Posts By: Jenny

The Other Ketchup

I could start an entirely new website based only on My Pre-Parenting Claims. As in: I will never organize my whole day around my baby’s naptime. As in: I will continue to travel to Europe even when the kids are babies. Or: I will only let my children watch TV on special occasions. Perhaps my favorite: I will dedicate an… Read more »

Salmon if You’re Sick of Salmon

If you’ve been following this blog for a little while, you know by now that salmon was the first fish our kids ate. Which was fine by us — it was healthy, flavorful, and one of the few foods (in general) that we could all eat the exact same way at the dinner table. So we ate a lot of… Read more »

Split Screen Dinners

From the Mail Bag! Reader Robin writes: I don’t know if you get tired of people telling you stories about your site, but I had to share this one with you: I made the Belgian Beef Stew tonight.  As I was finishing it up the girls came in to the kitchen and were grumbling things like,  “GROSS…I AM NOT GOING… Read more »

Please Help

I don’t know how to even start an entry like this. This is Liam, 6, who died on Monday. I never met him. I met his mother, the unstoppable Gretchen Holt Witt, when I worked at Real Simple. She worked at Oxo (she still does) and our paths crossed on a bunch of stories there and a few years later… Read more »

Mega Fries and a Mega Statement

One of my biggest pet peeves about a lot of recipes and cookbooks supposedly geared towards families, is the multiple appearances by this sentence: “And your kids will love it, too!” It is usually tacked on to the end of a recipe intro as though the phrase alone will make the scrumptious looking Crab and Kale Cakes (with Rouille!) magically… Read more »

Dinner: A Love Story, The Book!

But before we get to that news, a little wind-up. About five or six years ago, when Andy and I were still in the toddler trenches — hovering, floor-timing, being awake a full four hours before “starting” our workdays in the office — I asked my coworker Tom, a father of two middle-school aged kids, if I was going to… Read more »

Just Add Salt, Pepper, Lipitor

Phoebe proclaimed last Sunday her best day ever. It began with knocking around some tennis balls, segued into an indoor soccer clinic, then ended with lamb chops for dinner. And other than the moment of punch-in-the-gut sticker shock at the butcher (almost $40 for eight double-cut chops!!), Mom would have to agree. This is about as simple as it gets…. Read more »

Sunday Dinner. On Thursday.

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,… Read more »

Salmon Rice Bowl

Have you guys found the recipe for sushi rice on page 165 of the cookbook yet? And have you found the recipe for the salmon teriyaki in the “restaurant replication” section (p. 112)? I have! And that’s what was for dinner last night — a combo of the two: Rice bowl with Salmon, and crumbled on top: those Trader Joe’s… Read more »

TV Dinner: Risotto Two Ways

I have two fall-back meals that I can always count on when my imagination fails me: There are my tacos (quick shrimp, or shredded pork) and there’s my risotto. Risotto, sadly, has gotten a bad rap because it requires you to hover and be attentive for the entire time you are cooking. (Sound like someone else you know? Who is… Read more »

A New Year’s Challenge. Sort of.

Careful readers may have picked up in yesterday’s post that we have decided to cut back on meat for at least the first two weeks of January in our house. (I say “at least” because secretly I really want to do it for the whole month, but to the girls, that’s like saying to them that they won’t eat a… Read more »

Clean Slate

Dear Andy, In the spirit of the New Year, I, like everyone else, would like to make a few changes in the way I am cooking and eating. I think we are off to a good start — that crunchy Vietnamese salad you made with shrimp on the first day of 2011 rocked! — but before we go any further,… Read more »

Twas the Week Before Christmas…

…and neither you nor your spouse…can even think about getting dinner on the table. Especially if you are the one cooking the Big Dinner in a few short days for a few dozen guests. This easy pasta dish is a good fall-back plan for these kinds of nights, when all you want to do is pour a glass of milk… Read more »

You Can’t Mess This Up. I’ve Tried.

I did everything in my power to screw up this braised pork loin. Not on purpose, of course. But seriously, what was I thinking taking a work call during homework hour, a time when Abby absolutely must know immediately if 348 + 218 is indeed 9,843? And then, since it was approaching 5:00 and I wanted this pork to simmer… Read more »

A 15-Minute Keeper

[Photo updated September 2023] This Greek chicken soup (aka Avgolemono) was the single most popular dinner we ran in Cookie magazine (RIP) when I was working there, most likely because it takes 15 minutes to whip up from start to finish, and yet…I had never actually tried it until last Thursday. At which point Phoebe picked up her bowl and drank… Read more »

Chop-and-Chat Recipes

With all the rather large variables conspiring against family dinner (long hours, long commutes, overscheduled kids) sometimes the best thing you can do to feel in control of the situation is eliminate a bunch of the smaller variables. You know how I feel about getting the milk poured before you start to cook, and about dreaming up strategies to distract… Read more »