A few weeks ago I received a review copy of The Picnic: Recipes and Inspiration from Basket to Blanket and was super excited, since picnics are a regular thing around here and we are always looking for new ways to liven them up. The book turned out to be a treasure trove of tips for making outdoor meals more convenient and picturesque and recipes for putting together the perfect array of food and drink for a well-balanced meal.

This fruit salad recipe was our favorite recipe we found. We've already tested it on a recent playground lunch and we made it again over the holiday weekend to take to one of the many BBQs we attended. It was a hit! Everybody in the world seems to love cherries, pistachios, and mint separately and when you put them together they seem exotic and extra-special. The tartness of the cherries matches well with the mint and the pistachios are a perfect added crunch.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Bing or Ranier cherries (stemmed, pitted, and halved)
• 1/2 cup shelled, roasted and salted pistachios
• 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, thinly sliced

Toss together ingredients and serve in your prettiest bowl. Pro tip: use a chopstick to easily pit the cherries. I read that in The Picnic, too! I told you this book was handy.

Happy Monday!

I am always looking for ways to spice up (literally) our dinner rotation that are quick and easy to make and I think I found it in this flavorful Mediterranean stew from 365 Slow Cooker Suppers, my favorite cookbook ever. At first the combination of ingredients sounds weird (tomatoes? chickpeas?) but it is strangely addictive and there is literally nothing like it I've ever tasted. Not to mention that we are huge fans of green olives, and there don't seem to be too many recipes that use them as a focal point, so double bonus!

I REALLY can't say enough about 365 Slow Cooker Suppers, while a lot of slow cooker recipes can be boring or bland, this features tons of creative and easy recipes inspired by world cuisine. We really love it and use it almost every day and so far I've bought the book as gifts for three people. (If I know you IRL, you might be next...)

Ingredients:

6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 14.5 ounce can of fire-roasted tomatoes, undrained
1 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup pitted green olives (we like more -- maybe 3/4 cup)
3 cups chicken broth
1.25 cups rice*

*the original recipe calls for 2 cups quinoa but we prefer the rice

Directions:

Place the chicken into the insert and add all the spices. Top with the tomatoes and chickpeas. Add the olives, and stir in the broth. Cover, and cook on low for 6 hours or on high for about 3 hours. When the cooking time has elapsed, carefully remove the chicken from the pot and set aside. Pour in the rice and stir well. Cover, and cook on high for 30-40 minutes or until the rice is bite tender. Let side with the lid off to release condensation before serving with the chicken.

If you don't fool with slow cookers, you can make this the same way we do on nights where dinner is a last minute affair: by chunking the chicken and then throwing everything into a stewpot over medium heat until it's cooked through (about an hour, start to finish). I love one-pot wonders.

For a lot of people, Easter means roast lamb and mint jelly, but in my mom's Lebanese family, holidays mean a Mediterranean feast is in store. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter always open the floodgates for me, and in the weeks after, I find myself cooking all of my old favorite family recipes because I'm suddenly in the mood for them. Right now, in our fridge, we have homemade hummus, some leftover kusa (meat-stuffed squash) and these pretty lifts (pronounced liff-its) -- turnips pickled in vinegar and colored pink with beet juice.

I learned most of these recipes at my grandmother's side, and it's very important to me to pass them down to Anouk. This recipe is so easy to make that I thought it would be a good one to start with. Plus, everyone the in the house loves them -- they go fast. It's almost not worth making them unless you make a huge batch. Spicy, tangy, and earthy with a snap. There's nothing else in the world like lifts.








Ingredients:

1 lb. turnips
1.5 cups water
1.5 cups distilled white vinegar
5 tsps salt
5-6 garlic cloves, smashed
crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

Directions:

Peel the turnips and cut into bite sized chunks. Mix up a bowl of brine by stirring together the water, vinegar, and salt (if you need more for the amount of turnips you've got, mix another batch). Place the turnips into Tupperware or mason jars with the garlic (about 2-3 cloves per container). Add red pepper if you'd like -- about 1 tsp per 8 ounces.

Pour the brine over the turnips. Place 2 slices of beet at the top and replace the lid. Let sit in the fridge for 1-2 days. Every 12 hours or so, open the jar and taste a lift, and adjust the flavorings (more salt or pepper if you'd like). You'll know they're ready when the brine turns a deep red and that the flavor is just right when you can't eat just one.

Serve the lifts as a side with hummus, pita and olives. We like them on spinach dressed with some of the brine mixed with olive oil, or just by themselves, eaten like popcorn while watching a movie. Yum!

What favorite family recipes have you shared with your kids?

On our snow-day-before-last (? they've all started to blend together), when boredom was setting in with a vengeance, I learned how to make bagels at home. This might sound really stupid, but I'm not sure I ever really knew that you could make bagels at home. I mean, I guess I knew ONE could, but not an average person like me. I think I thought you needed special training or equipment or something like that.

Turns out -- you can make bagels at home! You make the dough, you let it rise the appropriate number of times, and then you boil your bagels in water before baking them in a very hot oven. It's all a lot simpler than it seems it should be (although once you get going things move pretty quickly, which is why we have only iPhone photos to mark this post, sorry about that).

And yes, I will admit that ours are not the most attractive bagels ever but you have to trust me: they are so, so good. I never had had a fresh, just out-of-the-oven bagel before and now that I have, I don't think I can ever go back.

We've sampled several different recipes over the past few weeks but keep coming back to this one for New York Style Bagels by the Sophisticated Gourmet because 1) it's tastiest and 2) you don't have to let the dough proof overnight, which I hate because I am impatient. We like this recipe so much that we've been making up a batch every Sunday. A. really loves the whole play-dough aspect of this recipe and I really love having my family together in the kitchen baking for the week ahead, it seems like such a wholesome (read: generally unlike us) thing to do. And James really loves these bagels with butter, and he's not a carb guy, so that's saying something.

Happy Thursday!

This recipe comes from my local vintage cookbook collection, specifically from one compiled in 1976 by the Members and Friends of the Ladies Auxiliary to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. When I was paging through it and came across this recipe for hot buttered lemonade, I said, "Hmm, weird" out loud while James said, "Oh, that sounds awesome." And then we sort of looked at each other askance for a second.

I whipped up a batch on the second day of last week's snow, when we were getting a little tired of hot chocolate (turns out that can really happen) but still craved a hot drink to hold. And James is right, this drink is pretty awesome, bright and velvety and a little bit like liquid sunshine.

Ingredients:

• 4.5 cups water
• 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• scant 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel 
• cinnamon sticks for garnish

Are you and your little ones going stir-crazy yet? We are -- at least, we were yesterday. Today it's thankfully warmer, which means we can spend more time outside but when the temps were hovering in the low 20s? Forget about it.

It made for a long day but we did end up having a lot of fun in it. Here are a few of the crafts and activities we've been doing, to beat the homebound feeling.

1. Paint tie-dyed marshmallows.


A tablespoon of milk and 1-2 drops of food coloring made the paint that we used to decorate our marshmallows. Anouk and I had fun coloring them with (clean) paintbrushes and then set them on a paper towel until they dried. They looked lovely floating in our hot chocolate after we came in from the snow.

2. Make colorful ice balls.



A Pinterest idea that worked! We dropped 4-5 drops of food coloring in each balloon, then stretched it over the faucet and began to fill it veeeeeeeery slowly. Tied them off and stuck them in a bowl outside to freeze overnight. In the morning, we snipped the balloons off and had fun rolling our new treasures through the snow. (They took a long time to freeze, so putting them in the freezer might be a good idea to help them along).

3. Bake "snow" cookies.



I found this recipe ages ago by searching for dairy-free cookie recipes. It's actually from Weight Watchers' site (the cookies are 1 point, if you are interested). Anouk calls them "snow" cookies because of the sprinkling of coconut in the dough. I call them delicious. We were mixing up a big batch right as it started snowing on Tuesday, perfect timing. Find the recipe here.

What have you other snow bunnies been up to? Stay warm out there!

When we visited Rosewell Plantation this past summer, I brought home a little cookbook from the gift shop chock full of colonial-era recipes, including one for a tempting concoction called Marlborough Pudding, a uniquely American recipe that was a staple at the first Thanksgiving celebrations. It might surprise you to know that this isn't traditionally a pudding at all, but rather, a pie. A sort of "if they mated" between pumpkin pie and applesauce, with a little custardy goodness long tucked away somewhere in the family tree popping out in their offspring and making everyone scratch their heads and say, "Wonder where THAT came from." Oh dear, I fear I've stretched this metaphor too far but you get the picture.

I adapted the recipe a little for modern times, which is to say that I omitted the whole pie aspect because making pastry is a little more time-consuming than my schedule usually allows. Instead, I put the pudding back in Marlborough pudding. The result is a creamier, heartier version of baked applesauce, full of tartness and spiciness and all kinds of autumnal goodness.


























Ingredients

4 large apples
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
Juice of 1 lemon and grated peel of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup heavy cream (we use 1/4 cup coconut milk solids and 1/4 cup coconut milk for this since we're a dairy-free household. for more info, click here.)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter

Directions:

Place apples in saucepan with about 1/2 cup water and cover. Stew over medium high heat until very tender and then drain. Pass the apples through a sieve to puree. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Mix the pureed apples, sugar, and lemon juice and peel in a bowl. Beat in the eggs. Add milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and butter and stir until well blended. Pour the filling into a glass baking dish and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and keep baking for about 20-25 minutes more, or until mostly set but still slightly soft in the center. Remove from the oven and cool before serving.

Now I understand why this whole Thanksgiving thing caught on. Served with a dollop of (coconut) whipped cream on top and some graham crackers for dipping, this deliciousness is definitely something to be thankful for.

Have a great weekend! The winter holiday season officially begins next week -- are you ready for this?

This recipe is one of our fall go-tos -- it's hearty and colorful and spicy and cozy, a real crowd pleaser. It's easy enough so that Anouk can help me assemble and "cook" it, and there's something about eating apples in a savory dish that I find really intriguing. Best of all, this dish is sort of a chameleon dish -- it's good with everything, from sausages to pork to roast chicken or turkey to breakfast-as-dinner, and, if you take out the onions and replace the sage with cinnamon (and add a dollop of whipped cream), it even makes a super dessert.

Ingredients:

3 medium sweet potatoes

1 large apple

1 small onion

1 tablespoon coconut oil (or butter)

pinch sage

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Pierce the sweet potatoes with a fork and pre-cook in the microwave, for about five minutes, or until soft but not mushy. Remove, let cool, and remove skins. Dice sweet potatoes, apple, and onion and add apple and onion to a pan with the coconut oil. Cook on medium high heat until the apple is tender and the onion translucent. Add diced sweet potato, salt, pepper, and sage, and cook until the onion starts to caramelize.

Happy Monday!

I've been meaning to post about the fondue party playgroup we hosted in honor of Anouk's birthday since it happened, all the way back in March. But somewhere along the way I misplaced my SD card with the party pictures on it and didn't find it again until this past weekend (in the bottom of my camera bag...like, who would ever look there?)

Fondue might just be one of the best kids' party foods out there. It keeps little hands occupied. It encourages children to see food in a fresh way, to try new things in different combinations. It's fun, it's novel, and it's yummy. I think you could even make an argument that it builds motor skills, using those pointy little fondue forks.

For most of her life, Anne has happily eaten whatever we put in front of her, but lately, she's has been a little picky, which I'm not used to. These days, there are only about four fruits and one vegetable I can count on her to eat without complaint (and no meat -- never a morsel shall pass her lips!) A couple of weeks ago, desperately in need of new ideas, I headed to the library to see if they had a copy of Moosewood Cookbook, the famous, award-winning vegetarian cookbook that, before it practically disintegrated from use, was a staple in our kitchen when J. and I moved into our first place.

Unfortunately, the library's copy of Moosewood was checked out, but I did come across Salad People, Katzen's cookbook written especially for preschoolers, and snapped it up, thinking it would be just the thing to brighten my toddler-food repertoire and to keep A. entertained (by something other than TV) in the afternoons when it's too cold to go outside.

Salad People has not disappointed. We're going to miss it when we have to take it back to the library next week, and will probably have to invest in a copy of it (and it's companion volume, Pretend Soup) for our own. A. and I have tested almost all of the recipes by now, but by far the one we like the best is the one for Raspberry Yogurt Swirl. She's had it for snack three times this week alone! It's equal parts yummy snack and art project, and it's easy to put together, which makes it pretty much the most perfect kid food ever. Here's the recipe, with a few tweaks.

Berry Yogurt Swirl (serves 4, or 2 if you like big portions)

You'll need:

• 1.5 cups berries (we'd eaten our way through the raspberries by the time this picture was taken, so we used frozen blueberries)
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice (you can also use apple or orange juice, but we like the kick of lemon)
• 2 cups vanilla-flavored Greek yogurt

Blend the berries, lemon juice, and honey together in a blender. Strain through a sieve if your berries have seeds, and decant the leftover liquid into a squeeze bottle (we used an empty honey bear for this; I think a [clean, obvs] medicine dropper could also work).

Spread 1/2 cup of yogurt on plate. Squirt dollops of berry puree into the yogurt, and swirl with a toothpick or spoon.

Eat and enjoy!


I can already tell that this is going to be a snacktime staple in our house. In the future (AKA after the next time I hit the grocery store), I'd really like to experiment with using several different berry mixtures for a tie-dye effect. The possibilities seem endless -- blended and swirled, the fruits/vegetables become colors rather than actual foods, and it seems like it would be pretty easy to sneak some of those verboten veggies in there without A. noticing. Maybe a green avocado and kale puree? Or orange carrot and sweet potato? What do you think?

Happy weekend, everyone!