Last week, when I really wanted cookies, I discovered that we were out of semisweet chocolate chips and brown sugar (although I have since discovered the missing sugar — it was hiding on an unreachable shelf). It could have totally sidelined my plans, but thankfully I have a very wise four-year-old. Will’s reaction? “Mommy, you can just write a new recipe!” So I did.

Using my favorite sugar cookie recipe as a guide, I adjusted the ingredients, making it more lime-y (though the lime is subtle, for sure) and less vanilla-y. The white chocolate is a nice sweet counterpart to the tang of the cookies. These cookies have a delightful crunch to them too, something I loved.

As for the kids? They couldn’t get enough of them.

Also, thank you to everyone who took my survey a few weeks back. Your answers really helped me think about the future of this site. Here’s a few things that I learned:

• Healthy recipes posts are by far the favorite around here.
• You want more recipes … healthy and otherwise.
• The majority of readers could do without interviews — and that’s fine. I can work that content into regular posts if it’s something worth sharing.
• Desserts are appreciated.

Again, thank you. I’m now thinking hard about new recipes and cooking tips. As we enter spring, I will be sharing garden photos like last year (likely on Saturdays … but we’ll see) and I may share my weekly meal plan going forward as I did last Sunday. I hope you all like what you see!

So, onto these cookies … Sure, they aren’t a waist-trimming dessert, but they are tasty. Read the rest of this entry…

When my friend came to visit this weekend, I don’t think she was expecting me to be recipe testing. But it was a rainy, dreary Sunday and that meant that heading to the zoo, the park or anywhere else outdoors was out. So, I whipped out my handy dandy notebook and decided to test a few recipes.

This friend has known me since before I could really cook. In college, I tried. I really did. But it felt like recipes were written in some version of English I had never seen before. My friend was there when I eschewed cans of Spaghetti-O’s to make a fancy-pants pasta lunch that looked strangely like … Spaghetti-O’s (and she appropriately laughed at the time I spent creating from scratch what I already had). She braved my many vegetarian soups … which all tasted strangely similar. And then, when my cooking ambitions were replaced by frequent ventures for take out, she and I supported each other as we dropped all the pounds.

So, this Sunday, she helped me eat my way through three deviled egg recipes that I’ve been working on. One was a fail — it happens. But the other two turned out perfectly. There was supposed to be a fourth but, well, it turns out that there is a such thing as too many eggs …

These are Will’s and my favorite of the bunch. I love the nuanced combination of flavors in these Prosciutto and Arugula Deviled Eggs. They’re a little salty and peppery … but not too much of any flavor. It’s subtle, but still a step up from the ordinary.

These would be a fantastic addition to any Easter spread.

On another note, as part of my work with Tablespoon, I have been helping them develop an awesome feature where you can embed recipes into blogs, making it easy to print. Check it out after the jump – and let me know what you think.

Read the rest of this entry…

Cooking with Kids will not appear this week. But it will be back next Monday!

Read the rest of this entry…

A few of you asked, so here you go!

Monday: Quick Chicken Parmesan (Click here for the printable recipe at Tablespoon) with a big tossed salad and homemade bread

Tuesday: Peanut Soba with Stir-Fried Beef and Broccoli (recipe from the latest issue of Fine Cooking)

Wednesday: Asian Turkey Burgers on Homemade Foccacia Rolls with salad and fries

Thursday: Maple and Soy-Glazed Flank Steak with Silky Cucumbers (recipe from Cooking Light) with rice and green beans

Friday: Chicken Souvlaki on salad with feta, roasted red peppers and kalamata olives

Psst! Looking for Inspiration for Your Menu?

As you may remember, I write for Tablespoon, a food website. You can read my musings and tips thrice weekly on TbspBlog. Recently, I had the opportunity to add my recipes to a collection on the site so I carefully chose several favorites for it. You’ll notice that one of this week’s recipes even made the cut. Check out my collection, Dinner with Sarah’s Cucina Bella.

Alright, folks … Here we are at the end of Week Two of My Spending Diet. How’s it going?

The Plan: No spending from Saturday until the following Saturday. Cash in wallet can only be used in a true emergency.

What Happened: Planning-wise I did much better this week. At no point did I feel deprived or like we were missing something important.We had plenty of food for all our meals and used a good portion of it. If anything, I may have purchased a little too much.

Now, when it comes to my menu, I totally stuck to it all week — but we did switch up the days. That’s okay though. The important thing about a meal plan is to have the right number of dinners planned. So what if Friday’s dinner was served Thursday and Tuesday’s became Fridays?

As of today, we are running low on toilet paper. I also discovered a few baking ingredients that we’ve been out of for apparently awhile. All in all though, that’s small beans … we ate well this week. Read the rest of this entry…

Do you have a pizza stone? I adore mine. It’s perfect for everything from making pizza to baking bread. Mine is well seasoned from lots of use, bearing little black marks like badges of honor where past pizzas and rolls have puffed and baked.

It’s been awhile since I made pizza at home, but this week I really wanted some fresh from my own oven. When I was planning our meals for this week, I specifically made sure to include extra chicken on the menu so that I could reuse the leftovers on a pizza for another night. Smart thinking, no?

So, where’s the pizza photo? Well, I failed to watch the pizza (always watch what you are cooking!) and it got a little … caramelized. It still tasted great. Will even ate the crust – which he never does.

As for the pizza? We topped it with the leftovers from my Roasted Rosemary Chicken recipe, about two slices of crispy, crumbled bacon and lots of mozzarella. It took all of 10 minutes to toss together (and really, most of that time was spent working the dough into a good sized circle). I can’t wait to make the whole thing again (including the chicken!).

So good. Read the rest of this entry…

I love this salad. I love this salad. I love this salad.

Should I say it one more time? I think so.

I love this salad.

All in all, this can be made in about 20 minutes (as long as you get the egg and the asparagus going at the same time), perfect for lunch if you are near a kitchen. Or you can make it ahead and assemble just before eating. Either way, it’s delish and can be eaten warm or cold.

But what about the flavor? The fresh asparagus, roasted until ever so slightly sweet and tender, is fantastic with the creamy egg and salty feta. And the drizzle of Caesar makes the whole thing magical. You could double the dressing if you really want to, but I prefer to keep the dressing light.

So, where do you start? Make the egg.

Read the rest of this entry…

When the temperatures turned warm last week, we couldn’t wait to break out the grill. There is a fantastic flavor that food gets when its cooked over a flame in the wide open air. Mmm. Yes, it’s still March but grilling season has started for us.

Still, when I was developing this recipe, I didn’t intend it to be a grilled dish. On the stovetop, it’s good … it’s easy … it’s fast. But that grilled flavor? Oh, it makes it so much more wonderful.

The flavor of this? Decidedly rosemary. The notes of lemon and garlic play quiet supporting roles to the strong, vibrant main attraction — and that’s a wonderful thing if you love rosemary like we do. We ate this with some lightly flavored pasta and roasted broccoli. In a word: fabulous.

Tomorrow, the leftovers will top our homemade pizza for dinner. Can’t wait.

Are you ready to grill yet?
Read the rest of this entry…

Will spends so much time in the kitchen with me that sometimes it’s hard to decide what to talk about on Mondays. Sweets are always a favorite (for me, you, him …) but I love knowing that he’s learning to cook while we are cooking together is really special. Dishes like this one are things that aren’t just a treat – they represent a life skill. He could feed himself as an adult with this.

I’m on a bit of a spinach kick here. Last week I made a big spinach lasagna when friends visited. This week? Spinach Baked Ziti … and this one is totally a kid-cook-friendly dish. Unlike lasagna, which requires some amount of precision (have you spread that ricotta mixture on noodles lately? It’s tricky!), ziti is more hang by the seat of your pants. Being forgiving is a big plus.

For Will’s part, he really did the majority of the work here. I cooked the pasta and drained it. He mixed, stirred and poured (while I held the bowl, of course).

I took care of the ricotta process, then turned it back to him for the final layer of cheese (mozzarella). Of course, I did the baking … but this was largely Will’s dish, something that he excitedly mentioned over dinner.

Love that.

Read the rest of this entry…

Let me run you through a normal week in my eating life:

• Saturday: Glance through cooking magazines, cookbooks and notebooks to try to decide what to make this week. Ignore all of it and make a rudimentary meal plan … write a grocery list, trying to remember everything I need. Go grocery shopping with the kids and fail to buy everything on the list (thought process: “Eh, we don’t really need that.”) Inevitably forget a key ingredient (or two … or three).
• Sunday: Cook 3-4 recipes, mostly testing new recipes for work. Share with family and friends. Things are off to a good start.
• Monday: Defrost appropriate meat per meal plan. Decide at 5:30 that I am too busy to cook dinner and order a pizza instead.
• Tuesday: Don’t feel like cooking dinner, but force myself too so the meat from Monday doesn’t go bad.
• Wednesday: Stick to the meal plan. Feel good about it.
• Thursday: Forget (ok, maybe it’s a semi-conscious decision) to defrost ingredients for dinner. Make a quick pasta in a pinch after going to the grocery store for the ingredients.
• Friday: Decide that I am so stressed out over food and need a pick me up. Buy a sandwich at the deli and feel better. Remember to defrost everything for dinner but realize that I never bought the ingredient I forgot on Saturday. Hit the grocery store too, and am ultimately seduced by things we don’t need. Make the dinner that was supposed to be eaten on Tuesday. Realize that I skipped two days of planned meals.
• Saturday: Feel awful about the fresh ingredients that I didn’t use during the week. Wonder how I can use them. Some end up going to waste. Start the whole process over.

It’s stressful, since I rarely stick to the plan and often change my mind. But those things are unnecessary. I make last minute menu adjustments because I can … That doesn’t mean I should. So, I decided to do something about it. I decided to go on a Spending Diet. As a result, this week was 100 percent different.

The Plan: No spending from Saturday until the following Saturday. Cash in wallet can only be used in a true emergency.

What Happened: In any given week, I go to the grocery store at least three times. By the third run, I hate it and think how absurd it is that I can’t consolidate all the shopping into one trip. But until now I haven’t really done anything to shop the cycle.

This week I did. After several trips into the city last week for work and a dinner party on Saturday, I felt like any more spending this week would be way too much. I needed a spending break … so I took one. I haven’t stepped foot into any stores all week and although I have done some heavily online window browsing, I haven’t bought anything. This week was a $0 output week.

I described it to a friend in an email how this week was turning out to be awful and wonderful all at once. It really was. My house is always pretty well-stocked with food, so we did have everything we needed on hand. Plus, by following the meal plan I wrote, I actually was never left dreading a decision about dinner. Also, since I knew that the grocery store wasn’t an option, I didn’t forget to defrost anything.

Ultimately, we ended up being a lot more efficient and I got a little more creative. It was really a great experience.

Challenges: The biggest trouble came yesterday when hamburgers were planned for dinner. Originally when I planned for this week, I intended to hit the grocery store for the rolls so they would be fresh, but once the spending diet kicked in I couldn’t. That’s how I ended up making rolls. And you know what? It was totally worth the effort — not only did I save $3, but they really tasted great.

There were other spots of imperfection too. Since I didn’t make the plan to stop spending until after my last grocery shopping trip, we did run out of a few things: peanut butter, bread, milk … but Shawn picked up some milk to supplement. Obviously, I need to work on the planning aspect of things, which I have been. I started a running list of all the things we need and I feel like my shop tomorrow will be way more successful than any other one.

Benefits:

1. We used pretty much everything we bought/purchased for the week. Leftovers became lunches. Pantry items supplemented for convenience items.
2. We used up several perishables (like the sundried tomatoes in the pasta above) that would have otherwise gone to waste after being forgotten.
3. We were able to get a clearer picture of what we really need to buy. It’s easy to overlook needs when you make a bunch of mini trips to the store.
4. The money in my wallet has stayed there. My bank account has grown.
5. I, personally, ate fewer calories. Also, instead of losing hours to trips to the store, we spent more time outside this week (which the good weather clearly helped with).

What’s Next?

Tomorrow is Saturday – the day when I can officially shop again. I plan to take my list and meal plan and pick up all the things we need, get some gas (I am down to about a half tank — which is fine, but this is about curbing mid-week spending) and do any other errands that involve money. On Sunday, I will start week two of my Spending Diet.

I am considering this somewhat of a spending detox. Next week, I will take a look at how things went and decide if I want to continue or allow a little more flexibility.

Have you ever gone on a spending diet? Why? How did it work for you?