Homegrown: Tomatoes

My go-to snack every day for the last week. Yummy. Yummy. Yummy.

The Evolution of Meatballs

I'm not a huge meatball fan, per se, but these ones that Tom prepared to go with his homemade sauce were to die for! Did you know my favorite thing about weekends is having my husband cook for us? He is the best chef in the world! I'm not even exaggerating -- or sucking up so that he continues. He brings imagination and heart into our kitchen.


Meatballs: Equal parts ground turkey and pork, onion, garlic, egg, Panko bread crumbs, basil, Worchester sauce, salt, pepper, seasoning salt.


Sauce: Tomatoes from our garden, garlic, onion, basil, salt, pepper, olive oil.

Berry Banana Pancakes

So I found a box of Maple Grove Farms organic pancake and waffle mix in the pantry, and the littles started cheering! We whisked in some eggs, milk, olive oil, frozen raspberries, fresh blueberries, and sliced bananas. Et voila.


Full disclosure: There were absolutely no vegetables at this meal, which is so rare for us even when we do 'breakfast for dinner'. Plus: I mixed my batter last and sprinkled in an obscene amount of Ghiradelli mini chips when the kids weren't looking. And: I had a tall mug of cocoa with whipped cream, which the kids believed was coffee. Sweet overload!

Mini Pizzas

The week before we leave on a vacation our lunch + dinner menu is guaranteed to get interesting. I don't grocery shop for several days prior to departure, and I am diligent to use up all the fresh ingredients in our fridge, pantry and garden. (Of course when we return there is nothing to eat or drink for the first day.)


These mini pizzas were delicious! And bonus: Buby and Bleu used up the rest of our English muffins, red pepper, green pepper, white onion, olives and grape tomatoes. We totally guessed on temp and time: 350 for 20 minutes.

The Wasabi Incident

One night last week Bleu stated (out of the blue) that she wanted sushi for dinner. I didn't think she'd ever tried sushi -- I don't eat it myself -- but okay. We walked down the street to pick up some California rolls and veggie lo mein. (Note: I don't normally order Chinese for the kids, but this was a worthy food experiment.)


When Buby saw the avocado on Bleu's plate he got super excited. Our children eat avocado with a vengeance! He asked and I said go for it. That's when he unknowingly scooped a huge amount of wasabi into his mouth.


You can imagine his face as it burned like wild fire from his nasal passages to his throat. Poor kid. His reaction was so alarming that Bleu wouldn't even touch the plate after that. I realized what he'd done and explained that the wasabi was right next to the avocado, and that it's not meant for eating straight up in spoonfuls :) It's a condiment. Buby gulped two large glasses of milk and quickly declared, "If I never see sushi again it will be too soon!" I tried to convince him it wasn't the sushi's fault, but my words fell on deaf ears.

Strawberry Muffins

I've made a lot of muffins but never strawberry, and I couldn't find a good recipe online. I called my mom very late last Wednesday in a slight panic because "our girl" wanted strawberry muffins for her school on Friday morning.


My mom said "I'll call you right back" and she did with my Aunt Charlene's sister-in-law's ancient strawberry bread recipe. Apparently this lady was sort of famous for it, but the recipe hadn't been touched in like 35 years. I thanked my mom for saving me -- again -- but before she hung up she warned, "Do not alter this recipe to make it healthier, Jenny. You don't have time for a mess up. Just follow it exactly."


And so I did.


3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 10 oz. pkgs. of frozen strawberries / defrosted
1 1/4 cup oil
1 1/4 cup nuts / optional


Mix all the dry ingredients in a big bowl and make a well in the middle. Then mix in all the wet ingredients and pour into 2 loaf pans... or in my case 28 muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes. When making bread it's closer to an hour, so I just kept checking the muffins with a clean toothpick after 20 minutes.


Also, I figured out why nobody makes strawberry muffins. They are too moist to hold their shape. An hour after cooling {Thursday night} they looked pretty fab. Twelve hours after cooling {Friday afternoon} they started to cave under the pressure. But they still TASTED amazing, and that's what counts no?

Have You Ever?

Bought a coconut, drilled holes for straws, and then cracked it open for snack?

Best Granola You'll Ever Eat

My friend Karin shared her basic granola recipe with me before the holidays, and Bleu and I have been making it ever since. Homemade granola is easy to customize and tastes yummy anytime of day. We are big fans.


Mix in a bowl until all ingredients are covered:


6 cups of oatmeal
1/4 cup olive oil
2T melted butter (you can use more oil instead)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup maple syrup (we use the local syrup we saw bottled this season)
1/4t salt
1t cinnamon
1t vanilla


Spread out onto a baking pan covered with foil and sprayed with cooking oil. Toast at 350 degrees until brown, stirring every few minutes. For me that's about 20 minutes.


Before cooking my friend adds coconut and pecans. I don't like coconut, so I fill a mini pan with plain granola for Ollie and add chopped almonds and flax seed to a bigger pan for the rest of us. After cooking I divide the granola into three air-tight containers, adding dried cranberries to Buby and Bleu's and dark Ghiradelli mini chips to mine.


I like to add the chips while the granola is still warm so it gets all melty. When I'm craving something sweet I grab a spoon and the chocolate-almond totally hits the spot. The kids will eat theirs on top of Stonyfield low-fat plain yogurt for breakfast or by itself for an afternoon treat. Sometimes I add fresh strawberry and banana slices.

Little Black Dress

Saturday afternoon my mom and I snuck out without the littles so that I could try on a few bridesmaid dresses for my brother's wedding in July. Liz is letting us girls pick any black dress we want. Isn't she the best bride ever? Within minutes of entering the shop I spotted an entire "clearance" rack of black size 2 just-above-the-knees. They were all so different and pretty I couldn't decide.

Farmer's Market Find

I went to the farmer's market last week with a petite list in hand: Peanut-almond butter, ciabetta bread, honey, all-natural cheddar spread, a locally made pineapple Popsicle for my girl, and a Maitake mushroom for My Sweets. The fruit isn't ready in these parts, and we're growing all of our own salad greens this year.


I had no idea what a Maitake ~ Japanese for "dancing mushroom" ~ looked like before Friday. Isn't it exquisite? The texture is incredible. It was $9 and tastes just as yummy raw as it does sauteed over a grilled flank steak.

How We Ended Memorial Day

Mixed lettuces out of our garden, Campari tomatoes, fresh mozzarella



Strawberries, fresh cream and blueberries



Striped bass, grilled corn, local grass-fed Santa Fe sausage



First s'mores of 2011



The weekend ended as low key as it started... just us... at home... yummy food... and lots of laughter. And of course a bit of requisite drama courtesy of our girl.

Garden Watchman

Saturday morning he runs outside in his jammies to watch the garden. No way will those pesky rabbits eat his strawberries two years in a row!

House of Pancakes

Here's a peek at my famous {in our house} raspberry-blueberry buckwheat pancakes just prior to flipping. Yum! I do some version of breakfast-for-dinner whenever one of the kiddos needs a serious pick-me-up or if we're in a rush to eat after a long day away from home. During Lent it's becoming a Friday night special.


Because time matters on these evenings, I start with an organic base from Maple Grove Farms of Vermont and then add my own frozen fresh fruit thawed in the microwave. I never drain the fruit after defrosting. This lends such moistness to the pancakes that there's no desire for syrup or other toppings. Plain is perfect. I swear.


The blueberry-raspberry color combo is fantastic, too. My girl rarely gets to eat anything pink or purple, so this special effect makes her giddy. After serving the others on Friday I sprinkled a few mini chocolate morsels into my batter for an extra sweet treat. Don't tell.

Back-to-School Feast, Part II

When My Sweets called Friday afternoon to say he was on the early train, I quick prepared another back-to-school feast. He missed the first one, so I wanted it to be delicious.


I served up flatiron steaks seasoned with extra virgin olive oil and fresh ground pepper, farmer's market corn, garden tomatoes with mozzarella, homemade guacamole, carrots, cucumbers, and the lettuces that we grew from seed. Yum.


I so wish that early train was his everyday train.

Pinchy Grapes

It turns out they share my obsession. Darn!

After Friday's half day I took the kiddos to a local farmer's market for a picnic lunch on the lawn. They devoured my concord grapes.

Baker's Man

My boy loves to bake these blackberry and apricot thumbprints with me. But he runs for cover as soon as I power up the hand mixer.

Cupcake Monday

A week before Easter Buby was eating yogurt at the kitchen counter when he suddenly looked up to the ceiling and announced, "Easter Bunny ~ This year I would like one chocolate cupcake in my basket. Okay? Thank you. Amen." He was dead serious. And then it was right back to the yogurt.


Of course my husband later explained that we don't pray to Easter bunnies, but the effort was so charming I just about lost it. I told Buby I would make him any bunny-shaped cake and cupcakes he wanted for Easter. We chose a dark chocolate recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Honestly, it was a bit more than I had bargained for on a Saturday night {from-scratch everything}, but I did it.


We'd have cake for Easter dessert, a cupcake each on Monday, and then wrap some up for Grandpa J. to take home. Cupcake Monday was a hit.

Loaded Pizza

I love our pizza nights. It's the only night of the week that our increasingly picky Bleu is guaranteed to lick her plate clean. I could throw on any topping and she'd eat it. Both she and Buby {and our dog Jazzy} are huge green bell pepper fans. They eat them whole and raw, like apples.


We buy fresh dough {whole wheat when avail} at the market and simply add:

• Tomato sauce, no salt added
• Shredded mozzarella
• Grape tomatoes, sliced in half
• Green bell pepper, diced
• Red onion, chopped
• Garlic, minced
• Fresh pineapple, cut into chunks
• Turkey ham, cooked and cut into chunks
• Fresh ground pepper

I've also been known to toss on red and yellow peppers, broccoli, sweet onion, and spinach. My Sweets fancies a bit of Parmesan sprinkled over his portion, too.

Thursday's Special

For afternoon snack Buby requested pineapple, green beans and carrots. I'm not sure why carrots, since he only ate two of them. But the rest he licked clean.

i heart

Organic cookie dough from Immaculate Baking Company. Because I can't always do from scratch, and I won't let the kids eat store-bought. I was introduced to the company on a Jet Blue flight, of all places.


Each pack of dough {found in the fridge aisle} makes 24 tiny cookies. My favorite is Chocolate Chunk~ all warm and gooey. Tom's is Oatmeal Raisin. Buby's is Vanilla Sugar. There are many more we have yet to try. I cannot wait to get my hands on the Fudge Brownie and Gingerbread Spice this holiday season. Mmm.