Category Archives: Dinner

Rainy Days on Sundays Always Get Me Down

The rain, the rain. All games washed out yesterday (and for the foreseeable future). Thus, plans were torn asunder and I ended up going to my sister’s to get my hair done before the conference in D.C. But food was already purchased and prepped for dinner here. No worries, a traveling feast it is.

I forget I have this market bag. It is awesome and can be wiped down in case that dressing in the corner spills a little. In case.

But nonetheless, to honor summer I made:

Salad with Stone Fruit and Burrata
Adapted from Stone Fruit and Burrata Salad by What’s Gaby Cooking. Feeds 8

WHAT YOU NEED
Salad
4 ripe plums
4 ripe peaches
4 ripe nectarines
2 heirloom tomatoes
1 cup orange and yellow cherry tomatoes
3 cups baby lettuce from your garden (ok, just showing off that I actually grew lettuce!). You can also use a bag of Spring mix or baby lettuce)
1 container of burrata cheese (2-3 balls)
fresh mint
1 cup pistachio meats

Dressing — I pretty much used Gaby’s recipe completely except did every measure as “heaping” and a less red pepper — and still got complaints of “mouth on fire” from the kids!

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup champagne vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

WHAT YOU DO
Combine all dressing ingredients in jar and shake until emulsified. Taste and adjust seasonings to your liking. I like this just a touch sweet.

Wash fruits and slice stone fruits into thin wedges. Slice large tomatoes and cut cherry tomatoes in half. Place lettuce in bowl and toss with a couple of tablespoons of the dressing. Arrange fruit and tomatoes (I KNOW, tomatoes are fruit, but sometimes that gets confusing) on top of lettuce. Tear burrata into pieces and scatter on salad. Drizzle with another tablespoon or two of dressing, depending on your tastes. Top with chopped mint and pistachios.

Served with steak topped with roasted garlic butter that I had in the freezer, corn on the cob, and roasted Trader Joe’s Teensy Tiny Potatoes.

Today was the first day of summer camp. And the crew lived large, because it was also someone’s golden birthday, so they were picked up from camp in style.

PARTY BUS!!!!!!!!!!

And on another front, certain members of the household were not in the party mood.

Let’s Go Hawks!

Change of Dinner Plans

People. It is May 30th. It is 45 degrees outside. I had to get some wooly socks on because my feet were cold. Wooly socks!

The La Grange Pet Parade (sans dog pets – boo to dog flu) went on in the rain, and the temperature wasn’t bad.

But it took a mean, mean turn a couple of hours later. So, food plans that I had will be for another day. Sorry summer stone fruit salad. Sorry grilled chicken pesto pizza. Corn on the cob, I hardly knew ye.

I had cooked chicken, so I made Pioneer Woman’s Chipotle Chicken Chili. I made a couple of changes however. I doubled the tomatoes and reduced the beans by one can (the husband is not a fan). I used 2 chipotle peppers and it was pretty spicy. Served it with corn bread from TJ’s boxed mix. And over pasta. Drummer boy was pleased.

Skunk, however, is not pleased with this window-shutting weather and has retreated to his Christmas pillow.

It’s too cool for cats (name that band!).

At least with the windows closed we won’t be annoying our neighbors with the 4 second delay between the Blackhawks game on here versus there, thus pre-screaming the goals before they happen. Go Hawks!

Everybody Cut, Everybody Cut

Everybody cut Footloose! The movie Footloose** seems to have made a comeback with the tween crowd, so much so that Drummer Boy took it upon himself to learn the drums to the song on his own and play it for a friend.

So with slightly better weather, and since someone is upstairs playing my 1985 jam, I thought I’d be a little loose by going with no actual recipe for a big tuna steak. Not from a recipe? Jump back!

My favorite easy-peasy literal lemon-squeezy recipe when I don’t know what to do: Board Dressing. You can do this with whatever you can find on hand that goes well together and with whatever kind of meat or fish you have.*** I had a large lemon, 3 frozen crushed garlic cloves (yay Trader Joes!), 1/2 cup fresh parsley, a few stray basil leaves, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp kosher salt and pepper to taste. Chop it all up in a pile on a cutting board:

Juice the lemon into the pile and pour about a 1/4 cup of olive oil into the mix, Push about a quarter of the pile onto a plate where you will ultimately put the finished, grilled tuna. Take uncooked tuna steak and roll it around in the board dressing.

Then grill until desired level of doneness. For a thick one like this, it took about 18 minutes. While it is still hot, put it on the plate or new board with the remaining dressing and turn to coat. Try it and add additional salt and pepper if necessary. Or if you are my sister, just salt it without even trying it. You’re just that sure.

Served with mixed rice blend and carrots. Now go cut a rug or thrash about in a warehouse. Your choice.

** The real Footloose, not the remake. I love me some Blake Shelton on The Voice, but Blake, that song did not need to be re-sung. Let Kenny Loggins shine forever.

*** My husband believes that by my owning this book:

it makes me the equivalent level of nerd as he is, just a food nerd. I ask you, even if there were the food equivalent of the comic book store to hang out in on Saturdays with the boys playing Hero-Clix, and I created DIY my own food Hero-Clix figure, wouldn’t we just call that “a restaurant”? I know you guys are with me on this one, right?

We Had Pasta, Some Pasta, and Finished with Pasta

I promise you all, not in the same week. Well, mostly not all in the same week. Somehow in the last week these recipes all rose to the tops of their various lists, so, armed with a loaf of rustic bread, I took on the challenge to see if the family would eat pasta three times in 7 days. Disclaimer: Drummer Boy eats plain pasta every day, but that doesn’t mean pasta with actual sauce of any kind on it will skew the results here.

First up was Spaghetti All’Amatriciana from Blogging over Thyme.

I didn’t have the thick pancetta only thin in my refrigerator, but it still worked and was delicious. It’s a keeper.

Rating from the boys: It didn’t make me gag (so 4 forks)

Next up was this lovely Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo Bake from Bev Cooks.

This was really good, though a bit much to do on a weekday. I happened to have roasted garlic cloves that I had put in the freezer which was my original inspiration. If I were to do this again on a weekday I would precook and chop the chicken and the roasted garlic.

Rating from the boys: Dad already fed us before practice so we don’t have to try that, right? (So 3 forks it is).

And from Oh She Glows, Roasted Tomato Basil Pesto, a vegan pasta sauce that you really have to try.

As she notes in the recipe, it may not be the prettiest sauce, but it is good and rich. I would recommend using the nutritional yeast, it gives it that pesto-heft.

Rating from the boys: It was ok (call the MIchelin folks)

But sure, those are all carbs, but what if one needs more carbs with their carbs (to balance out all the vegan eating)? Well, if one is lured by the siren song of free samples at Whole Foods, one might walk away having purchased this:

Might spread it on some rustic bread add some fresh chopped parsley. Might even throw it under the broiler for a minute or two if one is feeling so inclined. And then:

Need coconut water and celery, stat!

Happy First Day Without Negative Windchill

I hope everyone remembered to set their clocks forward an hour (after the kids woke up, of course).

We took the opportunity of a moderately mild night yesterday to grill some steaks.

Simply salt and pepper the steaks, throw them on the grill. While they grill, melt half a stick of butter. Stir 1/8 tsp garlic powder, 1 TBSP chopped fresh parsley and a dash or two of dried oregano into the butter. Right when the steaks come off the grill, baste with the butter mixture and then let the steaks rest while you grill asparagus, because SPRING BABY!!! Continue reading →

What Worked Well – Valentine Edition

So what did everyone make for Valentine’s Day? Did you go with fancy (something with scallops perhaps) or a nice steak? I went with comfort food and a joint Valentine’s Day with my sister’s family. The more the merrier!

The Slow Braised Beef from Smitten Kitchen was easy-peasy lemon squeezy. 3 ingredients. That’s it. 4 hours. It’s done. Did I take a picture? No, I didn’t.

For dessert, I made How Sweet Eats Chocolate Cream Pie. Continue reading →

New Feature – This Week in Alliteration – What Worked Well

New feature – this will be where I post which recipes of the prior week worked out the best. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to get dinner on the table 4 out of the 7 days of week. Really more like 4 out of 6 because Pizza Night lives on. And really 4 out of 5 because the boys have band practice on Thursdays until after 9:00. So really, I’m killin’ it.

Hopefully this leads to healthier choices (less take out) and can also remind me as to what recipes we liked rather than searching all my various Field Notes planners.

Last week in the sub-zero wind chill, this Cream of Tomato Soup from SmittenKitchen hit the spot. Accompanying it were grilled cheese and prosciutto sandwiches. Trader Joe’s makes a gruyere/white cheddar combo cheese that makes a really good grilled cheese. Also, grate your cheese instead of slicing when making grilled cheese because then it melts faster and the bread won’t get overly toasted. Hmmm, grate your cheese sounds like a saying about being mad at someone (“That Helen in Accounting, she really grates my cheese”).

I don’t have a picture, but I also made this Roasted Almond Crusted Salmon from HowSweetEats. Now to act like a recipe commenter by telling you about a recipe I like and then making changes**, I didn’t have regular breadcrumbs so I used all Panko and added ¼ teaspoon dried oregano and a dash of onion salt. Nor did I make the glaze but instead served with lemon risotto. I cooked it on a rack on a baking sheet as directed and it was deliciously crispy.

** Still the funniest recipe-commenters-out-of-control moment is chronicled in the article, “Rainbow Cake Inspires Comment Apocalypse” at Deadspin. If you haven’t read it, please do. I’m laughing just typing the article’s name.

If that’s too much reading, you can always head over to Food.com and read the reviews for the Ice Cube recipe.

Thanksgiving Wrap Up

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Cheers!

Oh relax, its a pomegranate/apple juice spritzer. But Cousin Minecraft’s face does have a Dorothy Parker Algonquin Round Table “bored with you all” kind of look to him.

The Table

Because this is the smallest of McNamara/Guilfoile/Kuhn holidays, what with people going to various in-laws’ houses, we can, for this one-time only, fit at one table.

These are my new dishes that Kevin got me for my birthday. My other ones are almost 20 years old and are starting to show their age. I’ll still keep the ones that aren’t chipped, but I thought it was time to class things up around here.

The aforementioned salted butter:

The Final Menu

The Gravy While the gravy made with the turkey was good, it was not that different from the gravy made two weeks ago and frozen. Therefore, that gravy wins as it doesn’t require sweating over the stove at the last minute until your previously flat bangs turn into water buffalo horns.

The Turkey from Epicurious. Was done even faster than the recipe said (maybe because I only did one pan, not two).

The Pumpkin Cornbread Stuffing

The Salad. I used the dressing from this Brussels sprout slaw from The View From Great Island but poured it over butter lettuce, toasted walnuts, shredded carrots and dried cranberries.

Also Colleen & Mitch’s cheesy potatoes, sweet potatoes, Mom’s stuffing, corn and fruit. So for those counting, yes, that is 3 potato dishes and 2 stuffings. For 13 people. Irish Thanksgiving.

Dessert Table

Chocolate Pie from the Pioneer Woman. Guitar Boy’s comment: My life has been changed forever. So I think he liked it.

Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats I’d seen so many food bloggers comment on Smitten Kitchen’s recipe that I had to try them. Plus, Drummer Boy doesn’t really like cake, pie, pudding or candy which leaves him a bit stranded in the McNamara dessert oasis.

Apple Pie – from Kirschbaum’s bakery. Why mess with greatness.

Cranberry Orange Scones from Trader Joes – because GG likes them.

And Aunt Colleen brought brownies. Because you can’t have only 4 desserts for 13 people!

Who Was There?

But Really, Who Was the Cutest Person There?

Why it was Colleen and Mitch’s grand-nephew, Sweet Baby D.

So what now?

Christmas is going up. I’ll come back with a post about some of my favorite Christmas items a little later. With respect to recipes on deck, I’ve got to take something to Rob and Nancy’s most awesome white elephant Holiday Party that we look forward to every year. But my company’s party is the same night, so it’s going to have to be cookies that I can pre-wrap on the tray I’m giving them:

And then Kevin can just bring the cookies with him when he picks me up at the train from the company party. Note, the tray is not our white elephant gift as it is not impractical, inappropriate, useless or hilarious. I’ll let you know what we gave/received after the party.

Here are some of the possible choices on the cookies though:

The Pioneer Woman’s Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies

I’ve made them before and they are quite tasty. However, the Chocolate Pistachio Sablés from Bon Appetit look delicious and fancy (you can tell they are fancy because of l’accent aigu over the e). Food always tastes better with an accent aigu or accent grave. It’s a fact. I’m sure it’s on Wikipedia somewhere. Or it will be shortly.

If I find myself slacking off and sleeping more than 4 hours a night, I might do these wonderful, but time-intensive, Lemon Wreaths from Martha Stewart.

Now go get your weekend on!

A Time to Give Thanks

As far as my young children are concerned, Thanksgiving is just a small step between Halloween and Christmas. A step where people eat “gross” food (except for canned, jellied cranberry sauce – that apparently is acceptable). So we were trying to make it more meaningful last week and in talking about what we are thankful for, the main thing the boys agreed we are thankful for is:

Skunk, our cat. Sure, we love our family and friends. Happiness and health – good things as well, both boys agreed. But survey says what we are most grateful for is our cat. That, and Xbox.

Since we cannot show our appreciation and thanks to the folks at the Microsoft corporation, we instead agreed with the boys that if we are thankful for Skunk, we should show our thanks during this season by donating to the shelter that saved him. So the boys gathered up their tooth fairy and the occasional chore money and we took it over to the shelter (Mom and Dad augmented the donation).

The shelter couldn’t have been more gracious. Getting out of there without another kitten may qualify as a Thanksgiving miracle.

But enough about giving thanks for the things we should, let’s talk about giving thanks for the little things that make Thanksgiving easier or more fun. After all, this blog is about tabletops and recipes, written at night by someone who works 12 hour days sitting behind a desk and really isn’t physically fit or mentally competent to be offering any kind of life advice. If you want to read some truly uplifting and spiritual discussions about how to live your life, I suggest you try my sister-in-law’s blog at Everyday Faith.

But as for me, on with the material possessions!

Serving Platter/Carving Board

This carving board from Cost Plus World Market:

Isn’t it pretty? I most often use it as a cheese board but this year will use it for the turkey. And right now it’s $29.99 and, if you still have the Sunday Chicago Tribune around from 2 weeks ago, there’s a coupon in there for 10% off. THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE. It’s a newspaper. Yes, on paper. Yes, we still get one.

Wishbones

Given that I have two boys who feel bad about eating animals (but won’t eat beans, kale, spinach, cheese or any other protein or iron based food – so chicken nuggets it is!), I’m not sure how they’d feel about breaking a turkey’s furcula (look it up!). But hey, tradition, so I had them make a bunch of these fun clay wishbones from Oh Happy Day. Added bonus, everyone who comes for Thanksgiving can make a wish.

By the way, I told Guitar Boy and Drummer Boy that I think Turkey’s Furcula should be the name of their band someday “THANK YOU CHICAGO – WE ARE TURKEY’S FURCULA – GOODNIGHT!!!” They did not agree.

Salted Butter on Little Plates

I read this story at TheKitchn about salting butter. Now I don’t usually use butter on bread, but Faith Durand’s story about how this simple act – slicing butter and sprinkling smoked salt on it – would transform people’s opinion on bread and butter moved me to action. And I can tell you, it totally works, everyone comments on it. You know, because we need to find a way for Americans to eat more bread and butter. I’m a patriot really.

I use this smoked salt from Williams and Sonoma.

And I serve on little plates. Such as these. From TJ Maxx/HomeGoods. I know.

Chocolate turkeys:

Because I can. WorldMarket, Dylan’s Candy Bar and Godiva all have some.

Turkey – to heck with tradition

After seeing 3 or so articles from chefs about how we are all suckers for cooking a turkey whole, where the breast is done and dry way before the dark meat was fully cooked, I decided to try the turkey in parts. You show everyone the turkey for like 1 minute and then take it back to the kitchen for slicing, so why all the hype about a whole turkey? *shaking fist at Norman Rockwell in heaven*

The practice turkey from House Beautiful turned out well. The whole turkey, white and dark done to perfection, in 1 ½ hours.

However, we thought it needed a little something-something. So Thanksgiving turkey will be some combination of these two recipes from Epicurious: Deconstructed Holiday Turkey with Sage Gravy or Citrus Sage Roast Turkey Breast.

I’ve made the latter turkey breast before in testing out the stuffing recipe (see below), but kind of think brining could help. I’ve also pre-made the gravy (wha?!) because TheKitchn told me I could. We’ll do a gravy taste-test on Thanksgiving to see if TheKItchn was right. Mmmmmmh, gravy taste-test.

I’ll let you know how everything turns out afterwards – in between cleaning up Thanksgiving and putting up Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Too Many ‘Maters

If your summer garden decided to explode with tomatoes (as many of my friends’, family’s and co-workers’ gardens did) I thought I’d share some recipe “hits” from the last week or two of summer tomatoes. All of these work best with fresh, summer tomatoes, but you might be able to pull off the pasta sauce, the tart and the dip in the winter too with store-bought grape tomatoes.

Baked Tomato Sauce from Smitten Kitchen

Made this with both red and yellow cherry tomatoes from my CEO’s garden. It was delicious (not just saying that because he’s my boss)! I also added an additional clove of garlic to the breadcrumb mixture and once it was tossed with the pasta, topped with a chiffonade** of basil and a tablespoon of parmesan.

Sorry, we we’re hungry from being at the pool, so no “after” picture, just “gone”.

Crack Dip with Grape Tomatoes from Whiteonricecouple

I had even more yellow grape tomatoes from the aforementioned CEO bounty. This was as delicious as their website advertised.

Before:

Shortly thereafter at the Rehor’s pool (nom, nom, nom):

Tomato Burrata Baguette from Gouda Monster

If you happen to have ombre heirloom tomatoes, which are currently $179.99/pound at Whole Foods, then you will have something as beautiful as the picture. But I’m here to tell you that whatever mutant but beautiful summer tomatoes you have will work just fine (see this interesting video “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” from Intermarche in France and what a difference it makes to not waste non-perfect produce).

Slice the bread a little thinner than just in half, otherwise it is very hard to eat unless you are capable of opening your jaw Jim-Carrey-in-Mask style. Depending on the thickness of your chosen loaf, I might even suggest thirds and then use the middle, non-crust piece to make breadcrumbs. After toasting the bread, I spread the burrata on and put it back in the oven for about 2-3 minutes to get it extra melty. Used sea salt on top of the tomatoes. I’ve made this twice as a starter, and each time Kevin said, “Why did you even make anything else for dinner?”

Grilled Cherry or Grape Tomatoes or just Tomato Vierge Spread adapted from Prasino’s in LaGrange

Grilling Option:

In a large bowl, mix 3 cups whole yellow and red cherry tomatoes, 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, ¼ cup chopped fresh herbs (I use a mix of basil, chives and parsley), ½ teaspoon of onion powder and 1 tablespoon chopped garlic.

Let sit about 30 minutes. While they sit, soak wooden skewers in water. Thread tomatoes on skewers and place on grill (with whatever you are otherwise grilling). Grill about 15 minutes or until charred. Eat as a side or serve with toasted bread and whatever else gets you crackalackin (buffalo mozzarella, goat cheese, more basil, red onion, etc.). You can use the remaining marinade to drizzle over the bread.

Overnight or Baking Option:

In a large bowl, mix 3 cups halved or quartered red and yellow cherry tomatoes, (½ cup extra virgin olive oil, ¼ cup chopped fresh herbs (I use a mix of basil, chives, parsley), 2 tablespoons capers, drained (or ½ tsp onion powder) and 1 tablespoon chopped garlic.

When I have time, I just let this sit overnight in the fridge and serve as a spread for bread (see above). If you don’t have time, I would suggest cooking it in a 375 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes to meld flavors. Then toast some French or Italian bread slices and use the mixture as a spread.

Tomato Tart from The Pioneer Woman

This is a nice little starter when grilling steaks.

Heirloom Tomato Stack Salad adapted from Cooking Light

You know me, if it said “Avocado and Thing” on the menu I’d say, “Mmmm, that sounds good.” However, I am one of those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap, so I substitute parsley. I also lay the cut tomatoes on a layer of paper towels to drain a little, otherwise this ends up a really runny mess on the plate. Keeping with that theme, I also use 2 tablespoons mayonnaise and sometimes add an additional tablespoon of sour cream after blending the dressing if it seems too thin. For the record, I have never been able to get the avocado into that cute little dice you see in Cooking Light’s picture. I tell myself that is because the food stylist was clearly using an un-ripe, hard avocado and therefore mine, with my lumpy pieces of avocado, is much more delicious. I am comfortable basking in the lies I tell myself.

Happy end of summer everyone!

**To the haters—back off. It’s not fancy, it just means you stack the basil leaves on top of one another, roll the basil leaves up and slice them into the thin strips. And no, I don’t have a special tool for that.

Lucky Rhino

For the recipes and pictures I promised to send, but never do.