Tag Archives: #thekitchn

A Delayed Easter Recap

It’s been a long two weeks. It all started Thursday night (Maundy Thursday – who knew?!) with a work-related ladies poker party. Once we got someone from the Audit Department in there, the rules were official…and then I started to lose. But completely fun nonetheless.

cards

We moved immediately into Good Friday Pizza Night with a visit from Grandma and our Duxbury Guilfoiles.

dux Then onto, of course, The Block’s Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday.

egghuntsign Here they come.

egghunt1

And there they go.

egghunt2 Remember that scene in the movie Parenthood where Rick Moranis’ kid knows French and Steve Martin’s kid is all “he likes to hit things with his head” with a bucket on his head? Yeah, well, welcome to my world.

buckethead Easter was a lot of the same food as seen in past Easter posts.

sign

Hint: Pasta Blanco is just plain butter noodles but thanks to Uncle Tom I learned how to class the joint up a bit. But there was the addition of this Crunchy Spring Salad from The Kitchn.

salad

Super bright and springy. I added thinly sliced carrots too for color. Of course, we busted out some new desserts. Well, there were three planned, and two more showed up. As it shall be. I mean really, there are 30 people, you need at least 5 desserts right?

sign2

If you need something simple, this Chocolate Toffee Trifle from Or So She Says is super easy as you used boxed cake mix and Heath pieces.

dessert Bunny Garden Pudding (bottom right) is just bunny Peeps in Smitten Kitchen’s Best Chocolate Pudding Ever in graham cracker tart shells. Some of the bunnies fainted from the deliciousness.

And lest we forget a new cocktail! Grapefruit Daiquiris from How Sweet It Is are delicious, not too sweet and would be fantastic if the weather here ever warms up (to quote my friend Laura T. with respect to this weather – “Mother Nature, I think you are drunk”).

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Table favors were teeny, tiny succulents from Mountain Crest Gardens in bunnies.

succulent

And my new purple highball (yep, I said highball) glasses from Crate and Barrel.

table1 table3

And then, of course, our own McNamara/Guilfoile/Kuhn Easter Egg Hunt with these fabulous ladies.

mia

alfab

molly Egg won’t fit.

eggdontfit

But D don’t care.

And all the cousins in a selfie taking process (which makes for a better picture when they don’t know we’re watching).

selfie

I don’t mean to bring the post down, but we ended on a sad note Monday when my step-father Jim passed away. What can you say about a guy that has five daughters and marries my mom who has four more?

McGovern wed

Only that he was a strong, strong man who loved us all very much. We will miss you Jim.

And so we don’t end that way, and now this.

And this is picture of me trying to write this blog post tonight with “help”.

help

We’re going to a trivia contest fundraiser this weekend that involves TV related costumes (which was NOT disclosed to me in advance of me writing the check). So you have those pictures to look forward to.

Have a great rest of the week.

Vacation’s All I Ever Wanted

Except now I’m exhausted from all the vacationing. We rented a house on the lake in Indiana and it was lovely.

There was beach time (ahem, strike a pose)

Bowling time (cold, rainy day)

Rollerskating time.

BIG waves (well, for Lake Michigan).

Up to no good at the beach time.

Digging holes.

Spotted an elusive beach gnome in one of the holes.

Just down the street, an American Ninja Warrior-like park. Big M as Kacy Catanzaro!

But from this blogger’s perspective, most of all, it had a really fully stocked kitchen which is unusual in a rental. Silicone basting brush – check. Juicer – check. Three colanders, one ginormous – check. I wanted for nothing.

So here are a few things that were on the menu for the week:

Smitten Kitchen’s Tomato Sausage Risotto which is a go-to dish to serve a lot of people. I use turkey Italian sausage to lighten it up a bit. Add 1/2 to every ingredient to serve 4 adults and 2 girls who are good eaters.

Cobb Salad with Pioneer Woman’s Homemade Ranch Dressing

WHAT YOU NEED
4 cooked boneless chicken breasts. You can cook them any way you want, but this method from thekitchn really works for salads.
16 oz. bacon, cooked crisp
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 cup fresh peas (hint, Trader Joes has them in the refrigerated section)
3 hard boiled eggs
1 medium red onion, diced.
2 avocados, diced
Cooked corn kernels (good use for left-over corn on the cob)
1 head Romaine lettuce
1 head/clamshell butter lettuce
1 head iceberg lettuce
Blue cheese crumbles (optional)

WHAT YOU DO
Arrange all lettuce in bowl or platter. Toss with a little of the ranch dressing. Arrange all the ingredients in rows on the lettuce and drizzle with a little more dressing. I serve the blue cheese crumbles on the side as not everyone like blue cheese in this particular vacation house.

From BevCooks, Seared Steak with Chimichurri Sauce. I didn’t serve it with polenta, instead roasted a bunch of fingerling potatoes, halved, tossed with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast at 400 for about 30 minutes, flipping half way through. Forget to take picture. To compensate, here are the sauce and marinade that I made ahead before we left.

Also featured in that picture is ginger syrup for the Ginger Beergaritas from How Sweet It Is. Tasted like a margarita soda. Yum.

We packed up this group of cousins and headed up the road to see the lake-adjacent house of my cousins. Showing up with 6 kids in tow, Tessa had this response:

We had a great time, great meal of turkey burgers, regular burgers, brats and as a side I made The Pioneer Woman’s Pasta Ai Quattro Formaggio, otherwise known as four-cheese, clothespin-on-the-aorta, mac and cheese.

Really a very simple dish when using Trader Joe’s 4 Cheese Italian blend. I make it often as a weeknight side. I also made a peach crumble from The Kitchn’s Make a Crumble from Any Fruit recipe.

It got a little dark to get too many pictures, but as least we got some fire pit action in.

And the song McNamara’s Band MAY have been played. And there MAY have a been a parade with tupperware instruments. However, in the interest that anyone may have in running for Supreme Court justice or other public office someday, we’ll keep that video just between us cousins.

There was card playing for money, natch.

And some pool time.

And this creepy, Scooby-Doo-like abandoned park named Canada Playground. This is Indiana’s way of saying “Hey Canada, maybe if you’d stop giving away health care you could step up your parks and rec maintenance!” Note it also says no dogs allowed. Because you wouldn’t want to mess up the facilities.

All in all, a success at Beachwalk Resort.

Now, one more day until I’m back to the life where there is much less joyful jumping.

But not before I made everyone one of these Birthday Cake Milkshakes. There are lots of different riffs on these out there, but I think using frosting makes for a better texture than the ones I’ve done with cake mix.

WHAT YOU NEED
1.5 Quarts of vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt
8 oz vanilla frosting from a can
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 – 1 cup milk (depending on how thick you would like the shake).
Sprinkles. Always sprinkles.
Extra frosting for the glasses

WHAT YOU DO
Blend first 4 ingredients in blender to desired milkshakiness. Rub vanilla frosting on the rim of each glass. Put sprinkles on a plate and turn the cup to coat rim in sprinkles. They can be any color or size, I just had Fourth of July nonpareils on hand. Pour in milkshake and serve to this happy camper.

I mustache you, was this delicious?

Volleyball, Spiderman and the Twilight Zone

I introduce these recipes without meaning any offense to the first two. The first two were delicious. Had we made only these two, the post-volleyball tournament, post-re-doing her son’s room, post-Religious-Ed mass with the dead grandmother movie (Grandma’s Bread – look it up) crowd would have been very pleased.

But then came the green beans.

First the Korean Style Bulgogi Steak, inspired by thekitchn. Thekitchn tells you how to make your own gochujang sauce but requires gochujang paste. Neither Jewel nor Whole Foods sought fit to provide me with this, but Jewel had pre-made gochujang sweet and spicy sauce.

So I looked at the ingredients, added what seemed to be missing (a little rice wine vinegar and neutral oil) and used it as a marinade for the steak and drizzled some extra on top. Wonderful.

Then, having only one usable avocado, I made Smitten Kitchen’s Obsessively Good Avocado and Cucumber Salad. It was, as advertised, obsessively good. So much so, we didn’t take a picture, so here’s one of Guitar Boy before the oral report he had to give on Spiderman creator Stan Lee.**

Presented for your consideration. A humble pound of green beans. Trimmed. Fresh. But what happens next can only be explained in..the Delicious Zone.

These Roasted Ginger Sesame Green Beans from Foodie with Family come from another planet. A planet where everyone finishes their green beans. Where children (not mine!) willingly take them from their father’s plate. Fantastic. Thanks Foodie with Family.

** Our excellent friend Jeremy Manier commented on Facebook that if Guitar Boy wanted to make his Stan Lee oral report authentic, he should make brief cameos in other kids oral reports. Genius.

Happy New Year 2015!

I took a few days off between Christmas and New Year’s Day and now I’m more tired than I was on 12/24. Between pizza nights, delayed family flights, the boys first Bulls game:

And then New Years Eve and Guitar Boy’s New Year’s Day birthday brunch, you’d think I’d be too tired for new recipes or tablescapes. But no, the party Must. Go. On.

First, NYE

Made Salmon Pizza as an appetizer for the first event

and Smoked Salmon Dip for the second event:

Thanks to the Borkowskis and Harrisons for a great New Years Eve!

While our absolute favorite breakfast/brunch place is Blueberry Hill in LaGrange (Hi Mr. Chris!), occasionally Kevin and I find ourselves without the boys and the capability of going to brunch at a place that isn’t entirely waffle-based. When that happens, we will go to Prasino in LaGrange

And Kevin always gets the same thing – lox and bagel. Always. Because that way, he knows he will like it. He’s very exciting like that. But, ah ha! they changed it, and now they create it into almost a salad and stands out from your standard lox and bagel. So, inspired by this recipe at SpoonForkBacon, I set out to re-create what Prasino did. It worked as both a pizza and appetizer.

Salmon Pizza (or Prasino bagel breakfast in pizza form, inspired by Spoonforkbacon)

WHAT YOU NEED
1 can refrigerated pizza dough (or make your own if you are not yeast-adverse as I)
6-8 oz smoked salmon/lox
½ cup crème fraiche
2 TBSP chopped fresh chives or 1 TBSP dried
1/3 cup very thinly sliced red onion
Zest of a medium lemon
2 TBSP chopped fresh dill
1 ½ – 2 cups arugula (depending on how much you like arugula)
1 hard boiled egg, chopped
Cracked pepper
Sea Salt

WHAT YOU DO
Cook pizza crust per instructions completely as if the toppings were on it (it’s not going back in the oven), trying to get it as thin as you can. Cool completely.

Spread crème fraiche over top of the cooled crust. Scatter chives over the crème fraiche. Scatter sliced onions evenly over the crust. Top with salmon sliced on the diagonal.Take the little pieces and fill in anywhere there isn’t salmon. Sprinkle dill all over followed by lemon zest. Top with the arugula, chopped egg and cracked pepper to your liking and a sprinkle of sea salt.

Eat for dinner with a nice Prosecco or cut into squares for an appetizer.

Keeping the appetizers thematic (yes, it’s a word), I made this Smoked Salmon Dip from thekitchn.

Now, on to NYD

Did my standard egg casserole from Epicurious, natch. Did a Donut Croquembouche in lieu of a cake for Guitar Boy’s 11^th.

Here is his fiery tower of donuts before:

And after:

Made the Gingerbread Granola from prior post but used gluten free oats and worked just as well. Served over vanilla yogurt.

Also – Epiphany! We were at Blueberry Hill before Christmas and a woman came in and picked up 5 pounds of cooked bacon for a party she was having. Five pounds! At 12 slices a time in the oven and 5 in the microwave that would take about 2 hours at home and a ton of grease to cook that much bacon. And you only have to order it from them 15 MINUTES IN ADVANCE. Done and done forever. Because bacon.

And of course, we’ll need a Breakfast Sangria!

Definitely use either a grapefruit or lemon sparkling water otherwise I don’t think the citrusy kick would be strong enough. But those were some boozy grapefruits!

Bought some 2015 party horns at Target and used them to contain individual silverware sets on the table. By the way, did you know that Target sells both upstairs party horns AND basement party horns? So glad I bought the latter *wink*.

As party favors, I bought inexpensive, little plastic bottles and made Happy New Year labels (filled with either Nerds or mini M&Ms). You can now make labels right here on the Avery label site – just enter the item number of whatever labels you have and they’ll give you a lot of options. It’s really easy.

Here’s everything we made as set forth on my favorite Christmas gift – a menu board!

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2015 for everyone. May 2015 find you:

Fabulous

Funny

And surrounded by friends and family.

Remember, resolutions start only on Mondays!

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!

Lucky Rhino

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