Warm Tortellini & Pesto Chicken Salad

Aug 19th, 2010 // Dinner, Easy Cheats, Recipes, Uncategorized

I am delighted to report that this dinner was not only dee-lish, but it was also one of the easiest dishes we have ever made! I was hesitant to make it because my kid has never touched salad, but he actually ate the spinach leaves and the tortellini and the chicken.

How can you go wrong with rotisserie chicken and pesto? Plus the warm tortellini wilts the spinach perfectly. It is such a great meal to throw together on a hot summer night. Now for the recipe…

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Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes

Aug 17th, 2010 // Breakfast, Kid-tastic, Recipes

My brother and sister in law are in town with their brood of 3 kids. That means there are 5 kids 5 and under in my house right now. It’s mayhem but adorable. This morning my brother suggested we make our mom’s buttermilk pancake recipe – luckily I had buttermilk in the house! We substituted whole wheat flour for all purpose. They were a little flatter that way but tasted just like I remembered them.

As my brother said, this was cooking with my brother’s kids + my kid + 2 teeny babies. That’s quite the culinary feat! Plus we got to pass on a pancake tradition. Now for the recipe… Read more after the jump…

Banana Bundt

Aug 15th, 2010 // Breakfast, Desserts, Kid-tastic, Recipes

We got a new, beautiful Bundt pan this week. We are crazy for banana bread (perfect for a Bundt), but all the really great recipes call for 2 sticks of butter and sometimes they even include sour cream. I’m all for having dessert, but we can’t eat that way every day. Today we attempted to make a great tasting banana Bundt with less fat. We replaced 1 of the sticks of butter with applesauce, used non-fat yogurt instead of sour cream and worked in some whole wheat flour. The result was the most moist and delicious Bundt we’ve ever made!

We love a good baking success story and ate several pieces in celebration. Next go round we’ll try to cut down on the sugar and see if we can keep improving on our Banana Bundt without sacrificing taste. Please tell us if you have any suggestions – we’d love to try your substitution out! Now for the recipe… Read more after the jump…

Pasta con Zucchini

Aug 14th, 2010 // Dinner, Healthy, Recipes

My parents are still visiting and they are helping us eat our way through my friend Jaime’s Garden Bounty. Since my dad was here to snap some pix, you are getting a rare glimpse of me actually cooking with my kid!

Here we are grating. It’s a lot less nerve wracking when we are doing it together.

These are cubes of basil and garlic that are available in the freezer section at Trader Joe’s. I like them because they’re convenient, my kid likes them because they are fun to pop out.

While we were prepping the food, my kid kept putting his new hat on the baby (already 4 mos old!) and laughing like a maniac. The baby didn’t seem to mind too much.

Believe it or not, this is not the last of the zucchini! Luckily, the repeated use of this abundant garden veggie is helping my kid get acclimated to it. He only ate one of our Zucchini Fritters, but he ate an entire bowl of this! Now for the recipe…
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Grilled Flat Breads

Aug 14th, 2010 // Appetizers, Dinner, Recipes

I’ve been noticing that the traditional Indian bread called naan has been showing up in all the major food markets. My kid loves nann and since it’s so readily available now, we’ve been buying it quite a bit. Good thing we had it in the house because it has been a crazy week at my job so I never got the chance to go food shopping.

We used the tomatoes from my friend Jaime’s Garden Bounty, the basil from our own plant (!!!) to make grilled flat breads out of naan. Naan is the perfect vehicle for grilled flat bread because it gets nice and crispy and holds up nicely to all the toppings. We made two kinds – one with fresh tomato and basil and the other with black olives (for my kid who still refuses to eat fresh tomato!) Now for the recipe…

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