They tell us the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and I'm setting the bar high, little girls out there. You might not even know who you are yet, but take my advice anyway and start enjoying how to cook, because not only is it good for you, it will keep the others happy too!
Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Toast a handful of walnut pieces in a small saucepan for a couple of minutes over high heat, and set them aside to cool.
Chop up some left over roasted chicken and toss it with a big spoonful of mayonnaise.
Next, peel and chop a nice ripe apple and mix it in with the chicken.
Add 2 big chopped green onions, and a handful of chopped cilantro, or basil, or parsley.
Toss in the toasted walnuts once they have cooled.
Salt a bit, and add a drizzle of olive oil if it looks dry (or more mayonnaise if you really want to).
Serve on big slices of sourdough bread, open-faced or closed.
Look how happy they get -- even abandoning the toys for a minute to finish dinner!
A perennial favorite around here is Arroz a la Cubana: rice with tomato sauce, an egg on top, fried sausage alongside, and a little bit of fried plantain.
These are the top go-to dinners when everyone is yelling about something and no one can wait 5 more minutes for dinner. Please add more suggestions as they occur to you.
The real question is: why have we been having dinner from this list so often lately?
Ham Steaks and Fried Eggs: Fry up some eggs. Fry up a ham steak to go along. Drink a beer if you're over 21.
Shrimp, Mushroom, and Cabbage Salad: Saute some sliced mushrooms in olive oil with one or two garlic cloves, not even chopped. Throw in a bunch of chopped cabbage (you know, like the kind that comes in the coleslaw bag!). In another skillet saute peeled shrimp in olive oil for 2-3 minutes. Serve on a big platter, mushrooms and cabbage on the bottom and shrimp over the top. My guys LOVE this. I can't figure out why.
Egg Drop Soup: Whatever broth-based soup you have on hand, bring it to a boil. Drop in one egg per person and let them boil right in the soup, for 5-7 minutes, or longer if you want a hard yolk. Serve one egg per person inside the bowl of soup. This turns the soup into a meal!
Cucumber Salad: This is a good tapa to quiet everyone down. Peel and slice a cucumber. Pour lots of vinegar over the top and a pinch of dill. Slice in a red onion if they'll wait. My guys call this pickle salad.
Antipasto Salad: Throw some salami and cheese slices on a big plate. Add some cherry tomatoes and some olives, and a big scoop out of a jar of giardiniera, if you have one. Celery and carrot sticks work well too. If you have ham, add that, and some fruit will work too, preferably melon or pears. Remember the idea is to get the food out! If you want something more civilized, try this.
Corn and Spinach Pancakes: Make some pancakes. Stir some frozen corn and some chopped spinach (frozen or fresh) into the batter. Serve with butter (but no syrup!)
Zucchini Pancakes: Ditto, just add thinly sliced zucchini.
I consider a Make Ahead dinner anything that can be made and eaten later. So I might make two lasagnes at once and put one in the freezer for a week or two down the road, or I might make a pot of soup after dinner is done for the evening and keep it in the refrigerator for the following night. Or I might make a frittata in the middle of the day and serve it with soup or salad for dinner. Just as long as I don't have to do it "in the moment."
8 ounces crab meat
1 and 1/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
2 tablespoons minced scallions
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sliced almonds
2 tablespoons peanut or canola oil
Put the crabmeat in a bowl and add 2/3 cup of the bread crumbs, scallion, cilantro, garlic, mayonnaise, Tabasco, and salt. Mix lightly, just until the ingredients are well combined.
Put the remaining breadcrumbs in a food processor with the almonds and process until the nuts are well chopped and combined with the bread.
Heat the oven to 180 degrees [if serving immediately]. Form the crab mixture into 4 patties, then dip each patty into the crumb mixture until it is coated on all sides.
Heat the oil in a nonstick skillet over medium heat and arrange the patties next to one another in the pan, handling them gently because they are soft. Cook for about 3 minutes on each side. Keep warm in the oven. [At this point, I will sometimes save these for the next day, and reheat them quickly in skillet on high heat.]
Red Sauce to serve with the crab cakes:
Mix 1/3 cup mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons ketchup, 1 teaspoon wasabi paste or wasabi powder, 2 teaspoons fresh lime juice, and 1 tablespoon water.
Here is a list of meatless dinners that my kids will eat, and a link to one of my favorite food sites.
Colcannon: we like this the traditional way, with potatoes and cabbage and lots of butter, but it also lends itself to some good variations, like using kale with the mashed potatoes instead of cabbage. Even further afield, but also delicious, is mixing sauteed chard with previously roasted potatoes. Saute the roasted potatoes in butter and smash them a bit with a spoon before stirring in the sauteed greens.
Falafel: I like to make this one in the Crock Pot and have it ready when we get home. Yogurt and cucumber salad is delicious alongside. We can serve it with pita bread or without. Fresh pico de gallo is also good.
Vegetable Soup: This is just your basic puree of vegetables with good stock, and can be mixed and matched in so many different ways. One way way to make an almost-cream based soup is to puree one vegetable (like broccoli)with a potato or two, and adding evaporated milk instead of cream.
Quinoa with vegetables: This one can also be done in 5 minutes if you make the quinoa earlier in the week, and just reheat and fluff before adding the vegetables. Don't forget to wash the quinoa well - with at least two changes of water. It should not taste bitter or strange at all. You'd be surprised how many people forget to rinse it.
Lentils: There are as many different versions of this as there are of lasagne. Our favorite lentils are the small green ones from Spain, but black lentils and french lentils are good too. Funny that the small green ones from Spain are cultivated in the US and imported to Spain. Can't find them here!
Barley Soup: I like to add barley to carrots and mushrooms sauteed in lots of butter.
Spinach Pie: This is based on delicious spanakopita filling, but uses a quick pre-made pie crust to get it in the oven in about 7 minutes.
Okay, for our first catageory of dinners, and because I am running so short on time these days, here is a list of lovely dinners to be made in the Crock Pot. I have a 5-quart Crock pot, and that is the perfect size to feed all of us, plus leave left overs for me to take to reheat for lunch.
I have decided to organize my recipes into categories before actually calendaring meals for a week or a month. I want to do this because:
Sometimes I don't want to eat what I said I would make;
sometimes other people don't want to eat what I said I would make;
sometimes there isn't enough time to make what I said I would make;
sometimes I forgot just ONE IMPORTANT INGREDIENT at the store, but that wrecks everything;
and sometimes the Crockpot doesn't cooperate.
So my recipes all fall into the following categories, with some overlap:
Make-ahead Dinners
Vegetarian Dinners
Crockpot Dinners
Protein-filled Dinners
30-minute Dinners
5-minute It's an Emergency Dinners
Low Points (as in Weight Watchers) Dinners
What I plan to do is pick a dinner from each category, with the possibility of substituting another dinner from the same category if something or someone requires flexibility.
Next up on the list....organizing all of the categories and posting their recipes! Stay tuned....and here's a little song....
One of my New Year's resolutions is not to be singing the dinner-time blues anymore.
You know, that 30 minutes of time when the big boy is so hungry he is climbing the walls and the little boy is so hungry that he is pulling me physically to the refrigerator to get him something to eat because he can't see up on the countertop that I am making his dinner.
When I get the dinner-time blues, usually I am hungry because I haven't had anything to eat since lunch, and Papa is cranky because he's had a long day.
I so imagine coming home after work to a warm house, where dinner is ready for the table in about 10 minutes, and some fun music is playing on the stereo and we all talk and laugh about things that happened during the day.
I know why get the dinner-time blues, so why can't I work around them? I'm going to try organizing some weekly menus. All suggestions welcome. Stick with me!
A zaguán is the entryway into a house. In typical Andalusian houses, the zaguán is a smallish, dark passage inside the doorway that leads in turn to the larger, light-filled interior patio. In Seville, in the heat of summer, zaguán doors are left open so that passersby can take refuge from the sun and heat for a moment before continuing on their way.
We live in the Sunset district of San Francisco, where the fog wins out over the sun most days, and the search for refuge from the heat is a distant memory. Even so, we would like to share our home with you and our stories of growing up in Seville and growing up in San Francisco.
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