The best thing we eat this summer will take us three minutes to minutes to make. It will involve only five ingredients, a serrated knife, and not a single charcoal briquette. I’m talking about the tomato sandwich. Not the bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwich; not the grilled-cheese-and-tomato sandwich; not the tomato-mozzarella-and-basil sandwich: the tomato sandwich. Period. It is a thing of simple, summery, kid-friendly beauty: After enduring ten depressing months of the color-enhanced Styrofoam junk that passes for tomatoes at the Stop ‘N Shop, it’s like, from out of nowhere, the wind suddenly kicks up and
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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 (pictured, center) Grilled Vegetables with Haloumi Roasted Spring Ramps Asparagus with Chopped Egg and Onion Quinoa Salad with Roast Tomatoes
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I feel any day now that the taco spread (avocados, beans, cheese, chicken, etc) will turn into the “not-again” dinner that chicken was when I was growing up. Whatever dish the fillings go into — quesadillas, mega nachos, taco soup — it’s such a no-brainy strategy for my family since it’s customizable and takes practically no time at all to assemble. Last week, I was pleased to add a new
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If you’re going to have a site devoted to family dinner, you gotta walk the walk, right? So when I asked Jenny where she wanted to eat for her birthday dinner last week, I should have known what the answer would be: home. I huddled with the kids and asked for some help: what should we make? The only requirement was that it be something everybody in the house eats,
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I have no idea how this became the unwritten rule of dinner in our house, but when one of us discovers a new recipe, cooks it for the family, and it’s a success, it is the cook’s responsibility to prepare that dinner from that point forward. Forever. We have probably eaten Chicken Cutlets with Soy-Lime Sauce from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything (page 391) two dozen times since 1998, and
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Well, almost. Both Andy and I directed her (and hovered over her) as she wielded a real knife and stirred chili powder into hot browning turkey meat, but she actually did everything — except open the can of tomatoes. Abby was at a sleepover so we told Phoebe she was allowed to pick her favorite dish and help us make it.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m usually wary of the
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I find it almost impossible to think creatively about ground meat. When it’s in the fridge staring back at my weeknight-at-six-o-clock face (not a pretty sight I can imagine) my brain only goes in two directions: chili or hamburgers. Yaaawwwn. So when my former colleague Victoria Granof developed this recipe for Cookie (look for it in the Family Dinner Cookbook, too), it was huge. It makes good use of kid-friendly five-spice, which every family should have in the spice arsenal and is easily made in under 30 minutes. Click to the jump for the recipe.

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I am ashamed to say that it has never been hard for me to throw away my childrens’ artwork. Not all of it, of course. My general rule is that it must be either a) truly technically astounding or b) depict a family member. Everything else: into the recycling bin. (Poor Abby is still recoveirng from seeing her rattlesnake watercolor being heaved into a truck by a mustachioed sanitation worker.)
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It didn’t take us long to figure out that, when it comes to rolling out a new product at the family table, so much depends upon the marketing campaign. I doubt our kids would have gone within a mile of cauliflower had we not first introduced it to them as “white broccoli.” They wouldn’t have sniffed brussels sprouts had we not sold them relentlessly as “baby lettuces.” Same goes for
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“Now this is the kind of dinner I can get into.” That’s what my husband said when he sat down to the table with four plates that looked exactly the same (a rarity). The menu: California-style turkey burgers and baked potatoes topped with sour cream and caramelized onions. I usually mix in a little barbecue sauce to the ground turkey (dark ground turkey a must) before I roll out the meat
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When I was growing up brussels sprouts were a “punchline” food — like liverwurst and mushrooms, turning up in cartoons and sitcoms as dinner table fare kids classically hated. Things are different now — I literally can’t go a week without eating them and the girls don’t seem to know (or care) about its reputation as grown-up-only food. This recipe is a perfect weeknight dish — it takes only a
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