I have a kid. That means that every recipe I make either comes with a helper (known as the Tiny Kitchen Assistant) or his alter ego, Captain Distracto, who wants me to play baseball or Legos or do anything other than cook as dinnertime approaches.
Most of the meals are kid-friendly and easy enough to make in 30-45 minutes on a weeknight. The rare, time-consuming “weekend recipes” will be noted accordingly. Believe me, if I can make dinner six nights a week, you can, too.
Where do my recipes come from? Many are things that I’ve made for ages. Some are modifications of a single recipe; I link to or reference the original recipe wherever possible. Others are a strange hybrid of recipes that I find online; if I want to find a good stew recipe, for example, I’ll look at half a dozen and pick and choose the elements and techniques that work best for us.
Ready to cook?
Recent Recipes
Steel Cut Oats in the Rice Cooker
Easy Steel Cut Oats Those of us who make steel cut oats know that they take a bit of time and some stovetop management: boil, simmer, stir. And then one day, it dawned on me: the rice cooker can do all of this for me! I’ve already tried to convince you that you need a […] Read More
Grandma Pizza
Homemade Pizza I like to make homemade pizza, but let’s face it: the process of prepping individual pizzas is very labor-intensive, and can be a challenge on a school night. So imagine my interest when I saw the recipe for Grandma Pizza pop up in an email from America’s Test Kitchen. The homemade dough proofs […] Read More
Black Bean Chili with Dark Ale
Meatless Black Bean Chili I based this recipe on the Black Bean Chili with Dark Ale recipe that came from Vegetarian Times magazine. The first time I made it, it happened to be a particularly brutal night of homework battling with the Tiny Kitchen Assistant. I didn’t taste it before serving and… oh, the regret! […] Read More
You Need a Rice Cooker
Why Buy a Rice Cooker? As a kid, I didn’t even know that rice cookers existed. Actually, I don’t think I’d ever even heard of them until I moved to California. (Cut me some slack; I lived a sheltered culinary existence in Campbell’s and Kraft-land.) But in California, everyone has a rice cooker. Everyone. I […] Read More
Split Pea Soup (or What to Do With That Ham Bone)
Ham Bone Split Pea Soup I had bought the massive spiral sliced holiday ham, and as I was carving the leftovers and sealing them into little freezer packs for future meals, I was left with a large ham bone with a surprising amount of meat attached. There was only one thing to be done: split […] Read More
Cooking
Fitness
Health