Image by VirtualErn

My husband was not home for dinner last night and so I wanted to make something quick and easy. Lucie asked for pasta and meatballs, which I did not feel like having, so I settled on pasta and sausage instead.

There is a dish I make fairly regularly that basically consists of Farfalle (bowtie) pasta, chicken sausage, peas and mushrooms. When I went to the store for the sausage, they did not have any mushrooms, so I decided (in the interest of time and convenience) I would leave them out. When I got home, I realized that my last onion had gone bad and my neighbor wasn’t home to lend me one, so I had to ditch that part of the recipe as well. This was turning into a pretty boring pasta dish!

I rummaged through my fridge to see what else I had and found some organic baby carrots. I decided I would add those. What I ended up with was pasta with chicken sausage, peas and carrots…and it was actually pretty tasty. I have to admit though, seeing the peas and carrots mixed together made me feel like I had been transported back to the 1950’s.

Here’s the recipe:

• 1/2 lb. Farfalle pasta
• 3/4 lb. of chicken sausage, cooked and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1/2 bag of frozen peas
• 1 cup of organic baby carrots, cut into small pieces
• 8 oz. of chicken broth*
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Freshly grated parmesan cheese, to taste

Put water on for pasta. While water is beginning to boil, cook the chicken sausage in a little olive oil on the stovetop until cooked through and set aside. Put the carrots in the pan and saute until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, cut sausage into 1/2 inch pieces. Put sausage back into the pan with the carrots and add the chicken broth. Keep the sausage, carrots and broth on simmer while pasta is cooking. When pasta has about 5 minutes left, add the frozen peas to the broth mixture and continue to simmer until pasta is cooked. Drain pasta and add all ingredients together.

Serve in shallow bowls with freshly grated parmesan and black pepper on top.

Very kid-friendly and fast dinner!

*I buy Pacific Natural Foods Organic Free Range Chicken Broth in 8-ounce packages and use one of those when I make a recipe like this.

Image by Another Pint Please

On Sunday night, my husband grilled a T-bone steak we had recently bought on sale at Fairway. I had some broccoli rabe in the fridge that I had bought a couple of days earlier and I decided to get some corn on the cob since my son, Ronan (2.5), seems to love it (and he doesn’t eat much of anything). I also had been craving a leek-tomato quinoa salad that I made a few times in the past, so I added that to the menu as well.

The steak was grilled to about medium-rare with maybe just salt and pepper on it. I boiled the broccoli rabe for about five minutes and then sauteed in some garlic and olive oil for another five minutes or so. Corn on the cob (very good, from Florida) was boiled for ten minutes and then served with butter and salt (is there any other way?). And the quinoa salad was made almost exactly as the recipe calls for minus the scallions (I didn’t have any and didn’t feel like going to get some).

Both kids (ages 5.5 and 2.5) seemed to love the dinner. My daughter, Lucie, mainly ate the meat - she is a huge carnivore. But she did eat about half an ear of corn and maybe a bite each of the broccoli rabe and quinoa salad. Ronan, who normally doesn’t eat much dinner, ate a bunch of quinoa, a whole ear of corn, a few pieces of steak and maybe a bite of broccoli rabe.

I thought the meal was delicious, but mostly I was happy that my kids ate so well.

I practice what I preach with Small Bites - I don’t EVER ask my kids to eat something that they don’t want to eat. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t bother me when they don’t eat. So of course it makes me very happy when they dig in and enjoy good, healthy foods that I’ve cooked for them. Especially when it’s something like quinoa that is very new to them and I don’t make very often.

I’ll call this meal a success!

My good friend Jennifer Perillo at The Mama Chronicles gave me a sample of Home Free cookies to try a while back. Home Free makes a line of allergen-free cookies and cakes so that kids with food allergies won’t feel left out at snack time.

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical, but I thought the cookies were really good. I particularly liked the chocolate chocolate chip ones (but maybe that’s just because I can’t ever seem to get enough chocolate).

Home Free also has a cookbook and a line of allergen-free baking ingredients so that you can make your own treats for birthdays and other celebrations - or just because - without worrying about an allergic reaction.

Boston Mamas is giving away a Home Free organic cookie sampler pack. Visit the giveaway here and enter to win by TOMORROW, June 4, 2009.

Photo by Princessrica

Yesterday morning I asked Lucie, my five-and-a-half year old daughter, what she wanted for dinner. Her reply: “spaghetti with a little sauce on the top and two meatballs on the side.” Okay so, spaghetti and meatballs. I was fine with that since it was chilly and rainy outside and it’s a quick enough meal to make.

I made dinner pretty quickly by using half store-bought and half homemade foods. The spaghetti was Barilla Plus, one of my favorite brands of pasta. The marinara sauce was from one of the many local Italian pork stores in my Brooklyn neighborhood, Esposito’s. The meatballs were homemade by me using about 90% of my mother-in-law’s recipe. And then I made broccoli on the side (steamed with fresh lemon juice and salt on top).

When I served Lucie she said, “that’s not how I wanted it” and she promptly moved one meatball to one side of her plate and the other meatball to the other side. She clearly had a picture in her mind of exactly what she wanted her dinner to look like when I had asked her that morning. So funny to me, but just goes to show you how particular kids can be about their food…even those who are considered ‘great eaters.’

Anyway, Lucie ate both of her meatballs, a bunch of spaghetti and a couple of pieces of broccoli. Ronan, my two-and-a-half year old son refused any meatballs and ate a bunch of spaghetti and a bunch of broccoli. I don’t really like broccoli. I much prefer broccoli rabe, and cook that often. But one day when I made broccoli I noticed that my son ate it up and particularly liked the tiny florets we dubbed ‘baby broccoli.’ Many of you know that my son is not a great eater. Do a search for “Ronan” on this blog and you will find numerous posts over the course of the first three months of feeding him solid foods when he literally would not taste a thing. So now that I know he enjoys eating broccoli, I am resigned to making it once a week or so.

Here is my “recipe” for meatballs. It may not be exact, but that’s the fun of it!:

• About 1.5 lbs. ground beef and pork mixed
• 1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 big handful of fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon of freshly ground fennel seeds (optional)
• Salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix with your hands until well-combined. Form into balls about the size of a golf ball and cook on the stovetop in a little olive oil. Turn the meatballs, browning on approximately three sides before dropping them into your favorite sauce to finish cooking.

I used about half the meatball mixture for last night’s dinner and froze the other half for another time.

For a more exact recipe, I always trust my friend Jennifer Perillo at In Jennie’s Kitchen:

Mama’s Meatballs

A list of some online food-related contests for you to check out…Good luck!

• Mom in the City is giving away $100 worth of Uncle Ben’s products. Click here to enter the contest by May 31, 2009.

• Your Mama Reviews is giving away a Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker. Click here to enter the contest by May 19, 2009.

• Bookie Boo Raves is giving away a bib from DaBib. Click here to enter the contest by May 26, 2009.

• Playground for Parents is giving away three months worth of gourmet cookies from Country Cupboard Cookies. Click here to enter the contest by May 19, 2009.

• Kid Buy Products is giving away a Green Toys tea set. Click here to enter the contest by May 18, 2009.

• Real Simple Saving Methods is giving away a copy of Taste of Home - The Busy Family Cookbook. Click here to enter the contest by May 24, 2009.

• WiseBread.com is giving away JP Monkey reusable grocery bags. Click here to enter the contest by May 19, 2009.

I tell all my clients that a great way to get kids interested in food is to read books that celebrate food.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite food books to share with your child:

Board books:

• Yum Tummy Tickly!
• Let’s Nosh!
• Yum Yum Dim Sum
• Mangia! Mangia!
• First Book of Sushi
• Hola! Jalapeno
• A Little Bit of Soul Food
• Chaat and Sweets
• Jamberry (this book, in particular, is one of my absolute favorites!)

For toddlers:

• Lunch
• Eating the Alphabet (I credit this book with teaching my then-toddler daughter about such things as artichokes, radicchio and ugly fruit!)
• Green Eggs and Ham

For older children:

• The Ugly Vegetables
• Dim Sum for Everyone!
• Bread, Bread, Bread
• Pancakes, Pancakes!
• Growing Vegetable Soup

Leave your added suggestions in the comments!

I’ve posted about my new favorite fish recipe already, but I made different sides with it the other night, so I wanted to give you a run-down of how the kids liked everything.

Wednesday night we had:

• Tilapia cooked my new favorite way
• Sugar snap peas, steamed with a little salt
• Brown rice
• Leftover sweet potato “fries”

Lucie (5 1/2) was feeling a bit sick, so she mostly ate the brown rice with some butter on top and a bunch of the snap peas. No fish, no sweet potatoes. Oddly enough, my very un-picky daughter does not like apple sauce, sweet potatoes or macaroni and cheese.

Ronan (2 1/2), who many of you know almost never eats any dinner, ate a lot of rice, a few snap peas and a bunch of sweet potatoes. I don’t think either kid touched the fish, unfortunately.

The sweet potatoes I made came from an Epicurious recipe that I found ages ago:

Roasted Sweet Potato Slices

They’re pretty good. But I noticed the other day that the recipe says not to peel the potatoes and none of the reviews said that they should be peeled, so I made them this time unpeeled. Not a good idea. They really need to be peeled. So make sure if you do make this recipe you peel the potatoes and cook them a good long time so that they’re nice and crisp.

Image by BrittneyBush

Of course you already knew that. But I often feel like, because of what I do for a living, people think that it’s easy for me to come up with a great dinner every night, or pack an amazing, healthy, thoughtful lunch for my daughter every day. I will tell you right now that it’s not. I stress about this as much as the next person. I may think about it more, precisely because it is what I do for a living, but it doesn’t make it any easier for me.

I often dread coming up with new and creative and healthy meals every single day. I find it very time consuming and definitely challenging. So sometimes I just give up and order takeout, which is what I did last night…

Last night I planned to make spaghetti carbonara, which is a very quick and simple dish to make. But I got home late and the dishes weren’t done and my husband was on a million work calls and the kids wanted endless things, etc. So after boiling a big pot of water for the pasta and noticing that it was already 7pm and the kids were cranky and tired, I dialed our favorite Thai restaurant and ordered in. And I have to tell you, it felt so liberating.

Now we’ll see if I can get that carbonara made tonight.

Image by Carosaurus

My 5 year-old daughter wanted to have a lemonade stand this past weekend. So, we bought a bunch of lemons and got squeezing.

I haven’t made lemonade in a while. I usually just buy Newman’s Own and water it down a bit until it’s just the way I like it. But, I figured if we were going to be charging people for something, it better be homemade.

Here is my recipe for homemade lemonade (feel free to change the amount of sugar, lemons or water depending on your taste):

• 8  lemons
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 5 1/2 cups of ice water
• 2 cups boiling water

Squeeze the juice from the lemons into a bowl, saving the peels. Strain the lemon juice into a pitcher and add sugar and water. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Place the lemon peels into a bowl and add boiling water. Let stand until the water cools. Discard the peels and add the lemon-water into the pitcher and stir well. Refrigerate until well-chilled.

We made two batches of this lemonade before we ran out. We then switched to Newman’s with lots of ice and real lemons thrown in. One batch of that and we’d had enough.

We had a great time, met lots of neighbors, ran into friends, got a little sunburned and Lucie made enough profit to buy herself a little doll.

On Easter Sunday I made butter with my kids and my nieces and nephew. Doesn’t it look great?

It tasted really good and it was fun and incredibly simple to do. I haven’t made butter since I was in elementary school, but the memory of making it has always stayed with me. Now that I realize how easy it is to do, I think I’ll do it more often.

The only problem with the butter we made on Easter is that I could not get any really good, fresh cream where I was on Long Island. I went to a place called McCarrick’s Dairy to buy the cream and, although you’d think with a name like that they’d have some fresh, local cream for sale, all they sold was the ubiquitous Long Island brand, Oak Tree. Oak Tree stated on their milk carton that they get their milk from cows not treated with hormones or antibiotics. Their heavy cream carton did not make the same claim, but since it was my only choice anyway, I decided to believe this was a company-wide policy and so felt a little better about buying the cream.

Anyway, in the end I feel like our homemade butter tasted a little bit like a store-brand butter and I assume this was due to the cream we used. Next time I will make a better effort to get some good-quality cream. The process of making the butter was still the best part though and the kids were really into shaking the jar.

I used one pint of heavy cream and instead of a glass mason jar I used a clear plastic container with a good seal (I was afraid the little kids would drop and break the glass). But otherwise, here is the method we used:

http://crunchychickencooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/handmade-butter.html

We followed the method pretty much exactly and the resulting texture was perfect. Added a little bit of salt at the very end and had a delicious spread for our homemade rolls that the kids were super proud of creating.