Today Is a Good Day for Soup!

 

Homemade soup is a perfect way to start the weekend, especially if you are making a big dinner on Sunday.

Homemade Pizza Saves the Day

 

I used to make pizza for 5 every Saturday night because that’s what everyone wanted.  Then half the family got old enough to drive and preferred to hang out with friends.  So I stopped making it since just 2 of us were eating it.

Flash forward a few years.

Get Your Vitamin D from Stuffed Mushrooms!

 

My friend Ilene was recently researching how to get more Vitamin D from food, and she discovered that mushrooms have quite a bit of it. And if they are left out in a place where they are bathed in sunlight for a day or two, the mushrooms make more vitamin D!

Need an Emergency Meal?

When I used to be away from the kitchen on assignment or working into the dinner hour, I could count on Bart to get food on the table.  It was always the same meal—Spaghetti with Clam Sauce—and it was a choice the whole family liked.

These days I work more from home and thus dinner is not a crisis meal. But it’s still satisfying to serve something guaranteed to be liked.

My emergency meal at the moment

You Can Put Anything in Tortillas

I grew up on sandwiches, mostly tuna but sometimes deviled ham.  My mother must have gotten sick of making them, but every school day morning there was a nicely prepared sandwich on white bread in a brown bag in the fridge.  Occasionally a dried-up carrot or other undesirable item would be there too—my father’s joke contribution.

When a Family Member and You Disagree about Dinner, Here’s a Solution!

I recently discovered that Bart doesn’t like one of my favorite dinner entrees—stuffed portobello mushrooms.  How did I learn this?  When he helped unpack groceries and saw the package of portobello mushrooms I’d just purchased. 

“I don’t want that for dinner,” he announced.  “I know you like those mushrooms but I don’t.”

Baby Bellas: What Are They and How Do I Cook Them?

I was in such a hurry to complete my grocery shopping the other day that I grabbed the first package of mushrooms I saw, not paying attention to what the label said. Only when I was putting them in the vegetable bin did I notice I’d purchased “Baby Bella Sliced Mushrooms.”

Portobello Mushrooms: What Are They and How Do I Cook Them?

Portobello mushrooms, or portobellos, as some cooks call them, look like mushrooms on steroids.  Some of them measure at least six inches in diameter and can weigh more than one-quarter of a pound. 

Portobellos are more expensive than standard mushrooms, but they offer dining opportunities that smaller mushrooms don’t.  They can be stuffed and baked, broiled or grilled and offered as a main dish.  I often serve them in a bun, like I would a hamburger.  If you cut portobellos into 1/2-inch slices and then sauté them in butter or olive oil, they make an excellent side dish.  

Baby Portobello mushrooms, which are about 2 inches across,

Eat Your Greens

These three words – “Eat your greens” – evoke strong memories at our house, especially when our son and daughter are sitting around the dinner table.  While attending elementary school in London, they heard these words constantly at lunchtime.  The dinner ladies, as the female cafeteria staff were called, would not allow children to leave the table until their plates were clean.  Usually that meant choking down some mysterious green sludge.

As parents, we were happy to know our kids were eating balanced meals that we didn’t have to prepare.  Only later did we realize that greens had become the enemy.  These days we often have impromptu skits when cooked spinach, kale, chard, beet greens or mustard greens appear as side dishes.  Luckily leafy salads don’t prompt anyone to chant “Eat your greens,” but our son did buy his sister a dinner lady action figure a few years ago.

How can I overcome this knock on foods that I like to eat?

Secrets of the Radish

Radishes never seemed mysterious.  When I was growing up, they sometimes appeared as a side dish along with some slices of cucumber.  It was like an instant salad, both spicy and colorful.  Once in a while my mother put sliced raw radishes and small chunks of cucumber into a bowl of sour cream.  That would be our lunch when she’d run out of everything else.

When I began cooking, I ignored radishes unless a recipe called for them, which was almost never. 

Mom Money-Saving Tip 84

If you have frozen leftover slices of French bread, and they are dried out when they thaw, don’t toss them in the trash.  Sprinkle them with a small amount of water and set aside for 10 minutes until they soften up.  Then cut them into small pieces.  Add some chopped garlic, sliced scallions, olive oil, salt and black pepper and use the mixture to stuff tomatoes or mushrooms. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the bread starts to crisp.

                                          See all my Money-Saving Tips!

Revisiting Old Favorites

Ground Turkey Stroganoff

My tastes have changed.  I began to realize this when leafing through a collection of old recipes, looking for something different to cook. 

I stumbled on Hamburger Stroganoff, a dish I made regularly when I was first out of college.  When I read the list of ingredients, though, I began having second thoughts.  I don’t eat ground beef any more, and I stopped using canned cream of anything soup years ago.

Ingredients Hiding in Plain Sight

Right now my refrigerator is stuffed with food that doesn’t quite add up to dinner: a slice of mushroom pizza, at least one cup of cottage cheese, a huge pan of rice left over from a business meeting, some mushrooms, 2 bell peppers + the usual block of cheddar cheese and several dozen eggs.

I really should pop out to the store or find something in my freezer, but I want to clear out the fridge shelves first.  What can I make from these ingredients?  Click on the links below for the three recipes.

Dinner While Driving

More often than I would like, Bart and I wind up driving somewhere during the dinner hour.  Getting a proper meal on the table before we leave usually isn’t an option, so I have built up a list of dishes we can take with us and eat on the road.

The criteria are pretty rigid:

Can I Leave This Ingredient Out?

Mushroom, Onion and Pepperoni Pizza

Occasionally an hour before dinnertime I get cooking question calls from family members and friends.  Often it involves a missing ingredient, and the question goes something like this: “I’m in the middle of making pizza dough and just realized the recipe calls for 1/2 cup cornmeal.  Do I need to stop what I’m doing and rush to the store to get some?”

What to Eat on a Dark and Stormy Night

Chicken and Fresh Vegetable Soup

Wanna-be world-famous-author Snoopy said it best in the first line of his never-finished novel: “On a dark and stormy night….”  If only Snoopy or his creator, Charles Schultz, could cook, we might have seen some memorable meals in that comic strip instead of an empty dog dish.

On one recent dark and stormy and cold night in usually sunny California I decided not to go out to the grocery store.

I Can Make That Too: Penne Arrabbiata in Mom’s Kitchen vs. the Restaurant Version

Eatalia Cafe's Penne Arrabbiato

The word “arrabbiata” is Italian for “angry.”  In food terms that’s code for “very spicy” or “as spicy as you can stand it.”  I prefer medium-spicy, with a glass of water standing by just in case.

Mom Cooking Tip 88

If you buy prepackaged mushrooms but don’t plan to use them for a few days, remove them from their boxes and wrap them in paper towels before storing them in the fridge’s vegetable bin.  This will help prevent them from becoming slimy.

See all my Cooking Tips!

Question for Mom

Mushroom Risotto

I like serving risotto for company, but I hate having to spend so much time in the kitchen preparing it once guests have arrived.  Any suggestions? –Julie R.

Traditionally risotto, which is an Italian rice dish, is prepared just before serving.  If it sits around and is then reheated, it can turn into a gelatinous mass.  But there is a trick to avoid that lengthy last-minute time in the kitchen. 

Make most of the risotto in advance.  You can cook it two-thirds of the way through and then stop.  About 10 minutes before you plan to serve, continue preparing it.  The boiling stock you will be adding will prompt the risotto to resume cooking.

Here’s a Mushroom Risotto recipe with the cooking twist. 

Mom Cooking Tip 83

When cooking mushrooms, don’t overload the pan.  Mushrooms give off liquid as they cook, so if you want them to brown they need to be in contact with the bottom of the pan.  If they’re not, they will simply give off liquid and shrink.

See all my Cooking Tips!