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… Read more »
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… Read more »
“Oh my gawd. The crust is epic!” That is what Aunt Patty said when she had her first bite of my latest most favorite party trick — otherwise known as the Jim Lahey pizza that you’ve already heard me go on and on and on about. This is Aunt Patty we’re talking here — Aunt Patty of milk-braised pork fame —… Read more »
When I was an editor at Real Simple a few years ago, and then later at Cookie, I won the lottery. The working mom’s lottery. After years of fist-pounding and squeaky-wheeling, I was granted a four-day work week. Not four days in the office, then one working from home. That fifth day — Wednesday, then later Friday — was off…. Read more »
Until fairly recently, I had been an absolute slave to the written recipe, i.e. it was a dealbreaker if the ingredient list called for shallots and all I had was an onion. If Everyday Food told me to serve the sausages with horseradish mustard and I only had grainy, then by God I went out and spent the $4.39 for… Read more »
Here is the very definition of a Nice Problem: A healthy dinner that cooks too quickly, allowing for no time to savor a glass of wine while one prepares it. I’m not kidding. This spicy shrimp (adapted over the years from an old Cooking Light recipe) takes about 10 minutes from start to finish — and closer to five if you… Read more »
I laid down a few rules for myself before I started this website. No using that word that starts with “food” and ends in “i-e.” No going into detail about things like the interplay between quince paste and aged gouda. No fetishizing. No buying into the whole two-week ramp frenzy that takes over farmers markets and f–dies this time of… Read more »
Every morning for pretty much the last ten years, I’ve made a smoothie for breakfast. I first started making them because they seemed like a relatively painless way to get my daily allowance of fruit — fruit which, for whatever reason, I never seemed to get around to eating. But then I started to notice (imagine?) something: they made me… Read more »
Ok, so you haven’t forgotten about this week’s family dinner, have you? Since you are following my every word, you remembered to pick a night this week when everyone was home, right? And since I am following your every word, I know that you want something easy. Like under 20 minutes easy. Here we go. Let me know how you… Read more »
I realize there is a whole segment of the American population that is going to be instantly turned off by the title of this post. Seafood and cheese — that’s just…wrong. But this recipe might just change your mind, as it did for me the first time my friend Melissa made it for us about a decade ago. Melissa,… Read more »
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… Read more »
A couple of years ago, we started a birthday tradition in our house (and it only applies to kids). When it’s your birthday, you get to go to any restaurant you want. There’s only one rule — the restaurant you pick has to be specific to a certain country. For instance, on her sixth birthday, Phoebe chose Sweden. It’s not… Read more »
My old boss Carrie had a formula for the way she approached fashion. It went like this: Gap Clothes, Prada Accessories. It’s still a favorite expression in our house — not because we are regularly buying Italian handbags, but because the philosophy is remarkably applicable to home design (Ikea cabinets, Waterworks hardware), summer plans (town camp, vacation rental with pool and… Read more »
Every night, just after cleaning up dinner and just before the bath-tooth brush-get dressed-hair brush-story time-back tickle-I’m not tired yet-a-palooza, we take a few minutes to let the girls watch a movie. Or, if we’re gonna get all technical about it, it’s not really a movie. We huddle around the computer, turn out the lights, and watch one youtube video… Read more »
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.
This recipe used to be our go-to for entertaining vegetarians — back when vegetarians were, you know, a rare breed. Now, thankfully, the dish has moved into our regular dinner rotation. The hardest part about it is securing the sheep’s milk yogurt — but even that is not really hard because you can swap in with whole milk plain… Read more »
I called Jenny on the way home from work tonight: “I’m running for the 6:23 train, yeah, be home by seven, work was fine, need me to pick anything up? And oh, what do you feel like for dinner.” “I don’t know,” she said. “Let me look–hold on–Girls, turn DOWN the Michael Jackson!” I could hear her open the freezer,… Read more »
The girls flipped when I made these mini chicken pot pies for them a few weeks ago. The lettering was purely by accident — I had leftover scraps of dough, so I rolled the trimmings into a little worm, then scripted initials and words out of it. It just so happened I was making chicken pot pies from leftover roast… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
