What's for dinner?

I try to plan ahead and know what I'm feeding my guys for dinner so as to avoid the last minute rush that ensues if I don't have a plan. The (sad) truth is, more often than not, life gets in the way and it's 20 minutes before dinnertime and I've got nothing. I try to keep things on hand that can be quickly turned into a tasty dinner that we will all love, but lately my family has been turning up their nose at my black bean soup.  So it was time for a change.

My life saver this week has been a batch of bread dough from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day. 

I usually keep a half batch of the master recipe on hand in my fridge (a full batch is just too large for our little family of 3), since it makes such delicious bread. One glimpse through the cookbook, and I realized it would also make delicious pizza crust and pita bread. Both have been part of our last-minute dinners this week.

Mini pizzas topped with left-over roasted veggies and caramelized onions, some salami and kalamata olives, and whatever cheese we had on hand baked in the 15 minutes it took to make a salad. The crust turned out amazing, and the best part was there was absolutely no whining from M. He even helped to make these!

Two nights later, we used the left over dough to make pita bread to accompany the last of our salami and capiccola, white cheddar, and apples. Probably not as balanced a meal as I would ideally like, but we all gobbled it up and enjoyed every bite. And it sure beats getting take-out.

What do you keep on hand for last minute dinners?

Summertime Treat: Make your own ice cream!

A few weeks ago, I got my Weeknight Kitchen newsletter (a fan of NPR's The Splendid Table? Then you should consider subscribing to their newsletter here. It's great!), and at the very bottom was a recipe for Lynne's Stirred Fresh Lime Ice Cream (very similar to this recipe here). Having just moved to NC and being faced with 100+ temperatures that week, I promptly headed to the store and bought all that was needed (except I used lemons rather than limes). The original recipe was incredibly delicious - and rich. Too rich for my taste, actually (though my husband claimed it was the best ice cream he's ever tried). Since then, I've been testing out different variations of cream/milk/flavor combos to find the one that is just right for us.

This past week, I think we found it. I made stirred coconut ice cream that has been a huge hit with everyone, by simply modifying Lynne's recipe (linked above).

Here's my variation:
Stirred Coconut Ice Cream
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla (I didn't actually measure, but it looked to be about that much)
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups light cream

Place coconut, sugar, and vanilla in a freezer-safe dish (I like a long, shallow casserole dish). Add the light cream a little bit at a time, whisking as you add. Continue to whisk until sugar is dissolved. Add heavy cream and whisk some more, to combine. Place in freezer for an hour. Stir to break up ice crystals, and return to freezer. An hour later, stir again. Return to freezer. Wait one more hour, stir again. Return to freezer, and let freeze a bit longer. It's now ready for you to enjoy!

If you make it, I'd love to hear what you thought.

As a side note, this is an extremely kid-friendly recipe, and a great chance to get your little ones in the kitchen to help. We had a lot of ingredient sampling, but as this recipe does not include anything raw or potentially dangerous, it was all great fun for us both. Our little guy has now helped me make three different flavors of ice cream, resulting in lots of giggles and fun (and a big mess, too... but nothing that can't be quickly cleaned up).

Next up on my list to try out: peach ice cream!

Journeying towards greener eating

For some time now, my husband has been wanting us to move away from eating meat and closer towards vegetarianism. I wouldn't say that we're heavy meat eaters now, eating meatless meals at least 3-4 times a week, so I didn't think it would be hard to increase our "meat-free" days. I was surprised to find that I was having two problems: 1.) I kept going back to the same 5-6 recipes over and over again (and thus, getting thoroughly bored of having the same food) and 2.) I had to make different things to please my husband and my toddler. Both of these problems were making dinner time less than enjoyable for me, which defeats the purpose of preparing healthful dinners shared as a family.

And so, I decided to hit my old cookbooks and a few new additions from Amazon, to mix things up and make dinner prep more enjoyable. I was pleased to find interesting and tasty meatless recipes on old favorite cookbooks, such as Mario Batali's Molto Italiano or Cooking Light's Cookbook. I also consistently find delicious meatless recipes in Cynthia Lair's Feeding the Whole Family. But the new stars in my cookbook collection are Vegetarian Classics by Jeanne Lemlin, A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop, and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. From these we've made various dips, noodle dishes, risotto, and egg dishes with interesting ingredients that I may not have thought to combine (like beet risotto -- which was truly delicious!).

And if you're looking for an online alternative, I can't recommend Heidi Swanson's 101cookbooks blog enough (she's the author of Super Natural Cooking and Super Natural Every Day, both on my wish list). It's a fantastic resource with recipes, stories, and beautiful photographs. I recently made her Oat Soda Bread and her Vegetable Korma (minus the tofu), both of which have been added to our "favorites" list. Totally awesome website worth checking out.

Are you adopting new eating habits this year? If so, what are your favorite cookbooks, websites, or meal idea resources? I'd love to know!

Homemade Granola

In my house, we are crazy about granola. You won't find boxed cereal now that M is past his Cheerios obsession. Nope, we like crunchy, nutty granola, something that won't get soggy sitting in yogurt. We've tried many boxed granolas, and find them either too bland or too sugary. We like the granola you get in the bulk foods section at our local grocery store, but I'm often left wondering just what's in there.

So this month, when Everyday Food arrived, and there was a recipe for homemade granola, I just had to give it a shot. I ended up modifying the recipe, kind of a blend between the one in the magazine and the one Cynthia Lair's Feeding the Whole Family. This is what I came up with:

Favorite Homemade Granola

3 cups old-fashioned oats

1/2 cup raw almonds

1/2 cup raw cashews

1/4 cup sunflour seeds

pinch of salt

a generous pinch of cinnamon

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1/3 cup honey

1 heaping tablespoon peanut butter

1/3 cup low sugar dried pineapple

1/3 cup craisins

1/3 cup dried cherries

1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 300F. Combine the first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. Place the butter, honey, and peanut butter in a small saucepan over medium heat, until butter melts and all is combined (stirring occassionally). Slowly pour the butter mixture into the oats mixture, stirring as you go. The oats will be sticky but not wet. Spread on a rimmed cookie sheet, and bake for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so, until evenly browned and crispy. Let it cool down a bit, and add the dried fruit. Store in an airtight container, and enjoy!

I bet it would be equally delicious with different nuts or dried fruits; these are the ones we used because it's what we had on hand. Enjoy!

Homemade Yum

"...to take the time every now and then, say once a week, to make some good food with yur own hands for your friends and loved ones, that is something that may vastly improve the overall quality of life."

-- Mario Batali

This past weekend, I made homemade fettucini and Mario Batali's mushroom ragu (recipe here) for my guys.  It was only the second time making my own pasta, and I have to say that it went a lot smoother than the first time. I used a recipe from an older Cooking Light cookbook, and, while good, I think next time I'll use the pasta recipe in Mario Batali's cookbook, Molto Italiano.

Have you ever made your own pasta? It's really not too difficult, just perhaps a little time consuming, but so worth it.

Though I love to cook, I tend to stay away from making really work intensive meals, because the truth is that I'd rather be playing with M than cooking in the kitchen. But this weekend, I decided to slow down and take the time to make something that I knew we'd all enjoy. It was so delicious and such a hit with everyone. This is something we'll be making again. Next time -- tagliatelle!

S'mores in wintertime

I am a big fan of s'mores, and would eat them year-round if it weren't unreasonable to make a big bonfire every day. My husband, on the other hand, is not at all a fan of s'mores, but loves cupcakes. And so, years ago, I did a search for s'mores cupcakes and came up with a ton of hits.

One recipe I found, used Martha Stewart's One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes as the base (recipe here) and used a buttercream frosting with marshmallow cream added to it. If you've got a buttercream recipe you love, I would just use that and then add the Marshmallow cream to it. In case you're interested, here's how I make it:

Marshmallow Frosting

You'll need:

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp

2 cups confectioner's sugar

a small amount of vanilla (I never measure, but probably around 1/2 tsp)

1 jar Marshmallow cream (7 oz)

Beat butter until light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar until incorporated. Add Marshmallow cream and vanilla. Continue beating until fluffy. Color with food coloring, if desired. This recipe will make enough to frost 24 cupcakes.

After I frost my cupcakes, I add a chocolate square and some graham cracker crumbs for garnish. You could make a graham cracker crumb crust for the cupcakes, too, and I bet that would be delicious.

These have become our standby cake and frosting recipe, making an appearance at every birthday, celebration, and even at our last Thanksgiving dinner. If you're craving some sweets, I'd highly recommend making these. If you do, let me know how they turn out, ok?

One berry, two berries, pick me a blueberry!

If you have kids, you might recognize the title of this post as the first few lines of the bookJamberry by Bruce Degen. It's always been a favorite around here, but in the past week we've been chanting it quite a bit.
That's because, like the characters of the book, we went to pick berries this week. Twice. That's how much we enjoyed it. It's been a cold Spring and early Summer around here, so we had a difficult time finding a farm that had ripe berries to pick. A little internet search and a short drive later, and we arrived at Bryant Blueberry Farm. We really can't recommend this place enough. If you've got young children with short attention spans, this is the place to go. It's clean, it's small, and they've got a ton of blueberry bushes (though only 11 rows were ready for picking, and even then you really had to pay attention to which blueberries were making their way into your bucket. Or mouth.)

The Monkey had a really fantastic time, visiting the goats, playing in the sandbox and swings, and especially helping pick blueberries. Of course, for every one berry he put in the bucket, two went in his mouth, but that's ok. He's been talking about how much fun he had berry picking all week long.

We came home with 4 pounds on the first visit, and 5 pounds on our second visit. We eat lots and lots of blueberries around here, but even we can't go through all those berries on our own. I've frozen a few batches to make sure we have berries for pancakes later in the year, and I'm trying to bake up a few blueberry treats, too.

I tried my hand at blueberry muffins (from an old Cooking Light book), and though they were tasty, they were just OK. However, I just saw Amy posted this blueberry muffin recipe, so I might have to try my hand at those today. I'll let you know how those turn out...