Don't get me wrong. Spring is awesome. Bright sun. Blossoming trees and flowers. Everyone seems to be cheery. Except for the days we're running from one after-school activity to another, only to get home around 7pm and realize we still have to make dinner. I often will turn to my Slacker Mom Dinner Hacks on days like this. Or I make this amazing, good-for-you, semi-homemade, Creamy Greek Chicken Noodle Soup (Avgolemono) from Dinner: The Playbook. It's become an all-time favorite at our house, especially after a long day of school and baseball practice in the spring rain.

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
Adapted from Dinner: The Playbook by Jenny Rosenstrach

INGREDIENTS
4 cups low sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup uncooked orzo
salt and pepper
3 eggs
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Handful fresh dill, chopped
Shredded rotisserie chicken

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large saucepan, bring the broth to a boil.
2. Add orzo and cook until tender, about 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and reduce heat to low; let simmer.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and lemon juice until smooth. Slowly ladle about 1/2 cup of hot broth to the egg-and-lemon mixture, whisking to combine. 
4. Remove simmering broth from heat (this step is crucial).
5. Very slowly, drizzle the egg mixture back into the pot, whisking constantly for 2 full minutes. Season with salt and pepper, add dill and chicken and serve.

• 1 lb boneless chicken thighs, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, halved and thinly sliced
• ½ lb sugar snaps, strings removed
• 2 carrots, peeled and sliced on a diagonal
• 1 jar WORLDFOODS Indochina Cambodian Pineapple Lemon Grass Stir Fry Sauce

1. Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a large nonstick skillet or wok, heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil over high heat. Add half the chicken; cook and stirring constantly, until opaque throughout (2-4 minutes). Transfer to a plate. Repeat with the remaining chicken.
2. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the pan, along with the onion, sugar snaps and carrots. Cook, stirring constantly until onion is tender and golden.
3. Add the jar of stir fry sauce and chicken (and any accumulated juices) back into pan and heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally until sauce is heated through and slightly thickened.
4. Serve over rice or noodels and enjoy!

I was given WORLDFOOD Sauces to try as part of the Massachusetts WORLDFOODS Fusion Taste Team. As always, all opinions are my own. 

Dear Son,

Now that you have a family of your own, you no doubt have some challenges with your picky eater. You're wondering, "How can this be? I'm a foodie. My wife is a foodie. We get the best produce teleported to us from our virtual CSA!" I know this will come to a surprise, but you too were a picky eater. Especially when it came to eating your vegetables. We tried serving it raw, baked, sautéed, grilled - you name it. You were just like that silly girl Lola from the classic tale of "I Will Never, Not Ever, Eat a Tomato" by Lauren Childs.

So here's a tip I want to share with you that worked for me and your father. Introduce new ingredients with something you know your kids like to eat. So for you, we added veggies to rice. We also found if we got you to help grow veggies in our garden, you were more open to trying it. I've never seen you gobble up tomatoes faster then when we picked them off the vine from the garden in our backyard.

So put away your cookscreens (or whatever you call those fancy cookbooks of the future) and try this one-pot chicken and rice favorite. You loved it as a kid. I think your kids will like it too.

Love,
Mom



Chicken Sofrito 
Adapted from Food and Wine 

INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4-8 bone-in, skinless chicken thighs
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 medium onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 large thyme sprigs
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2 inch thick strips
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 cup chopped tomatoes
3 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth
1 cup white rice
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup roasted almonds

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large ovenproof skillet, heat the vegetable oil. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and dust lightly with chili powder. Add the chicken to the skillet and cook over moderate heat until well browned, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate. 
2. Add the onion, garlic, and thyme sprigs to the skillet and cook over moderate heat until onion is softened (about 8 minutes). Add the bell pepper, fennel seeds, and 1/2 teaspoon of chili powder and cook, stirring until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Add the chopped tomatoes, raise the heat to high and cook until bubbling. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Stir in the rice and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and bring to a simmer. Arrange chicken pieces on the rice. Bake in the oven for about 30-35 minutes until chicken is cooked through and rice is tender.
3. Transfer chicken to a plate. Discard thyme sprigs, stir in lemon juice and sprinkle almonds on top. Spoon the rice onto plates, add the chicken and serve. 

Move over hot dog. Here comes a new 4th of July staple.

Summer, so it feels, really only just began. The kids finally started day camp this week. We've already had two heat waves in the northeast. And I've already eaten many, many hot dogs and burgers. And it isn't even the 4th yet. Is it unpatriotic of me to just say "no" to hot dogs, burgers, and potato salad this Forth of July? Because I don't think my stomach (or waistline) could have another for a while.

So instead of the usual Independence Day fare (because we know our Forefathers chowed on dogs and sliders while drafting the declaration), we are going to grill some... wait for it... chicken. Gasp! All kidding aside, we found a fantastic recipe for butterflying and grilling a whole chicken. With some sharp kitchen shears and a little patience, it is probably the tastiest, juiciest chicken you will make this summer.


Butterflied Lemon Chicken
Adapted from Cook's Country Backyard Barbecue: 
The Absolute Best Recipes For all Your Summer Favorites

INGREDIENTS

• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• salt and pepper
• 1 (3.5-4 lb) whole chicken
• 3 lemons
• 1 tablepsoon minced fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 garlic clove, mashed to a paste
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

How to butterfly a chicken

Carved chicken chinese style - chop bone-in

Sesame Chicken Cucumber Noodle Salad

What do you bring to an end-of-summer potluck? On a man-made island, capped off by excavated dirt from the Big Dig? To celebrate your child's friend's half-birthday and his mom's (ahem) birthday? I wanted to bring something different befitting of the day's festivities. And it needed to be a crowd-pleaser. That's when I turn to Ming Tsai.

In one of my favorite cookbooks, Simply Ming One-Pot Meals, Ming starts of by saying, "Just about everyone loves sesame noodle salad, including me." I knew I had to give this a try. Click here for Ming's recipe in Eating Well.

 The Good: It was a big hit with everyone. And pretty easy to prepare. Ming was right - again.

The Bad: While this is not a complicated dish, it does take some time in terms of prep. Love that the dish is packed with veggies, but prepare to do a lot of chopping.

Grade: B+. Will definitely be making this again. Will experiment with ways to make this even lighter.

A couple of tips if you are preparing this for a crowd -

• I doubled the recipe and there was enough to feed a small army (8 adults, 8+ kids)
• There was way too much peanut dressing - but okay if you plan to set some aside for salad dressing later in the week
• Wait to dress the salad just before serving
• Splurge and use some good quality toasted sesame. I used Toasted Sesame Ginger Seasoning by Victoria Taylor's Seasonings.

View of Boston from ferry to Spectacle Island. Boston Harbor Islands is a must-see!

What is your signature dish for a potluck? What are some tips for keeping meals fresh while traveling?

Any book that begins with "She longed for adventure" is sure to be a page-turner. And when this opening sentence is referring to a chicken named Louise, how can you *not* want to read on?

Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo and Harry Bliss is a story about a not so chicken chicken who leaves the warmth of her hen house only to find herself caught by pirates, survives a sinking ship, joins the circus, escapes a lion, kidnapped in a bazaar, only to free herself and other chickens from imminent chicken doom. My boys LOVE it. I love it. What's not to love?

Anyway, in the first chapter "Louise at Sea", the hungry pirates all have their own ideas on how they want to cook Louise. "Fried!" shouts one nasty-looking pirate. "Fricasseed!" shouts another. My oldest always giggles at this one.

So it is Louise that I think of every time we make Ming Tsai's Mushroom Chicken Fricassee with Edamame. This is one adventure I'm sure Louise is thankful to skip!



Mushroom Chicken Fricassee with Edamame
From Ming Tsai's Simply Ming One-Pot Meals

INGREDIENTS
2 pounds unskinned bone-in chicken legs with thighs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons grapeseed or canola oil
1 large red onion, halved and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 pound mushrooms, sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 tablespoons minced fresh tarragon
2 cups canned whole roma tomatoes, roughly chopped, with the juice from measuring
1 cup shelled edamame


DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Season the chicken with salt and pepper

2. Heat a large roasting pan or large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil and swirl to coat the bottom. When the oil is hot, add the chicken and sauté, turning once, until brown, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

3. Drain the pan of all but 1 tablespoon of the fat. Add the onion, garlic and mushrooms and sauté until lightly brown, 2 to 3 minutes, and season with salt and pepper. Add the tarragon, tomatoes with their liquid, and edamame. Mix well and adjust the seasoning, if necessary.

4. Top with the chicken, transfer to the oven, and bake until the chicken is cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a platter and serve.

The Good: GREAT weeknight meal. Easy to prepare with tons of flavors. Edamame gives it an unexpected twist. Boys could not get enough.

The Bad: Boys hated the mushrooms (to be expected). I had to shell the edamame by hand (oof), but you can purchase shelled edamame at most stores.

Grade: Solid A. Get this in the oven, grab a copy of Louise and enjoy (yeah, I'm a sick mama)!

Here is a typical weeknight evening at our house around 5pm:

umdaddy: what's for dinner tonight?

me (nose buried in my computer): Huh? Ummm... there was a new recipe I wanted to try.

umdaddy (looking at the recipe): Did you take out [protein] from the freezer yet? And it says it needs to cook for [many] hours?! (Sigh). I guess I'll whip something up.

me (sheepishly): Thanks.

I try to menu plan and start cooking around 5pm most nights. Really I do. Except lately I've been consumed with work, so much that I barely have time to take a pee. That's when Martha has often come to my rescue with her Dinner Tonight from Everyday Food daily emails.



If you haven't signed up for these daily morsels delivered to your inbox, do it. The recipes are usually simple to make using everyday ingredients (duh - it's called Everyday Food). And the food photography alone will inspire you to plan ahead and put together a dish rather than pop a frozen pizza in the oven (not that there is anything wrong with that... Trader Joe's is my BFF).

Here is a recipe we tried recently that was delicious and pretty easy to make. But I'd be lying to you if I said I did the actual cooking. Filed under Quick Pasta Recipes, this was one of those typical 5pm "what's for dinner" nights. At least I remembered to make sure there was chicken defrosted.



Chicken, Edamame, and Noodle Stir Fry
Click here for the recipe

The Good: Takes less than 30 minutes to prepare. Great flavors and feels healthy.

The Bad: We used bone-in chicken thighs instead of chicken breast. So there was some added prep time to prep the chicken.

Grade: A-. The boys loved this. I loved this. Great weeknight dinner.

I confess - I am a messy cook! The boys' play kitchen is in better condition than what our kitchen looks like after I tackle dinner. I read once the secret to a happy kitchen is to clean and put away as you cook. I don't know about you, but I can barely hold it together with several pots bubbling away on the stove while reading a recipe and pushing the littlest one away from open flame all at the same time.

That is why I gravitate toward one-pot meals for everyday dinners. Not only is there less to clean-up, but the stress-level comes down a notch when I only have to worry about one cooking vessel and not having to be in the kitchen the whole time. Chili, soup, and tagines are wonderful one-pot meals in my book. Then I came across a paella recipe in Mark Bittman's Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating. Make this and you will want to trade all your sauce pans, stock pots, roasting pans for a paella pan.



Paella
Adapted from Mark Bittman's Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating

INGREDIENTS
3 1/2 cups chicken broth, plus more if needed
Pinch saffron threads
1 lbs ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into thick wedges
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tbs olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbs tomato paste
2 tsp paprika
3 oz chorizo, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
2 cups white rice
6 large peeled shrimp
2 boneless chicken thighs, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1 cup fresh or frozen corn
Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish

DIRECTIONS
1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees F. Warm the broth and the saffron in a small sauce pan. Put tomatoes in a medium bowl, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and drizzle them with 1 tbs olive oil. Toss to coat.

2. Put the remaining oil in a 12-inch oven proof skillet over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, add onion, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook stirring occasionally until it softens (3-5 minutes). Stir in tomato paste, paprika and chorizo and cook for a minute more.

spicy chorizo gave the dish some heat but not too much

3. Add the rice and cook, stirring occasionally until shiny (1-2 minutes). Add the warm broth and stir until just combined, then stir in the shrimp, chicken and corn.

Tomato wedges made this dish extra meaty

4. Put the tomato wedges on top of the rice and drizzle with juices that accumulated in the bottom of the bowl. Put the pan in the oven and bake, undisturbed, for 15-20 minutes. Check to see if the rice is nearly dry and just tender. When rice is ready, turn off oven and let it sit 5-15 minutes.

5. Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle with parsley. Optional: put the pan over high heat for a few minutes to develop a bit of a bottom crust before serving.

The Good: Quick and easy. Did I mention this is made in one pot?

The Bad: Not an authentic paella, but we still loved it.

Grade: A. A rice dish packed with delicious veggies and protein. The boys asked for seconds!

A Moroccan story of patience and hope

Reading about couscous

• 2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• A pinch of safron
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoons salt

• 4 skinless chicken thighs
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 medium red onion, halved, then sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 5 fresh cilantro
• 5 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup chopped dried Turkish apricots
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 cup canned chickpeas
• 1 medium carrot, sliced into ½ inch rounds
• 1/3 cup whole blanched almonds (optional)

Chicken thighs and other less-expensive cuts of meat are great for stews

To brown or not to brown?

Now we wait

The aromas are out of this world