I’m an Auntie! My sister and her husband welcomed their first child, a baby boy, earlier this week (with a rather quick labor for a first child, I might add – just 6 hours!) and we’re all overjoyed. They just brought him home from the hospital yesterday, so now the real fun begins. The “new guy” is just 11 weeks younger than my own little man – our family holiday gatherings will forever have a new “energy” with these two little boys running around!

My nephew is actually among a huge wave of births going on among my friends. There have been at least eight new babies since October (three just in the last week) and another five or six friends are due before June. It’s incredible! Everyone gives each other a lot of support, which is especially appreciated in those early days when you’re a zombified mess from lack of sleep. A number of fantastic ladies brought over homemade meals after I had my son in December and I’m excited to have the opportunity to “pay it forward”.

Which brings me to baked pasta…and this wonderful Shrimp with Orzo recipe, from inside the wrapper of a can of crushed tomatoes.

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When I was 10 years old, my favorite food to have for dinner was quiche. Yup, quiche. Yup, for dinner.

My mom didn’t make it too often – maybe a couple times a year – so it had a certain “special occasion” appeal. I didn’t actually know until a few years ago that it’s typically a brunch or lunch item because we always had it for dinner. Years before all the “hide veggies in other foods” craze my mom enjoyed great success in getting my sisters and I to gleefully eat our spinach within the context of a fluffy, custardy quiche. Then, of course, there was the fancy French name. And the spelling! I was sure it had to be pronounced “qwitchy”.

This Crab, Scallion & Tomato Quiche ranks among the top three recipes I’ve tried on this blog. My husband described it as “restaurant quality”, which I’ll take as a compliment. It features a generous amount of lump crab meat (the recipe, of course, comes from a crab meat container I bought at Whole Foods) and the flavor is further enhanced by the Old Bay-seasoned custard.

I’m tagging this as a Brunch recipe, but if you feel like enjoying it for dinner instead, go for it!

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I’ve done what I used to think was the impossible, a feat reserved for only the superhuman among us. With the exception of our regular Saturday night take0ut, as of tomorrow I will have cooked dinner at home every night for the past two weeks.

Between activities, errands, a second infant and witching hour (do all children receive the memo on this one during delivery??) I’d been cooking two to three nights a week at best. Meal planning never worked for me, as I struggled to decide what to make – just thinking through a menu takes a lot of time I usually don’t have. A few weeks ago I finally decided to try those weekly menus and shopping lists you see in some food and lifestyle magazines, like the Grocery Bag feature in Everyday Food and the Real Simple Recipe Shopping Lists. For once I’m glad to have the decisions made for me! I just buy all the ingredients and make all the dishes on the menu, even the ones I’m not sure I’ll totally like. The ingredients in both magazines’ menus are seasonal and take relatively little hands-on prep time; the Everyday Food ones, in particular, tend to be rather economical too. I save my “big fancy meals” and most baking for the weekend when I have more time and an extra set of hands (my husband’s) to watch the kids. I should have started this long ago.

In the spirit of getting mid-week dinner on the table, I wanted to share this incredibly quick, easy and tasty recipe for a Fiesta Chicken Soup that comes from a carton of chicken broth. I suppose it’s called “Fiesta” as it’s similar to a Mexican chicken tortilla soup, with the zing of lime juice in the broth along with the flavors of jalapeño, cilantro and avocado. The way I prepared this soup actually wasn’t so quick, as I made my own chicken stock and grilled some organic chicken. But for nearly as good results in under 20 minutes you could easily use a good quality ready-made stock and rotisserie chicken.

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On a Friday night a few weeks ago, five friends and I put on some makeup (for a change), kissed our husbands and babies goodnight and went out for a relaxing and enjoyable girls night dinner. With wine! Although we’ve gotten together almost every week for the past year it was actually the first time we’d met up without the kiddies. I can’t believe we didn’t think of doing this sooner – it was so nice to finally sit down and catch up in relative peace.

When it came time to order, all six of us each ordered steak. One friend and I had the steak frites (because I find it impossible to bypass menu items that come with fries) while the rest ordered steak salads. I definitely felt a tinge of guilt over this. But not enough to change my order.

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I’ve seen other pasta dishes that are similar to this one, with thinly sliced caramelized onions intertwined with spaghetti. It’s almost as if they’re in camouflage, their lithe lankiness assimilating amongst the pasta.  My husband, alas, is no fan of onions so I usually end up choosing recipes where they’re not too prominent. But then I thought about that Jessica Seinfeld cookbook where she hides butternut squash in mac & cheese so the kids won’t know they’re eating vegetables. This recipe sounded so enticing and the onions had a rather stealth presence…perhaps my better half would enjoy the dish so much he wouldn’t mind?

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