And another Mother's Day food offer...
Restaurant critic and blogger Elizabeth Large has the details on another local Mother's Day free food offer, this time at Don't Know Tavern in Federal Hill.
May 9, 2008
May 7, 2008
Dinner Together: Pasta with Creamy Spinach and Red Pepper Sauce
This is a good dinner for anyone looking for a quick vegan recipe. If your kids don't like the idea of tofu, they won't know it's hidden in the sauce.
If they don't like the spinach as pictured, you can add some of the spinach to the sauce as you're making it, too. Just make sure you do that in small batches, because too much can make the sauce brownish-green instead of creamy red.
(Click below for the recipe. ...)
(Photo by me)
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May 2, 2008
Free food for moms!
All next week, Let's Dish!, the meal-assembly company some of you probably use, is making a Mother's Day offer I wouldn't be able to refuse if I had had a baby this year -- free dinner for the family for any mother who has given birth since January 2008. (Now if they could just come over and do the dishes afterwards...)
Check the link above for details. Moms of twins born this year will be happy to hear that they get two meals.
April 30, 2008
Ice cream on the cheap tonight
If you want to treat your kids to ice cream, tonight is the night to do it for less. Baskin-Robbins stores are having a "31 Cent Scoop Night," with 2.5 ounce scoops of ice cream available for 31 cents each between 5 and 10 p.m.
The event honors firefighters, and some locations may be collecting donations for firefighter charities. Limit of 10 scoops per person, so don't go too crazy.
(Photo courtesy of Baskin-Robbins)
Dinner Together: Chard Frittata
There may be no greener chef than Alice Waters, the Berkeley, Calif., creator of Chez Panisse restaurant who is often considered the mother of the sustainable food movement. More important to this blog's readers, she also started the Edible Schoolyard project to get more healthful food into school lunchrooms and curricula.
So for our Green Week, I decided to make the family a chock-full-of-chard frittata from Waters' latest cookbook, The Art of Simple Food.
There are at least two "green" things about this easy dinner: Not only does it have a lot of chard, but it uses the whole bunch -- even the tough, colorful stems, which would often be thrown away. Here, they're cooked gently with onions to become a tender, flavorful addition to the dish. And a frittata is an easy way to use up leftover vegetables, pasta, or meat.
I had a bit of a cooking crisis in the middle of making this. ...
(Photo by me)
April 28, 2008
Chocolate cupcakes and peanut butter icing
Here are those cupcakes I promised you to celebrate 400 comments.
I chose these because if you're going to have a treat, in my opinion "Barefoot Contessa" Ina Garten is the chef to see. She does it up right.
I also chose them because Susan K likes chocolate, and because the cupcake plays kind of an interesting role in the current state of parenting. We're constantly either making them for one school event/birthday/party or another; or we're buying them but secretly feeling that perhaps we should have made them from scratch; or we're worrying that our children are consuming altogether too many of them anyway, so we're trying to be strong by not taking them someplace, and taking carrot sticks instead.
Then we are so overcome with this inner wrangling that we simply must have a cupcake for ourselves. As local blogger Sweetney observes: "Mommy Guilt: It's What's For Dinner." Also dessert.
But I digress. ...(Click below for recipes.)
(Photo by me)
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April 25, 2008
Cupcakes are coming!
Thanks to Susan K, our little debate with the Dining at Large readers, and the posts from other commenters yesterday afternoon, we hit our 400th-comment benchmark with some to spare. So look for your virtual treat early next week. You can use the recipe next time you're hit up for a bake-sale contribution.
Best thing about a virtual treat: No calories. That is, until you bake it yourself. ...
April 23, 2008
Dinner Together: Irish Salmon Pie
This week I had my kids choose a recipe together, from one of Emeril Lagasse's books for kid chefs. "Emeril's There's a Chef in My World" -- yes, "Emeril's" is part of the title -- has an international theme.
The children liked this recipe because of its Irish influence (they've got a fair amount of Irish blood). It had not only salmon (which my son likes) but bacon (which my son likes). My daughter just liked the idea of an Irish-themed dish, and probably the concept of pie for dinner. ...(Read on for the recipe.)
(Photo by me)
April 16, 2008
How do you save money on food?
Next Wednesday, the Taste section will have a story on the rising price of food, with tips from experts and regular folks about how to keep eating well when everything's getting more expensive. To add to the story, we're looking for tips from readers about how they save money on meals.
I know this blog's readership is extra-savvy about such matters, so I'd love for you to participate. If you'd like your comments published, please send an email to food@baltsun.com, and we'll put a selection on our website with the story next week. You can also talk about it in the comments section below.
(Photo of John Garcia, of JJ&F Market, as he organizes vegetables on display at a grocery store in Palo Alto, Calif., by Associated Press photographer Paul Sakuma)
Nugget's lunch
While I've been writing about Dinner Together, faithful commenter Annelies has started a new blog about the lunches she sends to preschool with her son, whom she calls Nugget (on the blog, anyway). She packs his fare in very cute bento boxes. Annelies has an added challenge in preparing tasty, healthful lunches: Nugget has food allergies, which will make her blog particularly useful to many of you.
There are other dishes besides lunch. I'm going to try the Xetzels she made as a school snack sometime.
How do you deal with lunch and food allergies?
Dinner Together: Barbell Burgers
Thought I'd give sneaking in some good stuff another try.
Though she generally passes up meat for moral reasons, my daughter loves hamburgers and occasionally eats them. This recipe from the latest cookbook by Missy Chase Lapine, the "Sneaky Chef," slips in spinach, blueberries and oat bran.
This cookbook is designed to help you fool your man into eating healthfully, which isn't an issue in my house. (That explains the "barbell" title.) But this recipe worked on the kids. These tasted like regular homemade hamburgers, though the texture was much softer (I'm not actually sure it would fool a grown-up guy.)
(Photo by me)
(Read on for the recipe...)
April 10, 2008
Picky eating may be genetic
Couldn't resist linking to this WebMD account of a new study that finds picky eating may be more related to genetics than to the food you're offering, especially for boys. The study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia followed the eating habits of nearly 800 pairs of twins and found that identical twins tended to share the same preferences for food and drink, according to the article.
Interestingly, girls seemed more influenced by "environmental" factors, such as what snacks are available in the home.
For parents of very selective eaters (even though I've used the term picky eater before, I don't really like it), does this news bring any comfort? Or are you more confused than ever about how to help your child eat well?
April 9, 2008
Dinner Together: Tiny tacos
All I can say is, hooray for Mollie Katzen.
She's the vegetable-loving author of the string of wildly successful Moosewood Restaurant cookbooks. Several years ago, she published a cookbook for preschoolers and up called Salad People, which I picked up recently at the library to inspire my picky 7-year-old daughter to try new foods.
Several of you have suggested getting the kids involved in choosing our meals, and I think it's a great idea. I've had Leah help me at the market before, but this time I gave her the book and told her to pick something for dinner.
Even though Leah really has a hard time trying new things, Katzen's whimsical drawings and kid-friendly step-by-step directions captivated her. She not only chose this recipe for tiny tacos, but wanted to make it herself.
The original recipe calls for packaged tortilla chips, but we made our own. It's very easy -- not to mention cheaper and more healthful. ...
(Read on for the recipe. ...)
(Photo by me)
April 2, 2008
Dinner Together: Cheese Tortellini with Prosciutto and Rosemary
Thought we might have more success if we went back to pasta, but tried it in a fun shape -- little pillows of tortellini.
You'll see lots of variations on this recipe around; I've made this one less creamy than some traditional versions, but it still has a tasty sauce that benefits from some reserved pasta-cooking water.
It comes together quickly with frozen tortellini and frozen vegetables; I use peas because they're the only vegetable my daughter will taste at the moment, but you could easily substitute another vegetable or two. Asparagus would be a nice seasonal touch; just blanch it separately and toss with pasta at the end.
My son loved this dish, especially the savory prosciutto...
(Photo by me)
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March 28, 2008
Food allergy conference in Baltimore tomorrow
The Food Allergy & Anaphalaxis Network is having a conference tomorrow in Baltimore called "Food Allergies: Living and Learning." The conference is open to the public (see prices below), and will include information on helping a child manage food allergies and reactions and on how and when to use epinephrine. There's a special lunch session for teens to discuss handling allergies while dating, traveling and dining out, with a concurrent (but separate) session for parents of teens.
The conference starts at 8:30 a.m. at the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel, 300 S. Charles St. Online registration is closed, but you can call the FAAN office at 800-929-4040 to register, or do so the morning of the conference.
The registration costs are: Member: $85; Guest: $75; Teen: $65; Nonmember/walk-in: $105; Nonmember Guest: $95; Nonmember Teen: $75.
March 26, 2008
Dinner Together: Chinese At Home
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.
Why not make Chinese at home for a little less money?
Of course, it wouldn't be as authentic. But it would probably be healthier, and it would be a chance to introduce some different foods to our more, um, discriminating eaters.
We figured the egg in the fried rice would be a familiar sight for our kids, who both like scrambled eggs. And they'd get fresh vegetables without a lot of hidden fat and sodium....
(Click the link below to get the recipes)
(Photo by me)
March 24, 2008
Time to bake: Every family needs a great brownie
Some parents cook and bake all the time. Some do it when they have time. And some avoid it at all costs.
But every family needs a great brownie recipe.
It's the bake sale standby, the rainy day pick-me-up, the just-because quick project. Brownies are low-maintenance and high-satisfaction.
As a treat for your support of this blog, I thought I'd share the recipe for my latest favorite version. This one comes from The 150 Best American Recipes, a cookbook that has never failed me. These brownies are fudgy and chewy, and best of all, they're as satisfying for adults as they are for kids ... (read on for the recipe)
(Photo by me)
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March 19, 2008
Dinner Together: Vegetable Macaroni and Cheese
My husband had a theory about why our last couple of Dinner Together recipes weren't very successful with the kids (although we liked them). "These aren't foods they recognize," he said. (I thought last week's pizzas were a pretty familiar concept, but he said the portobello "crust" took things too far.)
So I promptly put him in charge of finding this week's recipe. And I learned that when you have dinner together, sometimes it's the parents who have to try a not-so-favorite thing to take one for the team.
John chose a homemade vegetable macaroni and cheese from familyfun.com. I'm not a huge fan of macaroni and cheese, but it's definitely a familiar food to my young ones. Only it's usually a little more orange in color, and not from the carrots you see here....
(Photo by me)
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March 12, 2008
Dinner Together: Portobello pizzas
The kids like pizza. They like hamburgers (at least the taste, if not how they're made). Portobello mushrooms taste a bit like hamburgers, are high in niacin and potassium, and can stand in for pizza crust. Portobello pizzas will make us all happy, right?
Well, maybe they'll make your family happy.
Even though we tucked the spinach for their pizzas under a bigger mound of cheese than you see in this picture, the children were less than enthused. And they didn't touch the broccoli or the sweet potato.
I was sorry that they missed out on the easy homemade pizza sauce...
March 10, 2008
Calling parents of vegan and vegetarian girls
Susan Reimer is writing a piece for our Taste section about the increasing interest in veganism and vegetarianism on the part of teenage girls and young women, spurred in part by books like Skinny Bitch in the Kitch. She'd like to talk to a local parent or two of a vegan or vegetarian girl who's still living at home about how you integrate your daughter's diet with the family's, and about how you approach any health concerns you might have about the way your perhaps-still-growing girl eats.
If you'd be willing to talk to Susan, please email her at susan.reimer@baltsun.com.