Last year, a restaurant dedicated solely to macaroni and cheese opened nearby. Shawn and I had heard about it months in advance and were so excited to try it. Once it opened, we were almost instantly there with the kids. The premise is genius — take a classic comfort food and make it a bunch of different ways. Serve it in skillets. The restaurant has really taken off and is even expanding into a larger space.

Pretty awesome, right?

Well, eating there has made me rethink mac and cheese. I’ve always been of the creamy cheddar mac and cheese persuasion. But it can be so much more — you can change up the cheeses, do more than one, add toppings, mix-ins and drizzles. And you can bake it (or not). There is so much room for adaptation with basic macaroni and cheese.

This one? I was mulling over it after having a pulled pork macaroni and cheese at that mac and cheese place. So when the Wisconsin Cheese Board contacted me about participating in their annual 30 Days 30 Ways with Macaroni and Cheese, I immediately sent this idea over. They loved it as much as I did. Head over there to read my blog post on my mac and cheese philosophy.

Then come back, so you can read a little more about this plate of heaven. It’s okay … I’ll wait.

Now, about this recipe … It’s like a BBQ joint on high. Read the rest of this entry…

If I had to choose just two things to make in the slow cooker ever, it would be brisket and pulled pork. I’m a huge fan of these BBQ favorites and though I don’t have a smoker at home to make authentic versions, slow cooker variations are pretty good themselves. Especially now that I have fallen in love with liquid smoke.

Let me tell you, getting me to use liquid smoke has taken years of psyching myself up. Chalk it up to a bad experience as a child (Note: you should never use a whole bottle at once. Just don’t.) But I am totally in love with it now and not afraid to use it. Liquid smoke adds a lovely smokiness to dishes without the smoker.

Now, about this brisket. It’s got a nice sweet-smokiness to it, courtesy of the whisk-and-go sauce on it. It’s just six ingredients (plus water) whisked together. But since it’s homemade, you can totally control the flavor — if you want it sweeter or more molasses-y, go ahead! Just taste and add until you have the sauce you want. Super simple.

As for the brisket, you just season it with salt all over and then it’s ready for the slow cooker. Put it in, pour on the sauce and cook.

This sweet-smoky beef brisket is great on sandwiches (add a little cheddar!), nachos and wraps. But it’s also fab with BBQ classics like sweet potato fries and macaroni and cheese. Don’t forget the cornbread too.

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My husband says that there are things I don’t do simply because I refuse to — not because I can’t but because I won’t. Grilling used to fall high on that list. For a long while, I hid behind not knowing how to (read: not wanting to know how to) light the thing up.

Not so anymore. Several years ago (um, by several I probably mean closer to 6 years), I sucked it up and started grilling  because, well, I write a food blog. It seemed stupid to continue refusing to grill when it’s an important part of the American cooking experience.

These days I grill a lot and love to.

Recently, I was contacted by Kitchen PLAY who asked if I would be involved in a Progressive Party with the theme “Make This Recipe…Safer,” sponsored by the Ad Council. Of course, I agreed.

This campaign, headed by the USDA, is all about food safety — a topic that’s important for anyone spending time in or out of the kitchen. There’s even a Food Safety website dedicated to these crucial cooking reminders

Basically, the four tenets of safe cooking are clean, separate, cook and chill. What do these things mean?

Clean: Keep your cooking surfaces, utensils and hands clean while cooking by washing them with soap and water. Personally, I am obsessed with keeping my cooking area clean, as well as my hands. I keep soap next to the sink just for this.

Separate: Keep raw meats away from other foods, including using separate cutting boards. I always use different boards for meat, veggies and bread.

Cook: Always be certain to cook meats and seafood to the proper temperature before serving. You can use a food thermometer to ensure that the inner temperature of the food meets minimum safe temperatures.

Chill: Finally, foods should be chilled — both raw, perishable items and cooked foods. Leftovers should be wrapped up and stuck in the fridge shortly after eating to ensure that they remain safe.

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For more than a year, I have barely eaten beef. While I like it, my body isn’t fond of it and I’ve found that avoiding it means that I can live with less bouts of my severe asthma – and less medication. It was a no brainer to eat less of it.

That said, I have never set out to eliminate it from my diet altogether. Everything in moderation, you know? So, with summer nearing (could someone please tell Mother Nature that summer is almost here? I don’t think she got the memo for New England), I plan to enjoy a few burgers this summer. But because I rarely eat beef, I want to make it count when I do.

At the same time, I have made a commitment to losing weight and generally being healthier. It’s kind of a catch-22. I want to be healthy, but I also want to enjoy life … and the food I eat. And while I do really like turkey burgers and chicken burgers, nothing substitutes for a great beef burger when that’s really what you want. So, what’s a girl to do?

Ultimately, I come back to moderation. Cheddar Bacon Burgers are delicious, but when it comes to trying to be healthy, they aren’t the best choice. The cheddar and bacon add so much more unhealthy fat to the beef burger. After struggling with this, I decided to stick with 85% fat ground beef, which produces a juicy, flavorful burger. But I cut out both the cheese and the bacon. (I’ll still have cheese with my turkey burger though!) And for the roll, I am now skipping the bakery rolls and traditional hamburger buns in favor of the thin multigrain rolls that I eat sandwiches on for lunch. They work well and hold up to the burger while having less calories and more fiber.

But a plain burger? Even a juicy, flavorful one enhanced with salt and pepper needs something more, something to make it great. Enter the veggies. My Super Veggie Beef Burger is like a fab salad combined with a juicy, amazing burger. The avocado (yes, it has fat, but it’s healthy fat) adds a creaminess that substitutes well for the missing cheese. Then there is crunchy red pepper, smooth baby spinach, sweet tomato slices and crunchy alfalfa sprouts (well, sort of crunchy). When you take a bite, you get this surge of flavors, wrapped in the dripping juices of the great burger. It’s amazing.

I’m not giving up my occasional beef burger … when I have one, you can bet that it will be piled with fabulous fresh veggies.

How do you like your burger?

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Poor Man's Steak, Veggie and Mozzarella Sandwich

Do you eat your meals together as a family? The kids and I eat dinner together nearly every evening, usually around our kitchen table. Shawn’s not home for dinner often because he has to work late and has a lengthy commute, but when he is, we all eat together as well. I’m dying to get a new kitchen island with adorable stools so that I can prepare and eat our food there when it’s just the kids and I, but I digress. We also eat breakfast as a family — with Shawn too — several times a week. Lunch is a free for all.

Eating together is a time for us to talk about our days — the silly antics of the boys in Will’s kindergarten class and the random tidbits about her classmates that Paige shares. We laugh and are sometimes silly. This past weekend, the kids and I had dinner outside followed by a rule-less game of baseball. It was so much fun.

According to a new study published in the May 2 edition of Pediatrics, our family dinners could be much more than just fun — it could be helping my kids avoid obesity. Kids who eat three or more family meals each week are 12 percent less likely to be overweight than those who don’t eat family meals or seldom do. If they eat five or more meals as a family each week, they are 25 percent less likely to have poor nutrition. If you want to raise healthy kids (I do!) then this is important and good news. Researchers developed the data after analyzing 17 earlier studies and comparing the data.

This all underscores our family’s commitment to eating together. Not only do we make family meals a daily habit (and that extends beyond just dinner), we also have a standing weekly family dinner with our extended family who live nearby. Some weeks (particularly at the holidays and sometimes in summer), that means upwards of 20 family members all together at once (Related: Tomato Bisque for 12).  It’s special, and we love it.

Today seemed like the perfect time to talk more about family meals, including some interesting results from the Sarah’s Cucina Bella Family Meals Survey 2011 that I conducted earlier this year.

Sandwiches like these are so easy, since the ingredients take so little time to prepare. Once they are laid out, all you have to do is build 'em.

First, a little background: Earlier this year, I started an intense research project for a book proposal. The book I am developing is a more in-depth, more useful version of the unpublished one that I wrote years ago. (Recap for newer readers: In 2007, I was contracted to write a cookbook by a very small publisher, handed the manuscript in on schedule and then … nothing. A year and a half later, a short email exchange between my publisher and I ended the contract and the book reverted to me.). The original book was fine, but after much consideration, I realized it was missing something. So, I’ve started afresh, researching and learning more about the eating habits of families. As part of that, I conducted a preliminary survey on family meals to get a better understanding.

There were more than 100 responses to the Family Meals Survey 2011, but I disqualified any incomplete surveys, leaving me with 94 completed surveys. Of those, 85.1% were filled out by mothers. One of the things I was looking to understand was what really matters to parents when it comes to eating family meals. I think that’s a personal thing, and not something where I could ever claim to have all the reasons. Everyone’s perspective is different, naturally.

So, what makes a family meal? For the majority of respondents (58.5%), having the whole family there is the most important aspect of a family meal. Also important is the happiness level of the table, said 40.4% of the respondents. Everyone being present in the moment (29.8%), being disconnected from technology (26.6%) and the quality of the food rounded out the top five responses (26.6%).

Some other interesting statistics from the Sarah’s Cucina Bella Family Meals Survey 2011:

• Nearly two-thirds of respondents do not have a standing date for family dinners. 37.2% do.
• Dinner is the meal most-often eaten together, according to my survey (91.5% of respondents said so!). The other 8.6% were split evenly between breakfast and lunch.
• 66% of respondents shop in advance for ingredients, and 48.9% create a meal plan. 17% shop that day for the ingredients they need.
• 59.6% search the internet for recipes, and 29.8% look through cookbooks.
• About a quarter of the respondents enlist their children to help plan the meal. 18.1% also involve their kids in the preparation of ingredients and 19.1% have their kids help with the cooking.

How important are family meals to you?

Poor Man's Steak, Veggie and Mozzarella Sandwich

Speaking of family meals, this sandwich is perfect for a family dinner. It’s a stuffed sandwich that starts with a grilled London broil rubbed with your favorite spices, salt and pepper. I chose London broil because it is — even now — one of the least expensive cuts available, and with this recipe 1 pound of it can feed 8 people (as long as you serve it with several side dishes). And these days, budget-friendly meats are a must for everyone. Once the meat has been grilled and rested (resting is so, so important so that it’s juicy), you slice it ultra-thin against the grain. Use your sharpest, big knife and sharpen it more just before slicing. It will make the whole thing a breeze.

Once the meat is all sliced up and ready, you layer the sandwiches with steamed bell pepper slices, thin slices of fresh mozzarella cheese (or thin slices from a block of mozzarella, if you want to save a little more) and tomato. The freshness of the veggies with the salty cheese and spiced meat will hook you. My son immediately asked if he could take the sandwich for school lunch too (and today he did — but I traded the tomato for lettuce so that the roll wouldn’t get soggy).

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St. Patrick’s Day is next week, so it’s almost time to break out the Harp beer and slice the corned beef. Not kidding.

When Foodily asked me what we’ll be eating on St. Patrick’s Day, I giggled. As much as I am a firm believer in authentic foods, I am also a full-fledged, card-carrying, head-over-heels fan of corned beef and cabbage. And while that’s not really Irish per se, I have been eating it for St. Patrick’s Day since I was a wee little thing.

You bet your britches we’ll be having that this year too.

When it comes to purchasing corned beef, I prefer a flat-cut of it (instead of the more marbled point cut). I love marbling as much as the next girl, but in corned beef, leaner and more evenly sized slices are my preference — and you get that with the flat cut. As for the veggies in the dish, of course there has to be cabbage, which I love. Additionally, I always toss in potato chunks (red or Yukon gold) and carrot pieces.

So, here’s my Foodily St. Patrick’s Day menu. Let me call your attention to the cheesecake. Wow, it sounds amazing, right?

One of my favorite part of any holiday is the leftovers, and St. Patrick’s Day (at my house) means corned beef begging to be used. And what is corned beef perfect for? Hash, of course! This corned beef hash can be whipped up in about 15 minutes and is fabulous with a poached egg (or sunny side up, if you prefer).

To make the hash, you start by finely dicing the leftover corned beef and potatoes.

Then you mix it all up.

Then you fry it up. And voila! You have a fabulous Homemade Corned Beef Hash.

What will you be eating this St. Patrick’s Day?
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When Will came home from school today, my house smelled incredible. The the lingering scent of slow-cooking beef mixed with red wine, garlic and more was mouthwatering and hit me as soon as we stepped through the door. I couldn’t wait until dinnertime.

The stew, which the kids both ate a lot of, was hearty and well cooked. After hours of cooking, the potatoes with silky soft and the meat was fork tender — just as it should be. When I asked Shawn what he thought, he said, “Very good.” That’s a sentiment that I haven’t heard about a stew in a long, long, long time.

I’ve really fallen for this slow cooking lately. The whole idea of tossing ingredients in a pot and letting it take care of itself is so incredibly helpful at the conclusion of a busy day when the last thing I want to do is create a fabulous meal. Are you a slow cooking fan? What’s your favorite slow cooker recipe? Share! I am dying to try more!

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Looking at this photo makes me wish I was making these again tonight. YUM.

A bee has been trapped between one of my kitchen windows and the screen since early this morning when Paige and Will spotted it. We have no idea how it got into the house, and I have no clue what to do to let it go without letting it in. Figures, since it’s a hot-as-can-be day. One where I would love to run barefooted across the lawn and through the sprinkler that is currently watering my newly-planted vegetable garden. If there was a textbook definition of “grilling day,” this would totally be it.

When it comes to grilling (or cooking anything in hot weather, for that matter), fast, easy and fuss-free are musts. I mean seriously, who wants to fiddle around with burners and long, drawn-out processes when the temperatures rise like this?

This recipe is all of that. It’s fast — the marinade takes seconds to make and then the meat just sits until it’s time to skewer and cook it. Easy peasy.

If you make this, serve it with some rice, a salad and another easy veggie. For hot and steamy days, the premade frozen rice available at many major supermarkets and stores like Trader Joe’s is a total lifesaver. I’ll be stocking up for summer.

Need some good grilling tips? Check out Tips for Better Grilling on Tablespoon – I asked experts for help on some common grilling issues, and their advice is great.

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When I talked about cooking from magazines last week, I mentioned this recipe from Cooking Light. We liked it so much that I planned to make it again this week — totally a sign of a good recipe. (I didn’t make the suggested sides this time though … I was the only one who enjoyed them last time.)

I made one small change this time: instead of broiling it, which the recipe calls for, I grilled it (or more accurately, I had Shawn grill it). Turns out that while it was great under the broiler, it was exceptional from the grill. This will definitely hit our table several times this summer. What I really like is that the marinating time is so short, so it falls into my normal dinner cooking time without forcing me to prep dinner during time I have blocked off for my kids or work.

This time, I served it with a big salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, sunflower seeds and gorgonzola cheese. For the carb, I whipped up a batch of Whole Wheat Biscuits while Shawn grilled the flank steak. And this time? Everyone was happy.

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A few months back, Shawn looked at the ingredients in the Taco Kit that we always bought and found a few that we try not to eat. Scary. Who knew that such unnatural things could make their way into spice packets and crispy shells? Since then, we have switched to more natural, organic shells. But the seasoning has been a challenge.

A few years ago, I experimented with making my own seasoning and it was good. The only problem was that it was a spicy seasoning — and neither my husband or my children like things as spicy as I do. So, I set out to make an all new seasoning that has high-flavor without the six-alarm heat. This is the result.

The kids like this seasoning even better than the packets they are used to. It’s flavorful enough that I am happy too — and if I want more heat, I can always add some chopped jalapenos or hot salsa to mine. Everybody’s happy, and that makes me even more happy.

Are you a fan of spicy foods? Read the rest of this entry…