some power foods: walnuts, avocado, cruciferous vegetables, spinach, blueberries and legumes.
 
Do you have your go-to cold remedy? I like Vick's Vaporub and hot soaks in the tub (really want to try this soak). And when I'm down for the count, I love to drink my 'sick-puppy' tonic of mint herbal tea, lemon, honey and a stiff shot of brandy and two aspirin. It works wonders an hour before bed.
 
Here's what some of us (okay, mainly me) are eating this week:
Saturday: squash macaroni and cheese with cheddar and farmhouse gouda; mixed greens with apples and walnuts
Sunday: potatoes dauphinois with ham; mixed greens with walnuts
Monday: creamy broccoli soup with apple-walnut slaw
Tuesday: leftover mac-n-cheese with an avocado-tomato salad
Wednesday: spicy stir-fried ground turkey with julienned broccoli stems
Thursday: ginger-carrot soup with crusty bread
Friday: pizza night - spinach Florentine pizza

Stay healthy and Happy eating, -s.

I'm not a big baker or a big chocolate or dessert lover. Give me a bowl of ice cream, a cookie or some Haribo gummy bears and I'm a happy girl. Now, this is a bit of a problem since I am married to a chocolate lover and my first-born would take anything coated, drenched, submerged and sauced in chocolate. James's love-affair with sweets is still developing, but the way he tore into his birthday cupcake makes me think I'm in for a rude awakening.

When it comes to desserts, I like homey, simple, seasonal treats: citrus in the winter; rhubarb and strawberries in the spring, berries, peaches and plums in the summer and apples and figs in the fall. Below are a collection of winter desserts right up my alley: simple, elegant, fresh and fuss-free.

grapefruit curd from Two Tarts

 

pavlova with vanilla-poached oranges from Martha Stewart

 

grapefruit olive-oil cake from The Yellow House

 

lemon pudding from Gourmet magazine

Here's what we're eating this week ...

menu: week of 19 January 2013
Saturday: pork & ricotta meatballs with sautéed green cabbage
Sunday: roasted chicken breasts with mashed potatoes and sautéed spinach
Monday: bean and barley soup with cured pork belly; served with seeded bread and butter
Tuesday: chicken and broccoli divan
Wednesday: pork and snow-pea stir-fry
Thursday: tortellini en brodo with spinach and peas
Friday: pizza night

Happy eating, -s.

gnocchi with sausage ragù

 

For many reasons, I like to cook something low and slow on Sundays; here's why:
1) I have the time.
2) It fragrances the house with good, comforting smells as it bubbles away on the stove.
3) And, it provides us with lunch or dinner another time during the week.
This Sunday it was my tomato sauce or marinara or "gravy" if you're a Soprano.

Mine is a riff on Mario Batali's basic tomato sauce from his Molto Mario cookbook. What I like about it: it uses thyme as the herbal note, which means that it can easily be used for both Italian and non-Italian dishes (like stewed white beans with herbed bread crumbs or eggs poached in tomato sauce, to name just two), it has grated carrot in it to add some nice root-veg sweetness, and it's easy to make. I always make double-batch; this time I used half for some ricotta-spinach stuffed shells for Sunday dinner while the other half awaits its turn in the fridge.

Classic Tomato Sauce
makes 2 quarts

Ingredients
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 carrot, finely grated
4-6 small cloves of garlic minced; or 2 large cloves, minced
4 sprigs of thyme
kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
2-28 oz. cans of whole tomatoes, blitzed in blender for 5 seconds (each can)
2 cups water

Directions
Heat a 4-quart saucepan over medium heat. Add butter and melt. When foaming subsides, add olive oil and heat for 30 seconds; add onions and thyme sprigs and sauté for about 5 minutes, until just soft and translucent. Add carrot and garlic. Cook for several minutes, stirring regularly, so carrots and garlic do not brown.

Add blitzed tomatoes, 1 teaspoon kosher salt and 10 grinds of black pepper; stir to combine. Carefully rinse blender jar and tomato cans and measure this "tomatoey" water to make 2 cups of water. Add the tomato water to the pot and stir. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat to low; simmer for 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally. The sauce should slowly bubble away on the stove; raise heat slightly to achieve this bubbling. If too high, turn to lowest setting.

 

What we're eating this week: menu for 12 January - 18 January 2013
Saturday: Salmon chowder with corn and potatoes
Sunday:  Stuffed shells with ricotta and spinach with homemade red sauce
Monday: Turkish poached eggs with sage butter; naan
Tuesday: Grilled pear and cheddar cheese sandwiches; mixed greens vinaigrette
Wednesday: roasted carrot and beet salad with cumin-seed vinaigrette; served with hummus and pitas
Thursday: carry-out
Friday: sausage and sweet pepper pizza

happy eating, -s. 

 

Oh, January, how I dislike you. The fun of the holidays is over: you can no longer eat Christmas cookies every day without feeling a twinge of guilt and extra junk in the trunk; no longer can you have hot chocolate every time you play in the snow; no longer can you watch Christmas movies on a Saturday morning while piles of laundry grow in your basement; no longer can you have your sparkly Christmas tree without the fear of it losing all its needles at once or spontaneously combusting; no longer can you take an afternoon off of work to get "some shopping done" without your co-workers and boss raising a collective eyebrow.

Can you tell the kiddos are back to school and I don't have a day off until MLK day? I took the Christmas tree down yesterday; the decorations have been stashed away until next year. And our meals are missing the extra sugar, spice, heavy cream and butter that the holidays bring with it. Harrumph.

I do enjoy the simplicity of life after the holidays and the starkness of meals that highlight each ingredient instead of smothering it in richness., but at heart, I'm a girl who loves the indulgences of the holiday season (Champagne, anyone?). So, without further ado, here's what we're eating this week.

Menu: Week of 5 January 2013
Saturday: a family favorite: Locro de papas with avocado
Sunday: turkey meatloaf, mashed sweet potatoes and mixed greens vinaigrette with dried cranberries and toasted walnuts
Monday: spicy shrimp with yogurt and whole-wheat naan from the new (and awesome) Dinner: A Love Story cookbook
Tuesday: Carrot soup with crusty bread and mixed greens salad
Wednesday: dhal of the day with basmati rice
Thursday: spaghetti and meatballs (from the freezer); steamed broccoli with lemon and pine nuts
Friday: spinach Florentine pizza

happy eating, -s.

On April 5, 2011, a Mack truck hit our life. On that day, our oldest child turned 3 years old and my husband lost his job. It was — to say the least — a shitty day. To top it off, I was 5 months pregnant and we had just bought a house a few months earlier that we could afford on two salaries and not one. Fast-forward 18 months. A few days before Christmas, Chris got not one but two job offers. It was the best gift my family could have received. 

In those 18 months, after the initial shock wore off and the slow realization that losing your job during the worst recession since the Great Depression wasn't going to be a cakewalk, our family started to figure out our new reality: me as sole breadwinner, Chris as job-hunter and our two boys as reality-inducers.

We knew this was temporary, but the “not-knowing-when-it-was-going-to-end” feeling was endless. When, when, when could we take our lives off of pause? When, when, when could we start moving forward again? When, when, when could we starting dreaming and planning again? Those were the things I missed the most. I didn't miss my cell phone, my housekeeper (okay, I did miss that one) new clothes or things for the house, good wine, vacations or going out to dinner. What I missed the most was the glorious feeling of unfettered optimism; of dreaming big; of looking forward to something exciting. We were mired in the when and what and it’s honestly not a great place to be stuck.  

Now that we’re out of that waiting and wondering phase, I love that this didn't break us; it made us stronger and more focused on what is important in our lives: each other, our boys and our family and friends. To be happy, you really don’t need much more than love … and maybe a housekeeper.

So, for 2013, my goals are to focus on the positive in every situation, no matter how grim. To enjoy how special our boys are and how big they are growing (and not worry if they are sleeping or eating enough!). To have more dinner parties and more special times with friends. To enjoy our crazy, hectic life. And finally, to sum up our family motto for the past year and half, said so eloquently by Winston Churchill in 1941, to “never, never, never give up.”

happy, shiny new year, -s.

 detritus of a good party: one of my favorite sights

Pre-kiddos, Chris and I used to host a holiday party every year — with loads of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres — for 20 or so friends and co-workers. That annual bacchanalia took a backseat once Rhys and then James arrived. Aching to cook for grown-ups again and wanting to have a little fun this holiday season, we decided to host an intimate dinner party with some close friends.

What I’ve learned over the years of entertaining is this: prepping as much beforehand is the key to enjoying the party yourself. This isn’t a new idea; many professional chefs have based careers and cookbooks off of this thought, but I also think that keeping the menu simple is another key to success. I don’t like multiple courses, but I think having a salad or soup before the main course is a nice way to extend the meal without being too fussy. This time of year, I really love that dessert can be a tray of homemade Christmas cookies and some delicious coffee.

The evening was full of warmth, love and joviality — Chris and I feel very lucky to have such friends. Happy holidays indeed.

Here’s the menu — special enough for Christmas dinner, in case you need inspiration:

Cocktails: Champagne, craft beers and gougeres

Salad: mixed greens with mustard vinaigrette, candied pecans spiced with cinnamon and coriander, dried cranberries and French feta

Dinner: French pork stew with brandy and prunes (From Cook’s Illustrated Best Recipe cookbook), served with crème fraiche mashed potatoes

Dessert: assorted Christmas cookies; I made these:

Mexican wedding cakes
Buckeyes (controversially dipped only half-way in bittersweet chocolate)
Coconut macaroon sandwiches with lime curd
Chewy, triple-ginger cookies
Fig bars

happy eating and much peace in the new year, -s. 

p.s. my heart aches for the families of those who lost their lives on Friday in Newtown, CT. Hug and kiss those you love and let us change our gun laws now before another senseless tragedy occurs.  What terrible loss of beautiful, precious, innocent life.

from Martha Stewart

The more I entertain, the more I realize that simple is better. A multi-course spectacle doesn’t really allow anyone to unbutton and relax. Starting with a single rich nosh and some bubbly helps the evening to unfurl gracefully — without eating too much to really enjoy dinner. My go-to hors d’oeuvre is the gougeres, or cheese puff for those who don’t parlez vous francais.

Gougeres starts with the classic pate choux — a paste of flour, water, butter and eggs. This simple mixture is the start for not only gougeres, but éclairs too. Fold nutty gruyere into the batter and you have the foundation for gougeres. From there you can elevate them with some key add-ins: minced chipotle chiles, Serrano ham, sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, etc. Once they hit the hot oven, they do just as their name indicates — they puff and crisp into golden orbs that are fairly addictive — so plan for several batches before dinner for a group of 10 or so.

My go-to recipe is from Martha Stewart – I love that you can make them ahead and reheat right before the party starts.

Happy eating, -s.