words to eat by

Seven Years

2011-10-24T23:42:00.004-04:00

Seven years ago today, I hit “publish” on my very first blog post. Since I imagine that most of you haven’t been reading along with me from Day One, now seemed like a good time for a brief(ish) recap of the highlights of my blogging life. If you've been following for all seven years: Hi, Mom! For everyone else:

2004

Words to Eat By launches, with no particular goal—my tagline was “Thoughts on Food, Writing, and Everything Else.” It was intended as a place for me to draw verbal doodles, playing in the kitchen and reporting back. Back then the food blogging world was a much smaller community, though it was expanding daily (the very first line of my very first post: “Does the world really need another blog? And one about food [among other things]?”) I remember reading Clotilde regularly in the months before I jumped in—she was the ne plus ultra as far as I was concerned, having become well established in the year since her own launch. And Molly started just a few months before I did, but was already wowing me with her evocative prose and gorgeous photographs. Amazingly (to me, anyway), I created The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies in the Entire World not long after starting, and that post remains the most popular page on the site.

2005

The year may not have started out well, and to be honest most of it sucked (not because of any food-related stuff—for me, 2005 will forever be The Year of Infertility). Buuuut, though I wouldn’t find out until January, by the end of the year I was pregnant. Yeah, that's right: I got knocked up on the eve of my fortieth birthday, two weeks after surgery.

2006

If the previous twelve months were The Year of Infertility, 2006 was The Year of Harry. Between pregnancy exhaustion and new-baby/older mama exhaustion, Words to Eat By threatened to wither away.

2007

I posted a grand total of three times; caring for a newborn, keeping my burgeoning freelance writing career afloat, and writing a food blog was just too much for me. Much as it pained me, blogging was the only thing I could afford to lose—but two out of those three posts were laying the groundwork for Parents Need to Eat Too.

2008

One post. That’s it. One single post in 365 days.

2009

Harry was sixteen months old by the beginning of the year, and I had regained not only my cooking mojo, but my writing energy too. I’d figured out how to cook with a little one clamoring for my attention, and soon I began to share that hard-earned knowledge. Parents Need to Eat Too, the cooking class, was born, and Words to Eat By became more and more focused on food and family issues. I closed out the year with a secret nearly as big as my 2005 pregnancy: I’d sold my cookbook.

2010

In February the contracts were finally signed, and I announced my big news: Parents Need to Eat Too, the book, was going to be published by HarperCollins. The year was devoted to developing new recipes, testing them with my amazing group of 100+ volunteers—every one of them the mom of an infant, many of them recruited right here on Words to Eat By—and writing the book. Oh, and blogging. Definitely blogging.

2011

Well. Here we are. Seven years later, I’ve just received the galleys of my first cookbook. I’ve got a deliciously sassy, vocal community of readers on Facebook. And even bigger things are coming. I think. I had hoped to celebrate my blogaversary with a major (gorgeous) redesign of the blog—a true overhaul—but it’s not quite ready. Very, very soon, though, you’ll be seeing a whole new Words to Eat By, renamed Parents Need to Eat Too to better reflect what this blog has become.

If you’d asked me in October 2004 where I’d be in October 2011, the future I’d have described would look nothing like this. This bursting, stressful, happy life is beyond prediction, and yet every step I’ve taken has led me to precisely here. I’m about as lucky as lucky gets. Thank you so much for coming along with me.

Check back here over the next week or so, and you'll find all kinds of surprises. New look, big honking giveaways, and more!

(Meatless Mostdays) Pam Anderson’s Cook without a Book: Meatless Meals

2011-10-24T13:15:00.010-04:00

You know how sometimes, when you finally meet an idol, you totally screw it up? You don’t? Oh. Well then you’ll really get a kick out of this story.

Two weeks ago I attended the launch event for Kat Flinn’s new book, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School—I wrote about it here. You may recall I mentioned meeting Maggy, Pam Anderson’s daughter, and how I’m a huge fan of Pam’s older cookbooks, one in particular: How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart. While writing Parents Need to Eat Too that book was always nearby—I used it as a touchstone, an encyclopedia of flavors, an inspiration.

If you were paying close attention, you noticed that, while I recounted how Maggy rescued me after she saw my tweet-plea for a friendly face, I didn’t mention meeting Pam herself. Instead I watched her from my wallflower station (not like a stalker, I swear), noticing how many people seemed to know her—which they should, since she’s written six previous cookbooks, one of which won the Julia Child Award, with two others nominated for a James Beard Award and yet another nominated for an IACP Award. Oh, and she’s also a New York Times bestselling cookbook author, which is no small feat.

So yeah, Pam’s a supahstar.

And when she came over to where Maggy and I were gabbing, Maggy introduced me. I started gushing like a deranged fan, explaining in one rambling sentence how I used to work at Doubleday and ohmygod I loved working on her book, it’s one of my top-ten favorite cookbooks of all time, seriously The New Doubleday Cookbook has a place of honor on my shelf, I prefer it to The Joy of Cooking, blah blah blah…

She and Maggy smiled and nodded, and Pam thanked me graciously. They left my company soon after.

I didn’t realize my mistake until the panel started and Kat Flinn introduced Pam: The New Doubleday Cookbook (which, yes, is amazing, and is in my top ten) was written by JEAN Anderson, not Pam. I'd raved about the wrong book. How to Cook without a Book, the book PAM wrote, was indeed published while I was working at Doubleday, but it was published by Broadway Books, at the time a sister company. I’d just met one of my culinary heroes and made a complete fool of myself. I was beyond embarrassed. As soon as the panel ended, I jumped over to where Maggy sat and asked her to convey my apologies to her mother—I was too flustered to face her myself. Pshaw, Maggy said. She and Pam had been scratching their heads about my comment, but Pam wasn’t offended at all.

And wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, Maggy was right. Pam came over soon after, I babbled something about how mortified I was, and she laughed and gave me a huge hug. Not only that, when I emailed the next day to ask if I could write about her new book—a meatless companion to How to Cook without a Book, the very book I’d intended to rave about, my wish was granted.

Cook without a Book: Meatless Meals is, like the first book, a collection of formulas more than recipes, though there are quite a few specific recipes included. It’s a reading-cookbook, a jumping-off point for using whatever you’ve got on-hand. So if you feel like making, say, a creamy roasted vegetable soup, Pam gives you a master formula: a couple pounds of roasting vegetables (which you choose from a provided list), olive oil, onion and garlic, the spice blend of your choice (also from a provided list), and so on. Follow the basic instructions, use what you’ve got, and there’s dinner. Perfect for parents, no? Sometimes consulting a recipe again and again is just too challenging, what with the baby crying and the “I can do it myself” preschooler spilling milk all over the table. Using formulas, precision is not an issue.

Divided into two parts, one devoted to breakfast-all-day approaches, and the other to more traditional categories like soups and stews, sandwiches, and (my favorite) pie for dinner, it’s intended not just for vegetarians but for all of us who are eating less meat these days. I don’t do a whole lot with the notion of “Meatless Monday,” mostly because in my kitchen the balance is the opposite—it’s noteworthy when we do have meat. The rest of the time we’re vegetarian, largely because, like Pam, I’m concerned with where my meat comes from. I prefer to buy just a little bit of organic chicken or a steak from the fancy artisanal butcher, rather than larger quantities of (considerably less expensive) factory-farmed food. No surprise, I was sold on this book as soon as I heard the title.

The first formula I tried, for a grain salad (halved, to serve 2), was a huge success: I tossed 2 cups of wheat berries (my fave) with 1 1/2 cups of chopped vegetables (carrot, cucumber, and—going off-list here—clementines). From the “extras” category, I chopped 1/4 cup of peppadew peppers for a spicy-sweet burst. Added some finely chopped shallot and a couple tablespoons of chopped mint and parsley, and tossed it all together with half a batch of Pam’s Lemon-Mustard Vinaigrette (1/2 a medium clove garlic, minced, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard, 1/1 tablespoon rice vinegar, salt & pepper, and 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil). A friend and I feasted on the result, a simple, satisfying, healthy-but-not-austere lunch packed with bright, clean flavors.

I think I’m over my embarrassment now. And Pam, if you’d like to confuse me with somebody next time we meet, go right ahead.

Oh, Happy Day

2011-10-20T12:18:00.005-04:00

What were you doing at 10:08 this morning? Were you forced to cover your ears due to a sudden, ear-piercing shriek of pure joy? Sorry bout that.

My book's galleys arrived at 10:07, and as soon as I signed and handed back the stylus I ripped open the package, still on my front stoop, and made Wayne (our UPS guy) wait until I pulled out a copy to show him. He was telling me about the extended vacation he’d just taken, and I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t hear a word of it once I saw the return address on the package. Sorry bout that, Wayne.

I’m not sure I can adequately describe what it’s like to hold a book you wrote in your hands for the first time—even in galley form. (A galley is the preliminary version of the book, printed on inexpensive paper and including all the typos from the uncopyedited manuscript. It’s what gets sent to reviewers.) Since childhood, I’ve wanted to be a writer. Except for a brief second-grade flirtation with becoming a teacher, that goal never changed. When you’re young, you think it will be easy—after I won the fiction prize at my college graduation, I thought for sure I’d be in The New Yorker the next year, with my first novel published before I was 30. Yeah, not so much. Instead I worked in book marketing for 15 years, realized my real passion was for combining food and words, and spent the last 9 as a freelance food writer. During that time I married, divorced, waited 7 more years for the right husband to find me, eventually had a kid. All of that, all of it, led me to here. The day when I hold a galley of my own book.

It feels a lot like holding Harry for the first time. The same mix of holy crap, I did this?! and unmitigated, heart-busting euphoria. The only difference? Instead of attempting to nurse and attempting to sleep, immediately after the book arrived I did a little happy dance, raced to the backyard to snap some pictures, and then ate a Ritz Cracker Cookie from Momofuku Milk Bar. Niiice way to celebrate.

Things are going to start ramping up in a big way on the book front. It’s on sale four months from tomorrow! Four months may seem like a long time, but after all these years it’s going to pass in the blink of an eye. Next week marks the beginning of the pre-pub marketing, which also dovetails nicely with Words to Eat By’s seventh blogaversary. Exciting things will be happening here, starting Tuesday, including a whole new look for the site and a chance to win one of the galleys you see pictured here.

Watch this space.

Melissa Clark’s Figgy, Piggy Chicken

2011-10-19T08:00:00.001-04:00

My worlds have been colliding lately. Take this (unbelievably delicious) recipe involving chicken, figs, and bacon. It’s by Melissa Clark, from her first cookbook.

Y’know, the one I mentioned a week ago today, in my story about Melissa’s new book. The one I wrote the catalog copy for. The one whose manuscript pages I still have tucked away.

Well, I made this recipe long before my stroll through the park with Ms. Clark—it was nearly a month ago, soon after my lovely gift of fresh figs arrived. I had no idea what to do with them, you may recall, so I asked for suggestions on Facebook. One smart reader recommended Melissa’s Figgy, Piggy Drumsticks & Thighs. As soon as I saw Melissa’s name I knew it was worth trying—I suppose I never noticed it in the book because I’d never dealt with fresh figs before.

Whoooo-baby, this is one mighty fine dish. I swapped in turkey bacon to save a few calories and skinless, boneless breasts to make it cook supah-dupah-fast; the whole thing’s done in just over 30 minutes. And I served it on top of ready-made gnocchi that I pan-fried (in not too much oil, I promise) instead of simmering. The crisp, salty dumplings really play nicely against the sweet and smoky chicken piled on top.

Boy, I’m drooling just remembering this meal. Gots to get me some more fresh figs. Or maybe try another of Melissa’s recipes…

Figgy, Piggy (Well, Turkey-y) Chicken Over Toasted Gnocchi
Serves 4
Adapted from In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite by Melissa Clark

8 strips turkey bacon, halved
2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (about 1 1/2 pounds total)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
11 or 12 figs, halved or quartered if large
6 thyme sprigs
1 package vacuum-packed gnocchi (whole wheat if you can find it)
2 tablespoons vermouth
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 500°F. In a large ovenproof skillet over medium heat, cook the bacon until crisp. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel–lined plate to drain, but don’t drain the fat from the skillet. In fact, turkey bacon is so lean that you may need to add a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the garlic to the skillet and cook for about 1 minute, until the slices are pale golden. Transfer them to the plate along with the bacon. When the bacon’s cool enough to handle, crumble it in large chunks.
Season the chicken with the salt and pepper. Raise the heat under the skillet to medium-high until the fat begins to smoke, and cook the chicken until browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Flip the chicken and brown the other side, about 2 minutes.
Scatter the figs and thyme over the chicken and transfer the skillet to the oven. Roast until the chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes.
While the chicken is cooking, make the gnocchi: Over medium heat, put the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet large enough to hold the gnocchi in one layer. When it ripples add the gnocchi. Toss to coat in the oil, then let it cook, undisturbed, until the bottoms begin to brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Give the pan a good shake, then let it cook another 3 to 5 minutes, until it’s heated through and crisp on the outside. Sprinkle with salt, and transfer to a serving platter.
Transfer the chicken to the platter and stir the vermouth and lemon juice into the skillet, scraping up any brown bits on the bottom (be careful when touching the skillet handle; it will be hot). Place the skillet over medium heat until the juices thicken, about 3 minutes. Pour the juices over the chicken and gnocchi, garnish with bacon and garlic, and serve.

MAKE BABY FOOD: The figs are a lovely, melting consistency by the time they’re done, so they’ll work for early eaters, as will little bits of chicken breast—you can also puree some chicken and figs with a little of the sauce (there’s alcohol in the dish, but it was only 2 tablespoons to begin with so nearly all of it will have cooked off). The crisped-up gnocchi may be a problem, especially since gnocchi often tend towards the gummy.

Quick Tip Tuesday: Parmesan Rind

2011-10-18T08:00:00.003-04:00

It’s Tuesday, and I’ve got a quick kitchen tip to share with you. Which means I’m hereby christening today Quick Tip Tuesday. Should I happen to have another quick kitchen tip for you, and should it happen to fall on a Monday, well, I guess I’ll have to hold it back for a day. Rules is rules.

So, let’s talk Parmesan rinds. You’re grating your own cheese, right? Parmigiano Reggiano, the aged, crumbly-salty-crunchy cheese that is (literally) the only type I’ll eat out of hand, is a luxury item that’s totally, 100%, unquestionably worth it. I even wrote about it for Weight Watchers! But when you buy a hunk of the good stuff, it always comes with a section of the rind attached, with at least a portion of the words “Parmigiano Reggiano” visible—this proves that it really is Reggiano, since use of the name is strictly regulated by the Italian authorities.

When you’re paying $15 a pound for a hunk of cheese, you sure as heck don’t want to waste any of it. But that hard rind is inedible as-is, so it’s tempting to just toss it. Don’t! Instead, stick it in the freezer, and next time you make soup, sauce, or some other long-simmering recipe that includes ample liquid, toss it in, still frozen. The heat of the cooking food will soften the rind and release umami—an intoxicating, nearly indescribable savoriness—into the dish. Or go whole hog and made Cheese Broth, using nothing more than rinds and cold water, as described in The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual.

The best part: After a long, hot bath, that hard, inedible rind becomes soft enough to spread on bread and eat! Zero waste, and huge taste.

To get you started, here are some recipes from Words to Eat By that use Parm rind:

What's your favorite kitchen tip? And what kind of tips are you looking for?

Roast Your Chicken Bones for Richer Stock

2011-10-17T08:00:00.002-04:00

Look how deliciously, deeply brown it is! Chilling your stock makes it easy to remove the excess fat, which congeals on top.

Sometimes I make mistakes. And sometimes that turns out to be a good thing.

The other day, I pulled some chicken parts out of my overstuffed freezer and set them in the fridge to defrost overnight. The next morning they were fully defrosted—highly unusual, since that usually takes a full 24 hours. A closer look revealed the reason: Instead of the plump bone-in chicken breasts I thought I’d plucked from my freezer’s crowded depths, I’d actually taken down some meaty bones meant for making stock. Whoops.

For the life of me, I couldn’t think of a thing to do with those bones. My freezer, which did I mention, is quite full?, already held several quart-sized freezer bags of stock. Making more of the same seemed like a waste of what little space I had available. But other than stock, what the heck does one do with chicken bones?

Feeling somewhat stupid and wholly unimaginative, I asked “likers” of the blog’s Facebook page how they’d use them. Twitter too. The answer came so quickly, I felt even more foolish: Roast the bones and make brown stock. Yeah, it’s more chickeny liquid to fit in my freezer, but the pre-roasting brings out a deeper, richer flavor. Rather than using it for chicken noodle soup, for example, you might use it in risotto or a heartier, thicker soup.

So I did it—I quick-defrosted the chicken breasts in a pot of cold water, and roasted them in a 400°F oven on a bed of neatly chopped carrots, onions, potatoes, and butternut squash. At the same time, I roasted the bones in a cast-iron skillet along with some large chunks of carrots and onions. The breasts were done in about 45 minutes; I left the bones in for another 20 to 30 after that. And I’m so glad I did. Once they were done, I transferred them straight to the slow cooker, along with their roasted vegetables. I added some water to the skillet and gently scraped off the browned bits (so much flavor!), then into the cooker they went. Topped it off with cold water, some parsley sprigs, and about 10 peppercorns, and left it on LOW overnight. (It's a variation on my Overnight Chicken Soup.)

Stephen had to wake up super-early the next morning to do some pre-work work (oy, don’t ask), and since I’m a fairly light sleeper I woke up too. From 4:30AM until 6:30, when I finally gave up, I lay in bed breathing in the bewitching aroma of an exceptionally rich stock. The downside of a bedroom right next to the kitchen, I suppose. But it was worth it—that stock had a depth unlike any I’ve made before. I’ve since used it for a Chicken Barley Soup (recipe to come, later this week I hope) whose intense flavors left Stephen raving. And yes, I froze a quart or two.

So yeah, I make mistakes. And I hope I always will.

Zen and the Art of Decorating Cookies with Kids

2011-10-14T08:00:00.002-04:00

How’s that for a black cat? My secret: King Arthur Flour’s black cocoa. Use the same cocoa (and the recipe below) for homemade Oreos!

I love baking cookies with Harry. Love watching him learn to scoop flour into the measuring cup, to stir the dry ingredients gently so that they don’t fly out of the bowl, to roll out dough and place the cutters carefully. And then, after the interminable wait for baking and cooling, the decorating. In the past I’ve always handled the icing and let Harry add the sparkly bits. But now that he’s all of five years old, it’s time for him to do some real work.

No, I don't expect him to wield a pastry bag—heck, I can barely handle one myself. Maintaining a steady squeeze while directing the tip requires a steadier hand than I have most days, and it’s out of the question for Harry. His hands are just too small. Instead, I let him loose with this nifty Kuhn Rikon decorating set, provided to us courtesy of the King Arthur Flour people. It’s a set of squeeze bottles, folks! Cute little accordion bottles, the perfect size for kids’ hands. With decorating tips. And an offset spatula, too. Check it out:

Harry loved it, and so did I. We baked up a batch of Halloween cookies (also Cars 2 cookies, vehicle cookies, star cookies, and letter-H cookies) and were both able to put icing exactly where we wanted it, with no muss, no fuss.

What concentration! I outlined the “H,” and Harry flooded the insides. He also did that very fine-looking cat you see under his left elbow, the one with blood-red whiskers. The rest were eaten before I could photograph them.

Look. My skills as a decorator still leave something (OK, a lot) to be desired. But with this nifty little kit, I could almost fool you into thinking that I know what I’m doing.

So, what are your best tips for decorating cookies with younguns?

Black as Night Chocolate Sugar Cookies
Adapted from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion
Makes several dozen cookies, depending on the size of your cutters

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
6 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa
6 tablespoons King Arthur Flour’s black cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoas, salt, and baking powder, then set aside.
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until color lightens. Add the sugar and beat again, until thoroughly combined. Add the egg, water, and vanilla, and beat for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture is quite light and fluffy. Add the flour mixture. Do not overmix.
Divide the dough into 2 halves, and place each on a large piece of plastic wrap. Form into flat disks, and wrap tightly. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to several days—the dough will be too soft to work with otherwise.
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325°F with the racks set in the upper and lower thirds. Grease or line 2 baking sheets.
Generously flour your clean work surface. Remove one dough disk from the fridge and roll it out to about 1/8-inch thickness—don’t go too thin or you’ll have trouble moving them. Move the dough frequently to prevent it from sticking to the work surface. Use cutters to form whatever shapes you like. Carefully pull away excess scraps, then transfer to the baking sheets. Brush away any obvious flour.
When you’ve filled both trays, bake for 17 to 18 minutes. The dough is so dark you won’t be able to tell they’re done based on visuals. The cookbook says they’re probably done when you can smell them—this proved true for me. If you get even a whiff of scorching, remove them immediately. Let them cool for a minute or two on the sheets, until they’re firm enough to move, then transfer to racks to cool fully.

Basic Cookie Icing
Adapted from Cooking Light

1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon meringue powder
1 tablespoon low-fat milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar
Food coloring of your choice

This recipe doesn’t make a ton of icing, so if you’ll be using more than 2 or 3 different colors I’d recommend doubling it.

Combine the water and meringue powder in a medium bowl, whisking until smooth. Add the milk and vanilla. Add the powdered sugar, and stir until completely smooth (you may want to use a spatula initially, then switch back to the whisk).
Divide into portions to be colored. Add coloring, little by little, until you’ve reached the desired shade. Transfer to squeeze bottles, add tips, and decorate.

MAKE BABY FOOD: While these are safe for older babies, they’re, y’know, sugary. Save for special occasions only.

A Stroll Through the Park with Melissa Clark (Recipe: Figgy Demerara Snacking Cake)

2011-10-12T08:00:00.003-04:00

Melissa cradles her nectarines.

Melissa Clark is one of those people who talks to strangers. Or more accurately, strangers talk to her. We were discussing okra at the Union Square Greenmarket. Or more accurately, since I have zero experience cooking the little green fellows, Melissa was teaching me about okra. While sifting through a bin overflowing with them, she shared advice gleaned from Sylvia Wood, proprietor of Sylvia’s Soul Food in Harlem (whose cookbook she co-authored).

“Sylvia taught me to never buy okra bigger than your thumb,” she said, holding one up to her own hand to demonstrate.

“Yes, that’s right,” the man next to us chimed in. He and Melissa dove into a conversation about the vegetable (his secret to minimize the notorious sliminess: put okra in a colander, salt generously, and leave on a windowsill for several days), his travels, and the book he was about to publish. Though she was clearly thrilled to learn this new kitchen tip, Melissa made no mention of her own book, which had gone on sale just the day before.

Melissa and I met in a similar way—we’d chatted briefly at BlogHer Food, but when I bumped into her a few months later at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, I mistook her for Olga of Sassy Radish. She looked at me funny, since she and Olga are friends. Just then a New York Times reporter interrupted to ask if either of us was willing to be interviewed about something or other. “Olga” said she couldn’t, because she herself writes for the Times. Holy crap, I thought, this is Melissa Clark! Writer of my favorite Times column, A Good Appetite, and the much-loved cookbook based on it. We had a nice chuckle over my flub, then talked food and parenting while our kids cavorted around us.

Though Melissa had no idea (until I told her last week), I was among the earliest readers of that book, In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite: 150 Recipes and Stories About the Food You Love. At the time, I wrote all the copy for her publisher’s catalog. For most of their books, reading the introduction or just a few chapters was enough to tell me what I needed to know. With Good Appetite, though, I read every single page of the manuscript, pulling out and stacking up the recipes I intended to make—which turned out to be a pretty large pile. Melissa’s recipes rock. They’re impeccable, in terms of both flavor and doability.

And now, Melissa has a new cookbook. Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make is for farmers’ market devotees, focused on what’s available each month—which is why, as her pub date approached, I invited Melissa to stroll with me through the Greenmarket in Union Square and talk seasonal inspiration. But it’s also for those who are intimidated by the idea of seasonal cooking, of shopping what’s fresh that week, that day, taking it home, and cooking it.

“There are no ‘cheffy’ ingredients in the book,” she said. “No artichokes or fava beans, nothing that will be unfamiliar to most home cooks.” It’s her kitchen diary, a record of what she cooked over the course of a year for her husband and their young daughter. After one too many requests for “that chicken dish,” the one everyone loved but Melissa couldn’t replicate since her daily cooking is so improvisational, her husband bought her a notebook to keep by the stove. That notebook became Cook This Now.

“I wish there were more pears in the book,” she said as we paused by a booth filled with the fruit. “But it’s what I really cooked, and I just didn’t use pears much last year.”

The recipes are presented monthly, with a handful of simple, appealing dishes using of-the-moment ingredients that truly do make you want to Cook This Now. It’s also packed with shopping tips and advice for the farmers’ market novice—if you love apples, buy an heirloom variety and see what happens. Love cauliflower? Try romanesco when it’s available.

I asked Melissa which recipes she couldn’t wait to cook again, and she reeled off a quick list of dishes so perfectly delicious-sounding, I can’t wait to try them myself:

Carroty Mac and Cheese (October! You really can cook this now—and you’ll find the recipe on Three Many Cooks)
Sticky Cranberry Gingerbread (November. Soon!)
Braised Leg of Lamb with Garlicky Root Vegetable Puree (December; “Don’t you just want to make that for Christmas?” she asked. YES)
Grilled Sausages with Celery Root Salad (February)
Shrimp Scampi with Pernod and Fennel Fronds (July)
Roasted Pepper and Celery Leaf Crostini (September—but I won’t tell if you make this today)

And the last one she mentioned, I ran home and tried that afternoon: Figgy Demerara Snacking Cake. Oh lord, it made me happy. It made Stephen happy. It made Stephen’s office happy (the recipe feeds a crowd). It made Harry happy, until he hit a fig and remembered his pledge to stick to dried.

I also brought home a small pile of okra, which I promptly put in a colander, salted, and set on a windowsill. Where it sat, taunting me, until I finally threw away the shriveled mess, yesterday. Oy, what a waste.

I’m pretty sure Melissa’s okra turned out better than mine.

Figgy Demerara Snacking Cake
Reprinted with permission from Melissa Clark’s Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make
Serves 12 to 14

2 dozen fresh figs, halved lengthwise through the stem (I used closer to 3 dozen—they were small!)
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for the pan
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 tablespoons brandy (I used Poire William)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons Demerara or raw sugar

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Toss the figs with 1/4 cup flour; set aside.
Grease an 18 x 13 x 1-inch baking sheet (a half-sheet pan) with butter and dust with flour; set aside. In a large bowl, beat together the butter, granulated sugar, brandy, and vanilla with a hand mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Add the egg; beat until incorporated.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the remaining 2 cups whole wheat flour, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer running on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk in 3 batches to make a batter. Spoon the batter onto the reserved baking sheet and smooth evenly. Nestle the figs into the batter evenly all over the top. Sprinkle with the Demerara sugar. Bake until the cake is golden brown, 45 to 50 minutes. Let the cake cool 30 minutes before serving.

MAKE BABY FOOD: The texture of the figs will be lovely for an early eater, but due to the added sugar the cake itself should be reserved for special occasions.

Not-Too-Cheesy Apricot Noodle Kugel

2011-10-10T16:00:00.001-04:00

If you’re Jewish and at all observant, you’re wondering why I’m posting this now. I know, I know, it’s a little late for a perfect-for-break-fast kugel. But I couldn’t get it together to post this in time, and it’s too good to wait for Shavuot, so I’m giving you a bonus post for today…

This kugel is so lovely, it doesn’t need a holiday. It’s sweet enough to be dessert, but not so sweet it makes your teeth hurt. It’s comforting warm and soft—think of that cozy feeling you get when you curl up with a bowl of just-baked bread pudding—and fantastic cold and sturdy, which is how I ate the last piece for breakfast this morning, straight out of the Tupperware. The only cheese comes from cream cheese, which makes it nicely creamy but not overwhelmingly so (I have issues with most dairy kugels—it always squicks me out to find a pocket of cottage cheese curds hidden inside a curled-up noodle). The cornflake topping is the best I’ve tasted, clumpy like on a good fruit crisp, and there’s a nice thick layer.

We brought this to my brother’s for break-fast, where Harry proudly announced, “My Mommy made a delicious kugel!” I love that boy. Of course, he didn’t eat anything but the topping. Which, don’t tell him, is exactly what I used to do as a kid.

Not-Too-Cheesy Apricot Noodle Kugel
Adapted from All Recipes

One 12-ounce package broad egg noodles
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
6 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups apricot (or peach) nectar
2 cups milk (low-fat is fine)
1 cup golden raisins or diced dried apricots

Topping:
1 cup butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
3 cups cornflake crumbs (from about 6 cups of cornflakes)
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish and set aside.

Put a large pot of salted water on to boil, covered to speed things up. When it boils, add the noodles and cook until barely tender, 8 to 10 minutes.
While the noodles are cooking, put the butter and cream cheese in a large mixing bowl. Stir very well, until smooth—I found it easiest to do this with a spatula. Add the eggs, sugar, and vanilla.
Drain the noodles and add to the bowl. Stir in the nectar and milk, then the raisins. Transfer the mixture to the baking dish.
Now make the topping: Stir the butter vigorously, until it’s smooth, then add the remaining ingredients. Don’t be shy—use your clean hands to rub the mixture together. Once it’s thoroughly combined, scatter it on top of the noodles.
Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the center feels set and the edges are bubbling.

MAKE BABY FOOD: There is added sugar in here, so I’d save it for special occasions (like the High Holy Days). The topping will be a challenge for the under-1 crowd, but the noodle pudding itself is a lovely texture for early eaters. You can puree it with a little milk, too.

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School (Recipe: Velvety Chilled Rosemary Carrot Soup)

2011-10-10T08:00:00.006-04:00

People magazine gave Kat’s book four stars! I do, too. You’ll find the recipe for the contents of those glasses at the end of this post.

As soon as I saw the title of Kathleen Flinn’s new book, I knew it would claim a place of pride on my shelf: The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks.

I mean, come on. Haven’t I been running my own kitchen counter cooking school for the last few years? In the book, Kat describes how a random bout of snooping in another woman’s shopping cart (a cart filled with boxes and packets of processed “food,” but no actual ingredients) led her to find ten women who, for one reason or another, were intimidated by their own kitchens. They fed themselves and their families convenience foods because they had no idea how to do anything else. All ten allowed Kat inside their homes to catalogue the contents of their cupboards, and then cooked a typical meal for her. From there, she created a mini-cooking school, devoted to filling in the gaps in her students’ knowledge.

The book chronicles Kat’s experiment with these women—women who represent so many of us. My own cooking class tends to attract people who are familiar with their kitchens, but need help figuring out how to continue to cook with a baby hanging off their bodies. Every so often, though, a mom signs up (I’ve only had one dad take my class! What is up with that?) who’s a kitchen newbie. It thrills me, teaching her how to gently smash a clove of garlic with the flat side of a knife and slip off the peel, or that “season to taste” simply means she should add salt and pepper until she’s happy with the flavor. So as I read Kat’s book (I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m enjoying it so much I couldn’t wait to tell you about it) I’m nodding along, smiling, laughing. I expect you will, too. Each chapter ends with a handful of incredibly appealing, remarkably simple recipes.

Before this book, I knew Kat as the author of another wonderful, wonderful book—one you should read if you’ve ever fantasized about dropping everything and heading to, say, the Cordon Bleu in Paris. It’s called The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears in Paris at the World's Most Famous Cooking School.

Go, read it now. I’ll wait.

Anyhoosie, Kat and I had crossed paths before at a food writers’ conference or two, but we’d never actually met. The other night, that finally changed. The Institute for Culinary Education, where I’ve taken quite a few classes, hosted a panel discussion devoted to Kat’s new book and the subject of home cooking. Also on the panel: Pam Anderson, who I’ve long worshipped from afar (seriously, her How to Cook Without a Book has been a source of inspiration for the last decade) and Lauren Shockey, a restaurant critic for the Village Voice and author of Four Kitchens: My Life Behind the Burner in New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv, and Paris.

I went. I had to.

The mingly first 45 minutes were, I’ll admit, torture for me. There was some fabulous food, all prepared from recipes in Kitchen Counter. I met Kat—finally!—and we spoke briefly, but everybody wanted to speak to her. And I didn’t know another soul. Friends, I suck at talking to strangers. I jumped on Twitter, begging somebody, anybody, to come rescue me from myself. Ultimately, someone did: Maggie Anderson, Pam’s daughter and one-third (along with her mom and sister) of the most excellent blog Three Many Cooks. Thank god for her. It’s no wonder she’s one of the driving forces behind the Big Summer Potluck as well as Bloggers without Borders (who received a portion of the event’s proceeds; click the “donate” button near the top of the right-hand column of this page if you’d like to help spread the love)—she’s just about the friendliest person on earth.

Anyhoosie, back to the panel. I scribbled down a few choice quotes:

“I’d never been down a frozen food aisle before. I’m a food writer. I buy ramps.” –Kat Flinn, describing her experience stalking the owner of that grocery cart

“The ‘Pasta Parmesan’ was supposed to replicate pasta with oil and parm. But it had 28 ingredients.” –Kat again, on the contents of the cart

“Working in restaurant kitchens really made me realize how much I wanted to be a home cook, to see the response of the people I’m cooking for.” –Lauren Shockey

“The solution is different for different people. I was just in Florida showing my aging parents where to find the refrigerated real mashed potatoes, now that they can’t really cook from scratch any more.” –Pam Anderson, on the notion that minimally-processed food is perfectly acceptable

“My epitaph is going to be, ‘It’s fine!’” –Pam Anderson

“You never learn from doing something right. Only from mistakes.” –Pam Anderson

And my favorite quote of the night, the one I’m going to try to live by:

“Put a picture of the thing you love most in the world in the back of your fridge. You should never have so much stuff in there that you can’t see that picture.” –Kat Flinn, on how crucial it is not only to have good ingredients on-hand, but also to use them

Kat gave me permission to share a recipe from the book with you—this is an amazingly flavorful, rich-tasting carrot soup. It was served as a passed hors d’oeuvre, in shot glasses, each one topped with a sprinkle of chopped chives and the teensiest little dollop of yogurt.

So tell me: What's stopping you from cooking tonight?

Velvety Chilled Rosemary Carrot Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
2 leeks (white and light green parts), chopped
1 pound carrots, diced
Several fresh rosemary sprigs
1 bay leaf
2 quarts chicken or vegetable stock
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of cayenne (optional)
1/3 cup quality plain yogurt (optional)
Croutons (optional)

Heat the olive oil in a 4-quart or larger saucepan. Add the onion and leeks and sauté until softened. Add the carrots, rosemary sprigs, bay leaf, stock, a couple of pinches of coarse salt, a few grinds of coarse pepper, and a pinch of cayenne if using. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to simmer until the carrots soften, about 1 hour.
Remove from the heat. Discard the rosemary and the bay leaf. Puree until smooth. Add in additional water if necessary. Return to the pot. Check the seasonings, adding salt, black pepper, and cayenne to taste.
Serve warm or cooled. Garnish with a scoop of yogurt or croutons if desired.

MAKE BABY FOOD: Hells, yeah! This practically is baby food—but the best baby food you’ll ever taste.

Fresh Fig Galette with Cinnamon Honey

2011-10-07T09:55:00.002-04:00

I have a secret to share with you. Lean in… closer… Are you ready? OK then: I used to be afraid of figs.

Not the dried kind, lord no! Those I use with abandon, in recipes like Whole Wheat Fig & Pecan Bread and one of my favorite dishes for this time of year, Pasta with Roasted Cauliflower, Figs, and Mint. And fig jam is the secret to my Figgy Grilled Cheese on Pumpernickel. Do I even need to say the words Fig Newton? (My friend Casey makes a formidable homemade version.) No, when I say I feared figs, I mean only the fresh kind. The voluptuous, too-often-sexualized kind. They’re squishy. They’re seedy. And worst of all, they’re unfamiliar. I didn’t grow up eating them, and they confused me.

But when a very nice woman from the California Fig Advisory Board wrote to ask if I’d be interested in trying out some of their fresh figs, I didn’t hesitate. Heck, she was offering to send me fresh figs! Who could turn down something like that? A few days later they arrived via Fedex, one flat each of black mission and green sierra, cold-packed and well-cushioned to prevent their delicate little bodies from bruising.

Before I started cooking, I tasted. The black mission figs, which I gobble down dried, are—no surprise—lighter in flavor than their wrinkly brethren. Musky, mellow, and deeply sweet, they were a pleasant surprise. The sierra figs tasted entirely different, brighter, still sweet but with a hint of acidity. The fig board describes the flavor as “like a riesling,” and I can’t argue with that. Stephen fell in love with these luscious little beauties—I didn’t get to cook with them much, because he ate them all out of hand. (Next week I’ll be posting another fig recipe, from Melissa Clark’s amazing new cookbook Cook This Now. I had to buy more green figs for that!)

For my first cooking experience I went simple, with a recipe for Fig Galette (a free-form pie) from Elise’s excellent site Simply Recipes. I’ve adapted it, adding a cinnamon-honey glaze and a sprinkling of flaky salt. This disappeared from my kitchen less than 24 hours after it emerged from the oven, all golden and aromatic. Stephen and I ate it for breakfast the next day, and by the time he came home from work I'd nibbled my way through what remained.

As for Harry, he’s decided to stick to dried figs. The fresh ones, even cooked, squicked him out. Let’s hope he doesn't follow in his mother's footsteps, and wait until he’s in his mid-40s to discover the thrill of biting into a fresh one, feeling its juicy flesh explode in his mouth.

So, now that I’m all figgy with it, I must know: What’s your favorite way to use fresh figs?

Fresh Fig Galette with Cinnamon Honey
Adapted from Simply Recipes

Flour, for dusting
1 prepared piecrust (I use Pillsbury, but if you don't suck at piecrust, go right ahead and make your own)
1/4 cup jam or preserves (I used pear jam, but apricot, peach, or orange marmalade would also be nice)
1 1/2 pounds Black Mission figs, tips removed, quartered lengthwise
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Fleur de sel, optional

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease or line a rimmed baking sheet.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the piecrust until it’s roughly 14 inches in diameter. Droop it over the rolling pin and transfer to the baking sheet.
Starting in the center, spread the jam on the crust. Stop about 2 inches from the edge. Arrange the figs on top of the jam, cut side up, again leaving about 2 inches around the outside.
Combine the honey and cinnamon in a small bowl, then microwave briefly, just until it thins enough to apply with a brush. In my machine, this took about 15 seconds. Gently dab it on top of the figs.
Fold the naked edge of the crust up and over the top of the figs—don’t worry about neatness, since it’s supposed to be rustic. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the crust is golden-brown and the fruit is bubbling. Juices will run, but that’s ok. Again, it’s supposed to be rustic.
If you’re using the fleur de sel, sprinkle it over the figs as soon as you remove the baked galette from the oven. Allow it to cool for 20 to 30 minutes before serving.

MAKE BABY FOOD: Due to botulism concerns, babies under one year old can’t have honey. Once you’re past that age, I’d serve this to a toddler on special occasions—it doesn’t have a ton of added sugar, but it’s still a treat.

Guest Post: Julie’s Salted Nutroll Cupcakes

2011-09-27T10:07:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago I introduced you to Amber, a hilarious friend with a hot new parenting blog called Parenting. Illustrated with Crappy Pictures. You may recall, we met years ago on a message board. Today you’re going to meet Julie, a mutual friend Amber and I met in the same place, at the same time. As it happens, Julie’s also a newly-minted parenting blogger, at Freckles & Fickle Take Over the World. And she’s also hilarious. (Quite the hotbed of talent, that board.) She’s here today to share a holiday tale about her younger son, Liam, along with a recipe that knocked my socks off when I tried it. It combines three of my favorite “C” words: cupcakes, candy corn, and caramel.

Don’t sweat if it you don’t have cake flour. I was so sure I had some that I neglected to double-check, and when baking time rolled around boy was I surprised! Cue The Food Substitutions Bible. I used 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour plus 1/4 cup cornstarch, as recommended, and it worked perfectly.

My younger son Liam has inherited what my husband lovingly refers to as the “holiday disease.” As the carrier, I will note that the mutated gene responsible for a bizarre obsession with all things seasonal and festive is dominant. Very dominant. It’s lights and sequins and Halloween costuming strategy sessions in late July. It’s decorating (Oh the decorating!) and entire weeks devoted to cut out cookies.

We’re learning that Liam's case may be particularly severe, and that the first fall temperatures tend to be his trigger. When I deposited him in his room on Labor Day with construction paper, tape, and a few glue sticks, I returned a half hour later to find three empty glue sticks and this on his bedroom door:

Yes, that would be on September 5th. When I took him to a St. Louis Cardinals event at Busch Stadium the weekend after, his first and only comment about the outing was, “Maybe the Cardinals will have Halloween stuff.” For a kid who is also pretty obsessed with baseball, it appears that once fall arrives he is far more Nate Berkus than Lance Berkman. Sorry Lance, heredity is a mighty beast.

Because Liam and I live with two other people who are, um, normal and not ready to ring in Halloween on August 31st, we have to adjust. This is far more challenging for him than it is for me. I suspect this is because I just have a lot less energy than he does, but also because he’s five and still measures the days until Halloween in number of “sleeps.” Fifty or sixty more sleeps until Halloween can seem like forever for both of us, so we have to look for ways to get our fall on that won't be too irritating to outsiders.

Boo! Did someone say Salted Nut Roll cupcakes? These caramel cupcakes are topped with an easy caramel buttercream, candy, and peanuts for a subtle-ish early nod to Halloween, and they give me an excuse to buy candy corn as soon as it hits the shelves. Talk about a win-win.

Like most cupcakes, these are pretty fun to decorate and I like to leave that part for the kids. I generally make the cakes the night before (or even days before and freeze) and let my boys take on the icing and beautifying. I’m sure there are awesome brave people with big kitchens and cleaning staff who sift with children, but I’m not one of them. I’m always looking for sanity-saving tips like that, which is why I cannot WAIT for my pre-ordered copy of Debbie’s book, Parents Need to Eat Too,to get to my door February 21st (that’s a lot of sleeps, so I’m antsy as hell). If you haven’t ordered yours yet, psssst . . . it’s time. Think of it not only as a way to try some amazing new recipes, but also the best way to look like one of those really pulled-together moms who maintains a spotless home and whips up healthy, delicious meals in between triathlons and saving kittens from fires.

Now, who's ready to get all fall up in here?

Salted Nutroll Cupcakes
Makes 16-20 cupcakes

Caramel Cake
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk

Caramel Buttercream Frosting
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

For Decorating
About 1/2 cup candy corn
About 1/2 cup peanuts
Coarse sea salt (if desired)

To prepare cake:

Preheat oven to 350° F (175 deg C) and grease or line cupcake tin.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside. In a large bowl, use a mixer to cream together sugar and butter until fully combined. Add eggs and vanilla and beat again.
Add half the flour mixture, then the buttermilk, then the remaining flour mixture, and beat until just combined.
Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full with batter, and bake 15-18 minutes or until cakes are golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from pan to cool fully before frosting.

To prepare frosting:

Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and cook for two minutes.
While still stirring over low heat, add cream and return to boil.
Remove saucepan from heat and allow caramel to cool. When it is lukewarm, gradually stir in confectioner’s sugar. Add sugar and/or milk/cream as necessary to reach desired consistency.

Frost cupcakes and decorate with candies and peanuts. Sprinkle with sea salt to finish if desired.

--------------

I’d like to give a big, huge, sequin-covered thanks to Debbie for allowing me to visit Words to Eat By today. I do not claim to have even a tenth of the skill she has in the kitchen, which is why it’s so great to have her blog and book around to help me fake it. I’d say more, but Liam and I are actually really super busy getting ready for Thanksgiving. His bedroom door has, like, zero turkeys.

Rosh Hashanah Roundup 2011

2011-09-26T06:00:00.004-04:00

This is just not possible. Seriously, Rosh Hashanah starts on Wednesday night? How did we get so far into the year? I dealt with the fact that Harry started kindergarten. He’s in big-kid school, eating in the big-kid cafeteria (last year they ate in their Pre-K classroom). He’s learning to read. He’s learning Spanish. I’m dealing with this. Really, I am. But the fact that the Jewish holidays are upon us has thrown me for a loop. This morning I spent a good 45 minutes Googling for inspiration, looking for an apple- and honey-based recipe that went beyond the ordinary. I think I found it. “Honeyed Gingerbread with a 20-Hour Apple Terrine” just sounds too intriguing not to try, don’t you think?

That photo above is of my apple terrine, just born. Beneath those layers of apple rings is a simple caramel. It’ll mature over the next day, the apples softening and sinking into the sugary syrup below, and eventually the whole thing will be married to a honeyed gingerbread I’ll bake on Tuesday.

What are you planning to make this year?

Since I won’t know if this recipe works in time to help you with your own holiday baking, here are some of the other intriguing treats I found:

An absolutely gorgeous honey-and-apple challah, courtesy of the LA Times.
Here’s a roasted buttercup squash and apple soup and a traditional honey cake, both courtesy of Emily Franklin, who I’ve written about before.
In addition to apples, pomegranates are traditional for the New Year. Cookstr's got an intriguing recipe for grilled eggplant with pomegranate vinaigrette.
Cheryl Sternman Rule, like me a Jewish food writer married to a nice goyishe boy, calls this a Christmas Salad with Fennel, Celery, and Fruit. But since that fruit includes apples and pomegranates, I'm rechristening it (ha) "Rosh Hashanah Salad."
Just look at this fresh, unusual tabbouleh using apples, walnuts, and pomegranates, from the New York Times.
It’s no secret: I love kasha. So why haven’t I tried this kasha-stuffed roast chicken yet?
You can't have a Jewish holiday linkspalooza without a Joan Nathan recipe. Here's one for "Lick-Your-Fingers" noodle kugel, with brown sugar and pecans. That'll get your new year off to a sweet start!
Olga at Sassy Radish tweaked a recipe for Applesauce Cake with Caramel Glaze created by Merrill at Food 52, subbing in whole wheat pastry flour and olive oil—which always makes me happy.
Rebecca at Cooking with My Kid offers what she calls a “Cheater’s Caramel Apple Cake” which calls for boxed cake mix. That’s normally a no-no for me, but her explanation is making me reconsider.
If you're not looking for a recipe, but rather a stop-you-in-your-tracks beautiful piece of writing related to the holiday, look no further than Elissa Altman at Poor Man's Feast. Her Rosh post from last year still moves me.

And here are a handful of Rosh-appropriate recipes from Words to Eat By’s archives:

The traditional challah I used to bake with my mom on Fridays—add a handful of golden raisins to sweeten the new year.
Another classic, good old-fashioned matzo balls.
Float those babies in some Overnight Chicken Soup.
Follow with some Oh-So-Good Brisket.
End with this spectacular Chocolate Honey Cake.
And of course, Rosh wouldn't be Rosh without what I still believe to be the best apple cake on the planet—which I can say without boasting, since it’s not my recipe.

L’shanah tovah, all!

How to Make a Lightning McQueen Cake, Part II: Sculpting and Frosting

2011-09-23T10:28:00.002-04:00

When last we met, my chocolate chip cake had just spent 85 minutes baking. I’d lashed together two cooling racks just to fit the darn thing. And just as I was mopping the flop sweat off my brow, I noticed that the center of this very large cake was sinking. Quickly.

I cried. There was nothing else to do.

But then I glanced at the die-cast McQueen I planned to use as my model, and began to wonder if perhaps I could use this sloping to my advantage. The car’s fenders do curve and roll, including a dip right under the windows…

Once the cake was cool enough to handle but still warm, I said a little prayer, placed the doubled cooling rack on top, held on for dear life, and flipped it over. And what do you know: It slipped right out. That dang flower nail sat in the collapsed center like the button in a polka-dotted sofa cushion. I yanked it out and threw it directly into the garbage.

While the cake finished cooling I strategized. If I cut off about three inches from each end, I’d have a 6 x 12 shape with upward slopes at either end. I could use the cut-off sections to build the upper part of the car. That seemed like it just might work.

Using Harry’s toy as a guide, I trimmed the edges until they kinda-sorta looked like McQueen’s fenders. And then I cut the scraps into a 3D puzzle, until I’d cobbled together a cake that actually resembled its intended subject, complete with space for Oreo wheels. I was shocked. Seriously, I didn’t think this was going to work until about 40 minutes in—mid-afternoon, the day before the party—when I stepped back and saw this:

Next up: Gluing the puzzle together using Sara’s Foolproof Frosting, then applying the crumb coat, a thin layer of frosting that would act as a seal, keeping the thousands of itty-bitty crumbs from marring the surface of the finished cake. By then it was late afternoon, time to make dinner (yup, that’s right, I spent the entire day in the kitchen). It was a good point to stop—if you don’t allow your crumb coat to crust over a bit, it won’t do its job properly.

After dinner was cleared away, all that was left was what I’d been dreading all along, what I expected to be the hard part (ha! as if what came before was easy): Decorating the cake until it was recognizably McQueen. That’s right, pastry bag time. I mixed up my colors using about a thousand small bowls, in these approximate quantities:

1 1/2 cups red  
1/2 cup black  
1/4 cup gray
1/4 cup blue
1/4 cup yellow
1/4 cup orange

First up, black outlines, using a number 3 tip. Once I’d sketched out all the bits and pieces that make McQueen McQueen (including the Piston Cup on his hood, which Harry was adamant be included—that’s what makes this a Cars 2 McQueen, not just a garden-variety version), I added the little hits of color, using a number 1 tip for the tiniest details and a 2 for the rest: windows, headlights and taillights, eyes, smile, lightning bolts, and on top a giant 5, for Harry’s age.

I was starting to feel pretty good about this cake.

Not bad, amirite?

Things sped up from there, once I piled red frosting into a bag fitted with a number 16 star tip. This is the absolute easiest way to decorate a cake in a manner that might make people think you know what you’re doing. All you do is hold the bag close to the cake, perpendicular to it, and squeeze out a little dollop. Release the squeeze, pull the bag straight up, and you’ll have a pretty little squiggle of frosting. Apply another right next to it, and another, and another, moving in rows across the cake.

If you look closely you’ll see that I did quite a sloppy job. It was after 10PM and I was tiiiired, too tired for precision. This is why I could never be a pastry chef.

Sometime around 11:00, I called Stephen in to see my masterpiece:

I was thrilled with the way last year’s fire truck cake came out. I was even pretty pleased with the near-disastrous Handy Manny fondant cake. But this cake, my friends, this cake is a cake for the ages. It’s like I had another child.

Such a shame that the thing is, y’know, meant to be eaten. All I have left now is the memory.

So, any tips for me, to make next time easier? Any tales from the trenches of your own cake-making?

How to Make a Lightning McQueen Cake, Part I (Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cake)

2011-09-19T08:45:00.004-04:00

Photo courtesy of Sue M.

Harry’s 5th birthday party was, oh, a month ago. It’s high time I tell you all about the most important part: the cake. This is the third in an annual series, in which Harry requests a cake that is far beyond my skill set, and I get in way over my head attempting to make him happy. It’s a gripping tale, and so lengthy I'm telling it in two parts, but here’s a spoiler to match the photo: He loved it.

Regular readers will recall last year’s red-frosting-is-infuriating 3D fire truck cake, and 2009’s harrowing Handy Manny fondant experience. So when Cars 2 reinvigorated Harry’s obsession with McQueen, Mater, et al, I was planning to keep things simple. A sheet cake, perhaps, with a store-bought cake topper.

You know that didn’t happen. No, I decided to go whole-hog and make a 3D McQueen. I thought that by avoiding fondant and using those hard-earned lessons about making red frosting, I could pull it off.

While on deadline to approve the copyedited manuscript of my cookbook.

What an idjit.

That’s right, it was another to-the-wire, can-I-really-do-this, why-did-I-say-I’d-do-this night before the party. Actually, it was the entire day before the party.

The cake itself should’ve been easy—I’d scored a 12-inch square cake pan at a stoop sale recently, which meant I could bake one giant cake and cut it up. Harry requested a chocolate-chip cake, so I planned to add chips to a yellow cake recipe. Problem was, I’ve never found one I really like. So I did the smart thing: I asked my friend Sara Schneider of Sara Bakes Cakes, who’d already shared with me her foolproof frosting recipe. She responded with what she calls her “best yellow cake”—and she’s absolutely right. The recipe is killer. My test run (a half-recipe, enough for a single 9-inch pan) came together beautifully. Even the addition of chopped chocolate, tossed with flour to prevent it from sinking to the bottom, went off without a hitch. The trouble came when I tried to bake a double recipe in that big-ass pan.

I did my research. I knew I’d need to make some adjustments to ensure even baking—most sites recommend using a heating core. That’s a metal cup you stick in the center of a large cake pan and fill with batter—the idea is, the metal conducts heat to the center of the cake so everything bakes up evenly. Once it’s cool you remove the core, and plug the hole with the little nugget of cake that you’ve baked inside it. Did I do that? No. I kept Googling, and learned that folks who regularly bake these jumbo cakes often prefer a flower nail. It conducts heat, but costs less and doesn’t leave a big divot in the center of the cake. I went with one of those, as well as a set of cake strips to wrap around the outside of the pan. I also planned to bake at a lower temperature, to keep the edges from burning before the center had baked. Together, those adjustments would prevent excessive doming and yield a thoroughly baked cake. See? I knew what I was doing.

My friends, I don’t know where I went wrong. Perhaps I got the one flower nail that doesn't actually conduct heat. But my cake took forever to bake. After 70 minutes at 325°, with the top a lovely golden brown but the insides still lava-liquid, I pleaded for help on Facebook. Two pros talked me off the ledge: Sara and Denise Vivaldo, a food stylist friend who happens to have written a book all about DIY weddings.I lowered the temp to 275° and tented the cake with foil—finally, 85 minutes after it went into the oven, it was done.

That’s when I realized my cooling racks were too narrow for a 12-inch cake. After a minor freak-out, I MacGuyvered two of them together with twist-ties and crossed my fingers that, once it had cooled a bit, the cake would actually come out of the pan.

That’s when I noticed the center of the cake was collapsing. Fast.

Stay tuned for Part II of this ridiculous saga, when I actually get to the part where I, y’know, make a Lightning McQueen cake. Meanwhile, here’s Sara’s yellow cake recipe. It’s rich and vanilla-y and super-moist, and it’s the only yellow cake recipe you’ll ever need.

While you (eagerly?) await the conclusion of my tale, I'd love to hear your own tale of kid's birthday cakes gone wrong. How'd you handle it?

Sara’s Best Yellow Cake
Adapted from Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook

Sara says:

This is my #1 go-to vanilla cake recipe, there really is nothing better, but I guess I'm a little biased. I've included weight measurements if you're so inclined. It’s definitely dense, not light and fluffy like a store-bought cake. Sour cream keeps it moist for a very long time.

If you try it and don't love it, I will fall down off my chair.

For two 9-inch pans, or 36ish cupcakes:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (320 g)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar (400 g)
4 large eggs
1 large blob of vanilla bean paste, or approx 2 teaspoons of good vanilla
1 cup sour cream (8 oz) NOTE: I did my test-run with plain nonfat yogurt, since I was too lazy to hit the store. And it worked just fine! The texture felt a little low-fat, so for the real thing I went with full-fat sour cream.

For a 12 x 12 x 3-inch pan:
5 cups all-purpose flour (640 g)
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 cups sugar (800 g)
8 large eggs
4 teaspoons of good vanilla
2 cups sour cream (8 oz)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease your baking pan(s) and line the bottom with parchment.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside.
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Add the vanilla.
Add half the dry ingredients to the mixture. Add all the sour cream, and follow with the remaining dry ingredients. Pour batter into your pan(s) until no more than 2/3 full.
For a 9-inch pan, bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. For cupcakes, test after 18 minutes. And for a monster 12-incher, bake at 275 and start testing after 75 minutes.

To make a chocolate chip cake:
Toss 1 cup of mini-chips (regular chips are too large) or finely chopped chocolate with 2 tablespoons of flour for a single recipe, or double that for the giant version. Stir into the batter just before you pour it into the pan(s).

Guest Post: Dinner Parties, Before & After Kids

2011-09-16T08:06:00.001-04:00

I can't tell you how excited I am to introduce today's guest blogger: Amber Dusick, the genius behind a hilarious new parenting blog called Parenting. Illustrated with Crappy Pictures. Perhaps you've already heard of her (I've plugged Crappy Pictures on WTEB's Facebook page, and her blog's a nominee for Parents magazine's Funniest Mom Blog. Which it totally is.)

But Amber's sheer awesomeness isn't the real reason I'm so psyched to have her here. It's because Amber's an honest-to-god friend of mine. We met on a message board oh, sevenish years ago and have watched each other go through marriage, TTC (that's Trying to Conceive, for the uninitiated), fertility problems, and eventually pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. She was even a recipe tester for my cookbook. Having a ringside seat for her impending cultural explosion makes me absolutely giddy. Seriously, if you're a parent and you don't love Crappy Pictures, you must not have a funny bone. Read on, and see if you don't laugh out loud (or at the very least smile broadly in recognition).

If you've come to Words to Eat By via Crappy Pictures, welcome! I hope you'll spend some time with me. You'll find loads of parenting-oriented food stuff here. And trust me, you won't want to miss The Best Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies in the Entire World. Maybe even consider subscribing, via RSS or email? OK, enough with the sales pitch. On to Amber...

When Debbie asked me to guest blog here I immediately said yes. And then regretted it. She has a FOOD blog. How can I fake being a foodie? Have I cooked anything worth mentioning recently? No.

I used to be a foodie though. Can I fake it?

At first, I considered using a story from back before my husband and I had kids. We threw elaborate dinner parties. We did. We'd print up menus. We'd discuss wine pairing at length. Back then, we began cooking days in advance.

I figure I could even drop in food nerd terms like "making a roux" so it seems like I know what I'm talking about still. But I don't. I don't even remember what that is exactly. I'm sorry, I just can't fake this.

Instead, I'll just admit defeat and give you a drawing of what planning for one of our elaborate dinner parties was like before we had kids:

And now, what planning for one of our "elaborate" dinner parties is like, after having kids:

And it isn't just dinner parties. It is nearly every night for dinner. Who has the time?

And well, this is why Debbie wrote her cookbook for me. For ME!

Okay, for me and all the other millions of parents who have vague recollections of eating well once upon a time. But mostly for me.

If you have ever forgotten to turn on the oven* due to sleep deprivation, you need this cookbook.

*To be clear, some of Debbie's recipes involve turning on an oven. Probably several. But you can do it! She will help you!

PS - For my readers who are new here: Debbie wrote a cookbook called Parents Need to Eat Too: Nap-Friendly Recipes, One-Handed Meals, and Time-Saving Kitchen Tricks for New Parents which will be available February, 2012. It will help you eat stuff other than the rejected crusts of your child's sandwiches! What, you don't do that?

City Girl Visits Farm

2011-09-14T12:46:00.004-04:00

That’s me in late June, notebook in hand, looking out over a lush, thriving field of wheat at The Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. I was there to witness in person the experiment cooked up by Dave Poorbaugh of Daisy Flour, to reintroduce to the market the same varieties of wheat that were grown in the mid-Atlantic in Colonial times. I wrote about it for the Washington Post, and I promised you pictures. It took me a while (oy, Photoshop troubles!), but here they are.

That’s Dave on the left and Jeff Moyer, the Institute’s farm director, on the right. I loved both these guys—Dave you just want to hug, he’s so gosh-darn nice, and Jeff is exactly what I think of when I imagine an organic farmer. He looks all down-home, but beneath that cap is a brain stuffed with science and instinct.

At the Institute, the chickens really are free-range.

Dave and Jeff were working on seven varieties of wheat, each planted on five acres of pristine farmland. This blown-over field of Lancaster Red was the only one that showed any sign of weather damage.

Before any wheat can be milled, it must be tested for various molds and toxins. At each field, Dave waded out into the wheat to snip some samples for early testing.

Lancaster Red, nearly ready for harvest.

See how green the Red Fife looks in contrast? It was planted several weeks later than the rest.

A handful of wheat kernels—this is what will be milled. (Dig the calluses on farmer Jeff's hand!)

These goats don’t have anything to do with the story. I was just feeling swept away by the rural grandeur.

I've got loads more to share with you, from the Lightning McQueen cake I made for Harry's birthday party to a food tour of midcoast Maine. (If you're a Facebook fan, you've already seen what I'm talking about.) Now that I've got my Photoshop up and running, expect regular updates!

Daisy Flour in the Washington Post

2011-08-30T21:03:00.002-04:00

A few months ago, I was invited to tour a gorgeous, historic flouring mill in Pennsylvania owned by McGeary Organics, who use the mill to grind wheat into Daisy Flour, a heritage brand available mostly in the mid-Atlantic. Today a story I wrote about Daisy, and their efforts to ensure the mills' next several hundred years by re-introducing wheat flours lost to history, appears in the Washington Post.

I have loads of pictures to share, of the mill and of the wheat, but as luck would have it I'm on vacation right now. The photos are on a hard drive at home, infuriatingly inaccessible from afar, so once I get back I'll write up a proper blog post. Please promise you'll come back!

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Pudding Pie

2011-08-12T17:37:00.001-04:00

For Mikey. And Jennie. And their little girls.

Cornmeal Crusted Flounder with Smoky Apricot Salsa

2011-08-11T08:55:00.000-04:00

I like fish. Stephen doesn’t. Harry likes fish but only in stick form, and only sometimes, and he keeps things interesting by occasionally insisting he only likes Dr. Praeger’s Fishies. Y'know, the ones that are shaped like actual fish. The ones I haven’t served him in a good two years.

But friends, do I let this stop me from serving my family fish? Well, yes, mostly. In the nearly seven years (!!!) that I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve only given you three fish recipes. There’s that fancy-sounding but actually super-easy Mediterranean Fish en Papillote, Spicy Sauteed Tilapia with Olives & Grape Tomatoes, and Pan-Roasted Cod. Three recipes in almost seven years works out to… Oy, we ate fish approximately twice a year.

You may have noticed I used the past tense there: “ate.”

That’s because I’ve decided I’m no longer willing to accommodate this piscatorial pettiness. I like fish, goshdarnit, so why shouldn’t I be able to enjoy it? For years I relegated my fish-eating to restaurants, but finances have kept us from hitting up the places that do fish well. Instead, I’m making it my mission to figure out ways to cook fish that will be accepted by the family. And by that I mean accepted by Stephen, since mostly I just assume that if I make it Harry hates it.

Cornmeal Crusted Flounder has been my greatest success to date. I pick up three or four fillets at the farmers’ market on Saturday, and that evening I give them a quick bath in egg and milk followed by a simple dredge in cornmeal. Into the cast-iron pan they go for a few minutes on each side, then a pit stop to drain on paper towels before they hit the plate. That cornmeal coating cooks up so crunchy the fish practically crackles when you bite into it, and flounder is so mild (and so thin) you barely even realize you’re eating fish.

The whole thing takes considerably less than half an hour—paired with barely-steamed corn, this makes for one lightning-fast meal. It’s not necessarily Weight Watchers-friendly since the fish is fried, but right now I’ll trade WW for expedience. It’s part of my evil plot: I’m hooking the men with fried fish, before I move on to oven-fried and then to not-breaded-at-all.

After serving the unadorned fish to acclaim (from Stephen) and acceptance (from Harry!), I decided to top it with a little sumthin-sumthin, in this case a small pile of sweet-but-not-sugary CSA apricots tossed with shallot, herbs, and just a smidge of adobo sauce for a smoky, spicy kick. Because it needs to sit for a little while to let the flavors meld, toss it together before you start preparing the rest of your meal. This little salsa, by the way, needn’t be reserved for fish—try it with almost any protein. I’m picturing a nicely grilled steak, sliced and salsaed inside soft tortillas…

The first time I made Cornmeal Crusted Flounder, Harry not only tried it, he actually ate it—nearly half a fillet. This past weekend, he pulled one of these. I’m such a sucker—what kind of fool expects her offspring to eat the same thing more than once?

Smoky Apricot Salsa
Serves 4

4-6 fresh apricots, pitted and chopped into small dice
1/2 shallot, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon minced parsley or cilantro
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon of adobo sauce from a can of chipotles in adobo (use more if you like spice)

Mix everything together and let it sit for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.

Cornmeal Crusted Flounder
Serves 4

3/4 cup cornmeal
A generous pinch of cayenne
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
Oil for pan-frying
4 flounder fillets (any mild, thin white fish will do)

In a shallow bowl or pie plate, combine the cornmeal and cayenne. In another bowl, combine the egg, milk, and salt. Line a baking sheet with paper towels and set aside.
Heat the oil in a large nonstick or cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. The oil is ready when a pinch of cornmeal sizzles immediately. (If you’re using cast-iron, put the dry pan on the heat first, and add the oil just before you’re ready to put in the fish. Do NOT preheat a dry nonstick skillet.)
One at a time, dunk the fish fillets in the milk mixture, drain, and dredge in the cornmeal mixture. Lay the breaded fish carefully into the skillet, and cook for about 3 minutes per side, until golden brown. (You may need to do this in two batches.)
Drain on the baking sheet and serve.

MAKE BABY FOOD: This is all safe for babies who are on finger foods. Some babies like spicy food, but for others the salsa may be too much—you know what your child can handle.

Food for Thought: 5 Ways Hurried Moms Can Make Math Easy

2011-08-09T08:55:00.001-04:00

Laura Laing is a writer friend whose new book, Math for Grownups: Re-Learn the Arithmetic You Forgot from School, is perfect for people like me, who sorta remember how to figure out percentages by hand but never actually trust that the final number is correct... Who know that there are 16 tablespoons in a cup, but can't figure out what fraction of a cup is equal to five tablespoons... Who understand the concept of multiplying recipes, but somehow always ends up adding too much salt... That's right, this book is for you, too. I asked Laura to write a guest post about using math in the kitchen with your kids, and I love love love what she sent me. I'm doing some of this with Harry already, unintentionally, and I can't wait to implement the rest. Read on...

Boy, do I remember those early days of parenting my daughter. I was working full time, coddling a strong-willed toddler, trying to serve balanced meals, selecting great books to read to her and trying to keep my house and yard clean enough that my neighbors wouldn’t call Child Protective Services on me.

Adding one more thing to the list would have made my head blow off of my shoulders.

And yet, today, we are being asked to do that one more thing: introduce numeracy to our little Janes and Johns. In other words, math. Like laying the groundwork for early reading skills through reading to our children, we’re told that adding a little bit of math to our everyday lives will help our children understand what the heck is going on when they finally start adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing in elementary school.

Worried yet? Don’t be. Looking back, I realize was already doing it, and I had no idea.

Sure, I’m a former math teacher, but I’m no math geek. I just happen to be a little bit more comfortable with math concepts than others may be. But trust me. You can pick up some simple ways to infuse math in your daily routine – without losing any much-needed brain cells. And all of these ideas can be integrated into cooking and shopping duties.

Here’s how:

Count everything. Count the number of apples you’re putting one-by-one in your grocery or farmer’s market basket. If your child is old enough to carry out tasks without help, have him or her count out 5 limes or 7 baking potatoes.
Make math connections. When it’s time to set the table for dinner, put your little one to work. Ask simple questions: “How many napkins do we need?” “Where do they go on the table?” While it sounds silly to us grownups, the concept of matching items (napkins) to other items (place settings) is a big one.
Develop math concepts. So you’ve got your kid setting the table. This exercise is even more powerful, if you help your youngster count the napkins as he places them on the table. At that point, you’re talking about one-to-one correspondence, a concept that relates to basic and advanced mathematics.
Count up. Let’s say you need five eggs, but you only have two in a bowl. Don’t do the math for your little chef. Instead ask him to add eggs to the number you have, until you get to five eggs. What you’re doing here is asking him to count up to five eggs. This little exercise will help develop addition—and even subtraction—skills.
Start factoring. Your child won’t learn her multiplication or division facts until third or fourth grade, but you can start the process now, with simple factoring. While you’re preparing lunch, give your child a pile of baby carrots and ask her to divide them evenly onto the plates. (You can show her how, by “dealing” them out, like you would a deck of cards. Or let her explore on her own how it can be done.) Then talk about what happens if you have left over carrots.

See, it’s not too hard to add a little bit of math education to your already insane schedule!

Maple-Cinnamon Butter (for the best biscuits I ever made)

2011-08-04T11:03:00.004-04:00

I have lost my writing mojo. It may have something to do with the insomnia that’s been raging for the last week or two—most nights I wake up sometime between 3 and 4, and don’t fall back asleep until dawn. At the moment I half-wish I were Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange; that third glass of iced coffee may as well have been warm milk. The very thought of composing a solid sentence, for the blog or for paid work, makes my bones ache. But you don’t want to hear about that…

Here’s the thing: This maple-cinnamon butter is perfect. Seriously, it’s perfect, and you know I don’t throw that word around lightly. Not too sweet, still with plenty of buttery flavor, and you don’t need a lot to make your mouth happy. I created it specifically to go with Sam Sifton’s biscuits, a recipe I tried this weekend for the very first time and nearly wept with pleasure, the results were so good. (Granted, I’m a northerner, so I’m the farthest thing from an expert. Heck, the only other biscuit recipe on this site is for a low-fat version with chives & pepper! All I’m saying is that the three of us polished off almost an entire batch of Sifton’s in under fifteen minutes.) That recipe calls for 5 tablespoons of butter, a little more than half a stick. Use the remaining for this maple-cinnamon spread and you’ve got yourself a mighty fine little weekend breakfast.

And now, please excuse me. I’ve got to take a brief nap, or splash some cold water on my face, or maybe score some coke.

Maple-Cinnamon Butter
Serves 4

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt

Mash it all up with a fork until it begins to come together, then stir with a spoon or spatula until smooth & creamy.

MAKE BABY FOOD: It’s safe for babies, but maple syrup is, y’know, sugar. Try to limit this to a teeny tiny taste, if baby eats any at all.

It’s Real. It’s Really Really Real.

2011-07-28T10:48:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I went into Manhattan (a rare occurrence these days) to return the copyedited manuscript of Parents Need to Eat Too: Naptime Cooking, One-Handed Meals & Time-Saving Kitchen Tricks for New Parents to Amy, my editor. The next time I see it, the pages will be laid out like, y’know, an actual book, which is exciting enough all by itself. But even more exciting was the little gift Amy gave me: a high-quality printout of the book’s cover, mounted on black board. Suitable for framing, my friends.

Isn’t it just gorgeous? It’s not 100% perfect yet—we’re still discussing what food should be on the plate—but conceptually and looks-wise it’s spot-on. I LOVE IT. I hope you do, too. (And before you ask, no that’s not me on the cover. I’m a bit, um, older than that lovely young woman. And, um, less genetically blessed. This is me, on a very good day.)

The other huge, huge, huge news is that the book’s already available for pre-order! Click here to reserve your copy on Amazon,here for Barnes and Noble. I’m told it’ll also be up on Indiebound soon, but it’s not there just yet. As of now the retail price is $16.99, but since it’s turning out to be a bit of a doorstopper (which is a good thing! It’s bursting with recipes and information!) that may change.

I’d be honored and thrilled and just beside myself with joy if you’d click through and place an order. I’m sure this is only the first time I’ll be asking for your support—it’ll happen more frequently as we get closer to publication, early next year—but I’ll try to keep the shilling to a minimum.

Thank you so much, dear readers. This cookbook wouldn’t exist without you.

Summery Swiss Chard, Corn, Peach, and Quinoa Salad

2011-07-25T08:36:00.002-04:00

I’ll make this brief, since I’m due to return the copyedited manuscript for Parents Need to Eat Too* to my editor, um, last week. All 651 pages of it. There is so.much packed into this cookbook! It overflows with recipes, ideas, kitchen hacks, and information—from other moms, from nutrition and lactation experts, and from, well, me. I can’t wait to share it with you.

In the meantime, though, I’ll share this recipe, a summertime version of Quinoa Salad with Chickpeas, Walnuts & Dried Fruit. It’s perfect for this ridonkulous heat wave, when the very thought of cooking with fire makes you sweat—the chard takes only a quick bath in boiling water, and you can do it hours ahead of time (like, in the morning, before it gets really hot). The quinoa uses a summer-friendly technique I noticed on the box—you boil it for a mere five minutes, then turn it off and set aside. It finishes cooking on its own. And the corn gets just a minute or two in the microwave, if that. Given all these little bursts of cooking, this is an ideal recipe for Naptime Cooking.

The result is light yet hearty, sweet, tart, crunchy, and a primo candidate for the summer-in-a-bowl club. It's not at all Harry-pleasing. But Stephen and I were pleased. Oh yes we were.

*BTW, it appears that we’re keeping the title! I'm beyond relieved. There’s a new subtitle: Naptime Cooking, One-Handed Meals & Time-Saving Kitchen Tricks for New Parents. If you hate it please don’t tell me.

Summery Swiss Chard, Corn, Peach, and Quinoa Salad
Serves 4

1 bunch Swiss chard, leaves removed and thinly sliced, stems chopped (rainbow is especially pretty here)
1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 ear corn
1 large, ripe peach, peeled, pitted, and chopped (mine was so ripe I used a paring knife to peel, or you can blanch and plunge)
1 scallion, white and some green parts, thinly sliced
1/2 cup chopped herbs (I used basil & parsley)
1/2 cup sliced almonds, toasted
1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons flavorful extra-virgin olive oil (a nut oil would be nice here, too)
2 tablespoons fruity vinegar, such as Trader Joe’s Orange Muscat Vinegar

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, covered to speed things up. Add the chard stems and cook for 3 minutes, then add the leaves and cook another 3 minutes. Drain into a colander and rinse well with cold water, to stop the cooking, then drain again. If you’ll be using right away, squeeze the chard to remove any excess water (otherwise refrigerate it in the colander to drain more fully).
Bring the quinoa and 2 cups of lightly salted water to a boil in a small saucepan. Let it boil for 5 minutes—watch it to ensure it doesn’t bubble over—then cover and set aside for at least 15 minutes. Once all the water’s been absorbed, allow quinoa to cool.
If your corn is super-fresh (as in, picked today), use a large knife to strip the kernels into a salad bowl. Picked yesterday or earlier? Cook it lightly. I microwave it for 2 1/2 minutes. Once it’s cool enough to handle, strip the kernels into the bowl.
Transfer chard and quinoa to the bowl, and add the peach, scallion, herbs, and almonds.
Put the mustard, oil, and vinegar into a small air-tight container with some freshly ground pepper. Shake well, until combined, then pour over the salad and toss well.

MAKE BABY FOOD: Put this in the blender with a splash of oil or water and it’s a lovely puree for the earliest eaters—skip the almonds if you have a family history of nut allergies. If you’ll be serving as finger food, make sure the chard is chopped into small pieces.

Local Roots CSA Is Hosting a Supper Club

2011-07-22T09:37:00.002-04:00

My CSA, the one I've raved about before, is hosting a little dinner party-cum-supper club using ingredients from the various farms and vendors who supply the group. The menu's above; I can't decide which sounds more exciting, that fresh fettucine with basil & chive pesto, or the red wine braised short ribs. But we all know I have a thing for red wine braised short ribs.

Here are the deets:

Where: 61 Local - 61 Bergen Street, Brooklyn
When: Sunday, July 31st from 7 -9pm
Cost: $40, 5 course meal
For tickets, click here.

Picky Eater Special: Korean-Style Beef Lettuce Wraps with Ginger-Lime Noodles

2011-07-18T10:11:00.004-04:00

Picky eaters and hot weather don’t always mix. While Harry’s always down for fruit, which in summertime opens a huge window of opportunity, when it comes to dinner most of my barely-cooked options aren’t exactly met with enthusiasm. He refuses Black Bean, Corn, and Tomato Salad before it hits his plate: too many ingredients touching each other. A Quick Sauté of Corn, Zucchini, and Tomatoes garners whines and scorn. Watermelon Gazpacho flat-out angers him: How dare I adulterate perfectly good melon with tomatoes?

But Make-Your-Own Taco Salad has been such a hit, I thought perhaps a different ethnic variation might work equally well. And halle-freaking-lujah, it did. These Korean-Style Beef Lettuce Wraps are another example of how well it works when you give your challenging eater a little bit of control.

In this case, thinly sliced beef marinates briefly in a Korean-inspired mix that includes soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and brown sugar. Once the beef hits that sauce, you soak a package of bean threads in very hot water (no need to cook!), then move on to the vegs. I used what I had on hand (Boston lettuce, carrot, cucumber, scallions, basil, and celery leaves), but feel free to add and subtract whatever you like.

After all the vegetable prep is complete, drain the noodles, rinse, and drain again, then toss with the dressing. Fire up a wok or large skillet and flash-cook that beef—we’re talking a minute or two per side since it’s so thin, not enough time to heat up the kitchen. Put that on its own little plate to avoid contaminating the other ingredients with its yucky (yummy) molecules, and you’re good to go.

You may be wondering what Harry ate. He sampled the dressed noodles (we insist he tries something before he can say he doesn’t like it) and gave them a thumbs-down, which frankly I believe is just spite at this point because they’re super-awesome. But I’d anticipated that and withheld a kid-sized portion without dressing. A couple nibbles each of carrot and cucumber, and he had dinner. It wasn’t much, but it enabled Stephen and me to devour one of the most stress-free meals we’ve had in ages.

This is the true pleasure of an assemble-it-yourself meal: Even if your picky eater balks at almost everything, there’s bound to be one thing he’ll eat. Which means he’s happy, and you get to eat all the good stuff.

Korean-Style Beef Lettuce Wraps with Ginger-Lime Noodles
Serves 4 to 6

For the beef:
1 pound steak, such as flat-iron or blade
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
1 scallion, white part only, finely chopped (you’ll use the green below)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon neutral-flavored oil

For the noodles:
1 small package (around 4 ounces) bean threads (aka cellophane or glass noodles—they cook up translucent and slippery and kinda chewy. If you can't find them, thin rice noodles are fine too)
2 tablespoons neutral-flavored oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (from around 1 lime)
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

For the wraps:
8 to 12 large, tender lettuce leafs, such as Boston
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into matchsticks
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 scallion, green part only, chopped
15 to 20 basil leaves
15 to 20 cilantro or celery leaves

Before you do anything else, if you have the time, freeze your steak for 15 to 20 minutes—it’ll make it easier to slice. If not, go ahead and slice it as thin as possible, across the grain.
In a bowl, whisk together the garlic, ginger, scallion whites, brown sugar, soy sauce, and sesame oil, then add the sliced steak. Toss to combine, then set aside while you prep the rest of the components.
Make the noodles: Put the noodles in a bowl that will fit them in one layer, then pour very hot water over them. Let them sit for 10 to 15 minutes while you do the next step.
Prep all the vegetables, then arrange on a platter, and ask someone to set the table—you’re minutes away from dinner.
When the noodles are pliable drain, rinse with cold water, drain again, and transfer to a serving bowl. In a small container with an air-tight lid, shake the dressing ingredients until the sugar dissolves, then toss with the noodles.
Now, cook the beef: Heat a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat, and add the remaining tablespoon of neutral-flavored oil. When it’s nearly smoking, add the beef in a single layer (you may need to do this in two batches). Cook for 1 or 2 minutes on each side, until just cooked—it’s fine if the edges start to brown, but the longer it cooks the less tender it’ll be.
To serve, let everyone start with a lettuce leaf, then pile in whatever they like from the array of noodles, vegetables, and beef. Don’t overstuff, or you’ll have a lap full of noodles.

MAKE BABY FOOD: This meat is very tender, so it should puree nicely along with some noodles (add a splash of the dressing if it needs moisture). The raw vegetables will be a challenge for the very youngest eaters, but slightly older babies can often handle shredded raw carrot and cucumber.

Parents Need to Eat Too: Summer Session Starts August 3 at Caribou Baby!

2011-07-15T11:27:00.003-04:00

Just a quickie, to announce that my first round of classes at the terrific Greenpoint baby shop Caribou Baby went so well, we're doing it again! This round will meet for three consecutive Wednesdays from 10:30 to noon, starting August 3. Full details at Caribou's site.

Struggling to figure out how to cook for yourself with a baby in the house? See you there!

Williamsburg's New Meatball Shop: We'll Be Back. Oh, Yes We Will.

2011-07-14T20:26:00.005-04:00

the view from our little corner

Sometimes I wonder why I'm so attached to New York City; honestly, my life is so confined to my own little corner of Brooklyn that I'm essentially living a small-town life. I leave Williamsburg once a week, maybe, and that's usually to hit Trader Joe's or (gasp) Target. The Lower East Side, with all its restaurants and cute little shops, is a quick zip over the bridge, but lately it feels like it's the other side of the world. Case in point: The Meatball Shop.

I've been hearing about it for ages (well, since it opened on Stanton Street early last year). Tonight, I finally learned what all the fuss is about. Why? Because they came to me. That's right, I waited until they opened a branch five minutes from my apartment. Seriously, I'm a major loser.

But enough about me. You want to know how it was. Now, you've probably guessed my standards have changed in the last five years. Where I used to look for transcendence in a bowl of pasta, for most of my current restaurant excursions I want a place I can a) take Harry and not stress about what he's going to eat; b) rely on the staff to understand some of the realities of dining with a preschooler, like providing extra napkins without being asked or putting the sauce on the side so it doesn't touch His Picky Highness's food; and c) not go any further into debt.* If a restaurant can pull off those three things and serve me food worth talking about (or worth not talking during), I'm a fan for life.

The Meatball Shop on Bedford Avenue is just such a place. They only opened yesterday, but things were humming right along tonight. The hostess took one look at my energetic little boy and seated us in a far corner, the kind of table that might have pissed me off in my younger days but now just makes me grateful. The waitress was over in seconds to explain the menu: They've got five varieties each of meatballs and sauce, and five different ways to combine them (simply meatballs & sauce, as a hero, as a medium-sized sandwich called a "smash," as single-balled sliders, or on top of an "everything but the kitchen sink salad"). In addition, there are a dozen sides (six each of carb-y and veg-y). The menus themselves are laminated, with dry-erase pens provided so you can write out your own order. This made Harry very happy, especially when the waitress let him keep his menu to use as a sketchpad while we waited for our food:

that would be a ghost in the ocean, riding on a duckie float. of course.

The food, by the way, came blissfully quickly: A side of rigatoni for Harry (plain, with just olive oil), a beef meatball hero with classic tomato sauce and provolone for Stephen, and an order of chicken meatballs and pesto (with one of those meatballs intended for junior) plus a daily special salad (lettuce, fennel, pickled cauliflower, toasted almonds, roasted tomato vinaigrette) for me.

There was a hiccup or two—some confusion with my salad order, and the meatballs came before the pasta. Harry took one look at those golf ball-sized sweethearts, flecked with herbs and topped with a shower of grated parm, and decided they were Not for Him. Which meant his food was late, in his opinion. Just as he was whining that it was never coming (approximately 90 seconds after the meatballs landed), his rigatoni magically appeared. At $4, it was the perfect size for a kid, and it wound up making him very, very happy.

Stephen devoured his hero, though he kindly let me take a bite. I have to say, I thought it was better than the much-lauded version sold at Best Pizza, which I have sometimes found to be so overwhelmingly salty that I couldn't eat it. The Meatball Shop's sub had the perfect ratio of bread to meatball to sauce, and the side salad put it over the top in terms of value (at $9, it's the same price as Best Pizza's).

My salad was better than average—certainly better than I can make at home on most days, what with the house-pickled cauliflower and the roasted tomatoes in the dressing. And my chicken meatballs were extremely satisfying, especially when dunked in the small bowl of pesto. Harry, of course, ignored the one I'd so carefully cut up for him, which was just fine—Stephen wound up eating it. And then Harry remembered that the waitress had mentioned ice cream sandwiches. Would he get dessert? he wondered aloud. Not unless he tasted that meatball, or at the very least some salad, I said.

Never underestimate the allure of an ice cream sandwich. Not only did Harry try some of my salad (the lettuce only, which he very carefully divested of every tiny speck of almond), he also had 1/16th of a chicken meatball. Of course, he got dessert.

As for that dessert, it's what really sent us over the moon. They're made to order from house-made components, and you get to choose your cookie-ice cream combo. Harry opted for chocolate chip cookies with strawberry ice cream. When it arrived at the table, the poor little kid's head just about exploded: It was HUGE. A softball-sized scoop of fresh strawberry ice cream wedged between two oversized chocolate chip cookies, it was too big for a full-grown adult to pick up and bite. This is not a bad thing, really, since it meant that the three of us shared it. I broke off hunks of cookie and slathered on ice cream, creating mini-sandwiches for Harry, while Stephen and I went to town on the remainder with spoons. Harry got three small ice cream sandwiches in the deal, and we grownups had more than enough sweet to send us home smiling. All this for $4.

So here's the deal: I intend to hit this place as often as possible. The food's great, the prices are amazing, and my kid loved it. And did I mention that they have a full bar, for those who don't drift off after a single glass of wine?

*Obvs, when it's just me and Stephen, different expectations apply. But thanks to our finances, date nights have been few and far between lately.

The Meatball Shop
170 Bedford Ave, between N. 7th & N. 8th Sts.
Williamsburg

Picky Eater Special: Make-Your-Own Taco Salad

2011-07-11T11:31:00.007-04:00

When I moderated a panel on dealing with picky eaters at the BlogHer Food conference in May, I snagged a handful of good ideas for experimentation. The biggest one: Taco Night. All three of my co-panelists proclaimed it a can’t-miss way to make everyone happy, even if—as Caroline of Devil and Egg said—your kid’s idea of a taco is, basically, tortillas.

Naturally, I tried it as soon as got back. But instead of going with straight-on tacos, I upped the veg factor and declared a Make-Your-Own Taco Salad night. Harry’s actually pretty OK with salad these days, thanks to a wee bit of bribery earlier this year. Carrots, cucumber, and salad greens are all welcome on his plate (I know, right?!), and olives are a life-long favorite. Oh, and tortilla chips? Salty + crunchy = no-brainer.

I make my own taco meat, but you can absolutely use one of those packets—the processed stuff isn't my first choice, but if it means a homemade dinner, I’m all in. The rice, too, can be from scratch, or go with a boil-in bag. Heck, I’ve been known to pick up a carton from the nearby Chinese takeout joint. Doctor the rice with (defrosted) frozen corn kernels and peas to sneak in another vitamin or two. As for the tortilla chips, I made those, too—cutting up tortillas, which I usually keep on-hand, was easier than running to the store—but I’ve got no problem with pre-fab. Just buy a bag with an ingredients list you recognize. If you’re really pressed for time, hit the supermarket salad bar for the carrots, cukes, tomatoes, and greens. Using all those shortcuts, this meal comes together in about 15 minutes.

Turns out, my co-panelists really know their stuff. Make-Your-Own Taco Salad was definitely a success, so much so that we’ve had it several times since. Harry eats his weight in chips, but I can also count on a huge helping of olives, some carrots & cukes, shredded cheese, and even a bit of rice. He won’t touch the taco filling with a ten-foot fork, but you didn’t really expect him to, did you?

So, tell me: What's your version of Make-Your-Own Taco Salad? What's the meal that makes every member of your family happy?

Look at that deliciously balanced meal! Guess whose? I’ll give you a hint: It’s not Harry’s.

Um, yeah. This would be Harry’s plate.

Make-Your-Own Taco Salad

Serves 4 to 6
Weight Watchers: There are so many variables here, I can’t give an accurate PointsPlus count. Sorry!

For the tortilla chips:
6 small corn tortillas
Olive oil or cooking spray
Salt

For the taco filling:
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (sub 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne if serving as finger food—a red pepper flake on a baby's tongue is not fun)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 pound lean ground beef or turkey
1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon cider vinegar

For the salad:
Cooked white or brown rice (stir in some defrosted frozen corn kernels and/or peas)
Shredded carrots
Chopped cucumber
Sliced black olives (not canned, please!)
Chopped tomatoes
Shredded lettuce

Canned black or pinto beans, drained and rinsed

Cubed avocado
Shredded Cheddar and/or Monterey Jack cheese

Salsa

First, make the tortilla chips: Heat the oven to 350°F and line a rimmed baking sheet. Coat the tortillas lightly with olive oil, by brushing or spraying, then sprinkle with salt. Stack them and cut into sixths, then scatter in a single layer on the baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until crisp and golden brown—check them every few minutes once you begin to smell toasting tortillas.
Now, make the taco filling: Measure all the spices into a small bowl. Put a large nonstick skillet over medium heat and add the meat. Cook, breaking it up with the back of a spoon, until it’s completely browned. Sprinkle with the seasoning mix and add 3/4 cup of water, then lower the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 to 15 minutes, until the mixture is quite moist but no longer has pools of liquid.
Stir in the brown sugar and vinegar and simmer another 2 to 3 minutes.
Put each salad item into its own little serving dish, hand out bowls to your family, and let them all assemble their own meals.

MAKE BABY FOOD: If your baby’s eaten and enjoyed spicy food, I’d serve everything but the chips, which may be difficult to chew. Still on purees? Put some filling, rice, and carrots in the food processor, add a splash of water or broth, and you’re good to go.

Holy Crap, I LOVE My CSA!

2011-07-07T19:38:00.003-04:00

Tonight's haul from Local Roots NYC:

A large bunch of unbelievably beautiful red amaranth (aka Chinese spinach)
A large bunch of curly kale
Enough green radicchio for several salads
A bouquet of purple basil so pretty I want to walk down the aisle carrying it
Golf-ball-sized radishes, perfect for these outrageous-looking Cinnamon Sugar Radish Chips
Two quarts of cherries so large and juicy Harry can barely fit one in his mouth

Inspired by the CSA's suggestion that red amaranth is great in soups, I tossed some into a pot of Overnight Chicken Soup along with chicken potstickers and noodles. The soup turned pink! Harry was thrilled. He, naturally, only ate the soup and the noodles. I topped Stephen's and my bowls with chopped scallions, a drizzle of sesame oil, and a shot of sriracha. Fabulous dinner in under 15 minutes.

OK, so maybe Stephen and I got a little overheated, eating steaming-hot bowls of soup in July. It was totally worth it, every drippy-nosed second.

Holy crap, I love my CSA. Local Roots has completely restored my faith in the whole idea.

I Baked a Pie! A Good One, at Last!

2011-07-05T18:07:00.003-04:00

You may have heard the rumors. They’re spreading like wildfire all over the internets. Psst! Debbie baked a pie! And it wasn’t a disaster!

My friends, it’s true. I baked a mighty fine pie today, completely from scratch. If you know me at all, you know that this is an Extremely Big Deal. See, pie and I have a history. An ugly history, filled with frustration, tears, and self-loathing. (Yes, I realize self-loathing is a bit much for pie, but that’s just the way I am.)

And today, in honor of the Pie Party that started on Twitter and wound up with nearly 1500 people attending (virtually), I tried again. This time was different. This time, I was prepared. I’d read my friend Casey’s incredibly helpful, step-by-step guide to pie dough, several times. Heck, I printed it out. I’d seen her tips, gleaned during what sounds like an amazing food blogger mini-school at King Arthur Flour. I like to think I’d internalized them.

Miracle of miracles, it worked. My pie dough is amazing. My pie, which uses gooseberries from my CSA, blackberries, and blueberries, is beautiful. My self-loathing is gone. For the moment, anyway.

Goose-Black-Blueberry Streusel Pie
Adapted from Epicurious
Weight Watchers: You really don’t want to know, do you?

1 prepared piecrust, store-bought or homemade

For the filling:
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons arrowroot powder
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
5 cups assorted fresh berries, rinsed and dried (I used 2 cups each of gooseberries & blackberries, plus a cup of blueberries)

For the topping:
6 tablespoons golden brown sugar
6 tablespoons whole hazelnuts
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt, optional

If you’re making your own dough, do so at least 4 hours before you plan to eat the pie and refrigerate half in the form of a disk, tightly wrapped. (Freeze the other half for later use, or make a chicken pot pie for dinner, like I did!) I highly recommend this recipe/instructional from Casey Barber of Good.Food.Stories.
A good 3 hours before eating-time, roll out the dough and lay it into a pie plate. Flute the edges if you feel fancy, or just crimp them with a fork. Cover lightly and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Turn the oven to 400°F. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, arrowroot, and lemon juice—it’ll make a grainy paste. Add the berries and toss gently (the paste won’t disperse fully, so don’t sweat it), then let it sit while the oven heats. Stir it occasionally if you think of it.
While you wait, put all the topping ingredients into the bowl of a food processor. Whir them around until it’s a big clumpy mess, and no flour is visible.
By now your oven’s probably hot. Line a baking sheet with foil and place the pie plate on it. Pour the berry mixture into the crust, gently, and spread it around evenly. Scatter the crumble on top with your fingers (a spoon will make big clumps—not pretty).
Slide the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the crust is golden, the topping is browned, and the berries are bubbling. Don’t be surprised if they bubble over—that’s why you used a baking sheet.
Let it cool for at least 2 hours before cutting. I know, it’s hard. Go nuts and serve while still a bit warm, then top it with some ice cream.

MAKE BABY FOOD: There’s plenty of sugar here, so save it for special occasions—at which times I’d let a baby have some of the fruity filling and maybe some crust. That topping will be a little hard for him to handle.

Chocolaty Almond Butter Banana Smoothie

2011-06-22T11:59:00.002-04:00

I had root canal a few weeks ago, after intermittent pain that started when I was pregnant with Harry—that’s right, I lived with twinges for five years before I finally did something about it. It would flare up every couple of months, bother me for a day, maybe two, and then just when I’d think, hmm, maybe it’s time for the oral surgeon, poof! The pain would disappear. Until this one time, it didn’t. By about Day Five of constant throbbing, with flashes of holy-crap-what-was-that fireworks every time I accidentally chewed on that side, I realized it wasn’t going away. Why did I hang on for five days? I was finishing up the cookbook, and just couldn’t imagine taking time away from it to fix something as trivial as a toothache. Of course, I waited until Friday afternoon to call the dentist, which meant I had an entire weekend to get through before I could even hope for hard-core pharmaceutical relief.

You are so lucky.

As a direct result of a full week of being unable to chew, I came up with this smoothie recipe. It was born of boredom, largely. I just couldn’t take another strawberry-mango-peach-raspberry-what-have-you fruity drink. A gorgeously salty jar of almond butter, made in-house at Brooklyn Larder, seemed likely to offer a bit of variety—while also being full of healthy fat and fiber, to keep me full longer. Toss in a frozen banana for heft and sweetness (what? You don’t keep frozen bananas on hand? How do you make Magic Banana Ice Cream?), some milk to thin it into drinkability, and a healthy squirt of chocolate sauce just because chocolate is so perfect with everything, and I had myself a mighty fine treat.

Now you do, too. Man, the things I do for you guys. You’re welcome.

Oh, and a bonus for new parents: This makes a perfectly delicious one-handed meal.

Chocolaty Almond Butter Banana Smoothie
Serves 1
Weight Watchers: This is a fairly ridiculous 13 PointsPlus per serving. If you’re not using it as a meal replacement as I did, I suggest sharing

1/2 cup non-fat plain yogurt
2 tablespoons almond butter
1 banana, peeled and frozen in chunks*
1 tablespoon chocolate syrup (use more if you’re not on Weight Watchers!)
1/2 cup milk (I use 1%)

Put the yogurt, almond butter, banana, and chocolate syrup into your blender jar, and whir on high.
With the feed tube open, pour in the milk until it reaches the consistency you like. Pour and serve.

* OK, if you don't have frozen banana on-hand, it's fine to use a fresh one. Just make sure it's nice and ripe, and toss in some ice cubes to make up for the loss of cold. The texture will be slightly different as a result, but you'll still love it.

MAKE BABY FOOD: If there are no food allergies in your immediate family, almond butter is fine to serve to babies. If you do have allergy concerns, speak to your pediatrician first.

Buy Peko Peko, the Fundraiser Cookbook for Japan

2011-06-16T20:30:00.002-04:00

Hi all. It’s been quiet around here, I know, and I apologize. I’ve got a pile of delicious things lined up for you, once I find the time to write up some posts (think Fresh Strawberry Cupcakes with White Chocolate Frosting, Make-Your-Own Taco Salad, and Almond Butter-Choco-Banana Smoothies). But in the meanwhile, I’m really excited to tell you all about this project I was lucky enough to contribute to: Peko Peko: Family Friendly Japanese Recipes. I wrote about it a few months back, when the project first started, but now I’m thrilled to say it’s finally available!

Peko Peko (which is a way to say “I’m hungry!” in Japanese) is a collection of Japanese-ish recipes, contributed by around 50 terrific food bloggers. Seriously, I’m humbled to be in their company. It’s the brainchild of my friend Stacie Billis of One Hungry Mama, Rachael Hutchings of La Fuji Mama, and Marc Matsumoto of No Recipes.

The coolest part of all this is that nobody involved is making a dime from the book, except for the project’s chosen charity. Each book costs $29.95 and an impressive $11.45 of that goes to Global Giving. Every additional penny goes to printing and shipping your order, nothing else. Even Blurb, the publisher, has waived their cut. All the bloggers, from Stacie, Rachael, and Marc right down to yours truly, are buying their own copies.

My contribution: The homemade “Pocky” you see above. Please, consider buying this cookbook. It’ll make you feel all warm and oogy inside, and who doesn’t want that?

Help! Parents Need to Eat Too needs a new title

2011-06-08T09:32:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I was at an indoor playspace with Harry and some friends, when my phone rang. I struggled to hear through the ear-piercing shrieks erupting from the kids, but eventually realized it was my editor, calling to say that HarperCollins' sales department thinks my cookbook's title isn't funny/fun enough. I admit, my chapter titles are pithier. And I've always wondered if the full title: Parents Need to Eat Too: 150+ Simple, Healthy Recipes for Frazzled, Sleep-Deprived New Moms & Dads isn't a bit too, um, wordy. Plus there's the fact that I spent nearly two decades in book marketing, and I asked authors for new titles more times than I can count. Turnabout is fair play, as they say...

Anyway, now I'm trying to think up something fun, fresh, lively, maybe even edgy. Something that gets across the idea that this is a book for new parents, all about how to help them feed themselves when there's an infant in the house. How to juggle that baby with all those fifteen-minute naps, diaper changes, and marathon nursing sessions and wield a carrot peeler without missing a beat. So I turned to Facebook. On Words to Eat By's fan page, I asked for some crowdsourcing help. And boy, did you guys deliver. As I write this, we're up to nearly 90 comments, many of them with truly inspired suggestions.

So far, I think my favorite might be something like Holy Shiitake, I Have to Make Dinner? Recipes, Tips, and Techniques for Frazzled New Parents. I've also been playing with What to Expect to Eat the First Year, but I suspect there might be copyright issues with that one.

What's your take on it? Join the conversation on Facebook, or start one here.

Tonight's Dinner

2011-06-01T13:38:00.001-04:00

Asparagus, Gruyere and Parmesan Tart from What's Gaby Cooking. Dinnertime can't come fast enough.

Magic, 1-Ingredient Banana Ice Cream

2011-05-31T08:15:00.001-04:00

We’re having a bit of a sweets problem around here. I’m pretty sure I emerged from the womb with an obsession for sugary treats (wonder how I got to weigh 260 pounds?) and even with Weight Watchers as a constant in my life, I have yet to conquer it. Instead I aim simply to manage it, to make sure that the sweets I eat are a) worth the calories, and b) made with top-quality ingredients.

When it comes to Harry, though, things are a little tougher. While the food environment at his school is a pretty good one—he isn’t given cookies or even chocolate milk routinely—there is a constant awareness of candy, Spiderman ice cream pops, and Oreos. Somebody always has some sort of brightly colored crap on the playground. I know from experience that forbidden food is infinitely more enticing (I’m a lifelong sneak eater), so I’ll let him taste what his friends are having. We have a longstanding rule: One treat per afternoon, and he gets to pick, within reason. No junky candy, no Hostess, and almost never a Spiderman pop. And if he eats a good dinner (read: tries everything, and eats a substantial amount of something) he’ll get a small dessert. That’s worked pretty well for us, for about two years.

Lately, though, we’ve noticed an uptick in his sugar-hounding. He’ll start talking about his treat in the morning, long before it’s time to choose it. He’ll try to trick us into a second treat (“But I didn’t finish my ice cream!”). And he’ll eat one bite of dinner and ask if he’s had enough to get dessert. That, in particular, drives me crazy. The last thing I want is to police his plate, to monitor precisely how much he eats of a given food. I want to be relaxed about his eating. I want him to eat when he’s hungry, and stop when he’s full. I want him to revel in the pure pleasure that comes the moment something extraordinary hits his tongue. These days he barely seems to be aware of what’s on his plate—all he worries about is if he’s eaten enough to qualify for something sweet.

I’ve tried serving dessert along with the meal, with no restrictions, which apparently works for many people. The idea is, if dessert is presented as just another thing on the table, not something special, the kid won’t focus on it so much. Um, not my kid. When we put the sweet stuff in front of him at the same time as everything else, his tunnel vision kicks in and the whole world falls away. All he sees is SWEET! SWEET! SWEET! Like in a movie, when the boy and girl first meet and the camera circles them, around and around, and everything else is just a blur. (I’ll admit, we may not have let this go on long enough for him to become used to the idea that sweets are just there, all the time. I’m pretty sure we called off the experiment in less than a week. It scared me, to see him so single-minded.)

So now we’re trying something new. No daytime treats, unless it’s something we’ve made from scratch or he’s with a friend who’s having one (I don’t want this to feel like punishment, kwim?). And dessert is fruit based. No more squares of Trader Joe's white chocolate, or Kashi Oatmeal Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies. Instead, he’s had strawberries with a teeny bowl of chocolate syrup for dipping, some Briermere's pie (the best pie in the entire world), and the recipe I’m about to share with you.

This is magic. It’s banana, just banana, nothing but banana, but when you freeze a banana and then whir the frozen bits in a food processor, some sort of miracle, alchemy perhaps, occurs, and it turns into ice cream. With no cream. No sugar. Nothing. Just banana. Harry loves this plain, but when I top it with a little quirt of chocolate syrup and a maraschino cherry, he’s in heaven.

The best part: He understands exactly what he’s eating. I’m not tricking him into thinking this is actually ice cream. All he knows is that it tastes just as good as the kind that’s not so good for him.

1-Ingredient Banana Ice Cream
Serves as many as you want
Weight Watchers: It’s ZERO PointsPlus, baby!

1 banana per person, peeled, frozen

Quarter the banana lengthwise and cut it into small pieces. Transfer to a food processor (a mini-processor works best if you’re making a single serving).
Pulse until the banana begins to break down, then process until it’s smooth and creamy.
Serve.

MAKE BABY FOOD: My friends, this is baby food. Leave off the chocolate sauce and cherry on top, though.

Possibly the Most Versatile Bread Dough Ever

2011-05-25T13:53:00.005-04:00

Waaay back in the TBS (Time Before Stephen), when I was a marketing exec at a book publisher and dreaming about opening a prepared-foods shop, I took some classes at the Institute of Culinary Education. It seemed like the smart thing to do, to get some actual training in a kitchen, to learn how to cook without a recipe. One of the courses I took was devoted to bread baking, which had intrigued me, oh, forever—I’ve told you before about baking challah with my mom on Friday afternoons. Each week we’d come in and learn about a different type of bread: firm-textured sandwich bread; long, elegant baguettes that crackled when we broke them open; herb-flecked peasant breads; and whole-grain loaves packed with fruits and nuts.

These days I don’t bake bread as often as I’d like—which is silly, thanks to the no-knead, bake-in-a-Dutch-oven method popularized by Jim Lahey (whose pizza dough I’ve told you about several times). It doesn’t exactly take a lot of brain power. And yet… Bread baking is just not a regular activity around here. Partly it’s the fact that I’m on Weight Watchers, and I know I’ll eat far too much of any bread I bake myself. And partly it’s the fact that I’ve been feeling a little overextended for the last year-plus (hello, almost-neverending project!) But I still like to browse through my cookbooks, even the ones that are sadly neglected—it’s so easy, since they’re still stacked in the hallway outside my bedroom while we wait for the guys to come fix the leak damage from two months ago. And the other day, as I thumbed through a bread book while drifting off to sleep, I discovered the most overextended-parent-friendly bread recipe ever.

The book: Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread.

The recipe: Lavash Crackers.

The parent-friendly twist: In a sidebar, Reinhart mentions that this same dough will make lovely pita bread. And on another page entirely, a sidebar about breadsticks mentions that, yes, this very same dough will also make snappy sticks. Sound the alarm! I had to try it.

This is cause for celebration, my friends. The dough came together easily; both the pita and the lavash formed with almost no effort. The breadsticks, I’ll be honest, were time-consuming. Cutting all those wee pieces and transferring them to the baking sheet is a bit fiddly if you’re brain-dead, but it’s also strangely comforting. All that rhythmic movement. And the end results were nearly as satisfying as finishing the damned cookbook. It’s all the same dough, but the different textures make each product taste different—the pita’s fluffy and chewy; the lavash shatters under your teeth with big studs of sea salt; and the breadsticks are nothing short of addictive. Harry had a playdate the day after I baked them off, and the two kids made mincemeat of those crispy sticks. Yeah, mixed metaphor, whatever. Give this dough a try. You won’t be sorry.

One Whole Wheat Dough, Three Breads
Adapted from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread
Makes 6 pita breads OR 2 trays of lavash crackers OR around 150 thin, short breadsticks (or divide the dough into thirds and make a little of each)

1 cup unbleached bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/3 to 1/2 cup water, at room temperature
Kosher salt, cracked black pepper, and/or your choice of seeds, for topping lavash

In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, salt, yeast, honey, oil, and just enough water to bring everything together into a ball—I only needed 1/3 cup, though you may need the full 1/2 cup.
Sprinkle a clean workspace lightly with flour and place the dough on top. (I use a Roul'Pat Pastry Mat.) Knead for about 10 minutes, until the dough is satin-smooth and stretches quite thin. It will be pretty firm, but not crazily so. Lightly oil a bowl and place the dough inside, rolling it to cover with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.
Let it rise for about 90 minutes, or until roughly doubled in size.

TO MAKE PITA: Heat the oven to 500°F. Cut the dough into 6-ounce pieces, and roll each one out to a circle about 8 inches in diameter—it’ll be thin, but not cracker-thin. Transfer to a sheet pan and bake for 3 to 5 minutes, just until they form a pocket. Count to 10, then remove the pan from the oven—wait too long and they’ll begin to crisp. (I had some trouble getting a visual since I’ve got a crappy oven, but even so it was clear when they’d inflated.) Cool on a rack.

TO MAKE LAVASH: Heat the oven to 350°F; line two baking sheets and set aside. Spray the counter lightly with oil and transfer the dough to the counter. (If you’re working on a Roul’Pat, there’s no need to spray; the dough won’t stick.) To make a full recipe’s worth of crackers, cut the dough in half and roll each half separately, as thin as you can. Each piece should roll out to be nearly as big as the baking sheet—take care to roll evenly, though, or one part of the dough might become too browned before another is fully baked. Carefully transfer the rolled-out dough to the baking sheets. Mist the top of the dough with water and sprinkle whatever salts or spices you like on top (I used kosher salt and black pepper). If you want to pre-cut your crackers, use a pizza cutter—no need to separate the pieces. If you want a more rustic effect, leave it whole and break into shards later.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, rotating the trays halfway through if your oven’s as wonky as mine. They’re done when the entire surface is a deep caramelly brown. Let the crackers cool for about 10 minutes in the pan before you break them apart or snap into shards.

TO MAKE BREADSTICKS: Heat the oven to 325°F and line two baking sheets. Lightly dust your work surface with flour (again, with a Roul’Pat you won’t need to do this). Cut the dough into quarters and roll them out one at a time, keeping the others covered. No need to go super-thin; my dough was about 1/4-inch thick. Use a pizza cutter to cut them into breadsticks, however long and thin you want—just know that the baking time will vary depending on size. Transfer the sticks to the baking sheets and arrange in rows—it’s fine for them to be quite close together. If you want flavored sticks, first mist with water, then sprinkle with whatever seasonings you like. (If you want to get fancy, you can give each stick a twist or two, but that’s too much work for me!) Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating after 7 minutes to ensure even baking. Cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a rack.

MAKE BABY FOOD: Breadsticks are terrific for gumming (just keep a close watch, in case a piece snaps off in baby's mouth), as is pita. The lavash is probably pushing it, since those shards can break off mighty sharp.

The Birth of Parents Need to Eat Too

2011-05-18T23:47:00.003-04:00

I feel a little narcissistic pointing out an interview with me, but Nona Brooklyn, a very cool site devoted to food in this here boro, did a little Q&A about Parents Need to Eat Too, the class. The title of the piece? "Taming the Madness: Classes to Help New Parents Start Cooking Again." Love it. Also love the introduction:

There should be a name for it. For what happens when you finally bring your first offspring home from the hospital, and the hormone high that’s had you feeling like you’re floating in golden clouds of baby paradise starts to wear off. That’s when it happens. You crash.

You enter a period of crazed, desperate sleep-deprived madness. It lasts longer than you think it will. And you realize that getting a nice meal on the table is suddenly totally out of the question. Even if you’re an experienced kitchen Jedi, the never-ending roller coaster of laundry, feeding, burping, rocking, changing, and sleeping in 1-hour bursts often makes cooking a real meal seem…impossible.

Yup, Peter Hobbs, the writer and one half of the husband/wife duo behind the site, gets it. He should: The Hobbses have two little ones of their own.

Anyhoosie, if you've ever wondered how this whole Parents Need to Eat Too thing came to be, Nona Brooklyn's got the scoop. And if you'd like more information about the class (which starts next Tuesday!), click on over to Caribou Baby, where I'll be teaching it.

An aside: Tomorrow I'm off to Atlanta for the BlogHer Food conference, where I'll be moderating and speaking on a panel called Foodie Mom, Picky Kid. If you'll be there, too, PLEASE stop by to say hi!

Father's Day's A-Coming

2011-05-17T08:14:00.005-04:00

No time to write a full-fledged review (though I plan to next week, after I return from BlogHer Food), but today is the on-sale date for a book I've been enjoying immensely, edited by John Donohue of Stay at Stove Dad. It's called Man with a Pan.

Man with a Pan is a collection of essays, recipes, tips, and ideas from men who cook. Specifically, fathers who cook for their families. And they're not just any old dads: Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Stephen King, Peter Kaminsky, Jim Harrison, Thomas Beller...

If there's a man in your life who loves being in the kitchen with his family, whether it's to cook or just to soak in the atmosphere, I can't think of a better Father's Day gift.

(Local folks: There's a reading coming up, June 2nd at Housing Works Used Bookstore Cafe. Details are at Stay at Stove Dad.)

I Just Gave Birth, Then Sent the Baby Away

2011-05-16T11:32:00.004-04:00

My hands are shaking.

I just hit “send” on an email, which is not normally cause for excitement. But this email was to my book editor, and it contained the final draft of Parents Need to Eat Too. That’s right, my cookbook is written. There will be tweaks, I’m sure, but the actual oh-god-how-shall-I-put-this work is done. I feel like dancing, and like throwing up.

When I mentioned this sensation on Words to Eat By’s Facebook page, one wise commenter wrote, “I’ve never written a book, but I hear from friends who have that it's like giving birth and then giving the baby up.” Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like. If you’ve ever been pregnant you probably had a week or two, maybe more, where you just wanted to give birth already, to be done with the discomfort and the uncertainty and the anticipation. Now imagine feeling that way for half a year. This book has been gestating since I first started writing the proposal in March, 2009—more than two years—and for the last few months my mantra has been Please let this end soon. It seemed there was always one more recipe to test, one more headnote to write, and it hurt. Oh, it hurt. Believe me, I’m thrilled and grateful to have the honor of publishing a cookbook, but at a certain point the actual writing of it just became a chore, crossing all those “T”s, dotting all those “I”s.

I thought I’d delivered this baby in March of this year, when I finally submitted the last piece of the puzzle, the book’s Introduction. It was hugely satisfying, but just like post-childbirth, I knew there was still more work to come. My editor’s comments, insightful and generous and immeasurably helpful, had been piling up for the last year—as I sent in each chapter she’d send me feedback, which I’d internalize for the material I’d yet to write, but otherwise set aside to address at some later point. That later point came when I sent in the Introduction. Which, as it turns out, was not my delivery date. It was the beginning of a very accelerated third trimester.

The last six weeks have been an all-out sprint, pulling eleven separate chapters, plus an introduction and a foreword by a dietitian who specializes in pediatric nutrition, into one ginormous document. I addressed all my editor’s queries, and then I went through the manuscript again to address all the dietitian’s queries, too. I made sure the style is consistent throughout—is it “1 can (15 ounces)” or “One 15-ounce can”?—and revised whatever needed revising. I added sidebars, oodles of sidebars. I rearranged the chapters. I tried to make sure I never repeated myself, unless it was to make a point that needed repeating. It required all my OCD tendencies, and in fact it required so much of them that I let a lot of other things slide—things like making dinner for me, Stephen, and Harry, or spending time with Harry after school. It’s been an intense month-and-a-half. Thank god for Stephen, is all I can say. I’m not sure how I would’ve gotten through this without him. It's fitting, in a way, that I finished the book on our seventh wedding anniversary.

And now it’s done, for real. I’m going to be boastful for a minute, and tell you that I think this book is going to be amazing. I packed so much more than just recipes into those 406 manuscript pages & 124,385 words. There’s advice from other moms who’ve been there. There are sidebars on everything from how to shop with a baby to a nursing mom’s nutritional needs. There are tips on which foods to buy organic, how to chop a butternut squash, and the easiest way to clean a dirty blender. And, of course, there are recipes. Nearly 200 of them, and every single one has been tested by an incredible group of more than 100 new moms. The recipes all work. I’m sure of it. The book is exactly what I set out for it to be: What to Expect to Eat the First Year.

Here’s where that slightly ooky feeling comes in: I finished the book. It’s done, except for some finessing. I delivered my new baby. And this morning, I sent that baby away. It’s in my editor’s hands, and will soon be with a copyeditor, a designer, a marketing team, and a publicity team. I’ll have input into what happens from here, I’m sure, but it’s no longer up to me. I feel a lot like I did the day I came home from the hospital after having Harry: He was jaundiced, so we had to leave him there for an additional night. I knew he was in the best possible hands, and I didn’t for a second think they would actually harm him. But leaving him behind, spending ten hours away from the thing I’d been intimately connected with for so long, was disorienting and almost physically painful. I can’t say it hurts to give up my manuscript, but I’m not exactly sure what to do with myself right now. With Harry, my real-live baby, I knew I’d see him again the next morning, but I won’t see this book again for months. And I’ll never be as immersed in it as I’ve been for the last year and a half.

I’m jittery and queasy, distracted and elated. I think it’s going to be a very long few months. Will you help me be patient?

PS If you're local and wishing that Parents Need to Eat Too was available right now, come take my cooking class! It starts May 24 at Caribou Baby on Driggs Ave in Greenpoint.

Williamsburg & Greenpoint Readers: Space Still Available in a Cool New CSA

2011-05-15T08:44:00.003-04:00

I love the idea of a CSA. That's Community Supported Agriculture, when individuals buy shares in a farm's upcoming harvest. The notion is that you support the farmer financially before the selling season starts, and because you're taking a bit of a risk (farmers never know how that harvest is going to turn out until they're actually, y'know, pulling things from the ground), you get more than your money's worth of just-picked (or sometimes, just-slaughtered) foods.

You'll notice I said that I love the idea of a CSA. That's because when I tried the CSA closest to home, the one with pickup adjacent to the McCarren Park Greenmarket, I was really, really disappointed. The quality was shockingly bad, in some cases. One time I saw mold in a crate of eggplant, set out for us to help ourselves as if it was perfectly gorgeous produce. When I wrote to the farmer to complain, he explained that he saved his best stock to sell at retail in the farmers' market, where people wouldn't buy if it didn't look good. Apparently because he already had my money, he didn't feel compelled to give me the good stuff. Um...

This was halfway through the season. Because we'd already paid (a considerable amount; it wasn't exactly cheap) I continued to go and pick up my produce. But I never felt good about it after that. I felt taken advantage of. We didn't sign up for that CSA again, and to be honest I've been skittish about them ever since.

Enter Local Roots. I first heard about this newfangled CSA on A Child Grows in Brooklyn, which described it as a more-flexible-than-usual organization. I was intrigued, and ultimately I signed up.

Local Roots removes many of the problems you'll encounter with other CSAs: To begin with, they split the season in half, so you only commit for 12 weeks (instead of the usual 24). If, god forbid, I have as bad an experience as I had the last time, I won't be out anywhere near as much money. And they offer much more than most CSAs in terms of variety, without forcing you to buy the vegetables in order to get the rest, as many do: In addition to the traditional vegetable and fruit packages, they also offer eggs, beef, duck, grains, beans, and flour, and even bread. The suppliers are impressive, too, including Cayuga Organics and Orwashers.

The summer season runs from June through August, and assuming we like what we get, we'll sign up for the fall season that follows. I have a really good feeling about this.

The other day I got an email from Wen-Jay Ying, the program director, telling me that they still had spaces available for the Williamsburg pickup, at DBA on N. 7th Street on Thursday nights. (Which, by the way, is another reason I like this CSA: I'll have a mid-week replenishment of produce, and then the Greenmarket on Saturday to fill in any holes.) If you're at all curious, do check it out. I'd love to see you at pickup!

Newsflash: Bribe Your Kids and They'll Eat Vegetables

2011-05-10T18:41:00.005-04:00

So says a recent study, in which children aged four to six were offered small rewards for eating a vegetable they'd said they didn't like. After three months, when the rewards were no longer being offered, most of those kids still voluntarily ate the vegetable in question. Children who'd received no incentive, for the most part, did not.

I could've told you that. Oh wait, I did. It's been more than two months since we made that incentive chart, and Harry's list of acceptable vegetables is still approximately 10,000 times larger than it was before we started. Dude eats corn, carrots, edamame, peas, lettuce, cucumber, celery, baby spinach, and green beans. Pre-chart, that list was nonexistent.

Lesson: Trust your instincts. If a small bribe seems like the kind of thing that might motivate your child to do something he otherwise would not, give it a try. I won't tell.

New Class Starting May 24 at Caribou Baby: Parents Need to Eat Too

2011-05-07T08:11:00.001-04:00

“Until the Culinary Institute welcomes breastfeeding moms and toddler toys into the kitchen, this is the best cooking & camaraderie class you’ll find in the 5 boroughs. It books FAST.” –KidCityNY.com

Brooklyn (and NYC) moms and dads, I am beyond thrilled to announce that my cooking class for new parents, Parents Need to Eat Too, is moving up and out of my apartment. Starting on May 24, I’ll be teaching the class at Caribou Baby, an amazing new family-focused store and teaching center on Driggs Avenue in Greenpoint (just two blocks from the playground at McCarren Park). Lucky me, when they built out the space they included a kitchen!

I realize it’s been a while since I offered the class, but I’ve been a little busy. Since I can actually see the finish line of writing the cookbook, it’s time to start teaching again. Here’s a little explanation of what you can expect:

Now that baby's here, are you living on takeout and jarred pasta sauce? Come learn a new way of cooking, specifically created for new parents! Parents Need to Eat Too, the class that inspired the cookbook, focuses on recipes and techniques that are easy enough for beginners and frazzled new parents—delicious, nutritious meals you can make in stages during junior's naps, or cook quickly from pantry ingredients after you put her to bed. You'll leave each class with that night's dinner and a dozen more recipes to try at home, each of which includes instructions for transforming it into homemade baby food. Along the way you'll learn tips about cooking in general, and meet other parents to compare notes with.

There are three sessions:

The New Mom’s Pantry, in which we’ll discuss the staples that make life easier when there’s a baby in the house, and prepare a lightning-fast dinner using items from the pantry. Recipes from this class include Quinoa Salad with Chickpeas, Dried Fruit & Almonds, Baked Falafel, and Pasta with Porcini Mushrooms.
The Slow Cooker, in which you’ll learn how to use the new parent’s best friend (and don’t worry if you don’t have one—you’ll also learn how to adapt slow cooker recipes to your oven). Recipes from this class include Moroccan Red Lentil Stew, Butternut Squash Risotto, and Balsamic Beef Stew.
Nap Time Cooking, in which you’ll learn to break down more complicated recipes into stages, to be completed while junior naps. Recipes from this class include A Greekish Orzo-Tomato Salad, Braised Chicken Provençal, and Indian-Spiced Black Lentil Stew.

The series of three classes is $200—that includes the food, the lessons, the chitchat, plus three full chapters from Parents Need to Eat Too: 150+ Simple, Healthy Recipes for Sleep-Deprived, Frazzled New Moms & Dads, coming from HarperCollins next year.

Classes meet once a week from 10:30-noon at Caribou Baby, three consecutive Tuesdays starting May 24th. Babies are welcome, of course—the whole point of the class is to learn how to cook while taking care of your baby. Click on over to Caribou Baby to sign up!

Here’s what previous students had to say:

“I am an extremely inexperienced cook. . . . You gave me tools that I could work with instead of just a handful of dishes that I could make. I’m incredibly thankful that you gave me this opportunity to learn how to improve my family’s diet—and life.” –Susan

“First: You are a natural teacher and a gifted recipe inventor. Delightful. All of the recipes just work. Second: You are very realistic and unpretentious when it comes to scale and ambition in your recipes. Bravo—so many parent-oriented cookbook authors are sooooo obnoxious in assuming that every parent has a huge fancy kitchen in the suburbs, time and money to buy all premium ingredients, and of course a kid that takes regularly scheduled 4 hour naps.” –Amy

“The class inspired me to cook more often and get over the mentality that I didn’t have enough time to cook anything really good. I have definitely become more confident in the kitchen, which was a major goal. . . . Thanks for a great class and helping me to get back into cooking and making better/healthier meals!” –Jenn

I’m really excited about this. I hope you’ll join me at Caribou on Tuesday mornings—if you can’t commit to the class, at least stop by and say hi!

Oy, I'm a Socialvore!

2011-05-06T09:02:00.006-04:00

Oy.

Such a good word, right? It pretty much covers everything going on in my life right now: Major book deadline, oy. This past weekend was 100% devoted to the American Society of Journalists & Authors conference (which was well worth it, but oy am I scrambling to make up for the lost time). In less than two weeks I head to the BlogHer Food conference, where I’ll be speaking (and moderating) a panel on food blogging with a picky kid. (Think I’m qualified?) Oy! And yesterday I finally had to accept that the root-canal-requiring toothache I’ve been ignoring for the last week, which first reared its ugly head while I was pregnant with Harry, isn’t going away. And is, in fact, getting worse. Yes, in the midst of all this craziness, today I’ll be begging the dentist to convince the oral surgeon to give me an emergency appointment. Two sleeping pills, two Aleve, and two Tylenol were not enough to get me a good night’s sleep. I'm thrilled I got to enjoy another five years with the tooth in question, but this is bad timing, yo. Oy.

Buuuut, in all that, I do have some good news: Gourmet Live, the digital incarnation of the venerated food magazine, has invited me to join their crew of food bloggers, a group they call the Socialvores and describe as “a handpicked group of food enthusiasts selected to join us on our culinary adventures.” You’ll see their very pretty badge o’ bling on the lower right of this page. Today is my first official day as a Socialvore, and as such they’ve featured my Baked Apple French Toast in their Mother’s Day post. Oy, yes!

By way of introduction to you, my dear (and did I mention good-looking?) readers, Gourmet Live has given me a guest post which fits quite nicely with what we’re doing on this here blog. It’s all about a pizza recipe taste test they did with a group of kids. Who as we all know, can sometimes be hard to please. The results are surprising…

Gourmet Asks the Toughest Critics in the World to Test Pizza: Kids
By Maddie Donnelly, Gourmet Live
Photo by Chris Gentile

For parents who end up throwing a frozen pizza in the oven at least one night a week to feed the fam, we have some exciting news.

We put five of the pizza recipes from the new Gourmet Italian Kitchen magazine to the test. But rather than asking food critics or chefs for their ratings, we checked in with the tiny people whose opinions often matter most when it comes to home cooking: Kids. And the results astounded us.

The winning pizza, handily beating out even a classic mozzarella and tomato version–and given loads of “Awesome!” votes for taste—was Gourmet Italian’s Pizza with Fontina, Prosciutto, and Arugula.

The crispy, crunchy crust, soft, gooey fontina cheese, and thinly sliced prosciutto topping won our young audience over. Turns out, if you don’t tell the kids it’s fancy prosciutto, they assume it’s regular old lunch meat and go to town.

We went light on the greens but didn’t hear any complaints there either. As 7-year-old Franklin told us, “It’s awesome! And I didn’t even have to take anything off of it!“

“He’s only in his life ever had plain pizza,” one of the moms said, referring to her 6-year-old son, whom she has dubbed “Picky Eater Iain.” “We had a talk about trying new things last night, but I never thought he would. This is a big breakthrough.”

For a breakthrough of your own, and a nice Friday night activity with the kids, opt for Gourmet’s Italian Kitchen fast, healthy, hit pizza recipe. Best of all, it only takes 30 minutes to make from start to finish. That’s even less time than a deliveryman can guarantee.

More from Gourmet Live:

Recipe: Lemon Salsa from The Lazy Gourmet

2011-05-03T08:45:00.000-04:00

The Lazy Gourmet: Magnificent Meals Made Easyby Robin Donovan & Juliana Gallin isn’t strictly a book for parents. But between you and me and the lamppost, it’s exactly what you need when it’s 6:00 and you haven’t started—or even thought about—dinner yet, when you’re brain-dead and bone-tired and wish that someone would come over and whip up something elegant yet simple. Something satisfying and unusual. Something flat-out delicious. This book delivers all that. Well, without the someone-coming-over part, but the recipes are so easy you almost won’t mind cooking.

According to the press release, Donovan and Gallin used “an army of volunteer testers—people with picky palates and little or no kitchen expertise” to make sure the recipes worked, and worked well. Sound familiar?

The recipes include ingenious cheats like Basil Leaf and Goat Cheese Wraps (for which your guests unwittingly do all the work), White Bean Spread with Parmesan and Mint, Raw Asparagus and Mache Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette, Herbed Tuna Salad Sandwiches with Apples and Almonds, Gemelli with Roasted Cauliflower, Tomatoes, and Crispy Breadcrumbs, Spiced Chard with Quinoa and Currants, and (bestill my heart!) Plum and Current Mostarda, which I will most definitely be trying just as soon as I can. Oh, and Sweet Peach Crostini, and Miniature Flourless Chocolate Cakes.

I’m embarrassed to admit I only had time to try out one recipe—one ridiculously simple recipe—but it was a home run. Their Lemon Salsa combines the fruit’s tart, zingy flesh with chopped raisins, a little bit of onion, and some minced herb. It comes together in about ten minutes, and it tastes about a thousand times better (and more interesting) than the (very) basic ingredients would suggest. I served it atop grilled chicken seasoned with just salt and pepper, with rice and asparagus on the side. Stephen and I devoured it, first with the chicken, and eventually stirred into the rice and spooned onto the asparagus, too. There’s a teeny bit left, and I think I may have to challenge Stephen to an arm-wrestling match to see who gets to eat it.

You can guess what Harry made of it. More than one ingredient, in the same mouthful? The horror!

Lemon Salsa
Adapted from The Lazy Gourmet: Magnificent Meals Made Easy

2 medium lemons
1/4 cup minced raisins
2 tablespoons minced onion
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons minced mint, cilantro, basil, or parsley

Cut the ends off one lemon, exposing the fruit. Stand it up on one end and slide your knife down and around, removing and discarding the peel and pith. Repeat with the other lemon.
Chop the lemon flesh into small pieces. Remove and discard the seeds and any large pieces of membrane. Transfer the lemon and any accumulated juices to a small bowl—you should wind up with about 1/2 cup of chopped lemon. Stir in the remaining ingredients and serve.

MAKE BABY FOOD: You might be surprised how well this goes over with your little one. Although he wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole at age 4 1/2, Harry adored lemons when he was tiny. Some babies do find them too acidic, so you’ll have to try it and see. Mincing the raisins eliminates any potential choking hazard.

Guest Post: Meagan Francis on Happiness in the Kitchen

2011-04-25T11:04:00.005-04:00

Yes, I've got two guest posts in a row. Sorry, but I warned you things were going to be a little light around here this month... That blasted cookbook!

The good thing about not having time to blog much myself is that I can invite some of my favorite people to do it for me. Today it's Meagan Francis, who's another of my writer idols.

Meagan blogs at The Happiest Mom, and just thinking about being a happy mom makes me, well, happy. Sometimes I have trouble taking pleasure in this motherhood gig (hello, drama queen picky eater!), but Meagan manages to smile while mothering five children. Yes, five. Her newest book, The Happiest Mom: 10 Secrets to Enjoying Motherhood, is all about that happiness thing. Thank god, she's willing to tell us all exactly how it's done. Seriously, I need a little help sometimes.

Today she's visiting Words to Eat By to share some of her tricks for maintaining her equilibrium while trying to feed a family of seven. I hope you're taking notes, because this is good stuff...

I love food: smelling it, looking at it, creating it, and especially eating it. But as a mom, it is not always easy to keep my enthusiasm about getting dinner on the table night after night. Yet, we all have to eat, and it’s important to me that we eat real food the vast majority of the time instead of hitting the drive-thru.

So how do I keep my life happy and simple as a mom and still make good food everyone wants to eat?

Have A Plan
Getting dinner on the table for a big brood like mine—night after night after night—requires planning ahead. First of all, there's technique and know-how...and for many of us, that means investing time and energy into learning techniques and skills we may not have picked up in our younger years (I’m saying this as somebody who never once handled a whole chicken until I was 30.) Creating a meal plan, making sure you have the right ingredients on hand, and setting aside enough time to cook the meal are the other parts of planning. This may seem obvious, but I have seen that sometimes, despite their best intentions, parents never get around to planning and then find themselves stranded at 6:00 PM with hungry kids and nothing to offer but a box of frozen nuggets or the promise that pizza delivery is on its way. I know: I’ve been there. But with a little bit of effort ahead of time, eating well becomes so much simpler, more fun, and less expensive.

Embrace Repetition
I know: food lovers like to experiment. But even moms who proudly proclaim themselves foodies can get overwhelmed trying to get a meal on the table every night (especially if they have picky kids. Or a picky spouse.)

My solution is having a structure in place that allows me to churn out a brainless meal on those nights I’m feeling, well, brainless, or elaborate on those days I’ve got more time, energy, or creativity. I call my plan the Six-Meal Shuffle: every night of the week (we take one night off for dinner out or leftovers) gets a category, like ethnic, pasta, or meat-and-potatoes. If I’m up to it, pasta night might be more time-intensive, like hand-stuffed ravioli--but if I’ve got 10 minutes to pull everything together, it might be plain old spaghetti. The plan gives me enough structure to keep from asking “What on earth will I make for dinner?” without restricting me, and it virtually eliminates the chances I'll ever make the same thing twice in one week.

Make Dinner An Event
It’s kind of hard to get up the gumption to put meal after meal on the table if the kids start gulping it down before Mom’s even had a chance to sit and are begging to leave the table five minutes after it’s been served. This has been a lesson hard-learned for me, but I now realize that when we set a nice table, all sit down together, wait for the last person served to begin eating, keep all forms of electronic distraction turned off, and require that everyone linger at the table until Mom and Dad have officially declared the meal “over”, the whole thing feels that much more worth it. Especially because then I can make the kids clear the table and load the dishwasher before they’ve had a chance to scatter to all corners of the house.

We don’t manage to pull off a full sit-down, all-together dinner every single night, but we aim for at least 3-4 nights a week of a more formal meal. It encourages all of us to appreciate the food and the company, and reminds everyone else to appreciate the cook—me.

Zitner’s Butter Krak: Happy (Addictive) Easter!

2011-04-23T09:08:00.006-04:00

Good morning, friends. Tomorrow is Easter, and if you've been reading here longer than, oh, 24 hours, you know it's not my holiday. It is, however, my husband's holiday, and he enjoys every candy-loving second of it. We went to my in-laws' last weekend for a little pre-Easter candy debauchery, just to blow Harry's Jewish mind. He woke up to a trail of jelly beans leading downstairs and through the house, until it finally ended at a platter of candy large enough to feed the neighborhood. Pretty sure Harry wanted to marry the Easter bunny after that. And if that wasn't enough, later in the day his cousins came over for an Easter egg hunt, Harry's first. I have to say, coming home to Passover's matzo-focused eating, as delicious as it is, wasn't easy.

While we were down there, Stephen took the opportunity to replenish his stash of one of his favorite holiday treats, which he shared with Harry. I invited him to tell you about it here (he's got a pretty amazing blog of his own, all about movies, music, and various other pop cultural stuff, called Peel Slowly).

That's right, it's guest post time!

I grew up in the Philly area which meant I grew up on some local delicacies, such as the ubiquitous Philly cheesesteaks, the reprieve-from-the-governor Tasty-Kakes, and the they-make-‘em-just-as-good-in-South-Jersey soft pretzels. Another regional treat came out for only eight weeks a year: Easter candy by Zitner’s, a Philadelphia company that’s been giving the Delaware Valley the most wonderful cavities since the 1920s.

Every March, the pharmacies, supermarkets and 5&10s blossom with Zitner’s generously-sized Butter Creams, Cocoanut Creams, Double Cocoanuts, Peanut Butter Eggs, and Marshmallow Eggs. But the company’s signature candy—their Fabergé egg—is the Butter Krak Egg, and, Mother of Pearl, these things are good.

A Butter Krak is a mere 2.5 inches long, but it’s densely packed with shredded cocoanut and buttercream, enveloped in toasted cocoanut and dark chocolate.

This combination makes it crunchy on impact but soft on the inside, intensely sweet but with a hint of the bitter. Such complexity means a little goes a long way. Butter Krak Eggs may be artisanal, but they’re not at all snobby. No, this is candy for the Working Man: hearty, filling, and affordable.

Naturally, with such an addictive treat, it’s easy to make the obvious Krak/crack jokes. I hoped to avoid that, but after recently stocking up on a few 9 pc. boxes for the season, I was surprised at my shifty, drug-addict-like behavior. For example, my fear that my son Harry would discover my “stash” led me to hiding them in the refrigerator as such…

Yep, that’s a Rubbermaid container, lined with aluminum foil and labeled as “SEA SALT” (Harry only likes kosher salt). Debbie colluded with me to keep our son in the dark—as long as she could help herself to the booty, too!

After a few weeks toggling between selfish secrecy (“C’mon, Harry doesn’t even like cocoanut!”) and parental guilt (“How could I deny my Son—my own flesh and blood--such a delicacy?!”), I caved. I sat him down to explain why Daddy was sneaking away to the kitchen so often nowadays, privately hoping he’d take a bite of a Butter Krak Egg, make his “Yuck” face and that would be the end of it. Silly me. Here’s how it went down. (By the way, you should know that my consumption time for a Butter Krak is about a minute, a scant 2 or 3 bites—as I’m sure is the case with most of us.)

And now we’re a family of—you guessed it—Krakheads!

If you’d care to join us in the World of Zitner’s, you can order their goodies at the Pennsylvania General Store, Zitner’s only authorized internet distributor.

Missed the BPA Chat?

2011-04-22T18:09:00.004-04:00

Lots of good questions were asked & answered on Moms Rising's Facebook page today. Margie Kelly of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, Connie Engel from the Breast Cancer Fund, and I talked about everything from BPA-free canned tomatoes (they're coming!) to TetraPaks and defrosting in the microwave. If you missed the chat, you'll find the entire thing here.

And as long as we're on the subject of toxic chemicals, I just saw this lovely, eloquent blog post from Sandy Grabbe, a writer friend who owns a green B&B on Cape Cod. Well worth your time.

Tomorrow: Got Questions about BPA in Your Kitchen?

2011-04-21T19:11:00.005-04:00

Tomorrow's Earth Day. Since I became a mom, environmental issues have become exponentially more important to me, both in terms of what goes into our bodies and what we're doing to leave a, y'know, livable world for our children. Wall-e came out when Harry was a baby, and boy did it speak to me (I admit, it had something to do with how much the little yellow guy reminded me of my inquisitive boy).

In honor of our big ol' planet, tomorrow I'll be answering questions about avoiding BPA in food on Moms Rising's Facebook page. Margie Kelly of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families will be fielding questions with me. My job is to answer as a food writer and home cook who's done a lot of research (I'll be talking a lot about brands and packaging, I imagine), while Margie's covering the more technical side. I'm really looking forward to hearing her expert advice; I think we'll all learn a lot.

It's all happening on Earth Day (Friday, April 22) at 11:30PT/2:30ET. Stop by and find out how to protect yourself and your family!

Olive Oil-Matzo Granola

2011-04-21T17:50:00.002-04:00

There are about a thousand things I’m supposed to be doing right now, so I’ll keep this short and sweet: Go make this. It’s magic. It transforms dry, musty matzo farfel into something you’ll want to eat until your jaw hurts. Feed it to a person who isn’t forced to eat matzo for a week every year. They’ll never guess what it’s made from.

Seriously, go.

What are you waiting for?

Olive Oil-Matzo Granola
Inspired by Melissa Clark in the New York Times
Makes about 4 cups

2 1/2 cups marzo farfel
1 cup untoasted nuts of your choice (I went with pecans)
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
3/4 cup chopped dried fruit of your choice (I used pears)

Preheat oven to 300°F, and line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (not strictly necessary, but cleanup’s nonexistent that way)
Combine everything but the dried fruit in a large bowl and mix well. Spread it on the baking sheet in something close to an even layer, and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, stirring every 10 to 12 minutes, until it’s golden brown and completely dry.
Transfer to a large bowl and add the dried fruit. Toss well. Try not to eat it all in one sitting.

MAKE BABY FOOD: Eh, not so much. But that's good: more for you.

Just in Time for Passover: All Praise the Potato

2011-04-18T13:18:00.012-04:00

Have you heard about this ludicrous bribe-the-bloggers campaign dreamed up by a flack for that famous faux stuffing mix? I won't be using the brand name since I don't want to give them any more publicity, but it's the one you think of when you hear "pre-fab stuffing."

Anyway, a food writer friend, Charmian Christie of Christie's Corner, shared their pitch with me. They're offering the chance (that's right, just the chance) to win a $100 gift card if you write a humorous blog post that slams the potato, in favor of their brand:

We're inviting the blogosphere to participate in a contest to create humorous posts about how potatoes are a boring alternative to [name brand] Stuffing Mix. By providing creative, funny and memorable content that takes a jab at potatoes as "boring," we want to encourage families to consider [name brand] Stuffing Mix as an everyday and easy-to-make side dish alternative to instant potatoes. [name brand] Stuffing Mix is so "un-boring" it's the "un-potato!"

Now, fine. They want to promote their highly processed product. But why does it have to be at the expense of a natural, straight-from-the-ground food? Yes, at the end they specify it should be a poke at instant potatoes, but somehow I think most bloggers who are prone to be receptive to their offer won't read this very closely.

Anyone who cares at all about eating healthfully and feeding their families fewer processed foods can knock this one out of the park. In favor of potatoes, I mean.

A few examples, from other food writers:

Sarah Henry at Lettuce Eat Kale
Liz Snyder at I Eat Real
Jill Richardson at La Vida Locavore
The Spud at The Daily Spud
Rebecca Lindamood at Foodie with Family
Tessa from Cook Sew Grow (a new blog, with fewer than a dozen posts!)

I'm pretty sure there will be more. Lots, lots more, I hope. If you're on Twitter, follow the brand's suggested hashtag, #unpotatofest, to watch the fun unspool. And if you write a pro-tater post yourself, send me the link and I'll add it here.

Hide the Chametz: Passover Recipes

2011-04-18T08:30:00.002-04:00

It starts tonight: My favorite Jewish holiday for two or three days, which turns into my least-favorite Jewish holiday around Day Four, when I can't bear the thought of eating another sheet of matzo, and I miss the ease of, I don't know, toast so much I want to cry.

Over the years I've written about quite a few recipes that are kosher for Passover, both ones that are holiday-specific and ones that just happen to contain no chametz. I've tagged most of them (and some, like my raw tomato sauce for pasta, might make you scratch your head since Passover pasta doesn't actually exist; I figured you might use the sauce elsewhere), but here are my favorites:

And if you're looking for lunchtime inspiration, there's always this piece I wrote for Weight Watchers: Easy Passover Lunches.

Chag sameach, everyone!

Bits and Pieces

2011-04-12T09:47:00.004-04:00

Completely random set of announcements:

Next month, I'll be speaking at the BlogHer Food conference, on a panel called "Foodie Mom, Picky Kid." Sound familiar? My co-panelists include Jenny from Picky Palate, Caroline from Devil & Egg, and Cindy from Fix Me a Snack, all blogs I read regularly and commiserate with, seeing as how we're all dealing with similar issues. If you relate to Words to Eat By because of your own sweet pea's eating habits, you've now got three more blogs to follow!
In just two weeks I'll be moderating a panel at the 2011 ASJA conference (that's the American Society of Journalists and Authors). It's called "From the Mundane to the Sublime: Crafting Your Table of Contents." That's right, I'm leading a panel on an element of book writing most people never stop to think about. Lucky me, I've lined up some amazing speakers, including an executive editor at a major publisher, the head of the book division at a leading agency, and an author who's published more than 20 books.
My latest "Can This Dieter Be Saved?" column for Weight Watchers magazine will be on-stands any minute. It's in the May/June issue, and it's about how to deal with a friendly-diet-competition-gone-bad.
Also on-stands imminently: the May Kiwi, for which I wrote the cover story, "Organic on the Cheap." If I do say so myself, there's some really useful information packed into that story. The entire issue is devoted to food, so if you're a parent it's a don't-miss.
Live in Williamsburg? I just checked out the new Foodtown on N. 3rd behind The Bagel Store and it's surprisingly good! Clean (of course, it's brand-new), small but well-stocked, and boy are the people who work there friendly. I liked it so much that I didn't even mind when the check-out girl folded my whole wheat baguette in half to stuff it in my bag. Just happy to have a new option!
Also for Wburgers: There's a new stand at the farmers' market, Bodhi Tree Farm, and it's a good one. Gorgeous, gorgeous greens, so gorgeous that I nearly wept with delight. Garden of Eve is organic, yes, but I happen to think they're incredibly overpriced for the quality they offer. It's nice to have a new option, even if Bodhi Tree isn't certified organic.

Bear with Me, Please (until January 15, 2012)

2011-04-05T12:55:00.005-04:00

Hello, my friends. You may have noticed that I haven't posted in an entire week; first: OOPS. Second, there's a reason for this: I'm burrowing underground for a little while.

You see, I spoke to the lovely, wise, helpful, and kind editor of Parents Need to Eat Too last week. (You may recall, I submitted the last chapter at the end of February. And I finally got around to sending in the last, last, last piece, the introduction, two weeks ago.) Together, A and I set a deadline for my revisions: May 2. I'm revising the entire manuscript in just one month, after spending more than a year on the first draft. It's doable, really; A's feedback has been both extremely insightful and relatively easy-to-implement. But to make that date, I'm afraid I'll have to burrow a bit. Which means I may not have much time to blog this month.

So I'm asking for a bit of patience, please. Come May, I'll be roaring back into full swing. You'll wait for me, won't you?

Oh, and one other thing came out of my conversation with A (drum roll): The on-sale date of my book has been set! On January 15, 2012, Parents Need to Eat Too will be available wherever books are sold. Yippee! The official pub date is February 1, but if you pre-order you'll have it in your hot little hands two weeks sooner. You know I'll share the pre-order link just as soon as it's available.

Peko Peko: A Charity Cookbook for Japan

2011-03-29T11:10:00.006-04:00

For the last few weeks, I've been obsessed with Japan. I wouldn't be surprised if you've been obsessed, too. What happened there is just so mind-boggling; I can't even begin to imagine how I would respond to such a tragedy in my own life. All I know is that for the last few weeks, I've been keenly aware of how lucky we are.

My little family is indeed blessed in all the ways that matter, but right now we're not so lucky financially. Stephen's starting a new job in a few months (fingers crossed) but until that first paycheck comes in our budget is lean, lean, lean. So unlike when that horrific earthquake struck Haiti and I ran a comments-for-cash promotion, right now I can't swing such generosity.

Enter Stacie of One Hungry Mama. I've told you about her before, but today I bring her up for a different reason: Together with Rachael of La Fuji Mama and Marc of No Recipes, she's spearheading a family-oriented cookbook as a fundraiser for Japan, with the donation aimed specifically at the country's children. The cookbook is called Peko Peko, which is Japanese for "I'm hungry!" It's being published with Blurb, with 100% of the profits going to aid Japan. And when Stacie emailed to ask if I'd be interested in contributing, of course I said yes; if I can't send money, I'll send help another way.

I had coffee with Stacie a week or two ago and naturally the conversation turned to Peko Peko. She asked what I had in mind for a recipe. Something with noodles, for sure, I said. Noodles are big around here. But then Stacie mentioned her concern that the desserts section might be too meager, and a lightbulb went off: Pocky. Given Harry's love of those chocolate-covered sticks, it seemed obvious.

The recipe is done and submitted, and that enticing photo above should (I hope) tempt you into wanting to try it. For that, you'll have to buy the book. If my one little recipe isn't enough to open your wallet, just check out this list of contributors! I am in some heady company, my friends. Stacie, Rachael, and Marc have recruited an amazing list of A-list food bloggers, people like Shauna from Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, Alice from Savory Sweet Life, Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan from The Kitchn, Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs from Food52, Jaden Hair from Steamy Kitchen, and dozens more. Seriously, this is going to be an incredible cookbook, one that I'm already proud to be a part of.

I can't wait to buy my copy. I hope you'll join me.

For more details on the genesis of the cookbook, click here.
For updates as they become available, click here.
To become a sponsor, which will enable even more of the proceeds to go to Japan, click here.

And to sign up to receive an announcement when pre-orders begin, add your email address in the space on the right.

Brunch Recipe: Zucchini-Gruyere Tart

2011-03-28T12:54:00.007-04:00

Ever since our dear, dear child was born, Stephen and I don’t entertain as much as we might like. There’s the boy’s birthday party, of course, and the cooking I do for my in-laws’ various celebrations, and one very casual Thanksgiving, but other than that it’s usually a last-minute, hey-why-don’t-you-stay-for-dinner kind of thing. No planning, no creativity, just dinner. (We did have a make-your-own pizza party on New Year’s Eve, which I don’t seem to have blogged about.)

This weekend, we had people over. As in: extend an official invitation, set a time, and plan a menu for an old colleague of Stephen’s, her partner, and a pair of adorable twin girls who are just a few months older than Harry. (Hi Rachel! Hi Jane!) They came for brunch, quite a reasonable way to entertain when kids are involved. Since I know Harry can be, um, challenging to feed, I asked if there were any issues to be aware of. The response:

Twin A has nut allergies and doesn't like bananas.

Twin B is finicky about anything that isn't candy or rotisserie chicken.

Mom doesn't like beets, walnuts, goat cheese, and sardines.

Partner eats everything...and anything...whichever comes first.

Easy peasy! It took me about ten minutes to decide what to serve:

Overnight baked French toast, a riff on the one I made with panettone for Christmas a while back. I knew Harry would like it, and I figured the twins would too.
Zucchini & herb frittata, a variation on this one with mushrooms, zucchini, and escarole. Sure, the kids’ll hate it, but the adults should have something of their own, don’t you think?
Bacon. Stephen convinced me to get the good stuff from the farmers’ market. This marks the very first time I’ve attempted real bacon in my own home—usually it’s turkey bacon. Given how many liters of fat drained off, it’s highly unlikely I’ll be making it again. Yuk. (Though Stephen certainly enjoyed the flavor…)
Rosemary roasted potatoes. Simple, easy, yummy. And I snuck in some of that bacon fat, so they were yummier than usual.
Fruit salad, provided by our guests along with an amazing mascarpone-based topping.

So what’s with the photo up top? My friends, I broke every rule of entertaining—even some I wrote myself. I woke up yesterday and decided that frittata was boring. Boring to whom? I don’t know, but at 8:30 on Sunday morning, it was boring. I’d attempt a tart instead. Yup, I changed the menu two hours before the guests were due. Basically, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best, all the while cursing myself for throwing this monkey wrench—I hadn’t stopped to think about how I’d juggle the various oven times and temps, so the French toast was still baking when our friends arrived. Lucky me, in the end it actually worked! I’m as surprised as you are.

This is a fairly simple tart, and one that’s pretty friendly to parents—it’s easy to break down for Nap-Time Cooking (prep & sauté the vegetables, and par-bake the piecrust in the morning or the night before; later on assemble and bake). You can serve it hot or at room temp, so if your timing’s a bit off that’s just fine. And the result is wonderful, nutty and salty from the cheeses, not too custardy (I’m not a fan of custardy things, you may have noticed), with a light, Spring-like flavor. If you think your kid might like it without the herbs, feel free to leave them out. You can swap in mushrooms for the zucchini, too. See? Flexible. Just what a parent needs.

But do yourself a favor, and plan ahead. Also, stick to the game plan. Spontaneous tart-making when company’s coming does not make for a relaxing pre-party atmosphere.

Zucchini-Gruyere Tart
Serves 8
Weight Watchers: Each serving is 6 PointsPlus

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
4 small zucchini, cut into thin half-moons
Salt & pepper
Flour, for rolling
1 prepared piecrust (I use Pillsbury refrigerated—pie dough is my nemesis)
2 eggs
2 egg whites
1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese (about 4 ounces)
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chives
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Heat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9” tart pan with a removable bottom and set aside. (If you don’t have one, you could probably get away with a regular pie pan—just watch the baking time carefully.)
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When it shimmers, add the shallots and zucchini. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the zucchini is softened but not browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
While it’s cooling, par-bake the crust: Sprinkle a little flour on your work surface and rolling pin. Roll out the dough until it’s large enough to fill the tart pan and extend over the top by a good half-inch. Use your rolling pin to trim off the excess: roll it across the edges of the pan. Line with parchment paper, and pour in a pound of dried beans, a couple cups of rice, even a pile of pennies. Bake for 15 minutes, until the dough is set and just beginning to brown. Remove from oven and place on a baking sheet.
Whisk together the eggs, egg whites, Gruyere, and herbs, and add the cooled zucchini mixture. Pour it into the tart pan, sprinkle with the Parmesan, and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.

MAKE BABY FOOD: The zucchini-shallot mixture is swell for pureeing. And the tart itself is fine as-is for slightly older eaters.

Please Help Elisa and Nathan

2011-03-25T14:24:00.004-04:00

I'm not sure I can type this without crying, just from the thought of this happening to someone, anyone.

Elisa and Nathan are the parents of an adorable 18-month-old named Sadie. Like me, they live in Brooklyn, though I don't know them. I do know a friend of Elisa's, but even with 100 more degrees of separation this situation would make me want to do something.

A little over a month ago, Nathan was diagnosed with stage 3 colo-rectal cancer. That's bad.

Nine days later, Elisa was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. That's unbelievably bad.

Both of them have advanced cancer. Both of them. And they have a toddler.

I have no idea what I would do in their shoes (I don't think I can even let my mind go there), but so far they've been holding up with tremendous grace and good humor. And their friends have done what I'd like to think my friends or your friends would do when faced with something like this: They've set up a web site for donations. Fighting cancer is expensive, and fighting two cancers simultaneously is mind-boggling, even without the they-have-a-toddler factor.

Please click through. Please give what you can. Just a few dollars.

Thanks.

Quick & Easy: Chicken Lo Mein

2011-03-24T10:47:00.003-04:00

Is there anything more satisfying than a noodle dish? Think about it: pasta with rich meat sauce or hearty mushrooms, egg noodles topped with smothered chicken or tender brisket, spaetzle all by itself. The only problem is, most of those require a considerable amount of time, for sauces to simmer and for dried noodles to reconstitute.

That’s where the noodle dishes of Asia come in. They’re often remarkably fast: A quick improvised soup, a flexible weeknight salad. And now, Chicken Lo Mein. Like those other Asian dishes, this recipe isn’t necessarily authentic, but it is tasty. And fast. And easy. In my book, that’s more than good enough.

The sauce is from one of the most useful cookbooks I own, How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heartby Pam Anderson. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a collection of formulas and techniques that, together, let you take whatever you’ve got on hand and turn it into dinner. I don’t often cook from it—after all, the title tells you not to—but I thumb through it at least once a month in search of inspiration. If you’d rather not own a ton of cookbooks, I highly recommend you add this to your collection. It’ll take the place of at least a dozen more recipe-driven books.

Chicken Lo Mein
Serves 4
Adapted from How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart
Weight Watchers: Each serving is 11 PointsPlus

Note: The ingredients list is daunting, but this really does come together quickly. It’s even faster if you cheat and use pre-shredded carrots and broccoli, or any other pre-cut vegetables, in place of what I list below. Just be sure to add all the hard vegetables together at the beginning, and all the soft ones together at the end.

6 ounces boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into small pieces (this is easiest to do while it’s still partially frozen)
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce, divided
1 tablespoon dry sherry
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil, divided
1/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon Sriracha or other Asian chili sauce
12 ounces fresh Chinese noodles (if you can’t find any, use fresh fettucine or linguine instead)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
1 medium carrot, sliced on an angle into thin rounds
1 rib celery, sliced on an angle into thin Cs
1 stalk broccoli, cut into florets, stems sliced thin (put florets & stems in separate bowls)
1 small zucchini, sliced into thin half-moons
2 scallions, whites and some greens, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (I keep mine in the freezer—it stays fresh indefinitely—and grate what I need on a Microplane)

Put a large pot of unsalted water on to boil, covered to speed things up. While you’re waiting, do a little prep work: Combine the chicken breast with 1 tablespoon of reduced-sodium soy sauce and the sherry in a small bowl, and set aside. Put the remaining soy sauce in a liquid measuring cup, add 2 teaspoons of sesame oil and the broth, vinegar, sugar, and chili sauce, and set this aside, too.
Cook the noodles for 3 to 4 minutes, until barely tender (Italian pasta may take 5 or 6), then drain and rinse with cold water immediately, until completely cool. Drain well, then pour the remaining teaspoon of sesame oil into your palm, rub your hands together, and massage the noodles until they’re lightly coated with oil. Set aside.
Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When it shimmers add the hard vegetables—in the example above, that would be the carrots, celery, and broccoli stems. Cook, stirring occasionally, for a minute or two, until they’re just beginning to soften. Add the marinated chicken and cook another minute or two, until the chicken is not quite fully cooked. Add the soft vegetables (in this case, the broccoli florets, zucchini, and scallions) as well as the garlic and ginger, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are crisp-tender and the chicken is cooked through. Remove all this to a clean bowl.
Add the remaining tablespoon of vegetable oil to the skillet, then add the noodles. Cook, stirring frequently, until they’re heated through—you may want to lower the heat to prevent sticking. Return the chicken and vegetables to the pan, give the sauce a stir, and pour it in. Stir everything together and cook another minute, just until it all comes together.

MAKE BABY FOOD: Technically, there’s nothing here a baby can’t eat, but thanks to the soy sauce this is relatively high in sodium (even using the reduced-sodium kind). I’d reserve some of the noodles and some of the chicken-and-vegetable mixture before the sauce is added, and serve that to baby—either as finger food or pureed with a bit of broth.

Trader Joe's Triple Berry-NOs

2011-03-23T11:17:00.003-04:00

Does that bowl match the packaging?

Serious fail here, TJ's. You know I love you, so much that if you were a publicly held company I'd buy stock, but this is a major disappointment.

A little back-story: Harry's been driving us bananas lately, insisting he no longer likes foods that were among his favorites just the day before. (See, even when we're winning the war on one front, he opens up a new one). So things like Trader Joe's frozen mini-meatballs, hamburgers, and Cheerios are now in his no-fly zone. I'll say it again: My son is a weirdo.

The Cheerios thing has made breakfast difficult. We have yet to find a cereal he actually likes, since I refuse to bring anything that's junk food masquerading as nutrition into my home. We tried Kix, which he'll occasionally deign to eat but mostly refuses. We tried Life, which he was initially happy about since one of his classmates brings it in as a snack, but he didn't like those, either. Barbara's Puffins? Nope, even with the cute little creature on the package.

So when I saw these Triple Berry-Os on the shelf at Trader Joe's yesterday, I grabbed a box. Scanned the nutrition facts, which are acceptable (7 grams of sugar, which I figured was at least in part made up by the natural sugars in the abundant-on-the-box freeze-dried fruit). Brought them home to the boy, who greeted them with great excitement: TJ's freeze dried fruits are among his favorite snacks, still. (And yes, they're processed, but like I've said before I'm OK with that, sometimes.) He couldn't wait to try them this morning, especially since the box promised raspberries and TJ's doesn't sell freeze-dried raspberries separately.

But when we opened the box, disappointment set in. I do believe this is the first time a Trader Joe's product has let me down so completely. I mean, look at that bowl! It has maybe three pieces of fruit in it. Now look at the bowl on the box, which is absolutely bursting with colorful tidbits. Harry's bowl had exactly one raspberry in it, and when I pulled the bag out of the box to search for more, I found just two. In the entire package. Clearly, those 7 grams of sugar come from the Os themselves, which the box says are "honey oat Os" but are in reality sugar-coated.

We wound up pulling out a package of freeze-dried strawberries, just to make Harry's bowl look a little more like the box. Dude was sad. And then angry. Honestly, I was kinda proud of his reaction—he understood that this was advertising, and false advertising at that.

Not cool, Trader Joe's. So not cool.

Chopsticks: Easier Than They Look

2011-03-22T22:43:00.004-04:00

All it takes is a rubber band at the top, and even a four-year-old can swing a pair. Sorta. Until he decides it's easier to just eat with his hands...

(Note that he's attacking a bowl of plain noodles, while next to him is an apparently not-at-all-tempting bowl of delicious homemade Chicken Lo Mein, the recipe for which will be coming your way tomorrow.)

Oh, and a big fat aside: I submitted the introduction to Parents Need to Eat Too to my editor today. The first draft is 100%, completely, irrefutably, d-o-n-e done! Let me tell you, writing a cookbook is a buttload of work. Revisions will be a piece of cake compared to the last year, I hope.

Bribery, Phase II: With a Recipe for Quick Pasta with Browned Butter, Corn & Almonds

2011-03-21T10:47:00.004-04:00

The bribery—excuse me, encouragement via promise of reward—continues anew. Three weeks after our initial breakthrough, when Harry ate a new vegetable every day for fourteen straight days, he continues to try unfamiliar vegs without (much) complaint. But here’s the thing I’m most proud of: He’ll now eat cucumber, carrots, or sugar snap peas for a snack. A snack, people. Plain, with nothing on them, and with no promise of any kind of reward. He just likes them.

I am beyond shocked. Sometimes I look at him for signs of a sixth toe or no belly button or something, just in case this creature before me is a replicant. But no, it’s really Harry, and he’s really eating vegetables. So when we went to Toys R Us yesterday (god help me) in a fruitless search for a new scooter, and he happened to find the Thomas & Friends aisle, and they happened to have the Ol' Wheezy Logging Craneon sale, and he asked if we could start a new chart so he could earn it, well, what’s a parent to do?

Ol’ Wheezy now sits on a high shelf in the kitchen, either for encouragement or taunting (depending on one’s age and role in this little play). A new chart hangs over the kitchen table, right where the first one was. But we’ve upped the ante a bit: Now, instead of merely trying a new vegetable, Harry has agreed to try a little of everything Stephen and I are eating each night for a full week. Not as individual components, which is how we can occasionally get him to taste something new. As a prepared dish. He only has to take one bite, but he does have to eat it (no spitting out food) and he can’t make a big rude fuss about it.

When we negotiated this deal, I promised to try really hard to make things I thought he’d like—no sneaking in liver or stinky cheese (not that I’d want to include either of those things, anyway…). In the car on the way home from the toy store, Harry asked why we hadn’t had corn on the cob in so long, and after I explained the whole it’s-not-in-season thing, he asked why we couldn’t just have corn off the cob. Such a smartie. He was absolutely right, of course, so when we got home I set about creating a meal that used the frozen corn kernels I’d forgotten I even had.

I based it around pasta, which remains among his favorite foods (though he always insists it must be plain, with nothing but olive oil). The boy loves butter, so I used that, too. The other day he’d discovered that he really likes sliced almonds (though whole ones are still off-limits, the weirdo), so I used some of those too. Snuck in a little Parmesan for a hit of salty creaminess. End result: Harry wolfed down the pasta itself, and ate a bit of the corn and the almonds. Ultimately he said he didn’t care for either item in combination with the others, but he tried it, happily, and that’s all I’m looking for at this point.

Oh, and the grownups: We loved it. Stephen went back for seconds, something that rarely happens since we started on Weight Watchers. This one gets a big fat thumbs up, especially because it’s crazy fast: there’s almost no prep, and you don’t even start cooking the sauce until the pasta hits the water.

Harry’s well on his way to earning Ol’ Wheezy. He actually asked if his last meal to end the challenge, the one that would finally deliver the new toy to his track layout, could be falafel. I raised his shirt immediately: yup, the belly button’s still there. This is my son. Halle-freaking-lujah.

Tonight is (Relatively) Low-Fat Chicken Pot Pie. Cross your fingers, everyone.

Pasta with Browned Butter, Corn & Almonds
Serves 4
Weight Watchers: Each serving is 13 PointsPlus

1 pound fresh pasta (or 8 ounces dry, which lowers the PointsPlus to 10)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sliced almonds
1 cup frozen corn kernels (do not defrost)
salt & pepper
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for serving

Set a large pot of salted water on to boil, covered to speed things up.
When it boils, toss in the pasta and make the sauce: Put the butter over medium heat in a medium-sized stainless-steel skillet. Swirl it around a bit as it melts, just to keep it cooking evenly. It’ll foam, and when the foam subsides the butter will begin to brown. Swirl the pan occasionally, and when the butter is just beginning to turn golden add the almonds. It’ll foam up again, then settle down to a nice sizzle. Don’t let either the almonds or the butter get too brown, or the whole thing will taste acrid—when they’ve both turned a nice deep tan shade, add the frozen corn kernels, a sprinkling of salt, and plenty of black pepper, and toss, toss, toss. Remove from the heat when the corn is warmed through, and stir in the parsley.
By now the pasta should be ready. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking water, then drain. Return the pasta to the cooking pot and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Dump the sauce on top and stir, adding splashes of the reserved cooking water until all the pasta is nicely coated.
Serve with additional Parm, if desired.

MAKE BABY FOOD: Go a little easy on the pepper and this is fine for babies, either pureed or as finger food. If you’re not pureeing be careful to crush up the almonds in baby’s portion, since full slices may be difficult for him to handle.

Wherefore Art Thou, Hamantaschen Recipe of My Dreams?

2011-03-18T14:21:00.005-04:00

You may recall that last year around this time, my hamantaschen melted.

This year's recipe was an improvement on that sorry experience, but it's the first time I've ever used the word "infuriating" to describe cookie dough. I thought this would be a fun project to do with Harry, rolling and filling and whatnot, but the blasted dough was so obstinately sticky, so resolutely soft, that I didn't want him anywhere near the kitchen while I was working with it. Because we all know I have a bit of a potty mouth.

I tried refrigerating the dough (contradicting the recipe's instructions, which specifically tell you not to refrigerate). I used ample amounts of flour. And still the dough stuck to everything it touched. Ultimately I rolled it out between sheets of parchment paper, and even with that I had to stop every minute or so to carefully peel the paper away and sprinkle yet more flour. It took forevah to get everything rolled out; I finally slid the last tray into the oven at 10:00 last night. Actually, that's not true. I have more dough in the fridge.

The remaining dough will not be rolled, I can tell you that much. I'm thinking it might make for a fine thumbprint cookie, where you form little balls and indent each with your thumb then fill that hole with jam. Because for as infuriating as it is, that dough makes a mighty tasty cookie. Plus it's the prettiest hamantaschen I've ever baked, so there's that.

Got a killer hamantaschen recipe? I'm all ears! Next year is only 364 days away.

ETA: Looks like I should've paid more attention to the Times this week. Deb at Smitten Kitchen tried the recipe they printed & was pleased as punch. Considering her previous hamantaschen experiences sound a lot like mine, I may have found next year's recipe!

Newsflash

2011-03-14T20:54:00.002-04:00

Harry likes sugar snap peas. Like, really likes them. Ate one after another last night at dinner, and demolished the supply I sent in his lunchbox today.

I just had to tell someone. I can't believe my evil plan is working. And we didn't even start a new chart; this is residual amiability towards vegetables.

Food Swap in the New York Times!

2011-03-12T22:07:00.003-05:00

My take

Two weekends ago, I attended a fabulous event known as BK Swappers, in which all the participants bring food to swap, everything from preserves to infused booze, peanutella to margarita cookies. And I wrote about it for the New York Times. It's in tomorrow's paper.

Some of the impressive and inspiring stuff on offer:

The story mentioned the goodies I brought, but it didn't mention that the recipes are all on this here blog. So...

The Best Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies in the Entire World

Samoa Bars

Nutty Chocolate-Cherry Granola

My treats, all packed up and ready to swap

If you'd like to know when future swaps are happening, check out BK Swappers' Facebook page.

Sigh.

2011-03-11T14:28:00.004-05:00

Last night provided the big rain storm we'd been hoping for, to test our fix-it man's assertion that the ridonculous number of leaks in our kitchen had been fully sealed.

Yeah, not so much. It started out promisingly enough, with no leakage all throughout the day. But that was just garden-variety rain. Once the deluge started sometime after 8:00 last night, the familiar drip-drip-drip returned, first in one spot, then another, then another, and another, and another... Good thing we hadn't put away most of our buckets, pots, and bowls.

The fix-it man returns this evening. He admits he has absolutely no idea where the water is getting in, so I'm not exactly hopeful that things will be any different after he leaves.

As for dinner, we'll be picnicking in the living room again. At least it's something comforting: Slow-Cooker Butternut Squash Risotto. If that doesn't make us feel better about the sorry state of our kitchen, I don't know what will.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Leak

2011-03-09T11:10:00.003-05:00

My currently-inaccessible cookbook collection

The wall on which my cookbook collection was nearly drowned. Water was running down the wall and spraying from the ceiling light fixture. I could've taken a shower under it, had I wanted to bathe in rusty brown liquid

The kitchen table, buried under flotsam & jetsam moved from other leaky spots

One of two leaking windows, with multiple receptacles, each of which was emptied several times

That big rain storm the other day? Our kitchen had big fat leakage, from ten separate spots. The fix-it man was here on Monday and he thinks he got everything, but asked us to wait until the next storm (forecast for tomorrow) to make sure before moving everything back. Which means that my cooking life is currently, how shall I put this, chaotic. I like a clean kitchen before I start to cook, with everything where it's supposed to be so I can work efficiently. The current state of things is making me crazy.

Last night we had a living-room picnic, turkey sandwiches. Tonight I'm actually cooking! Thank the lord (and my mom) for my trusty slow cooker. And thank Rachel Rappaport at Coconut & Lime for this amazing-looking Fruity Pulled Chicken recipe, which is currently stewing away. Gotta love a throw-everything-in-and-ignore-it recipe at times like this.

My friends, don't expect much in the way of new recipes until things go back to normal. And if you live in Brooklyn and would like dinner guests, just let me know.

Procrastinate All You Want...

2011-03-07T09:46:00.003-05:00

...because tonight's dinner is taken care of!

Check out my guest post over on One Hungry Mama, one of my favorite, favorite, favorite mom-oriented food blogs. Fast White Beans and Greens Stew is ready in as little as 20 minutes. No, I'm not kidding.

Leaves you plenty of time to make Samoa Bars, and that can't be a bad thing.

And if you're new here via One Hungry Mama, welcome! Poke around a bit, and if you like what you see I hope you'll consider subscribing, either via RSS or email. We've also got quite a lively little community on Words to Eat By's Facebook page. Tons of conversation there; come join us!

Samoa Cookie Bars

2011-03-06T14:14:00.003-05:00

A long, long time ago, waaaaay back in the early days of Words to Eat By, I made homemade Samoas, everybody's favorite Girl Scout cookie. Now, I’m not going to swear that I was the first food blogger to do this, but, well. Ahem.

Anyhoosie, I first made them six years ago. And I haven’t made them since. Crazy, isn’t it, that something so good should be ignored for so long? Especially since it would seem that Girl Scout cookies bought from an actual Girl Scout are so unhealthy, you might as well just suck on a tailpipe.

But, y’know, I’m on Weight Watchers. Having homemade Samoas—possibly my favorite cookie of all time—around isn’t the best idea. (In case you're wondering: The Best Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies in the Entire World come a close second). I needed an excuse to make them. So I waited. And waited. And waited some more. Got a little tired of waiting, frankly, so when I finally did have an excuse in the form of a food swap, I took the opportunity to reinvent them. You do realize “reinvent” is code for “make multiple batches until you get it right”?

Where last time I made individual cookies, this time I made bars. Last time I melted packaged caramel candies, this time I made my own, using Cook’s Illustrated’s near-miraculous microwave technique. (Perre over at The Runaway Spoon just made pralines using a very similar method.) Last time I used sweetened shredded coconut, this time I went a wee bit healthier (and, dare I say, more sophisticated) with unsweetened. My friends, it took me three batches to get it right. The first two were delicious, make no mistake, but they weren’t quite there. But with batch number three, I hit it out of the park.

“Real” Samoas have their cute little bottoms dipped in chocolate, but the neat freak hidden deep inside me just couldn’t face the prospect of doing that. Which meant that the chocolate balance was off—there wasn’t enough of it with just a drizzle on top. The secret, it turns out, is to put a layer of bittersweet chocolate between the cookie base and the coconut-caramel mixture. Then top the whole thing with a Jackson Pollock-esque splatter of semi-sweet chocolate.

Oh, my. Yes. Mm-hm.

Samoa Bars
Makes 9 large or 16 small bars
Weight Watchers: 9 bars are 13 PointsPlus each; 16 bars are 7 PointsPlus each

Note: This is kind of an all-day affair. There's refrigeration pre-baking, and a few bouts of waiting for things to cool. If you want to break things up for Naptime Cooking, make the shortbread dough during nap 1 and refrigerate. Bake it during nap 2; make & add the topping just before your baby wakes. Drizzle on the chocolate whenever you can grab a few minutes later on.

For the shortbread base:
1/4 pound butter (1 stick), softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups flour
pinch of salt
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (chips are fine, too)

For the topping:
2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut (like Bob’s Red Mill)
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
2 tablespoons water
1/8 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter, softened
2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped or chips

Grease an 8 x 8 square baking dish and set aside.
Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar on medium speed until smooth, around 3 minutes.
Add the flour and salt and mix on low until it’s nearly combined. Finish the mixing with a spatula or wooden spoon—you want it to be sandy, but clumping together. If it feels too dry, add a small splash of ice water.
Pour the mixture into the baking dish and pat it down with the spatula. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 325°F. When it’s ready, remove the dish from the fridge, uncover, and bake for 15-18 minutes, until it’s a deep golden color—you don’t want it to brown. Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F.
Sprinkle the chocolate on top of the cookie and walk away for a few minutes. When you come back, it should be quite melty. Spread the chocolate all over the base with your spatula; move the baking dish to the coolest spot you can find.
Time to move on to the topping: Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment or foil, and spread the coconut evenly on top. Toast in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring every 3 minutes or so. Watch carefully and remove when it’s uniformly pale brown—it’ll go from toasted to burnt in a flash. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and set aside.
Now take a break until the cookie base has completely cooled and the chocolate is set.
Ready to resume? OK, let’s make the caramel. (Look here for more detailed instructions.) In a 2-cup glass measuring cup, combine the sugar, corn syrup, water, and lemon juice. Microwave on high for 5 to 8 minutes, until it’s barely beginning to color—if you wait until it’s truly brown it’ll burn. Remove from the microwave and set aside on a dry surface for 5 minutes. In that time it will continue to darken.
When the caramel is nearly as brown as you want it to get, heat the cream in a one-cup glass measure. Pour it into the caramel slowly, whisking to keep it from bubbling over. When it’s all combined, stir in the butter.
Pour this over the coconut and stir well. Spread the mixture over the chocolate-shortbread base and, again, let it cool completely.
When the bars are absolutely, thoroughly cooled, melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a gently simmering pot of water. Transfer to a zipper-lock plastic bag, seal, and cut the tiniest bit off one corner. Instant pastry bag! Drizzle the chocolate all over the tops of the bars, in whatever pattern you like.
Cool again before cutting into bars. Lift carefully, as the shortbread base will be fairly crumbly.

MAKE BABY FOOD: Um, no. A stolen taste won’t hurt a baby, but I wouldn’t feed something this sugary to anyone under a year old, at least.

I feel dirty.

2011-03-04T09:31:00.003-05:00

I get all squicky when I ask for favors. Especially from you. But Babble, a major parenting site, announced their top 100 mom food bloggers this week and I didn't make the cut (can you believe it?). One of you lovely people nominated me as a reader favorite (thank you thank you thank you!), and the voting continues.

As much as I want to be all nonchalant about this, it's bringing out my competitive side. So here I am, asking for a favor. Would you please click over and vote for me? No registration is required. You just click on the little thumbs-up symbol; if it turns from grey to brown, your vote has been counted.

I'd be ever so grateful. Now I'm off to take a shower & see if I can wash off this feeling.

I Bribed—Excuse Me, Encouraged Via the Promise of Reward—My Child to Eat Vegetables

2011-03-01T21:28:00.004-05:00

It’s true.

Harry ate vegetables.

For fourteen straight days.

Do you understand how momentous this is? The kid’s been so challenging to feed for so long, I actually got paid to write about it. And yet for a full two weeks, he was willing to try a new vegetable nearly every day. He ate celery. Jerusalem artichoke. Watermelon radish. Fennel. Rutabaga! On one memorable day, he sampled avocado, Jerusalem artichoke, and cucumber. And most thrilling of all, Little Gram’s Sauce. I’m not saying he liked everything—in most cases he ate a single mouthful, but that’s about a thousand times better than we’d been doing for the last few years.

Cucumber has been added to the regular rotation, people. An actual green thing, he eats willingly!

I have no idea what brought about this sea change, but a few weeks ago he started asking for new toys. We’d been doing pretty well, avoiding The Gimmes post-holidays, but now we’ve entered that awkward period where his new toys don’t feel so new anymore, yet his birthday’s still six months away. Enter the incentive. I told him that he could get the toy he was clamoring for if he ate a new vegetable every day for two weeks. Honestly, I only said it because I thought it would make him shut up about the toy—I never imagined he’d take me up on it. But he agreed immediately, so we made a chart on green construction paper and hung it on the wall over the kitchen table. (That’s why those drawings are so, um, rough-hewn: I was writing sideways against a wall.)

Each day, we’d discuss what the vegetable would be. I shlepped to the farmer’s market in Union Square, just so I could find something new and interesting—because of course, my son didn’t choose to become adventurous during the summer, when the abundance is staggering. No, he woke up to new flavors in February, when the vegetable farmer doesn’t even bother coming to my neighborhood market. But fine, I went with it, and so did Harry.

Some nights were more challenging than others, mostly when I dared to combine the vegetable with something else by using it in a soup or stew. On those nights, he’d leave the chosen vegetable on his plate while he ate everything else around it; he seemed to think that if he saved it for last we might give him a pass. Nope. One or two nights, there were tears—he let the single mouthful of food become such a big deal that he nearly scared himself out of it. But most nights, he enjoyed discussing the choices with me and willingly tried things. A few times he asked if he could taste something raw, like rutabaga, so he could compare it to its cooked state.

Tonight, we filled in the last box on Harry’s chart. He ate a single mouthful of my Fast White Beans & Greens Stew—which included a cannellini bean, some diced tomato, a chunk of carrot, and some wilted baby greens. (That recipe's coming, I promise.) It was dramatic, mostly because he really, really, really didn’t want to eat something with so many flavors combined. But Stephen and I pushed back, pointing out that he’d come so far to get his toy, it would be a shame to blow it now.

He put it in his mouth, and chewed on it for a good half-hour. (It still hasn’t sunk in that the faster he swallows something, the faster the flavor will dissipate; instead, he’ll chew and chew and chew, tuck it inside his cheek, and then chew some more before washing it down with diluted apple juice.) Finally, he swallowed, to great huzzahs and hugs from his parents.

Who knows if the whims of my child will swing back in the other direction. I take nothing for granted. But tomorrow, UPS arrives with his reward, and Harry's already debating what to go for next.

A Momentous Morning

2011-02-28T10:00:00.003-05:00

I just sent the final chapter of Parents Need to Eat Too off to my editor. It's written specifically for all you WOHMs out there (and if you don't know what that acronym means, it's probably not for you).

The first official announcement of the cookbook was a year ago this month. My friends, this has been the longest year of my life. Except, perhaps, the 12 months following a certain young man's birth...

In Praise of Processed Foods

2011-02-25T10:21:00.007-05:00

Last night’s dinner

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Sometimes, I use processed foods. Pretty much every day, in fact. Are you aghast? Well, don’t be. While the words “processed food” have become a dietary bugaboo, it’s just the teeniest bit misleading. When we talk about the problems Americans face with obesity, diabetes, and other nutrition-related illnesses, it’s much easier to blame processed foods as a category than it is to attempt to explain all the nuances involved. (And yes, I’m guilty of this myself.) But the fact is, unless you practice “clean eating”—there’s no official definition, but most define it as eating foods in as close to their natural state as possible—I’ll bet you have dozens of processed foods in your kitchen right now.

Got sliced bread? Processed.

Dry pasta? Processed.

Baby carrots? Processed.

Canned beans? Processed.

Flavored yogurt, all-fruit preserves, breakfast cereal? Processed, processed, processed.

You get the idea.

The thing is, most of us—and particularly the stretched-too-thin parents among us—need a little help to keep the family well-fed. When there’s no time to cook (an all-too-frequent occurrence, as even Pete Wells confessed in his final “Cooking with Dexter” column), having a stash of foods in the pantry that are nearly ready to go can tip the scale in favor of homemade vs takeout.

Reading labels is the key to buying processed foods. Before I even look at the marketing spiel on the front of the package, I turn it over and go straight to the nutrition facts statement. Seriously, don’t trust any claims on the front of the package—the food industry has so many ways to twist things it’s not even funny. My first stop on the nutrition facts: trans fats. We’re not supposed to eat any, ever, so this one’s easy. If it has any number other than zero, I put it down.

Next up: sodium. This is the biggest challenge when buying prepared (or semi-prepared) foods—manufacturers lean on salt to boost flavor, so even in products like ketchup, which doesn’t taste particularly salty, you may find an alarming amount. If your kid's one of those ketchup-on-everything types, this can really add up. According to the American Heart Association, Americans average more than 3000 mg of sodium each day, while most health experts would prefer we take in no more than 1500. Aiming for 1500 mg breaks down to 500 total per meal, assuming all your snacks are sodium-free, which is hardly likely. This is tough to achieve, no doubt, so my rule has become to simply buy things with as little sodium as possible. If it says more than 500 mg per serving, most times I’ll pass it by. (Last night’s dinner, pictured above, goes against this rule! Clearly I make exceptions, mostly with Asian-inflected products.)

Once I’m satisfied with sodium, I look at fiber—it helps keep you feeling fuller longer, and it helps keep things moving inside your body, if you know what I mean. The trick here is that there are a lot of “fake” fibers in processed foods these days, now that fiber has become fashionable. So if the fiber count strikes me as being out-of-whack high (3 grams or more per serving for processed foods), I’ll check the ingredients list for things like inulin, maltodextrin, and polydextrose—manufactured fibers added to products to boost the fiber count. Technically they are indeed fiber, but the jury’s out as to whether or not our bodies actually use that fiber the way nature intended.

As long as I’m looking at ingredients, I’ll start at the top and read all the way through the list. If the first words aren’t actual foods—things I use in my own kitchen—and the foods that I expect to see in the product I’m holding, I put it down. If the first word is “sugar,” I put it down. And once I get past those first words, I make sure I recognize everything else on the list. If there are multisyllabic chemical-sounding words, I put it down. I’ll admit, short of having a degree in food science, it’s tough to know whether an ingredient is, in fact, dangerous—agar, a vegetarian gelatin substitute made from algae, seems to be safe, but it’s not something most of us keep in our kitchens. At this point it’s a gut-check for me; generally speaking, if the ingredients list has more than one or two things I don’t recognize, that’s enough to rule it out.

Once a product has jumped all these hurdles, the next jump is usually into my cart. It’s not a perfect system, for sure, but it works for me. It keeps us fed, especially on days when I’m too crazed with other things to actually cook—which happen more often than you might think, considering the whole “I’m a food writer” thing. Many of the items in what I call "The New Mom's Pantry" are processed in some way, but they're carefully chosen; the benefit outweighs the risk.

(If you'd like to learn a little more about how to relate a nutrition facts statement to your child's needs, check out my story in the February/March Kiwi magazine, "Just the Facts.")

How about you? If you buy processed foods, how to you determine which to buy?

Nutty Chocolate-Cherry Granola

2011-02-22T20:09:00.003-05:00

Olive Oil Granola is kind of a thing, have you heard? Melissa Clark started it, I think, in the New York Times (inspired by the one sold by Bklyn Larder—the very same people behind Franny’s), and soon after The Kitchn raved about the recipe. More recently Jenny at Dinner: A Love Story wrote about it. And now it’s my turn.

This one’s a bit different than the rest—after making it a few times, what started as Melissa Clark’s olive oil granola recipe has wound up more focused on chocolate. (Go figure: me, chocolate?) I like the slight bitterness the olive oil provides; along with the cocoa and a hefty dose of salt, it makes the granola sweet enough for dessert but not so purely sweet as to be boring. Two different nuts and a generous handful of dried cherries make this the perfect thing to scatter on top of a scoop of vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt.

Best part: When the frozen yogurt melts, it turns chocolaty brown just like milk + Cocoa Pebbles!

Nutty Chocolate-Cherry Granola
Inspired by the New York Times
Makes 32 servings (1/4 cup each)
Weight Watchers: Each serving is 5 PointsPlus

Note: the easiest way I know to chop hazelnuts is to put them in a zipper-lock bag and smash the bag with a rolling pin or a heavy pot.

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups hazelnuts, roughly chopped (Oh Nuts sells an amazing whole hazelnut that’s peeled incredibly well)
1 cup blanched almonds (I use these, also from Oh Nuts)
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
3/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup unsweetened dried cherries, halved if they’re large

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or foil (this’ll make it easier to transfer the granola off the sheet when you’re done).
In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts, coconut, maple syrup, olive oil, brown sugar, cocoa, salt, and cinnamon. Toss together well, until it’s completely combined—break up any lumps of sugar with your fingers. Spread it on the baking sheet in an even layer and bake for 50 to 60 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes, until the granola is dry and toasty. Wash the large bowl while it’s baking.
Transfer it back into that large bowl (dry it off first!), using the parchment or foil to lift it carefully. Stir in the cherries, and allow to cool before transferring to an air-tight container—give it a stir every 15 minutes or so if you remember, to cool it off faster.

MAKE BABY FOOD: Nope. Between the choking hazards (nuts, dried cherries) and the extra added sugar, this one’s not for babies.

Caramel So Easy, Even a Parent Can Make It

2011-02-20T21:04:00.003-05:00

Caramel and I have a history, and it ain’t a good one. Catastrophic is more like it. I’m not a candy-maker, in fact even after the aforementioned debacles I still haven’t acquired a candy thermometer. I figure it’ll be used so infrequently, why bother?

Well, thank heaven for Cooks Illustrated, is all I can say. Towards the back of the March 2011 issue there’s a small piece about making caramel in the microwave. When I hit the last sentence, “Caramel doesn’t get any easier than this,” I was intrigued. I’ve been fantasizing about a new version of my homemade Samoas for a while now, and next weekend I’m attending an event that simply screams for them. Making my own caramel—one that seemed easy enough for a candy dunce like me—would be so much more exciting than opening several dozen wrappers from the store-bought kind.

Folks, I must testify: Praise be to Cooks Illustrated! This is life-changing, if caramel is as important to you as it is to me. I had a lovely jug of caramel sauce at the ready less than ten minutes after I started measuring. Can’t beat that, no how.

Now all I need is some vanilla ice cream. And maybe some apple pie…

Microwave Caramel Sauce
You don’t really want Weight Watchers info for this, do you?

1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
2 tablespoons of water
Small squeeze of lemon juice (a fraction of a teaspoon)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter, softened

1. Put the sugar, corn syrup, water, and lemon juice in a 2-cup microwave-safe measuring cup or glass bowl, and stir gently. Microwave on high for 5 to 8 minutes, until it’s just barely changing color. Watch carefully—if you wait even a few seconds too long, it will overcook and taste bitter.

The caramel, seconds after I pulled it out. It’s already a little too brown.

2. Remove it from the microwave and put it on a dry surface—leave it alone for 5 minutes, or until it darkens to a deep amber shade.

Here it is about four minutes later. Very, very brown. I started adding cream at this point, since I was afraid it would keep going.

3. While that’s sitting, heat the heavy cream in a one-cup glass measure—30 to 40 seconds on high should do it. Grab a whisk and drizzle in the cream, a bit at a time. The caramel will bubble furiously, so whisk away to keep it from going too nuts. When all the cream is added, add the butter. This'll stay good in the fridge for a week or two, at least.

MAKE BABY FOOD: I don’t have to say it, do I? While this isn’t dangerous for babies (except when it’s hot—caramel burns are nasty), it’s a big vat of sugar. If your tot sneaks a fingerful off your plate no worries, but I wouldn’t exactly spoon this into a baby’s mouth.

Ohdeedoh

2011-02-20T17:21:00.005-05:00

Just in case you missed it, Ohdeedoh, the parenting website from the folks at Apartment Therapy, ran an interview with me the other day. It's worth a read, especially if you're interested in that time I...

And if you're here via Ohdeedoh, welcome! I hope you'll find stuff to your liking. If you do, there's a (hint hint) host of buttons at the top right to (from left to right) subscribe via RSS, follow me on Twitter, "like" the blog on Facebook, or subscribe via email. You'll never miss another post!

Taking Green to a Whole New Level

2011-02-18T09:00:00.002-05:00

Harry loves the color green. Actually, “love” might be too gentle a word; “obsessed” is probably a better choice. From the very first time he was asked his favorite color, the answer’s been the same. For a while there, it was all he wanted to talk about—at his old preschool, the other kids’ parents would come up to me, smiling, to tell me he'd just shared his enthusiasm. He wanted green clothing, green shoes, green construction paper, green balloons, green clay… You get the idea. (We won't go into the tantrums he threw when somebody else got the last green item.) And the love extended into the kitchen, too. When given a choice, he’d always select a green bowl, fork, cup, or straw.

Where the love didn’t extend: food. When he first started to become more selective in his eating, I thought this obsession would work to my advantage. Try the edamame, buddy—they’re green! Yeah, not so much. Pesto, his first favorite food, was abandoned without a backward glance. Attempting to woo him towards broccoli by letting him choose a recipe was amusing, but it didn't exactly work. The only place I’ve ever been able to wrangle the green thing to my advantage is with smoothies. Avocado smoothies have been popular around here for some time (I even published a recipe on Parents.com), but I don’t always have an avocado on hand. Thanks to the kind folks at Whole Foods, though, I do have an assortment of chopped, ready-to-use greens in the freezer, a new addition to their 365 Everyday line that they sent me to play with.

The best part of using frozen greens for a smoothie is, well, they’re frozen. It helps achieve that thick, frosty, eat-it-with-a-spoon texture. If you toss them in at the very beginning, with just the yogurt and milk, they’ll break down so much that the flavor disappears into the mixture—you have absolutely no sense that you’re drinking greens, which can often be bitter. So even though Harry knows they're the star ingredient (I'm not big on hiding foods; I want him to understand and enjoy what he's eating), he sucks that green drink down happily.

(and speaking of green...)
A NOTE ON ORGANICS: I don't generally specify what you should be buying organic; I know our own budget doesn't afford us nearly as much as I'd like, so I'd rather not pressure you. However, three of the main ingredients here are items I always do buy organic: yogurt, milk, and greens. Yogurt and milk are because dairy is among Harry's primary foods, and it's important to me than anything he eats in quantity is clean. The greens are because they're consistently on the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen: produce items with the heaviest pesticide load. I agreed to try out Whole Foods' frozen greens because I was told they're organic; turns out they're not. When I noticed the lack of an organic seal on the package I wrote to my contact there, who acknowledged that a mistake had been made in their description. So I have a stash of non-organic greens in my freezer right now. Buuut, Whole Foods does have a pretty admirable set of quality standards. They're nearly enough to make me forego the organic designation in this case. Jury's still out, though. I need to investigate a little further.

I'm curious: What would you do? Would you use up what you've been given, or throw it away? Serve it to yourself, but not the kids? If you would use it, would you buy more?

Green(s) Smoothie
Serves 2
Weight Watchers: Each serving is 5 PointsPlus

Note: I use flavored yogurt for this—the extra sweetness helps to mask the taste of the greens. If you use plain, you’ll probably want to add a bit of honey (or sugar, if you’re serving to a baby under one year old). Also, feel free to experiment with your selection of fruits, but know that things like strawberries and blueberries will yield a smoothie that’s more purplish-brown than green.

4 ounces fat-free, fruit-flavored yogurt (I like strawberry)
3/4 cup frozen chopped greens
1/2 cup 1% milk
1 ripe banana, in chunks
1/2 cup frozen mango chunks

Put the yogurt, the greens, and the milk into the jar of a blender and whir on high until the greens are completely broken down.
With the blender running, add the banana and then the mango, and whir until fully blended. Serve.

For non-green variations, check out my Master Smoothie Recipe.

MAKE BABY FOOD: I don’t have to tell you how perfect this is, do I? Keep it slightly thicker and you can serve with a spoon, or thin it more and use a sippy.

Mediterranean Fish en Papillote

2011-02-14T20:52:00.008-05:00

Don’t be fooled by the fancy-shmancy French up there: This is about as easy—and parent-friendly—as cooking gets. It’s so simple, I'll toss a packet together for lunch on a weekday. And it's so tasty even Stephen-the-fish-hater devours it. Seriously, if you can assemble, you can (and should) make this.

“En Papillote” means you’re cooking in a packet, usually made from parchment paper. The food essentially steams inside it, capturing and intensifying the flavors. That packet also means there’s very little cleanup—each serving gets its own pouch, which hits the oven on a rimmed baking sheet and is then transferred directly to the plate. Some juices may leak if you don’t seal the edges perfectly, but rinsing a baking sheet isn’t exactly work, is it?

And now, the really hard sell. Here’s why, if you’re not already cooking en papillote, you should be:

The method is endlessly flexible: make a single serving, or enough for a party.
The packets themselves can be assembled hours ahead of time (refrigerate if you’re more than 2 hours from cooking).
As long as you cut the vegetables small and/or thin enough, you can use whatever’s languishing in the crisper.
No good at chopping? Use pre-sliced vegetables from the supermarket. I won’t tell.
Fish and boneless chicken both work beautifully here, cooking in 12 to 20 minutes. Yup, the mythical 30-minute meal, right there.
Feel like going Asian rather than Mediterranean? Use a splash each of sesame oil, soy sauce, and rice vinegar instead of the herbs, olive oil, and lemon in the recipe below. In addition to baby spinach, toss in some slivered snow peas, chopped scallions, and sliced mushrooms.
Going Mexican is the easiest of all: Use a tablespoon or two of good-quality salsa.
Make some brown rice (go ahead, use the boil-in-bag—or better yet, Trader Joe’s frozen pre-cooked pouch) and your work is done.

Once you try this method, I have a feeling you’ll be itching to try it again. Luckily, there’s a newish blog devoted entirely to preparing food en papillote: No-Pot Cooking. It’s got everything from Chicken Tagine to Manicotti, all in self-contained packets, and Brette, the blogger, provides a good all-around tutorial.

You're wondering what Harry makes of this, aren't you? Well, I'll tellya: I haven't served it to him recently (like I said, I've been making it for lunch, and he's in school). But the fish is so mild, he might actually taste it without gagging.

Mediterranean Fish en Papillote
Serves 1, and multiplies well
Weight Watchers: Each serving is 6 PointsPlus

A handful of baby spinach
1 six-ounce fillet of white fish (I often use tilapia)
salt & pepper
1 tomato, sliced
6 small olives, pitted and roughly chopped
1 peppadew pepper, roughly chopped (optional—you could also use a pepperoncini)
1 whole artichoke heart—frozen or jarred—cut into eighths
pinch of dried herbes de Provence (usually some combination of basil, fennel seed, lavender, rosemary, thyme, savory, and possibly more)
1 teaspoon flavorful olive oil
1/2 lemon

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Tear off an 18-inch long piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil (foil is actually easier to use, so don’t sweat it if you don’t have parchment), fold it in half, unfold, and place it on a rimmed baking sheet.
Lay the baby spinach next to the crease, leaving several inches above and below. Place the fish on top, and season well with salt & pepper.
Fan the tomato slices vertically on the fish, and scatter the olives, peppadew, and artichoke around it. Sprinkle with the dried herbs and the olive oil.
Now, seal up the pouch: Fold the parchment over on top of the fish. Starting at the top inner corner, fold and crimp the edges approximately every quarter-inch, until you’ve created a half-moon. Be sure the folds are well-creased, to keep the steam from pushing the pouch open in the oven. It should look a lot like an empanada.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes (12 for thin fillets, 15 for thicker ones). Slide the packets directly onto the plates, and open carefully—there will be a lot of steam inside. Squeeze the lemon on top and serve.

MAKE BABY FOOD: The fish itself: perfect for babies. You can either puree a bit along with some of the vegetables and sauce, or serve as finger food (check carefully for bones, and I’d skip the artichoke hearts—seems like those leaves could be a little too challenging for the youngest eaters to chew). And peppadews can be surprisingly hot, so be sure to taste one before giving it to your baby.

Eight Years Ago This Very Minute...

2011-02-12T21:03:00.005-05:00

...the man I would someday marry sat next to me at Tavern on Jane. I was expecting him—we’d met online, and I’d learned from years of trying that it was wise to get the first in-person meeting out of the way quickly, the better to find out sooner that we really weren’t suited to each other. Yank off that heartbreak Band-Aid right away, you know?

True confession: It wasn’t love at first sight. This man sitting next to me at the bar, Stephen (not Steve), seemed like a perfectly nice fellow. We talked for a few hours, eventually ordering dinner, and by the end of the night he’d asked me out on a second date—or a first real date—a screening of an old movie he particularly admired. I already had plans for that day so I declined, and only realized in the cab on the way home that it may have sounded like I brushed him off. But he’d given me the most amazing mixed CD, from a series he’d made called “Sweet Soul Music,” and when I listened to it I had to write and thank him. Things rolled along beautifully from there, with the help of a blizzard the following weekend that trapped us in my apartment for two straight days. We emerged into a blindingly white world, dizzy with the first hints of love.

And now here we are, eight years later, married for almost seven, with a four-year-old who we alternately love so much it hurts or dislike so much we want to hurt him. So this morning I baked them quickie homemade Pop-Tarts.

Heart-shaped ones, since these two men have my heart for the rest of my life.

True confession: I’m pretty sure I began to fall in love with Stephen before we ever met face-to-face, when he described his vacuum cleaner as having “the build and muscle of Audrey Hepburn.” He is the most effortless, graceful metaphor-crafter I've ever met.

Quickie Pop-Tarts
Makes 8
Weight Watchers: These are 4 PointsPlus each

1 prepared piecrust (I use Pillsbury’s refrigerated kind, or Trader Joe’s frozen)
3 tablespoons jam of your choice (I used strawberry and raspberry) or Nutella
2 teaspoons milk
decorating sugar, if you like

Preheat oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet and set aside.
Roll out the piecrust just a bit—you don’t want it to be so thin it’ll break, but you do want to enlarge it a little. Use a pizza cutter, sharp knife, or cookie cutter to cut the dough into 16 pieces, and transfer 8 of them to the baking sheet.
Put about a teaspoon of your choice of filling into the center of each, lightly brush milk around the edges of the dough,* and top them with the remaining pieces of dough. Crimp with a fork and brush the tops with milk. Sprinkle with decorating sugar, if you’re using it.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and cool for at least 5 minutes before eating—the insides get molten.

* I've added this bit because Toni, a Facebook fan of WTEB, noticed in the original post that I neglected to seal my own, which is why this happened:

MAKE BABY FOOD: These are safe for babies who are on finger foods. Use an all-fruit preserve to avoid the excess sugar in regular jams.

I Gave Him My Heart (now give me a pen)*

2011-02-11T09:16:00.005-05:00

I’m not gonna lie: These Chocolate Whole Wheat Sandwich Cookies with Raspberry Filling are a production. It took me the better part of an afternoon to make them—the dough chills for a few hours before rolling, cutting, and baking, and then there’s the post-bake cool, the post-decorating rest, and the final sandwich-making. But oh my, are they worth it. Just look at those adorable, generously sized honeys. Wouldn’t your honey love to eat one?

One good thing about the many steps involved, if you’re the parent of a youngun: These are perfect for Nap-Time Cooking. Make the dough during the morning nap, and roll and bake during the afternoon nap. Decorate and fill whenever you can—after baby’s bedtime, or when it’s your partner’s turn to hang out with the wee bairn.

The cookies themselves are a chocolaty, not-too-sweet nibble. I'll make them again, without the production that follows.

If you’ve got older kids, there’s plenty of opportunity for “help,” too. I made the cookies themselves while Harry was at school, but he and his buddy P helped me dunk and decorate—turns out they both preferred the white chocolate, which personally I can’t stand so I’m not even sure why I had any in my kitchen. Last night while Harry slept I made the filling and sandwiches, a little surprise for my junior Valentine.

Here’s what they look like when a pair of four-year-olds is through decorating.

Chocolate Whole Wheat Sandwich Cookies with Raspberry Filling
Inspired by Joy the Baker
Makes 13 sandwiches
Weight Watchers: These are complicated—PointsPlus will depend on the size of your cookie cutter and how much more you do to them. I got 26 three-inch hearts, which came out to 2 PointsPlus each. Dipping in chocolate and decorating added another 2, and the filling is another 2-3. I’m counting a decorated sandwich as 9 and an undecorated sandwich as 7. Definitely a treat, though the plain cookie is quite WW-friendly.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, plus more for rolling
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
a generous 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Good-quality semi-sweet, milk, or white chocolate for melting
Whatever decorations, sprinkles, etc. you like
Raspberry filling (recipe follows)

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, espresso powder, and salt. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer (stand or hand-held) and a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugars until smooth and dark tan. Scrape down the bowl and add the egg and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until the mixture is fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes.
Add the dry ingredients all at once (if you’re using a stand mixer, you may want to throw a kitchen towel over it to prevent a cloud of cocoa-colored dust from floating through your kitchen). Mix on low speed until it’s barely incorporated. Stop the mixer and finish mixing by hand—I find a silicone spoonula helpful here. Lay some plastic wrap on the counter and empty the dough onto it, then cover with another layer of plastic wrap. Press gently to form a large disk, then wrap tightly and chill for at least 2 hours. (The dough will hold in the fridge for at least a day, possibly more.)
Place a rack in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350° F. Line two baking sheets and set aside.
Prepare your work area (and be prepared for things to get a bit messy): Grab your cookie cutter, rolling pin, and offset spatula. Put several tablespoons of cocoa powder into a small bowl, and sprinkle some lightly onto a layer of wax paper or a rolling mat—I use a RoulPat Pastry Mat.
Divide the chilled dough in half and place one half on your cocoa-ed surface. Return the other half to the fridge. Lightly cocoa the rolling pin and roll out the dough to a 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out cookies (put the cuts as close together as possible) and transfer to the prepared baking sheet with the offset spatula. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Remove from the oven and leave the cookies on the baking sheets for a few minutes, until they’re firm enough to transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough, re-rolling no more than twice, until it’s all cut and baked.
Once cookies are completely cool (in my chilly kitchen it took 30-40 minutes—a good time to make the filling, recipe below), melt your choice of chocolate in a microwave or double-boiler. Put a layer of wax paper (or clean and re-use your RoulPat) under the cooling rack, and put the decorations nearby. Dunk half the cookies, one by one, into the melted chocolate, replace them on the rack, and sprinkle quickly with decorations. (Decorating is a good job for the kids.) Allow the chocolate to set completely before proceeding.
Spread the undersides of the un-dunked cookies generously with raspberry filling, and top each with a decorated cookie. Press lightly. Done! Now pat yourself on the back for taking on such a complicated task.

Raspberry Filling
Makes enough for 13 three-inch sandwich cookies

3 tablespoons raspberry jam
3 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening (I use trans-fat free)
1/2 tablespoon milk
pinch of salt
1 1/2 to 2 cups confectioners sugar

Warm the jam slightly in the microwave, then pass through a strainer to remove the seeds. Stir for a minute or two to cool it down, then add the butter, vegetable shortening, milk, and salt. Whisk vigorously until everything is completely blended—you can use a hand mixer here, but I often find that more difficult with relatively small quantities.
Sift 1 1/2 cups of confectioners sugar into the bowl and whisk until well combined. This may take several minutes, so expect a tired arm afterwards. If it seems too soft, add more sugar—you want a relatively stiff filling, or else it’ll squish out when you bit into the cookie.

MAKE BABY FOOD: These are safe for babies, but because of all the sugar I’d reserve them for very special occasions.

* Lloyd Dobler: Call me. Stephen never has to know.

A Mom's Take on the New Dietary Guidelines

2011-02-10T10:24:00.002-05:00

After the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans were released last week, Parents.com asked me what I thought of our government's advice. Here's what I told them.

What was your reaction to the guidelines?