Bison burgers
Today is the first in a two-part Dinner Together series on super-easy, family-friendly meals on the grill.
One sure-fire way to please my daughter is to feed her a hamburger. (You may remember that this interfered with her vegetarian phase.) But, of course, we worry about serving ground beef, with its high saturated fat content, too often.
The answer for us sometimes is ground bison, which you can now find in most grocery stores. (If you want to stay local, Eddie's of Roland Park stocks bison from the Gunpowder Bison & Trading in Monkton.) It's lower in fat and saturated fat than most beef you can find. It is more expensive, but the other good part is that the taste is very close to beef.
And, we discovered, it performs very well on the grill, using this anti-flaring method my husband John came up with...
This recipe is a two-fer: a successful 
We headed to James Beard country last night for a different take on the omelet. In the recently-released 60th anniversary edition of his Fireside Cookbook, the icon of American cuisine has a recipe for something called a "Fluffy Omelet." 
This week, I've returned to the somewhat-winning formula of simple protein with a subtle sauce for our 
This 
This is a favorite recipe of mine from several years ago, when I reviewed the American Dietetic Association cookbook "Cooking Healthy Across America" for the 
Spring is the season of celebration, so I thought I'd bring you another meal of that sort (like last week's 
Charlie Palmer, 
This might look like an ordinary pizza, but it's actually made from layered tortillas -- thanks to a recipe tip from Twitter follower Judith Wilson Burkes of 
My son had been asking for mangoes, and no, he wasn't completely satisfied with the frozen version from Trader Joe's. So I picked up the ripest mango I could find at Giant and made these chicken-mango quesadillas from the new book Petit Appetit: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry.
This may be the easiest salmon you ever make. It's from Mireille Guiliano's French Women Don't Get Fat, which is another bonus.
Hamburgers are already a budget meal (and a good one to bank on the kids liking at my house), but these are "stretch" burgers. With a little bread, wine and other add-ins, the meat goes a little further.
Really faithful readers will remember an early Dinner Together attempt at 
Boy, it was harder than I thought it would be to find turkey cutlets in this town for tonight's 
This family dinner was another attempt at using 
A kid hit to report! I'm so happy.
To get dinner on the table in the dead of winter, we need the humor -- and ease -- of Peg Bracken.
Every once in a while, I vow to seriously cook ahead on a Sunday -- to prep and freeze mountains of meals for the future, which we will pop out and cook on weeknights without breaking a sweat.
The economy is so bad that even pretty cheap Chinese takeout food has become a luxury. And since January is the month when we all look at the scale and gasp, it's also not a great time to indulge in delicious but fattening crispy Orange Chicken.
"Posole" is a dried corn treated with limestone, but it's also come to be the name of the simple hominy stew, usually with pork, that's a traditional dish in Mexico and the American Southwest for New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.
Continuing our lightened comfort food theme, this week we tried a slimmed-down tuna noodle casserole. 
This recipe goes out to all of you who fear to cut into a pumpkin for anything other than a jack-o-lantern.
Keep this recipe handy for Thanksgiving leftovers. Since it had eggs, which the kids like, and sweet potatoes along with the turkey for an easy one-pot meal, we decided to try it early.
I know -- capers. But the great thing about a recipe like this (from the new book Two Dudes, One Pan) is that the sauce comes at the end. 
I had oodles of marmalade left over from the tasting we did for an upcoming You & Taste section. When I've got extra marmalade, I always look to gin up a quick pork or chicken dish with it.
I had a simple plan for this week's 
You may be wondering: Is that, um, cereal on top of this week's 
I decided to take another stab at having us all eat something the kids love to eat, but with a twist. (Remember, this strategy -- which I thought would be a slam-dunk -- ended up backfiring the last time I tried it with 
It's getting to be gazpacho season, but my kids have already pretty much rejected tomatoes. A cool, easy soup is so appealing in summer, though, and bell peppers should be at the farmer's markets soon.
In times of economic stress, I always think about my mother. How did she manage to feed a family of four on just one salary?
This week I was looking for something super-easy and familiar for the kids to eat with us. I found this recipe for Baked Chicken Fingers in a cute little cookbook called Picnic, by Dee Dee Stovel. I also thought that if it worked out, it might be easy fare for a Fourth of July picnic.
I thought that for this week's 
As I was planning this week's 
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, this lady is crazy. Does she think our kids are going to eat that? Tofu? Out in the open?
Thought I'd give 
Thought we might have more success if we went back to pasta, but tried it in a fun shape -- little pillows of tortellini.
We were on the verge the other night of getting takeout, and we were talking Chinese. Then we thought about the electric bill, the oil bill, the price at the pump, the prices at the grocery store...all going up.
Dining blogger extraordinaire Elizabeth Large just posted 
I thought I'd start our Dinner Together experiment with a recipe from one of my favorite cookbook authors -- my mother.
If there's anything close to a magic bullet that gives a kid a leg up on life, the experts seem to agree it's sitting down, regularly, to dinner with his family. And in our house, we haven't been doing that.
