Polenta, served with some pesto-grilled chicken thighs for the carnivores…
This meatless recipe from Serious Eats was tasty and not too difficult (although it does require some advance prep and a few hours of chilling time,) but the wine flavor (I used a light Pinot Noir) in the greens layer was a little too strong for the little people that live at my house. I like this preparation of polenta, but may experiment with sandwiching different things in the polenta layers, like possibly a sun-dried tomato concoction or sauteed mushrooms or maybe spinach (or another green without the wine.)
The greens looked gorgeous as they were cooking (beautiful color!)
Onions and garlic with beet and chard stems.
Adding the greens.
The greens, pretty much fully cooked. I continued to cook them until the liquid was pretty much dry, because I wanted to be sure the alcohol cooked out and because I didn’t want the greens layer to be soupy and risk it separating when I cut the polenta.
Layering the polenta, greens and cheese. I used smoked mozzarella, because I had no idea what Caciocavallo was and didn’t want to go on a search.
Polenta, after being chilled and cut (before baking.) They are not kidding when they say that this recipe feeds a crowd. This dish would be GREAT for a buffet or potluck or for a light first course (instead of pasta) before the main/meat course.
Does bacon count?
As much as I want to support Girl in being a vegetarian, I am really struggling to come up with recipes that will suit all four of us these days. I won’t give up, but it’s definitely testing my creativity. If only bacon didn’t count. Is there such a thing as vegetarian, except bacon? Apparently, I’m not the only person to ponder this idea…
If there were such a thing (and Girl would agree to it), I could make this and this and this.
Small side note: for some reason, the search field on this blog is intermittently (and inexplicably) not working. We are attempting to get his problem rectified, but in the meantime, if you are trying to locate a recipe and are not able to find it (in the categories at right or by searching,) then try googling for “feed your kids” and the name of whatever recipe you’re looking for, for example, “feed your kids” and brussel sprouts. Like this. There I am…the fourth link down.
Grilled Apple and Chicken Salad with Cider-Maple Vinaigrette
this salad on Serious Eats, it looked like something that everyone in my family would eat, with a few minor adaptations.
First off, Vegetarian Girl left the chicken off her salad, of course, but I figured that with the cheese and the nuts, she would still be getting plenty of protein.
Secondly, I used toasted pecans instead of the almonds, because we like them better and it’s what I had in the house.
Thirdly, I omitted the raisins, because most of my family believes, like Lilly, that raisins taste like dirt.
This salad was QUITE yummy. It never would have occurred to me to grill apples, but they were tasty and we all liked them. I know that safflower oil might be difficult for some people to find, but it’s worth the effort, because it is MUCH lighter than other oils and keeps the dressing from being too greasy on the delicate ingredients.
Glazed Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts
It seems like doughnuts are everywhere lately, maybe because lots of the food blogosphere is involved in testing recipes for Lara Ferroni’s new doughnut book (coming next Fall.) It seems like every food blog that I read is talking about doughnuts, posting recipes for doughnuts, etc So, I’ve had them on the brain lately, as well. It was kismet when I saw
this recipe on Serious Eats and just happened to have a bit of leftover buttermilk in the fridge. These require quite a bit of advance prep (the dough must be made, then chilled, then cut out, then chilled again, then brought to room temperature and then fried), but they were quite yummy and not overpoweringly sweet. The only criticism that I have was that the glaze was a little…meh. Just nothing special about it, just sweet. Next time I might use buttermilk to make the glaze instead of water (or maybe just regular milk or cream) and would add a pinch of cinnamon and maybe a drop or two of vanilla, just to give the glaze some character of its own.
Cut out dough, waiting to be fried.
Completed doughnuts (well, there might be just one or two missing…)
Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie
Girl HATES peanut butter. She had an allergic reaction to it as a toddler and was told not to eat it for so many years that, even when she outgrew the allergy (it’s rare to outgrow an allergy, folks, so don’t give your kid something that they’ve been previously allergic to without a doctor’s supervision; we tried it in the allergist’s office, Epi-Pen at the ready…six years after the initial reaction,) she was still a bit leery of it and never developed a taste for it. It’s only in the past few years that she’ll tolerate other nuts, but she does now LOVE pecans and will eat almond or cashew butter. Peanuts, however, are still a powerful “NO.” At least she no longer has to be segregated at the “peanut-free” lunch table, which is a very good thing.
Anyway…Girl was away at a sleepover last night, so I decided to make this pie for Hubby and Boy, who are MAJOR peanut butter lovers. I made it a few weeks ago to take to a friend who has been sick, and it looked wonderful during assembly, but I didn’t get to taste any of it, so I figured a do-over was overdue. (Ha! I crack myself up!)
The pie is fabulous (recipe here) and rich. The vanilla pudding layer is VERY flavorful and the bananas stay surprisingly fresh after a short orange juice bath. The peanut butter layer is just a little salty and tangy. Mmmm…very nice.
The pie isn’t difficult or terribly time-consuming to make, but it has to be made in stages and requires chilling time in between the steps, so it definitely can’t be made at the last minute. In fact, if you’re planning to make it tonight, you should start the prep by at least noon, because it requires a total of 4 hours of chilling (plus some cooking/baking time.) If you don’t start early, you’ll be eating dessert at 11 pm.
Worth the effort, though. Hubby liked enough that he went back for seconds before bedtime. Enjoy!
Hint: 6 ounces of Nilla Wafers = 46 wafers, for anyone that might not have a kitchen scale.
Pioneer Woman’s Simple Scrumptious Caesar Salad
Wow. Really, just wow. This salad (recipe here) is awesome. Make it NOW; just trust me.
I added some grape tomatoes, because I love them, even though they’re not “officially” a part of Caesar salad. Seriously, this salad is just SO good. I’m craving it right now, just looking at the photo.
Barefoot Contessa Pecan Squares
I saw Ina making these treats (recipe here) on a recent episode of her show and was very intrigued. They looked like little pecan pie squares, in a portable form. They were easy to make and were VERY tasty. You must have a very large pan to bake them in (I used a half-sheet pan,) and they make a TON of squares. I found them to be so rich that Ina’s suggested serving size was too large, so I cut them smaller and was able to get over twice as many servings out of the pan. I gave some away to friends who were taking Girl to their lakehouse over Labor Day weekend (a snack for the road trip,) and some to my parents. Hubby, Boy and I ate some over a period of a couple of days and I still have quite a few of them in my freezer. So, I guess I wouldn’t plan on making these again unless it was for an “occasion,” because the recipe makes SO many that one family wouldn’t be able to eat them all (at least not without hurting themselves!) before they got totally sick of them. They are delicious, though, and would be the perfect thing to bring to a family reunion, potluck, bake sale, etc…where you know that you’ll need to feed a crowd.
Instead of dipping one side of each square in chocolate, I just lightly drizzled melted chocolate over the whole pan. Mmmmm…rave reviews from all that we shared them with.
Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
I was looking for something to make for the kids to eat after school to give them energy before heading off to after-school extra-curricular activities (it seems like the kids are always STARVING when I pick them up from school!) These (recipe here) cookies from Cooking Light magazine were easy, yummy, healthy, and made with things that everyone already has on hand.
Alton Brown’s Vanilla-Poached Pears
These (recipe here) were so delicious and easy. The really wonderful thing is that they can be prepared in advance, so they’d be wonderful for a dinner party. I served them with ice cream, because I wasn’t sure how my crew would take to them, on their own. They definitely liked them with the ice cream, but we had some of the leftovers, plain, for breakfast the next morning and they were also, quite well-received. Instead of serving the entire pear, you could also cut the pear into slices for a different presentation, with smaller portion sizes.
Oatmeal-Buttermilk Pancakes
This recipe is another that I originally read about in a magazine recipe-request column. It appeared in Bon Appetit’s RSVP column MANY years ago. I cut the recipe out because it was from a restaurant (Tres Joli Bakery Cafe) in Oakton, VA, which was just a few miles from where we lived at the time. Unfortunately, Tres Joli closed (or has evolved into a catering-only business, I believe) before I got a chance to eat there, but I finally got around to trying these pancakes recently and they were delicious. Light and crusty and lacy and hearty… One thing that I dislike about pancakes for breakfast is that they fill you up and weigh you down for a little while, but are made of such simple (quickly processed by your body) carbohydrates that they really don’t stick you very long. If you have blood-sugar issues, as I do (I’m borderline hypoglycemic,) then you will appreciate the oatmeal in these pancakes, because they’ll give you a little more complex carbs so you won’t have that “crash and burn” feeling after a few hours.