WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS DINNERS Sure, your “to do” list may be getting shorter (or maybe it’s not). Either way, this is a week full of activity. Kids are home from school, gifts need to be wrapped, stocking stuffers squared away. I’m linking a few of my favorite “brainless” weeknight dinners without much chopping or prep….
family meals
Weekly Meal Plan: December 10-15
It’s our last week of school before the winter break, thank goodness! Cards need to be mailed, packages wrapped and shipped and the list needs to be checked twice. With a packed schedule this week, I want to make sure our dinners are as easy as possible. We will rely on pantry staples and a…
Weekly Meal Plan: November 19-24
Thanksgiving is here! As much as I tell my cooking class students to be organized and to prep ahead of time, I’m not feeling very together. We are enjoying a brief holiday visit to New York with my two daughters and my sister and her two girls. We are eating, walking, shopping and generally just…
Weeknight Meal Plan: November 12-17
SUNDAY Marcella Hazan’s bolognese is a masterpiece of comfort food. Serve it over riced cauliflower, spaghetti squash or good old-fashioned pasta. Marcella may be rolling in her grave at the suggestion of serving this over anything but good-quality pasta, but do what you will. MONDAY Simple roasted salmon, chermoula, broccoli sautéd with red pepper flakes…
Weeknight Meal Plan: October 29-November 3
Back to the routine! After a quick trip to San Francisco, it feels good to be home again. Halloween isn’t always my favorite holiday (I know, bah humbug). It’s not the candy and sugar (I can swipe a Twix with the best of ’em), it’s keeping track of three costume-clad kids in the dark. As…
Weeknight Meal Plan: October 22-27
It’s the home stretch of my Whole30 experiment, but it will probably be my most challenging week because of travel. Eating at home is really the easiest way to pull this off. I’ve hit my stride of protein-packed breakfasts, easy lunches, and family-friendly dinners. But Tuesday I’m heading to San Francisco to pull off a…
Weeknight Meal Plan: October 15-20
Whole30 Dinners Week 3 Next week is coming at me like a steam roller. Five cooking classes, two photo shoots and a partridge in a pear tree. Good thing I’m doing Whole30 because I sleep like a rock, wake up refreshed and don’t have my usual afternoon energy crash. It’s even given me new found…
Kale and White Bean Minestrone
Clean out your fridge soup. Pantry soup. Everything soup. I wasn’t quite sure what to call this one. It’s always chock full of vegetables, with canned tomatoes and white beans and leafy greens thrown in for color and texture. White bean minestrone seemed like the most accurate title, or maybe I just gave up and…
Tamari-Honey Chicken Drumsticks
Last spring, we were navigating some food issues and intolerances and in need of simple family meals free of gluten, dairy, soy and a whole host of other ingredients. It was a challenge to say the least, but there were a few good new recipes that came out of it. Tamari-honey chicken drumsticks were one…
Arugula, Basil and Avocado Pesto
Pesto, Reinvented We’ve evolved a bit this year. Now that our dinners are centered around a gluten-free and dairy-free main dish, we’ve started changing up some of our favorite recipes so they’ll work for our family. This arugula, basil and avocado pesto is one of the happy outcomes of months of recipe testing and tweaking. Arugula was added to…