Greek Salad

A big greek salad with all the usual stuff in it and some chicken for extra protein. Red wine vinaigrette. This is the one time I ever use dried oregano. Those little grape tomatoes are good now and big tomatoes aren't yet.

Spaghetti Marinara

We're coming home today. We've eaten well in LA but no one has had a bowl of pasta, decent or otherwise, all week. And anyway my family is always a little scared to order pasta because they're picky about it, like it the way we make it best you know. Withdrawal has set in.

Spaghetti with a light marinara sauce, a quick saute of olive oil, garlic and tomatoes. To celebrate coming home from a great vacation we might serve each bowl with a dollop of ricotta cheese. This should not take more than 20 minutes.

Grilled Fish

My my my, 95 degrees in NY today! No putting of grilling anymore.

How about a grilled piece of halibut, maybe with an herby lemony sauce to serve with it?

And a tomato avocado salad.

And warm tortillas.

Oh my God that sounds suspiciously like a fish taco...

Disneyland Food

Mostly what you can eat at Disneyland is crap chicken nuggets and burgers and such. At Disney World there's a wider selection of crap. You can survive on yogurt, fruit and frozen lemonade but you'll pass out on that diet before you make it to Space Mountain. There are , however, two foods at Disneyland that are devilishly good and can't be found anywhere else on the planet as far as I know. I know this doesn't really help with tonight's dinner but I had to tell you.

The first is smoked turkey legs. These are gigantic, salty and greasy. They come wrapped in paper and you see people walking around like minions of the magical kingdom gnawing on them or sitting on benches munching away in the hot sun. It's an alarming sight and one you will swear you will not be caught at. But they look mouth wateringly good and you'll be starving after three rides. They're amazing. Superbly delicious. Warm, tender and falling off the bone, the meat tastes quite a lot like ham. After you eat one you can handle a day at Disney with aplomb. Once home you will find yourself thinking whistfully about them.

The second is dessert. Dole pineapple float. I'm not that big on pineapple or dessert in general. Not particularly an ice cream nut. But this is a dream dessert, the one I want on my death bed. Whoever invented it is a genius. It is soft serve pineapple ice cream served in a big cup of pineapple juice. Just think about that. It's got the appeal of a tart sweet creamy creamsicle but way better cause it's pineapple. If you find yourself at the happiest place on earth please don't leave without having one. If anyone knows where you can get one besides Disneyland please let me know.

LA BBQ

Still haven't had a fish taco but last night we went to a BBQ at my friend Ann's beautiful house. She prepared a delicious spread for us and we ate and drank and watched the children climb trees. Dinner was grilled chicken, quinoa salad full of diced vegetables, cole slaw, grilled vegetables that were grilled, not burned and the most delicious green beans ever. They made me depressed that I don't live in California.

Today is Disneyland. I wonder if I'll find dinner inspiration there...

Fish Tacos

Waking up in LA, land of my childhood, on a beautiful sunny day. Can I tell you what we've eaten so far? A really good Japanese meal in the JetBlue terminal at JFK. A really good cheeseburger and fries in our room at the W at 2:00 am NY time. Later today it will be lunch by the pool. But I'm thinking fish tacos. When in LA I try to eat as many fish tacos as possible. Don't ask me why they're so hard to find in NYC.

If I were home I'd make fish tacos tonight. Warm corn tortillas, lettuce, tomato, crema, hot sauce, and chunky white fried fish. Oh, and avocado. Mango tossed with lime and chili powder and sugar on the side.

Steamed Chicken Casserole

So, it's not so easy to work "outside of the home" and blog everyday. I did manage to make dinner every night, just barely. My apologies for skipping a couple of days. This was dinner last night, because no one else had quite the enthusiasm for sandwich week that I did. Something about but we have sandwiches for lunch everyday was being muttered in the kitchen. Fair enough. This Chinese casserole is really yummy and easy, but you need a proper steamer. Serve it with rice and a green veg and you're good to go.

Toss together in a bowl: slivered boneless, skinless chicken, diced tofu, slivered black mushrooms or shitake or whatever kind you like, chopped scallions, grated ginger, minced garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, s&p, a little oyster sauce if you have it and a about 1/2 cup chicken stock with 2 T cornstarch dissolved in it. Transfer all to a bowl that will fit in your steamer and steam for about 20-25 minutes till chicken is cooked through.

We are going to California today and I will not be cooking. But I will think of things to make for dinner and post them every day for you. I'll ask around too. Maybe people in California have a whole different batch of things they make for dinner every day that will inspire us. In a perfect world each state would have it's 10 dinner standards, different from every other state's, and we would swap and never get bored. Maybe someday...

Roast Beef Sandwiches

with cheddar cheese and branston pickle on dark or whole grain bread. A cherry tomato salad on the side.

Prosciutto and Sweet Butter on Baguettes

Prosciutto and butter are made for each other. I like this sandwich with nothing else to muck it up but I guess lettuce and tomato would be nice.

Also really nice with this sandwich is a bowl of split pea soup. A homey soup that is pretty quick to make. It would be nice if it would stop raining! But until then, hot soup and a sandwich.

Tuna Melts

I love sandwiches and it occurred to me that they shouldn't be relegated to lunch only status, especially when you are having a crazy week. It's Monday morning and I already know that it's going to be a crazy week. Good but crazy. I am thinking of making this an official sandwich week.

Sandwich #1 - tuna melts. With American cheese on rye bread. And served with those kind of fries you can make in the oven that aren't half bad, Ore Ida I think. We are still the on vanilla egg cream wagon. Thank God because that will be a really good combination.

Out To Dinner

Going out to dinner tonight after cooking at Scrimshaw last night. I think it will be Chinese food. In Chinatown, the real deal. Probably New York Noodle Town for noodles and roast chicken and their crazy pork and oyster casserole and garlic chives, maybe salt & pepper squid. I can't live in a city without a Chinatown.

Chicken On The Grill

This is the way my friend Martha taught me to grill a whole chicken. Martha is one of the best cooks around and everything she's ever made for me has been delicious. In the grilling months we switch from roast chicken to this chicken. It's really good and makes life easy.

Right now this morning or at some point today try to find 5 minutes to dress up your chicken with s&p, cumin, paprika, a little chili powder or whatever you like. Just s&p is fine. Stick it in the fridge but take it out an hour before you're ready to cook it. There's no law saying that you have to do this but room temperature meat cooks faster and more evenly, as I'm sure you know. It's one of those little things that make a huge difference, like letting meat rest before you carve it.

When you light your grill, and I am referring to a charcoal grill, bank the fire to one side. If you have a gas grill my heart goes out to you because you can't actually cook on a gas grill and I urge you to reconsider your decision to go gas. I know you're saving TONS of time by not having to wait for the coals to get hot, like a full 12 minutes, but that is time that could be spent sipping a gin & tonic and doing a crossword puzzle so really what are you saving?

When the fire is hot simply put the chicken on the grill off the coals. Cover the grill and go away for an hour. Be sure to leave the cover vents open. If you are pressed for time you can spatchcock the bird and it will probably cook in half an hour. (It's really fun to say "We're having spatchcocked chicken for dinner.") If you go away for more than an hour that's fine. A

perfectly cooked, moist juicy, yummy chicken will be waiting for you when you return. It will have a pleasant smokiness to it. Obviously, it's good hot, cold or at room temperature. And anything you like will go with it.

Fish Sticks

This has been such a long week hasn't it?

In honor of that fact I'm serving fish sticks, tartar sauce, peas and carrots. Milk for kids, beer for grown ups. You could go all frozen and prepared for this meal or you could lovingly bread and fry some haddock and make a homemade tartar sauce and shell the first spring peas. Suit yourself and feel good which ever way you go. You will have made dinner either way.

We have a new favorite dessert around here which I highly recommend. Vanilla egg creams!

Breakfast for Dinner

For absolutely no good reason other than it's nice to say yes to your kids once in awhile, we are going to have pancakes and bacon for dinner. The pancakes will have chocolate chips in them and there will be a lot of bacon to mop up the extra maple syrup with. If I serve it all with a glass of milk I think I will have maintained an acceptable nutritional level, but really who cares. You can't worry about that stuff every day.

I will casually serve a bowl of fruit too. But no pressure.

Homemade Pizza

Just because it's fun and it's a rainy day here in NYC we're making our own pizzas tonight. No, I did not make a batch of dough. I bought some at Trader Joe's. Also Pomi, not the chunky one this time. Cheese, pepperoni, etc. I am happy cause I get to have artichoke hearts and spinach on mine and my kids are happy cause they don't have to have artichoke hearts and spinach on theirs.

If you're feeling fancy or just have a little extra time on your hands, a pizza with thinly sliced potatoes and parmesan and olive oil is fantastic. Sweet potatoes too, with truffle oil...

Tacos

I am starting a new job today. This will be interesting. Still have to, want to make dinner and not get too lazy about it. Or I'll get very lazy about it and that will be ok too. At any rate, tacos tonight! Tacos make everyone happy around here. And I mean tacos from the Old El Paso box, not homemade fish tacos or carne asado tacos. Those are for another day.

Lasagne Casserole

Every time I get excited about spring and fresh young seasonal vegetables it gets really cold again. This weekend was a chilly fall weekend in NY as far as I'm concerned. I don't think I can bring myself to turn the heat on on May 10, but I can make a casserole.

This one tastes like lasagne, without all the construction. It does require a good meat sauce. I leave it to you whether you want to tenderly watch over a real Bolognese sauce for a few hours (we probably should have done that this weekend) or put together a quicker version. Totally respectable to do a quick version, and either way, throw half in the freezer for next time. Recipes abound on Epicurious. If I could recommend a store bought sauce I would but I've never run into one that's any good. Make a bechamel sauce. Super easy to do, but if it seems too much use ricotta, whole milk please. You will need grated parmesan and a box of macheroni such as penne or rigatoni.

Assuming your meat sauce and bechamel are warm, toss the cooked pasta liberally with both. If you're using ricotta try to have it at room temp. Transfer to a buttered lasagne pan or gratin dish. Sprinkle top with lots of parmesan. Of course, you can make this way in advance or just before dinner. When ready to serve, bake in a 350 degree oven till brown and bubbly, about 25 minutes. It will warm us up while we wait for the sun.

Happy Mother's Day

I wish you all a Happy Mother's Day, whether you're a mother or not. For this holiday all I ask is that someone else take over dinner. Cook it, order it or take me out for it. I'm easy. I just don't want to be in charge of it tonight. I have complete faith in my family's ability to handle it.

Have a wonderful day. I'm getting back into bed - here comes breakfast.

Warm Spinach Feta Salad

A dear friend made this for me years ago and I haven't gotten sick of it yet. It's good on it's own with crusty bread or as a first course or as an accompaniment to meat or fish.

Wash a bunch of spinach per person but don't dry it. Quickly wilt it in a pan without adding any liquid or fat. Transfer spinach to a shallow serving bowl with any liquid the spinach has given off. Crumble a generous amount of feta cheese over spinach while it's still hot. Dress with lemon juice, olive oil and chopped scallions. Toss and serve. Probably won't need salt.

Meatballs Parmigiana

The leftover meatballs are calling my name. If I layer them in a shallow baking dish and cover them with grated fresh mozzarella and heat them in the oven then we can all eat them the way we like. For me that'll be with crusty bread and a salad. My kids will want pasta and that's fine too.

Soy Sauce Chicken

Soy sauce chicken is a cut up chicken that gets thrown into a ziploc bag in the morning with 1/2 a cup of soy sauce, minced garlic, a sliced onion, grated ginger, scallions, a little sugar if you like. Give it a good shake and refridgerate until you're ready to cook it later that day, or the next day if you don't get around to it. Turn the bag over once in awhile if you're around. You can bake the chicken or braise it on the stove or grill it.

Serve with rice and a green vegetable.

Sausage and Potaotes

Fried or boiled cubed potatoes.

Sausage cooked as you like it. Italian sausage, kielbasa, linguica, whatever.

Toss together in a big bowl with handfuls of parsley, mustard, cider vinegar, olive oil, s&p.

Serve with a salad.

I guess this qualifies as the first potato salad of the season. It's good hot or room temperature or cold.

Pizza Night

We need a pizza night around here. How about you?

BTW the meatballs were fabulous. Light, moist and juicy and flavorful. No egg whatsoever. Maybe the eggs have been a mistake all these years. The ricotta did the trick. I also added quite a lot of minced parsley, which was the perfect touch.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Not exactly light spring fare, I know, but a staple in my house. My kids reminded me that we haven't had meatballs in weeks. I always make a big batch so we have leftovers. My usual version involves a mix of beef, veal and pork with egg, tons of garlic, bread crumbs as well as stale bread torn into small pieces and soaked in milk, parmesan cheese. This is the way my father-in-law makes his and they are pretty hard to beat.

In honor of spring and of friends with egg allergies I'm going to try a version with just veal for a lighter meatball and use ricotta cheese in place of egg. I'll let you know. You probably have your own great meatball recipes, too. Also, I long ago gave up browning them on the stove before putting them in the tomato sauce. Too messy. I bake them in a 350 degree oven on a baking sheet for 20 minutes instead and the results are just as good.