In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Request for Recipes

Lauren

Tonight, after spending the entire day cleaning house and doing laundry, the last thing I wanted to do was cook yet another meal. I wanted to use things in the house, throw something together that would be ready within thirty minutes.

Tonight I made a tater tot casserole, frankly because it was the only thing I could think of to make with the available ingredients (I thought about convincing the chef boyfriend to come over and doctor it for me, but he might have died at the mere mention of casserole or tater tots). If anyone has any suggestions for easy meals conducive to kid palate, please tip me off in the comments.

51 thoughts on Request for Recipes

  1. I’ve fed this one to kids, and they’ve lived to tell the tale. It’s the easiest thing in the world to cook, it’s cheap, and it scales well – I’ve cooked twenty servings of it with barely more effort than it takes to cook it just for myself:

    Tomato Potatoes

    Ingredients:

    3 medium-sized potatoes
    3 tbsp of tomato paste (yes, paste, not sauce)
    3 tbsp oil
    whatever random spices you feel like using (I usually use a fair bit of garlic, some parsley, some black pepper, and a bit of oregano; none of those will make or break the recipe, but I never omit the garlic.)

    Directions

    Cut potatoes into bite-sized pieces. Boil water in a big pot. Put potatoes in the pot. When they’re soft enough to eat, drain the water, add oil to the pot, and simmer at medium temperature. Mix. When the oil starts boiling, add tomato paste, and mix throughly. Add spices and mix. Eat.

  2. “easy meals conducive to kid palate”

    Graham crackers and cake frosting. Take a graham cracker and slap on a big handful of frosting, then top that gingerly with another graham cracker. Done in 60 seconds.

  3. Lasagna, recipe on the box of dried noodles — should be enough for a couple of days, depending on family size, could freeze leftovers. Serve with a veggie and bread.

    Almost any kind of pasta. Keep on hand some frozen tortellini, ravioli — boil water, cook, serve with (possibly also frozen) veggies and bread.

    And when you DO feel like cooking, cook extra and freeze the rest.

  4. “easy meals conducive to kid palate”Graham crackers and cake frosting.

    Heh, I still love to eat those and I’m 19. 😀 Doesn’t quite make for a nutritionally balanced meal, sadly.

  5. Breakfast burrito

    Popcorn, cheese and apples

    Fruit kabob with dressing/dip

    Hot dogs!!

    Mini-sub sandwich

    Breakfast cereal!

    Pancakes or waffles

    Pizza made with Bobli, cheese, spinach

  6. Maybe if you explained that they were gourmet tater tots from Alsace-Lorraine…

    Echoing Mr. Thompson’s exquisite palate, my only original creation involves graham crackers in a bowl of chocolate milk, a delicious concoction I still eat for at least 2 of 3 meals per day.

  7. Hi! just stumbled onto your site…
    My husband’s appetite is stunted to that of a 6 year old’s and i can’t cook. This is what we have for dinner sometimes. Under 20 minutes.

    I was told once that the best thing you can do in planning meals is to aim for 6 colors/shades in your meal. Yes, colors. The basic idea is that the colors generally coorelate to different vitamins/minerals…yellow=carbs, white=dairy, green=veggie, red=veggie/meat, etc. Makes sense since the more colorful a meal, the more appetizing…we’re programed to desire a variety of nutrients.

    And, in honor of Dave Egger’s “A heartbreaking work of staggering genius” semi-autobiographical novel in which he names the meals that he and his brother cooked, I’ll name mine.

    THE IKEA DINNER (Swedish meatballs)
    -Microwave frozen meatballs (buy in bags of 50)–they’re precooked, only 2-3 minutes in the microwave
    -Boil spinach/frozen mixed veggies
    -Instant mashed potatoes
    optional: instant gravy, lingonberry sauce for meatballs (comes in a jar, similar to cranberry sauce)

  9. White Trash Cookin’ with Deanna

    Garbage Dogs (aka, Party Dogs, Chip-n-Cheese Dogs, etc.)

    This first one was a favorite of mine growing up, and I still make it for myself regularly (and get ridiculed by everyone in my life for it).

    5 hot dogs, raw, diced
    1 cup crushed potato chips
    1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
    2 tbsp vegetable oil
    3 tbsp ketchup
    1 tbsp mustard
    2 tbsp relish

    Mix all the above together in a bowl; scoop into 6-8 hot dog buns and bake at 350° for 15 minutes or until toasty brown. Reheats well in the toaster oven; gets kinda rubbery in a microwave. Mix itself keeps for a while.

    A friend of mine makes a version of this that she calls “Recycled Dogs,” using turkey dogs, baked corn chips and lowfat refried beans as a “healthier” combo. Whatever.

    Tuna Noodle Casserole

    Another easy favorite. Have I mentioned that Mom couldn’t cook, and neither can I?

    1 can tuna
    1 can cream of chicken condensed soup
    A buncha egg noodles

    Cook the egg noodles. Mix in the tuna and the soup and serve. Or, put the mixture into a casserole dish, cover with breadcrumbs, and bake until crusty brown.

    Tomato-y Mac-n-Cheese Casserole

    Oh, this one takes me back. Dad would be away on training, my brother and I would look wistfully at Mom for another quick-n-easy Family Circle Magazine recipe. Bless her heart.

    1 box mac-n-cheese
    1/2 lbs ground beef
    1 can tomato soup

    Make mac-n-cheese as you normally would. Put it in a 2-qt casserole dish, top with ground beef, and pour tomato over it. Cover and bake at 350° for 35 minutes.

  10. Since Atkins has gone bankrupt, I can recommend pasta, esp. with those tasty fresh tomoatoes. Try L’Amatriciana, for example: cook pancetta (or bacon) in a little olive oil, remove with slotted spoon when done, then cook sliced onion & garlic for a few minutes, then add tomatoes for another couple minutes, then parsley and/or basil. Then toss w/pasta. It takes just a few minutes more than the pasta, much less than 30, and tasty; just serve with salad or cold vegetables. And if you’re more ethical than I, just skip the bacon, add some red pepper flakes, and it cooks during the time you’re cooking the noodles…

  11. Have you ever checked out allrecipes.com? They have tons of great easy recipes, and I think one of the search terms is kid-friendly. At least I do remember that if you do a review of a recipe, kid-friendly is one of the terms.

  12. My favorite dinner as a kid was “Cheese and Crackers” with my Grandmother.

    It was actually more like, “Build your own cracker sandwhich.”

    We had cheese slices, sweet and regular pickles, vienna sausages (for my sister), little smokies, olives, cherry tomatoes. Whatever sounded like it would go good with crackers.

    Everything is better when it shits on a Ritz.

    If you have a food processor, Nachos are super easy, too. My dad was the Nacho King. Chips, cheese, and a can of beans.

  13. In my house, PK eats most things, which thank god b/c I don’t like eating crap or cooking two meals. Some of the easier, probably more likely to be palatable to picky kid meals are:

    Quiche, if the kid likes eggs. You have to keep frozen pie crusts on hand, but if you have ’em in the fridge, it’s easy as hell to whip up 3-4 eggs and a cup and a half of milk. Add cheese, ham, veggies, whatever the kid likes.

    If you have fresh tomatoes (and if the kid likes ’em) screw turning on the stove (no offense, Scott): chop up the tomatoes, chop up some basil, salt the tomatoes, and serve the sauce, cold, over boiled pasta. Seriously delish. If you want to add protein, cube some mozarrella and add that.

    Fish tacos: fishsticks, corn tortillas, chopped cabbage, and a sauce made of mayo (or sour cream, or yogurt) and lime juice and, if you have it, cilantro. Seriously delicious.

    A German tradition (from Mr. B.’s family): mashed potatoes, fried eggs, and spinach. Seriously. It’s really pretty damn good, especially if you mix in a little bit of nutmeg with the spinach. Mr. B. mushes it all together, which is revolting, and I recommend against doing that.

    Pancakes. With fruit if you have it. If you make the batter thin and have a big pan, you can make crepes.

    Sandwiches. Grilled is good. Grilled cheese with watermelon on the side is yummy.

    Mac & cheese is easy to make from scratch. The sauce is melted butter, add a tablespoon or more of flour so it makes a thick paste, cook it for a minute (stirring) so the flour doesn’t taste raw, add a cup or more of milk, grate in a lot of cheese. Stir it over medium heat ’til it thickens. Pour it over boiled pasta. If you feel patient, bake it and it’ll be thicker. If you want “fancy,” use parmesan and a little nutmeg instead of cheddar, and you have bechemel.

  14. I don’t cook much, but when I do, I have two favorite recipies. In fact, one isn’t even cooking.

    STRAWBERRY/FRUIT DIP:

    This stuff is simple but orgasmically good.

    One standard-size packet of cream cheese
    One standard-size jar of puft marshmallow (like you use in a fudge recipe)

    Mix together and dip your strawberries in it, so any health benefits from the fruit is nullified.

    SOUR CREAM ENCHILADA CASSEROLE.

    Prepare 2 pounds ground beef with taco seasoning, following the directions on the taco seasoning packet.

    In a 13 x 9 x 2 casserole dish, you will line up your enchiladas (which are really beef, cheese and bean burritos — shut up!)

    Open a can of refried beans and smear some onto a 12 inch diameter tortillia. Add beef, then add cheddar cheese. Roll up into a big honkin burrito and put it in your casserole dish. Rinse and repeat. You should use all but about 1/4 of your refried beans doing this.

    Heat up a 16 oz container of sour cream with two cans of cream of chicken soup (sounds gross but do it because I said so goddamnit)

    Pour sour cream sauce on top of casserole dish that is now full of your bean/beef/cheese burritos, which you will heretofore call enchiladas because that is the name that is in the title of the stupid recipe, OK?

    Sprinkle more cheese on top (cardiac bypass surgeons need money!) and heat in 325 degree oven until cheese is melted.

    Serve with guacamole, diced tomatoes, and lettuce. Do not serve with black olives because they’re fucking disgusting, seriously what is wrong with you to even suggest it? Like I want some beetle-carcass olive on my food.

    Enjoy!

  16. Go to the web site for The Food Network, and look up recipes by Rachael Ray. She has stuff you can cook in a half hour or less, per one of her shows. Her chicken-fried-steak recipe was good, and kids like that kind of thing.

  17. Here is an easy brownie recipe from Ghirardelli. It’s also on the can, so you don’t need to look back at your blog to do it. I’ve made this one, and it’s very good.

    2 eggs
    3/4 cup sugar
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
    3/4 cup ghirardelli sweet ground cocoa
    2/3 cup unsifted flour
    1/4 teaspoon baking powder
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
    1 cup chocolate chips

    16-20 servings

    40 minutes 10 mins prep

    1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
    2. Using a spoon, stir eggs, sugar, and vanilla; add butter.
    3. Sift together Sweet ground chocolate, flour, salt and baking powder.
    4. Stir into egg mixture.
    5. Add nuts and/or chocolate chips.
    6. Spread into 8″ or 9″ square baking pan.
    7. Bake 20-30 minutes.
    8. For chewy brownies use 8″ pan and less baking time.
    9. For cake like brownies use 9″ pan and more baking time.
    10. Cut into squares.

  18. My God, it’s 5 AM and I am positively starving after reading this. (I am a fatty.)

    Here is a recipe that will make you very, very happy.

    Flour Tortilla Pizzas

    Heat a teflon pan up to med-hi; turn on oven (broil, not bake) to 350.

    While the skillet’s heating, grab as many flour tortillas as you want pizzas, and score them on both sides with a knife, four times horizontally, four vertically. This’ll keep the tortilla from puffing up with steam when you toast it.

    Your skillet should be nice and hot when you’re done with that.

    Throw in each tortilla, letting it toast on each side until parts of it are brown and it’s pretty crispy. You don’t wanna underdo it or your pizza will be soggy.

    Lay out each toasted tortilla on a cookie sheet. Spoon on your favorite spaghetti sauce until the top is barely covered. Two or three tablespoons should be plenty. (For what it’s worth, I recommend Francesco Rinaldi brand Tomato, Garlic and Onion… so yummy.)

    Top with enough mozzarella to cover the tortilla. You should still see tomato beteween the cheese. Add pepperoni, if desired. Finally, sprinkle on about half as much parmesan.
    Parmesan is key.

    Throw in the oven on top rack for like, 3 minutes. If you did it right, the edges of your pizza will be really brown, everything will be melted, and you will have _delicious_ snacks or dinner.

    Cut with a pizza cutter and serve to happy mouths.

    Prep Time: 12 minutes
    Cook Time: 3 minutes

    A Josh original.â„¢ Love me.

  19. Kid Pizzas:

    English Muffins
    Cheese
    Tomato Sauce
    and whatever other leftovers you have

    Let the kid make his own and then heat a little under the broiler.

  20. Also, I think there are recipe generators on the Internet. You check off the ingredients you have and the system finds a recipe that fits your pantry’s current inventory.

  21. Chunky Chickpea Guacamole:

    Mash a can of chickpeas, add two avocadoes and mash it some more, add a can of tomatoes and about half a red onion (optional) and some garlic and about a teaspoon or so of cumin and mix it all up. Add salt to taste. You can throw some cilantro in there, too, if you are so inclined.

    It looks gross, but it tastes delicious. Eat it on whole wheat tortillas with some alfalfa sprouts. My kids just gobble it up.

  22. Here’s my favorite doctored tater tot hotdish recipe.

    Also kid-friendly (and you can use up the zucchini):

    Pancakes: Add grated raw zucchini and a little cinnamon to your favorite pancake recipe. (Carrots & parsnips are good too). It’s especially good in a cornmeal pancake, but it works OK in standard pancake mix too — you need to add a little extra liquid & cook it at a very slightly lower temperature for a little longer than standard pancakes.

    ZLT: Slice (smallish) zucchini into long thin strips & saute them briefly in a little tamari/soy sauce & olive oil. Let cool and use them in a sandwich with lettuce & tomato (if he likes those). It’s especially good with the bread toasted. And you can sprinkle Bac-Os on it just for laughs also. You can also put the cooked zucchini strips in a grilled cheese sandwich. Whole basil leaves in the sandwich perk it up nicely for the grownups at the table, and some kids like that too.

    I’ve never had a kid turn down the kid pizza Roxanne suggests (and yes, you can put zucchini on them) – english muffins, flour tortillas, leftover stale hamburger buns, anything works. And they usually have a blast putting the toppings on themselves. And they work great in the toaster oven if you have one & it’s too hot to use the oven.

    My aunt used to make these pizzaburgers that involved spaghetti sauce, SPAM, and Velveeta on a hamburger bun. The SPAM was somehow ground up & unrecognizable. But she had three boys & made these by the ton.

    Also wildly popular was the hot dog, split the long way with skinny strips of cheese stuffed inside it, reassembled, and wrapped in biscuit dough & baked for a while (my mom made it from scratch, but my aunt used the kind that comes in a can, which we all thought far superior).

    I think I’m gonna make Dr. B’s fish tacos tonight.

  23. I have the tastes of a child myself and could live on tacos, mac n cheese, corn dogs, and hot dogs for now on…

    A quick and easy kid friendly meal that I love: pigs in blankets.

    Take a package of pizza dough and make it according to directions on the package.
    Roll it up into 8 balls of dough
    Roll the hot dogs into each ball, add cheese if you like. I’ve found shred cheese is a wonderful addition and it gets mixed up in the dough and makes it all very cheesy.
    Place on a pan and cook til golden brown at 350.

    Cook a box of Velveeta shells and cheese to go along and you got yourself a tasty meal! 😀

  24. My husband is Sri Lankan and we eat lots of curry and such here, which the kid (luckily) will eat. However, he’s a huge fan of the grilled ham and cheese sandwich and chicken nuggets.

    When we were kids, my mom used to make ‘little pizzas’ and ‘monkey bread’ with canned biscuits. The pizzas consisted of flattening out the biscuits and topping with whatever pizza stuff you have on hand. Bake according to the directions on the tube.

    The Monkey Bread is also very easy (and my 3 yr old loves it). Heat your oven to 350 and melt half a stick of butter (more or less) in a round 8 inch cake pan. Slice on banana into bite size pieces and cut each biscuit from two tubes into four pieces each. Toss the biscuit pieces in the butter and layer in the pan with the bananas and cinnamon sugar. Bake for about half an hour and serve hot.

    Also, carrots with ranch dressing, various pasta dishes (an easy one is angel hair pasta with sauteed garlic and anchovies tossed with parmesan and parsley), and things like that.

  25. When I was unemployed a few years ago I did this several times.

    Tortillias at the bottom of a caserol dish. Place can of black beans, chilli, diced tomatos,lettuce and bake for a bit, then add cheese.

  27. You could also put the Tomato Potatoes recipe above in a casserole dish. Maybe even use fresh tomatoes out of the garden… bake it, with some cheese (whatever kind(s) E likes). Onions might be good in it, too.

    Anyway, cover ‘n bake till it’s done, right? It’s like some sort of Euro-goulash my roommate used to make.

    God, I am hungry now. What a priceless thread 🙂

  28. [Hot] Chicken quesadillas with cheddar cheese and or

    [Cold] Turkey wraps with lettuce, shredded cheese, maybe onion (or maybe not)

    [Both]In colorful tortillas.

    Man, I’m hungry.

  29. Really easy tater tot casserole, although last night’s was incomplete and scary. And dry. Really dry.

    Layer tater tots across the bottom and up the sides of a 9×9 casserole dish.

    Brown 1 lb ground beef. Add salt and pepper to beef while browning. Mix together with 1/2 package of frozen broccoli, 1 can cream of something soup, diced onion, and a buttload of cheese (preferably the shredded, comes in a bag, “mexican” mix). Add milk 1 tbsp. at a time if it looks like it might be dry. Layer on top of the tater tot “crust” and put more cheese on top. Bake at whatever time and temp specified for the tater tots.

    Real hard, right? So, why did I royally screw up THIS recipe?

  30. Hey, I’ve got a “Food and Recipes” section on my site with a few of my experiments. You may find something you like. I recommend the stuffed pork loins or my risotto recipe.

    I really should update that category a bit more often.

  31. Long-time reader, first time commenter, so thanks for the good site. When I was young, spaghetti carbonara was the go-to kid friendly dish for my mother, and is amazingly easy-just cook (about 1/2 lb.)spaghetti, and while this is going, cook two to four pieces of chopped bacon or pancetta in a pan. Dump the cooked noodles in the bacon pan, add two eggs stirred with a goodly amount of parmesan cheese to the noodles, toss and serve. My mother sometimes added tomatoes as well, which work okay, if they don’t sit around in the dish long.

  32. Chicken-Vegetable Skillet “Divan” (adapted out of one of those fairly scary “quick meals with all sorts of pre-packaged foods” cook books.)

    Quick and easy, and makes leftovers, depending on how hungry you and the kid are. 🙂 My husband all but LIVES on this stuff:

    – 1 can cream of something soup (hubby likes chedder cheese, broccoli cheese is nice too. so is tomato)

    – a couple of chicken breasts, cooked and diced, OR a large can of chicken (or ham!), drained *

    – half a bag of frozen veggies of choice (or the whole thing if you want lots of leftovers) — we usually use broccoli/cauliflower/carrots

    – slightly less than one soup can of water or milk

    – 1 1/2 cups Minute Rice

    Stir the soup and water/milk together in a large skillet with sides **. Dump in the pre-cooked or canned chicken, and frozen veggies. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Stir in the Minute Rice, cover and let sit for 5 minutes.

    You can add shredded cheese to the top at that point if you like, re-cover, and let it sit a few minutes. I do tend to turn the heat back on low to help ensure that the rest of the stuff doesn’t cool off too much.

    Makes about 4 adult sized servings with the half bag of veggies, more with a whole bag (6 or so depending on appetite)

    If you use pre-cooked or canned chicken, this whole thing honestly takes about 15 minutes. Filling, relatively nutritious, and not too awful with the “bad for you” additives. Can be made meatless, too, although I’d add more veggies at that point.

    * I brown/cook a bunch of chicken breasts up all at once when I have the time, seasoned liberally with onion salt and garlic powder. Freezes really well that way, makes the whole recipe REALLY fast, and tastes better than the canned stuff.

    ** you can use a regular pot, but then you don’t get as much cheesy topping if you add the shredded cheese. However, American cheese slices broken up also work well if you serve the stuff up hot and let the cheese melt on the plate. 🙂

  33. Quesadillas.
    Just warm a tortilla, flour or corn, whichever you prefer. Shred some cheese (monterrey jack is particularly yummy and melts well) and sprinkle it on the tortilla, fold it in half, warm it a little on each side until cheese melts. You can add some canned refried beans for more protein, or leftover chicken or ham. Serve with a nice salsa, and a little salad on the side if you’re feeling up to it. This was a standby when my grad-student mother was raising me. Also excellent with a cup of soup on a winter day.

  34. Real hard, right? So, why did I royally screw up THIS recipe?

    Tater tot temperature is too warm for the other stuff you have in there. Dial it back to 350 or so and let it go for 45 minutes.

  36. Tatter tot casserole sound to me like something they serve in the cafeteria in Hell. Lauren, you’re not making this up, are you?

    (Okay, I once invented pumpkin pancakes for dinner guests and served them with the explanation that they were “intended aas a vegetable.)

  37. No, I screwed up the horrid casserole because I only had a few of the required ingredients — no cheese, no soup. I decided to say fuck it and see what happened. What happened was bad.

    And actually, Kathryn, it isn’t so bad if you suspend your foodie knowledge for thirty minutes. Comfort food.

  38. I’ve been instructed to share the ingredients to the delectable dish White Trash Casserole.

    1 box macaroni and cheese
    1 bag green peas
    1 can tuna fish
    milk and butter for the mac and cheese

    Follow the mac and cheese box instructions, with the peas boiling in the water alongside it. After you’ve finished all that, mix in the tuna fish. Delicious!

  40. Well, I like the oven-baked pancake, because I dislike trying to flip pancakes — they always get stuck — and this is tastier anyhow.

    Turn your oven to 450, put a cast iron skillet in with some butter (2-3T) in it to melt. Whisk together 1/2c each flour and milk, 2 eggs, some vanilla if you like vanilla. Try to beat in as much air as possible. When the oven is at 450, pour the batter into the skillet, cook for 10-12 minutes. Serve with whatever — jam, maple syrup — I like cinnamon and sugar. I’ve also done the same recipe but with some sauted fruit under the batter; it takes longer to cook, but is also good.

  41. One simple secret: add canned chickpeas and grated cheddar cheese to damn near anything and serve. If you can get away with it, sprinkle whole amaranth grains in and mix.

    (This presupposes your kid will eat chickpeas.)

    And lunch in under a minute: Nachos: Fill a large bowl with high-grade corn chips. Put slices of cheddar on top. Microwave for 40 seconds. Provide plain yougurt for dipping.

  43. Quesadillas! All you need are tortillas, shredded cheese (cheddar, or jack, or mozzarella even) and maybe salsa (or spinach, or tomatoes, or a dollop of refried beans, or whatever). Assemble, then heat for about forty seconds in the microwave.

  44. Different Grace than above –

    Quesadillas are ridiculously easy and the filling can be tailored to each person’s taste. I’m also a big fan of grilled cheese and tomato soup. Boring, perhaps, but satisfying.

    There is a good recipe for chickpea ragout that Jacques Pepin of “Fast Food My Way” fame makes:

    2 tablespoons olive oil
    ½ cup diced onion
    ½ cup chopped scallions
    2 cups diced tomatoes
    1 tablespoon coarsely chopped garlic
    16-ounce can chickpeas, drained
    ½ cup low-salt canned chicken broth
    About ½ teaspoon salt (less if using canned chicken broth)
    ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

    Heat the oil in a saucepan over high heat and add the onion and scallions. Saute for 2 to 3 minutes to soften the vegetables, then add the remaining ingredients. Return to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and boil gently for 15 minutes. Remove the lid and boil for a few minutes longer to reduce the liquid.

    Serves 4 (supposedly)

  45. I have, on more than one occasion, found inspiration, and even recipes, by typing the list of ingredients on hand into the nearest browser running Google.

    “tater tots, cream soup, 30 minutes” results in almost 10,000 results. Take your pick.

  46. This is a big issue for me, having a 40 hour/ week job and two kids. Let me recommed Rachael Ray’s “30 Minute Meals.” She’s at the Food Network Website, and I highly recommend it. Lots of pasta dishes. Her recipes are really tasty, and while she does use some packaged ingredients, she doesn’t rely on them to the extent that some others do. You can get all of her recipes from the website.

    For future reference, you might consider Martha Stewart’s “Everyday Food.” I’ve found lots of good and quick recipes from that magazine.

    Good luck.

  47. You forgot to cook the tater tots before filling the “crust” with th other ingredients! Didn’t your mother teach you anything??!!

  48. Tortellini soup

    About a half gallon of chicken broth – bring to boil with a typical bunch of scallions chopped up. Throw in tortellinis and drop a couple of eggs in. Serve with sour dough and a salad or something

  49. Frittata. Takes concentration the first couple times, but after that you can whip one up with no trouble. Take any cooked vegetables your kid likes, or raw ones that saute well (peppers, onions, green beans); cooked potatoes (cubed) are good too. If you have extra time, dice a raw potato small and saute in a couple tablespoons of oil until browned. Otherwise, saute any raw vegetables you’re using; beat up eggs (up to four or so in a small pan, maybe eight in a regular pan, and so forth). I usually spray the pan and add a little oil over that. When vegetables are ready, to a bit under completely done, (already-cooked ones may be sauteed briefly to warm), pour eggs over. Let them set up on the bottom, then ease your fork or wooden spatula (works better than a metal one here) under the edge of the egg mass, tilt the pan and let the runny egg run under. Keep doing this (don’t worry; this isn’t souffle; there’s a lot of wiggle room) until your frittata is mostly set – that is, there’s a little runny egg on top, but most of it holds together. Then either fling it under a broiler until it’s done, or put a heat-resistant plate on top, flip plate and pan over and slide frittata back into pan with the formerly up side down.
    It’s really not as complicated as it sounds. It’s like a very solid omelet.

  50. Re: tater tots not cooking

    Out here in Minnesota, the tator tots usually end up on top as a crust, not on the bottom. They do appear to cook that way, although I’d still lower the temp and up the cooking time.

    Lots of good suggestions here! As a woman with a husband whose tastes tend to run towards “kid-like”, I’m going to have to look up some of those sites. Yup, I do most of the cooking — since I’m better at it and I really don’t mind. He does the dishes. It works for us. 🙂 But him being a little, um, PICKY does make it a challenge sometimes when I don’t have the brain cells to spare. So new resources are good.

  51. My mom called it the “super nacho.” Spread refried beans across a plate. Brown ground beef w/cumin, garlic, salt, pepper, onion (can use dried), chile or cayenne pepper and when almost finished cooking squeeze either lemon or lime half for extra zing. Spread cooked beef across top of beans. Spread shredded cheese across beef, then sour cream, then guacamole (or diced avocado). If desired add chopped or sliced black olives. Serve w/chips and salsa on the side. Basically same as that “7-layer dip” except its warm, not cold (blech). Its also not that peculiar orange color when people use taco seasoning packets…

Comments are currently closed.