From the category archives:

Weeknight

Maple-Pecan Crusted Chicken

April 18, 2012

Just hearing the words “maple-pecan crusted” I’m already interested. I’m thinking about something a little sweet, a little nutty, definitely crunchy – a foray into a satisfying bite. Even though I’m not usually a big fan of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, the promise of this coating – made even crunchier with panko bread crumbs – [...]

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Chicken and Rice Chile Verde

November 3, 2011

If this dish looks vaguely familiar to you it’s because I previously shared a rather similar recipe, for Honey Lemon Chicken, earlier this year. So I hesitated for a moment to post this Chicken and Rice Chile Verde. But, you know, I don’t think you ever can really have too many good one-pot, one-hour chicken [...]

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Lemon Spaghetti

October 11, 2011

Exhibit #5978b on why I’ve lived in suburbia for too long: I found it more than a little bit exciting that they recently redid our Target. New carts! Fresh groceries! (and the pièce de résistance) In-store Starbucks! I pushed our cart up and down each aisle of the grocery section (which is a financially dangerous [...]

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Japanese Pork Cutlets (Tonkatsu)

September 1, 2011

It would happen every single weekend. I’d sit down to sketch out our family’s meals for the week…and drive myself crazy deciding what to make. Didn’t we just have that last week? What’s something good I can make in the slow cooker since I’m out all day Monday? That’s too many chicken dishes in a [...]

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Chicken Curry

August 18, 2011

It was about time we switched things up at lunch. On most days, my kids get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a quesadilla for lunch. They like it and I can pull it together and get it onto their Dora the Explorer sectioned plates before a meltdown erupts (that’s mainly my 20-month-old little [...]

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Balsamic Marinated Lamb Chops

July 27, 2011

We walked into the restaurant for a good friend’s birthday dinner a few years back and right away we noticed there was something odd about this steakhouse. Smoke rising from steaks searing on an open grill was, of course, expected. But as we moved further into the dining room the smell of those steaks actually [...]

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Homemade Pad Thai

July 14, 2011

There was a time, not so long ago, when I wouldn’t even have considered trying to make Pad Thai at home. It was out of the question. The ingredients would be way too hard to track down, I was unsure of how to use a wok and just how authentic would my version of Thailand’s [...]

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Penne with Artichokes…and How I Started This Blog

March 8, 2011

How many times have you come across a recipe like the one below for Penne with Artichokes on a food label? A tiny 3″ square with no photo or headnotes, significantly truncated to fit on the box? Recipes like this are kind of mysterious. You have no idea of what the dish looks like or [...]

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Honey Lemon Chicken

February 21, 2011

We have what I consider to be a great system in our house. I create the week’s menu, buy the food and cook the meals…my husband does the dishes. It works out most of the time except for my occasional penchant for using nearly every dish in the kitchen to prepare a meal. As I [...]

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Minestrone Soup…and My “Lucy” Moment

November 29, 2010

My mom recently mailed me a pasta press attachment for my stand mixer. I’d secretly been hoping it might fall into my hands at some point after she received it as a giveaway from a Martha Stewart Show taping a while back. She determined after about a year of it sitting in the cabinet that [...]