Here are a few of the dishes you might find in my Someday File: An authentic lasagna from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy (Someday I’ll have time to make pasta from scratch); That Post-it tagged lobster pot pie recipe from one of the Barefoot Contessa books (Someday I’ll be able to justify spending $25/pound on shellfish that gets lost in an ocean of butter and cream); A spicy chicken dish from the New York Times that calls for tamarind paste (Three Somedays here: Someday my kids might be able to handle the hot stuff, Someday I’ll have time to hunt down tamarind paste, and Someday someone will tell me if tamarind paste is the same thing as tamarind concentrate.) My Someday file is not buried on the MacBook or on my epi App. It’s not in a box on a shelf lined up in my kitchen’s Command Central. The file is in my brain and, miraculously, includes an interactive slide show function that has run on a loop ever since 2002, when Phoebe was born. When we were in the middle of The Great Pizza-Pasta-Nugget Rut of 2005, I’d close my eyes and picture the full-page color photos of dahl and turmeric and chilies in Maya Kaimal’s Savoring the Spice Coast of (more…)

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Last Thursday, I started hating myself a full hour before my morning coffee. If you must know, I started hating myself at precisely 8:04, which was the first time I yelled at my kids who were in danger of missing the 8:09 bus. Yelling Where are your shoes and yelling Where are your gloves and Did you brush your teeth and — haven’t we gone through this, like, 720* times already? Wouldn’t you think that by now a second and third grader would pick up on the catch-the-bus urgency vibe? Wouldn’t you think that by now I’d have figured out a way to make them move a little faster without turning into Miss Hannigan? Sadly, I haven’t, and I gotta say, starting the day with screaming followed by self-loathing is no way to start a day at all. And mediating a tearful fight between siblings who both laid claim to a light-up sticker album — triggering more screaming as well as the thought “How am I going to deal with this when they are 13” — is no way to spend an afternoon either.

No, Thursday wasn’t my best day ever.

The good news was: we had planned for “Chicken Pizza” (aka Chicken Parm) that night for dinner. The dredging thing can be kind of a drag on a weeknight, but I didn’t care. Because it’s everybody’s favorite and sometimes you just need a meal you can count on not to incite a riot.

*4 years of school x 180 school days

Chicken Pizza (more…)

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On any given winter day in my house, if I ask the innocent question cooks across the earth are asking — i.e. What should we have for dinner tonight? — I can pretty much always count on Andy suggesting some kind of healthy, simple seafood; I would bet the house on Abby requesting – please, Mom, puh-leeeeeeze, I’ll kiss you 99 trillion zillion times – Trader Joe’s frozen pork or chicken shumai (infinitely more exciting for her than the homemade kind); and for Phoebe to suggest chili. It doesn’t matter what kind of chili — vegetarian, beef, white, chicken, spicy, mild — she has had a love affair with the dish ever since we gave her a bowl of the turkey version (plus toppings, of course!) when she was about four or five. And so this past Saturday morning — after a long week off from school, a week where she lounged around patiently reading all the Babysitter’s Club books she got for her birthday, a week where her sister had Taylor’s Swift’s “Umbrella” on repeat for all our waking hours, a week where her mom promised her a trip to the ice rink every day staring Monday but somehow failed to make it happen — when I asked the dinner question, I knew exactly what the answer had to be. (more…)

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About fifteen years ago, Aunt Patty scribbled her recipe for chicken wings on an index card and clutched it into my hands with the urgent instruction Don’t Lose This. The way she said it and the way those wings tasted, I figured it was some secret family recipe that went back generations. I didn’t lose the recipe, but I never made the wings either. Somehow I had a sense that this was one of those things that wouldn’t have tasted the same had anyone else attempted to cook them for me. The title of the recipe was “La Brea Tar Pit Chicken Wings” so named because they were dark, sticky, and gooey and I had pretty much forgotten about them until a few weeks ago when I was flipping through my Gourmet Cookbook in search of a dinner we could eat with our fingers in front of the Super Bowl. Turns out Patty’s wings hadn’t quite earned the secret family recipe status I had conferred upon them all these years, because they were! Right there on page 55! (And submitted by some imposter in Boston named Metta Miller! What??) I felt a little better when I finally read the recipe and saw how easy it was, how perfect it was for the kind of meal I craved that night: minimal hands-on time, and something that worked equally well with chocolate milk and Guinness. (more…)

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A few months ago, I got this email from reader Rebecca:

“I have no idea what to give to new parents or the bereaved–you know, those occasions in life when a casserole is all but mandatory.  I want so badly to show that I care by offering simple nourishment, and all I have in my repertoire are a tired lasagna or straight-out-of-the-1950′s tuna-noodle casserole, which I’m almost embarrassed to offer to friends with even a moderately discriminating palate.  Do you have any recipes that can be thrown in the oven for an easy dinner during life’s transitions, but are fresh, modern and tasty enough that I can feel proud to offer them to friends?”

I get this question all the time, and it’s taken me this long to respond because I have been stuck in the lasagna rut, too. Until the other night, when I was flipping through my second favorite quick meal cookbook*, Great Food Fast. I was looking for something to bring over to my friend and mother-of-three Teresa, who is recovering from back surgery, and came upon a recipe for Tortilla Pie. By merely plating it in a beautiful pie dish (and not my grease-streaked Pyrex baking dish) it was transformed into a modern, tasty upgrade from the more tired Mexican lasagna. I made it for my own family last weekend (the “A” is for “Abby,” since her wedge of the pie was not to include black beans. Another option: “A for Are you kidding me?”) and man oh man was it spirit-lifting, aka delicious.

Another thought: Time for Dinner owners might want to try the “personal pan” lasagna recipes on page 166 in this situation. (Easy to customize for kids, since they are crafted out of ravioli, so can be made with half cheese, half…pumpkin?)

Please comment below or on the DALS facebook page if you have a go-to Show-You-Care Casserole. I think we can all use these.

*You didn’t really just wonder which one was my first favorite, did you? (more…)

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How did we celebrate our re-entry into the meat world? With a classic roast chicken dinner. (Oh, and there also might have been a bite or two or five of roasted pork at Roberta’s the other day.) We ate the chicken last night, which was Thursday, which is also known in our house as “Big Fat Nothing Day.” No activities, no mom going to work. No scheduled plans. So I could take my time in the kitchen, and in the end, our dinner felt more like one we’d eat on Sunday. Which was a really nice way to head into the long weekend. (more…)

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I got the nicest email from a reader this week. His name is Marc and he just discovered DALS. This is what he wrote:

So much happens at the Dinner Table. I came out to my parents at the dinner table, my brother and his girlfriend told our family they were engaged at our dinner table. Normally I eat in front of the TV, but last night I decided to have a proper dinner at the table with my boyfriend, which I am going to try to do at least twice a week, because your blog inspired me. So thank you for that.

My favorite thing about this note…well I have a lot of favorite things about this note. I love that he capitalized Dinner Table. Like it’s a proper noun, a destination, an official movement. And obviously, I love how he remembers the Dinner Table as the place where the big moments happen. But mostly, I love that he got inspired, figured out a realistic game plan (twice a week!) and then got started on that game plan immediately. I don’t have any idea what he cooked that night, but since it was a Monday, my guess is that it wasn’t Osso Bucco or ricotta gnocchi with a quail egg cooked sous vide. It doesn’t have to be gourmet to be special. And it doesn’t have to be every night to be family dinner.

Want to launch the ritual tonight? This is a good recipe to start with.

Roast Chicken with Baby Brussels Sprouts

Preheat oven to 450°F. Toss baby brussels sprouts in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Add to a baking dish. Coat drumsticks with mustard and then coat them in breadcrumbs. Add chicken to another lightly oiled baking dish. Bake both dishes for 25 minutes, turning chicken once and tossing brussels once halfway.

We served it with a salad made from butter lettuce, grape tomatoes, snipped chives, and the buttermilk dressing from our favorite soybean and cherry tomato salad.

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Rachael Ray would call a recipe like this a 30-minute meal. Cooking Light would call it “Superfast.” Gourmet (RIP) would have called it “Gourmet Everyday.” But when I was working on the food pages in magazines, I used to call it a classic Tuesday Night Dinner. Because in my mind, Tuesday is the night when you need the surefire shot of confidence the most. Tuesday is not Monday, when you either have a stash of leftovers to build on from Sunday’s meal or feel pumped up about the idea of dinner since it’s only Day 1 of the 5-day grind. Tuesday is when you need a dinner that is quick-and-dirty, down-home-and-delicious, and if at all possible, universally praised tableside. And then, when you nail Tuesday, the rest of the week is cake.

(more…)

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A few weeks ago my friend Vanessa invited my family to her house for dinner. She and her husband cooked the most delicious meal — not to mention presented a perfect starter plate (prosciutto-wrapped bocconcini and halved fresh figs) that I’ve already stolen and passed off as mine in my own house. Twice. But the real highlight of the evening was watching my kids (and four others) devour her creamy-tomatoey baked chicken before they headed to the basement for a Scooby Doo screening. Because my kids had never eaten it before, I was all ready to give them the usual song-and-dance – It’s like Chicken Parm, but the cheese is in the sauce instead of on top of the chicken! But none was needed. They ate every last bite and I found myself sneaking a spoonful of what remained in the pot when Vanessa was in the other room setting the table for the “grown-up” meal. My favorite thing about the recipe, which of course I made Vanessa email me the next day, was that it reads like a tweet. It is that simple. It requires only six basic ingredients and (after some technique tweaking) only one pot. You’re welcome.

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The first time I made this chicken and broccoli for Abby she bestowed upon me the highest form of praise: Mom, how’d you get this to taste like the one we order from the Chinese restaurant? Now, granted, this is no fancy Chinese restaurant. It’s so not fancy, actually, that we’ve never even seen the inside of the place. But their chicken and broccoli dish is one of the first I can remember that Abby ate without any “eat-this-or-you-won’t-get-that” nonsense that dominated our dinner table conversation for so many years. So naturally, I set about trying to replicate it — minus whatever mystery ingredients made the leftovers coagulate in the takeout container the next day. I found success by riffing on a Cashew Chicken recipe in the fantastic Great Food Fast cookbook that Everyday Food published a few years ago. What struck me about this version was the hoisin — I knew Abby was a sucker for the sweet and spicy Chinese barbecue sauce and I had a jar of it in the fridge just begging to be used. You can find hoisin in the Asian department of pretty much any supermarket, but I find that most of those are too sweet. If you can swing it, try to pick up a jar at an Asian specialty market.

And by the way, on page 113 of the cookbook, we replicate three more kid-menu VIPs: chicken fingers, salmon teriyaki, and popcorn shrimp.

Restaurant-style Chinese Chicken and Broccoli

In a large skillet set over medium-high heat, brown 3 or 4 chicken breasts (cut into bite-sized pieces, tossed in a little cornstarch if you have time) in a few tablespoons of vegetable oil. After a few minutes, push all the chicken to one side and turn down heat to medium-low. Add 2 cloves garlic (minced) and 1/2 large onion (chopped) and cook about 2 minutes until onions are soft. Mix together with the chicken, then add about 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, turn up the heat, and stir. Add 2 heaping tablespoons hoisin, 1/4 cup water and cook until chicken is heated through. Add steamed broccoli and cashews (my kids like it without cashews) and serve with rice.

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My friend and Time for Dinner co-author Pilar Guzman has a theory about cooking from recipes (as opposed to improvising with what you’ve got in front of you). She calls it the Wax-On/Wax-Off theory. Remember how the Karate Kid had no idea he was developing muscle memory for defensive blocks until Mr. Miyagi took away the car-waxing cloth???  Pilar believes that there is a whole world of capable cooks out there who are still waxing cars…I mean, still relying on recipes even though their highly developed culinary muscles have fully prepared them to start winging it in the kitchen.

That person was me until a few years ago. I remember the recipe that turned it around for me — Chicken with Bacon and Brussels Sprouts. I had eaten some version of the dish in a restaurant and for whatever reason decided that this was the meal that was going to be my Crane Kick. I had probably cooked and edited 4200 skillet meals by that point in my life so I knew the basic technique was…

Brown meat in fat. Remove meat. Add vegetables. Add meat back to pan with some form of liquid. Simmer until meat is cooked through.

So I thought about the ingredients I needed, thought about the technique, then tested myself. The exercise not only yielded the most delicious dinner that even the girls inhaled like wolves, but ignited a little flicker of confidence that I knew would just keep growing. And it has. I think it’s a huge reason why I’ve been able to keep the family dinner thing going. (Is there anything less appealing than bobbing back and forth between a pot and a cookbook during the six-o’clock scramble?) So now, it’s your turn to test yourself. Up there in the picture are all the ingredients you need (chicken, bacon, brussels, onion, wine…forgot to show salt & pepper) to create Chicken with Bacon and Brussels (finished dish pictured below). See how you do…and let me know how it turns out.

Can I tell you how much I love this dinner? Not only is the bacon/ brussels combo genius, but the whole meal takes about a half hour and uses only one pot. (more…)

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OK, Valerie….I mean Readers….Meet Turkey Bolognese. This recipe has been in the rotation in our house for almost two decades. It was the sauce we cooked together in Andy’s first apartment (in 1994, in Brooklyn, when the only restaurant on Smith Street was The Red Rose) and the same one he made when we first came home from the hospital with a new baby — which we then stored in freezer bags alongside bags of expressed breastmilk. It is not only forgiving with measurements, but with schedules, too. It’s workable on a weeknight if you have a 40-45 minute window (about half that is hands-on time) or, if you wake up on a Sunday feeling particularly SuperMommish, you can cook up a batch to freeze and cash in on later in the week. (more…)

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I think our “Grilled Chicken for People Who Hate Grilled Chicken” recipe has been the breakout dish of the season. And not only in your house as so many of you have mentioned — but in mine, too. I’d say we’ve served up some version of it at least once a week since June.

Which troubles me. I’m worried that it might become the Maque Choux of 2010. Maque Choux was this crazy delicious summer stew I found in Gourmet. It’s made with chicken and sausage and sweet corn, and if you haven’t ever made it, you should definitely remedy that matter as soon as possible. (Especially since fresh, sweet corn is disappearing rapidly.) When I met Maque Choux, I fell hard. We spent practically every Saturday night together for six weeks in the summer of 2002. With friends, with family, over candlelight. And then — you know how it goes — we flamed out. I look at Maque Choux’s photo now and feel nothing. Nothing except a deep sense of sadness and loss. We were so close once. What happened?? (more…)

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Lemony Roast Chicken and Beans

I mentioned my dinner-in-the-morning strategy last spring when I asked you to marinate drumsticks in buttermilk before heading off for the day. (Meanwhile, if Abby had her druthers, she would subsist on that buttermilk “fried” chicken and that buttermilk “fried” chicken alone for the rest of her life.) The strange science behind the idea is this: If you take one or two minutes in the morning to chop an onion or wash some salad greens in preparation for your meal that night, it will inexplicably end up saving you 20 minutes of prep time on the other end of the day. (more…)

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Guest Post By Adam Rapoport, editor-in-chief, Bon Appetit, father of Marlon, age 3.

It took hiring a babysitter for me to finally recognize the obvious—that boneless, skinless chicken breasts don’t offer much in the way of flavor. About a year ago, our sitter, Gina, started frying up chicken cutlets made from boneless thighs for our chunky, high-octane son Marlon. I’d get home from work, open the fridge, peel away the aluminum foil and take a nibble, and then another nibble, and then basically do all I could not to devour the entire plate. They were assertively seasoned, rich with flavor and perfectly crispy. If I were still in college, I reckon I could survive on them for an entire semester.

Of course, now that I’m all grown-up and a dad and whatnot, I’ve got to strive for something a bit more sophisticated. Which is where the Milanese comes in. I’ve always loved Veal Milanese, the pounded-thin, bone-in fried cutlet topped with a tangle of baby arugula and a mess of cherry tomatoes. But the fact is, using chicken thighs instead of veal actually packs more punch.

My wife Simone and I make Chicken Milanese  throughout the year (although there’s something particularly appealing about it in the summer, especially when you pair it with a well-chilled bottle of rosé). Besides chicken thighs, are other go-to ingredient is panko, the Japanese breadcrumbs you can now get pretty much anywhere. They’re like tiny little shards that fry up extra crisp and brittle.

And, of course, we always make extra cutlets so Marlon can get his share too. Although, for now at least, he’s saying no to the arugula and tomato and yes to ketchup. (more…)

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Is there anything better than looking at the calendar for the weekend and seeing a big huge block of…absolutely nothing? Somehow, last Sunday was the first weekend day in a little while that wasn’t spent shuttling the girls to and from birthday parties, or catching up on errands, or barreling north on 95, or south on the Taconic home from a road trip. And when we get wind that this kind of day is coming, we seize on it like a pack of wolves on a bunny, identifying it as “Moratorium Saturday” or “Moratorium Sunday” and anticipating it like Christmas. Plans are forbidden No playdates — for the kids or the grown-ups. No road trips. No errands that don’t include food. (Trader Joe’s falls into the Leisure category.) It’s a day to do nothing…or, at least, a day where we commit to nothing…but end up doing a million things anyway. Like making a big-ass Sunday dinner: Classic barbecue chicken, chutney potatoes, corn off the cob (Abby is missing a few choppers) and a Lee Brothers- inspired Cabbage and Lime Slaw with Peanuts. (more…)

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When it comes to family dinner, unanimity of approval is the dream. Over the past few years, we’ve developed a pretty solid rotation of meals – shrimp with feta, pork chops, grilled cheese — that achieve something close to 100% satisfaction around the table, that elicit not a squeak of protest when plate hits table. But that rotation, like the diamond-crusted roster of the New York Yankees, is in constant need of refurbishing and reinvention. Move forward or perish, right? We’re always trying to introduce new things that we can come back to again and again, things that taste a little better that what we ate last night, or are a little more heart healthy, or a little easier to make.

Here’s the problem with introducing something new: most of the time, at least one of the kids won’t touch it.

But that’s okay! We have a theory around our house: If we can achieve 75% happiness with a new meal – that is, if 3 of the 4 people at our table eat the meal without complaining, crying, or vomiting – then that meal is worth making again. And the more we make it, the more likely our li’l holdout will be to try it, and once she tries it, the more likely she will be to come around eventually to, you know, liking it. And in this way, our dinner rotation expands.

Take last Sunday, for example. It was hot and muggy and the back of my neck was getting both dirty and gritty. It felt like a burger night, only we’re trying not to eat as much beef these days and the thought of another dry, workman-like turkey burger, even dressed up with cheese, hurt my soul. So we got some ground chicken – white meat and dark — from the guy with the cooler full of farm-raised stuff at our farmer’s market, and went for something different: tandoori burgers with yogurt sauce, doctored up from an old Martha Stewart recipe. The verdict? 3 out of 4. – Andy

Tandoori Chicken Burgers

1 1/2 pounds ground chicken
4 scallions, chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger
Juice of one lemon
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
Salt and lots of pepper
Whole wheat hamburger buns
1 cucumber, thinly sliced

In large mixing bowl, combine chicken, scallions, ginger, lemon juice, paprika, cumin, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Cover and put in refrigerator for 45 minutes (this lets it all marinate, and also makes it easier to handle). Form into patties and grill (or fry in pan) until cooked through, about 6-7 minutes a side. (Make sure to oil the grill beforehand, as the burgers will stick.) Serve on whole wheat buns, topped with lots of crunchy cucumber slices and yogurt sauce.

For yogurt sauce: Whisk together 1 cup nonfat plain yogurt, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, couple pinches of sugar.

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I have been trying to make this dinner since July 1993. I know that sounds ridiculous — chicken with arugula and tomatoes seems almost too basic to be named something let alone to have been stuck in my brain for that long, especially since my brain has seen stickier days. (I forgot to photocopy the immunization forms for camp, again!…Again!) The thing about this dish is that the first and only time I had ever eaten it happened to have been in Florence on my first and only trip to Italy. I shared it with Andy, who was studying art there for the (very hot) summer, and it was seminal in its simplicity. Not a single extraneous anything — just the highest quality chicken, arugula, and tomatoes and some sort of bright dressing that enhanced instead of distracted from the main event. Even though I was (am) half Italian, it was probably the first time the most fundamental rule of cooking hit me: The best shortcut in the kitchen is to start with ingredients that need no help from the cook.

Of course, I was 22 in 1993 — I had no real use for shortcuts in the kitchen. Fast forward seventeen Julys — it’s 93° at 6:30, I have two hungry kids and no plan for dinner. What I do have is a bag of beautiful, fresh arugula that instantly pulls up my Florentine epiphany. And 20 minutes later, I have dinner.

Warm Chicken and Arugula Salad

In a large skillet over medium-low heat, saute 1/2 medium onion (chopped) and 1 clove garlic (minced) in olive oil about 5 minutes. Turn heat to medium, add 2 boneless chicken breasts (cut into 1-inch pieces as shown) and cook through about 8-10 minutes. Meanwhile, clean one large bunch arugula and the freshest tomatoes (chopped) you can find, and toss with olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, salt and freshly ground pepper. Add chicken to salad and toss allowing arugula to wilt slightly.

Serve warm with freshly grated Parmesan. Deconstruct it for the kids and add a dollop of ketchup if you think it will make it an easier sell. (The Italians may not approve, but this Half-Italian one certainly does.)

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