I have a serious weakness. I can't walk by one in a bookstore without stopping to take a peek inside. What is it? Cookbooks. If the title of a cookbook has the words Healthy Recipes in it, and especially if the words "QUICK" or "EASY" are prominently featured, those are my weakness. But the thing is, although I like to READ cookbooks, I rarely COOK anything in the ones I buy! If a cookbook promises me that it will provide me with recipes that take 30 minutes or less to prepare and are made with non-gourmet ingredients that I think my family will eat, you can bet I will buy it. But it's like in my head, if I bought the cookbook, I've somehow transformed the meals I serve my family into healthier ones. I'm delusional, I know. And now that it's summer, I'm thinking about breakfast and lunch for all three kids every day. I want them to eat something else for breakfast besides cold cereal, and something else for lunch besides ham and cheese sandwiches. So, I started flipping through … [Read more...]
I have a million Healthy Recipes cookbooks. And still don’t know what to make for lunch.
Baked Penne and my husband’s smiling face
Even though Chris is managing a super-stressful project at work, and often has hours more work to do on his computer when he gets home (which is an hour or more commute depending on traffic), he takes care of me and the kids without any sort of complaint. He often stops on the way home for dinner stuff, helps Nathan with homework, gives Kaitlyn a bath and gets her in bed, and did I mention the laundry? Chris designated himself the Chief laundry-doer, and at least twice a week, stays up late after everyone else is in bed to fold baskets of laundry. He sorts it all out by family member and leaves it in neat piles for me to put away in the morning. I might be the stay at home Mom, but it's really him who keeps things running smoothly around here. Which is why it makes me so happy when something I do puts a smile on his face. The other night for dinner, I made the Baked Penne recipe from The Stocked Kitchen, a cookbook/cooking system I picked up at the Home & Housewares Show in … [Read more...]
The Turkey is Brining…
I did this sort of product review for Kikkoman two weeks ago. They sent me a bunch of soy sauce and a gift card towards the purchase of turkey and other groceries for a practice Thanksgiving turkey dinner. I had NO idea you could brine turkey in soy sauce, in fact, I had never even tried to brine a turkey. After getting the Brine recipe, we realized that our biggest obstacle was what the heck to put the turkey IN so it could soak in the brine overnight. I had bought an 8.5 pound turkey breast, so my clever husband looked around the house and came up with this styrofoam cooler that some frozen food samples had come in. The turkey fit perfectly! Chris came up with the great idea to take out the bottom drawer of our fridge and set the cooler right down on the bottom of the fridge. I mixed up half a batch of the brine recipe and it filled the cooler to the top. The next day, Ryan carried the cooler to the sink for me, I drained the brine and then rinsed the turkey with … [Read more...]
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