Happy New Year Everyone. Hope you’re still at your resolutions. (By my clock, we all have another few hours before we abandon them completely.) Me? I grabbed 2015 by the horns – I think by noon on January 1, the tree had been disrobed and curbed; the basement, organized; the contents of Phoebe’s Fibber-McGee-and-Molly closet sorted into three boxes –… Read more »
Search Results for: spinach
The Confidence Question
I always hear people say “If you can read, you can cook” or “As long as you are organized, you can get dinner together.” I believe both of these maxims to a certain point, but the older I get and the more I hear from parents struggling to get dinner on the table every night, the more I feel like… Read more »
Recipe Index
Sides and Starters Curried Carrots with Butter Rosa’s Lentil Salad Bibb Lettuce with Summer Peas Romano Bean and Tomato Salad with Preserved Lemon Potatoes with Mayo, Chives, and Preserved Lemon Guacamole Steamed Little Necks Cheater’s Naan Fennel and Apple Slaw Sauteed Chard with Horseradish Fava Bean Crostini Twice Baked Potatoes Grilled Vegetables with Haloumi Roasted Spring Ramps Asparagus with Chopped… Read more »
Notes from The Dinner Playbook
There was a time, when the girls were two and three, that we dreamed of the day when they’d be 10 and 11, able to sit at the table and place food in their own mouths while filling us in on their days. Now that we’re finally here—avert your eyes, new parents—we realize that our dream was a mirage, that… Read more »
Top 10 Deconstructed Dinners
So I got this nice note from a reader the other day: I have to tell you I did my first real deconstructed meal the other night where I was not catering to the kids. It was so easy, such an epiphany! My husband and I made Chicken Tikka Masala with browned cauliflower and frozen peas in it. Before adding… Read more »
Family-Friendly Apres-Ski Meals
For a lot of people, the phrase “Apres Ski” conjures a certain image — a group of ruddy-faced J. Crew models wearing Uggs and sipping red wine around a rough-hewn coffee table; a cold beer soothing burning muscles in front of a roaring fire; and (for Phoebe) reading a comic book under a blanket in her pajamas. For me, it means… Read more »
America’s Next Top Family Dinner
I just did a run-down of last year’s New Year’s Resolutions and — shocker — I barely batted 200. Still don’t drink enough water, still eat too many “incidental” French Fries off the girls’ plates, haven’t gotten any better at forcing myself to call friends instead of text them, never read The Hobbit, which was going to earn me big fun… Read more »
Where to Eat in NYC: A Family Guide
. It occurred to me a few weeks ago that every time we go on a trip — whether it’s Santa Fe, Austin, San Francisco, Paris — we tell you what we’ve done, where we’ve eaten, what our kids loved the most. And yet, in the four years we’ve been writing this blog, we’ve given you hints and peeks into… Read more »
Thanksgiving Eve 2013
By the time Thanksgiving week rolls around, the game plan, for the most part will be fully mapped out. The menu will have been tweaked and retweaked to reflect just the right amount of tradition (Grandma Jody’s herb-roasted turkey, mashed potatoes) and adventure (maple buttermilk custard pie!); the duties will have been divvied up among aunts and uncles. Anything that… Read more »
A Back-to-School Meal Plan for You
All right people, I’m back. Since last we spoke I have been cranking on work — that vacation I was so wistful for? Those handstands on the beach and dinners on the screened-in porch? They became distant memories as soon as the iphone photos were auto-flowed into their own Apple album. Closed the book on summer vacation! Gone! To quote… Read more »
Summer Short Ribs? Yup.
If we were playing word association (since we just got back from vacay, there has been a lot of this game going on in our house) and we started with say, short ribs…Where would you go from there? “Winter?” “Braise?” “Dutch Oven?” “Anna?” I’ll tell you where I wouldn’t have gone: “Grilling.” Call me naive, but it never would’ve occurred to me to… Read more »
Post-Vacation Guilt Eraser
In our family, few things say vacation like a box of Pop-Tarts. We like the frosted kind with the vaguely cinnamony filling, the ones that make that whispery sound when you break them in half. Within an hour of dumping our luggage, we’re at the supermarket, stocking up on all the staples that sustain a family–milk, pasta, fruit–as well as… Read more »
When in Doubt: Dumplings
I have a confession to make. My heart sank a little when I saw escarole in my CSA box for the second week in a row. I know I’m supposed to be so game for the challenge, so excited to explore what kind of gold I can spin from these Vegetables I’d Never Pick Out Myself. But last week, week #1… Read more »
100 Rules of Dinner
Want to learn how to cook but don’t know where to start? Miss the last 600 posts on Dinner: A Love Story and don’t know how to catch up? Looking for something to read while anxiously awaiting dispatches from the Supreme Court? Look no further. Herewith, a list of one hundred definitively DALSian (which is to say totally unofficial, ridiculously subjective) rules… Read more »
Bro-Down
Two weeks ago, I flew down to Fort Myers, Florida to spend a couple of days with five college friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in a decade, maybe more. It hurts my heart to type this, but it’d been nineteen years since we’d graduated. Nineteen years since we’d borrowed each other’s toothpaste on the way to the bathroom… Read more »
This Week in Deconstructing Dinners
Probably when most people spy a book like Jeanne Kelley’s Salad for Dinner at the bookstore or in their library they pick it up and think Mmmm, this looks nice and healthy. Or: I could afford to shake up the Romaine routine. My first thought? A veritable treasure trove of potentially deconstructable dinners. True, I can look at almost any meal and envision… Read more »
Stromboli!
Our friends Kendra and Mike are what Abby would call “good cookers.” Mike’s a legit restaurant guy, and Kendra is an all-around enthusiast, with excellent taste, who happens to know her way around a kitchen. In other words, they can be trusted. A couple of weeks ago, Kendra poked her head into my office and said, “You know what you… Read more »
I Resolve
By Andy What I resolve to do more of in 2013: Read fiction; pickle new stuff (jalapeno eggs, here I come); eat a proper breakfast – or least one that does not consist what is left of Phoebe’s everything bagel with cream cheese; generally make more of an effort to take a moment and appreciate what I have and not be… Read more »
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and Dinner: The Playbook More
