Even as a kid, I was not a Kraft mac & cheese girl. The neon orange color and lack of any discernible cheese confused me. Give me a layer of melty, crispy cheese on top of some noodles, and now we’re talking. But even then, I’d probably rather just have the melted cheese, or real pasta with loads of salty pecorino. So I did not rush out to create a healthier version of good old mac & cheese. Until I had kids, that is.
The end of summer is technically right around the corner, yet the farmer’s markets in San Francisco are still bursting with peak summer produce. We seem to get everything late, including summer – we’re just now finally getting the streaks of warm weather, without the daily fog invasion. September is the month we look forward […]
One of the very first finger foods I made for my son were the Quinoa-Beet Pancakes from Kim Boyce’s fabulous alternative-flour baking book, Good to the Grain. He named them Pink Pancakes and they became his most-requested dish. Four years, an additional child and countless batches later, my version has evolved into a slightly cleaner riff on […]
I love fish, and I want my kids to love it. None of this, “Ewww! Fish is stinky” from my babies. So I’ve been serving it to them for dinner from the time they started solids, in kid-friendly preparations. And guess what? They love it! Give Xander, who isn’t even 5 yet, a choice of dumbed-down kids-menu items or grilled salmon on a restaurant menu, and he chooses the salmon. These baked fish fingers were the gateway …
We don’t do cow’s milk in my house. Which is sort of sacrilegious, considering that my grandparents and great-grandparents were dairy farmers, and my mom literally grew up on a dairy farm. But it just doesn’t sit well with my tummy, so I started experimenting with alternate milks years ago. Soy grossed me out, and the early […]
I have hundreds of cookbooks. Literally. I’m sort of addicted. Can’t stop buying new ones. I read them cover to cover, like a novel, before bed usually. I plaster them with sticky notes, tagging recipes, plotting out a meal agenda for the coming week, month, year. I know, total food nerd, right? The funny thing is, I almost never follow a recipe exactly.
After the Vitamix, the kitchen appliance that gets the most use in our house is the waffle maker. I’d resisted buying one for years, dismissing it as a one-trick pony. But then I had kids, and they grew old enough to demand waffles (or really any vehicle for maple syrup), and I caved. And now […]
There is something about broccoli that repels children (and many adults). Maybe it’s the slight stink, or that their first introduction is either raw florets on a crudite platter (when not even ranch dip can make it palatable), or steamed/boiled to a mushy mess (also not good). But when done right, broccoli can be divine! […]
Little boys need snacks. Constantly. Ones that can travel, fit in pudgy little hands and go straight to hungry mouths without requiring adult assistance or refrigeration. They also must be healthy, with nutritionally-dense, whole-food ingredients. Oh, and bonus points for being nut-free…
There was a glut of arugula. Somehow when I signed up for the extra 5lb bag of wild arugula with my Mariquita Farms CSA box, I didn’t understand what exactly 5lbs of arugula looked like. It’s a huge pile of arugula. And it doesn’t last forever, like, say, the 15 lbs of extra carrots I took on a few months ago. So I had to move fast to use it up before the slime set in.
