Yesterday, when I answered Molly's simple question about magazines, I laughed when I realized that four of the six I receive are about food (Everyday Food, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Food and Wine) and one always has some good food in it (Martha Stewart Living).  Even number six (House Beautiful) has recipes in it.  Add to that a huge collection of cook books and you might think I like to cook.  And I do!  Both Fatty and I enjoy spending time in the kitchen and we love to try interesting taste combinations and new recipes.  The problem is the kids.  Like many other moms, I struggle to find nutritious meals that are kid friendly and still satisfy grown up tastes.  The pre-dinner hour is normally hectic so I like meals during the week to be basic enough for me to manage it in a small amount of hands on time.  I can tackle the fussier recipes and exotic ingredients on the weekend.

Right now, we have two meals in our rotation that everyone loves.  The first is Tuscan Lemon Chicken from Ina Garten's Back to Basics cookbook.  The second is Chicken Tacos from the October 2008 issue of Everyday Food.  After making both of these recipes numerous times, I have tweaked them to suit our family and can now make both of them without consulting the recipes.  Here is what I do.

Tuscan Lemon Chicken adapted from Back to Basics by Ina Garten
(click here for the original recipe)

1 whole chicken cut into eight pieces, bone in, skin on
(You can use whatever pieces you prefer - we sometimes just choose thighs)
2 or 3 lemons
1/3 c olive oil
a couple sprigs of rosemary, chopped
4 or more cloves of garlic, chopped
kosher salt
pepper

The night before make the marinade by combining the zest of two lemons with the olive oil and 1/3 cup lemon juice.  Add the rosemary, garlic and pepper. (I use freshly ground pepper and totally eyeball it - I'm guessing it's about 1/2 tsp.).  Generously salt the chicken and place in a shallow dish.  Pour the marinade over the chicken and refrigerate overnight.

Pull the chicken out of the refrigerator about 20 minutes before you are ready to cook it.  In the cookbook, Ina calls for grilling, but we roast it in the oven.  I turn my oven to 425 degrees on convection bake and roast for 40 to 45 minutes.

We often use any leftovers for a salad or for sandwiches.  Emily makes hers with parsley instead of rosemary and she grills it.  Super easy and really tasty, even for my pickiest eater.

Chicken Tacos adapted from Everyday Food, October 2008
(original recipe here)

1.5 to 2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1/2 c roasted tomato jarred salsa (I buy the Frontera Grill Roasted Tomato at Whole Foods)
6 garlic cloves, sliced
1 tbsp. chile powder
salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, coating the chicken.  Cook in a slow cooker for 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low.  When the chicken is finished, shred with two forks and serve with your favorite taco toppings.

I often eat this on top of lettuce with salsa and a side of black beans and rice.  Leftovers make great quesadilla filling.

So there you have it- two sure-fire crowd pleasers.  What are yours?

School is out in two weeks.

The strawberries should be ripe right about then.

Then come the raspberries.  And the blackberries.  And the black raspberries.

I'm ready for the you-pick bonanza, the jam sessions that will follow and the sweet bursts of summer in my mouth.

Melissa just listed some berry bowls yesterday.  If you plan on eating lots of berries, you might want to buy one before they are gone.  I love mine - use it all year round and not just for berries.  It's seen grapes and even small batches of pasta.  Super handy and so well made.

We're off on a road trip.  Happy weekend, all.

Friday afternoon I mixed up a batch of No Knead Bread.  I really, really like this recipe.  The only thing confusing is the timing.  You have to work backwards and figure out when to start based on that.  Because I wanted to bake early Saturday afternoon, I mixed it up about 4:00 on Friday afternoon.  This gave me an 18 hour rise, plus two hours for the second rise and a little bit extra time for good measure and cold temperatures.

I also baked baguette number two from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  That's it resting on the pizza peel in the top part of the photo.  The no knead bread is under the plastic wrap on the bottom.  Anyhow, I made the baguette a bit skinnier this time and cut the slashes deeper.  It was prettier and tastier and dummy me never took a photo.  You'll have to trust me.

Anyway, back to the no knead variety.  I mixed up this batch with 1 cup whole wheat flour and 2 cups all purpose.  It was the best yet.  Before I have done it with half wheat and half white and it was good.  This one was better, though.  I also cooked the other no knead loaves in a cast iron dutch oven.  This time I used one with an enamel coating.  I think that may have added to the success too.  Not sure.  Anyhow, it was really tasty and so satisfying to make.

I will make both kinds again.  I loved having the Artisan bread dough in my fridge, ready to go at my whim.  The small loaves are perfect for a family meal or for appetizers.  The timing on the no knead variety is a little tricky, but it makes a much bigger loaf which is perfect for a crowd.  I took both loaves to Caroline's on Saturday night.  I was not abovebragging that I had made the bread!  Fatty and I did a little tastetest...he preferred the baguette and I liked the no knead better.  Ithink the nuttiness of the whole wheat flour did it for me.  So, naturally, I am thinking something wheat or multi-grain from the Artisan Bread book should be next.  I'll keep you posted.

Enjoy your Monday - see you soon.

For Christmas, my parents gave me Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  So far, I love this book.  I started with the boule, or the master recipe.  You mix the dough, let it rise for a couple of hours and then stick it in the refrigerator to keep for up to two weeks.  You cut off a hunk, form the loaf, let it rest and then bake.  The recipe supposedly makes four loaves of bread.  And it does, if you like really small loaves.

Above is loaf number one.  I followed the directions to the letter for this one and had some issues.  After much consulting with Sarah and Emily, I think my house is not warm enough to let the dough rise properly after I take it out of the refrigerator.

With loaf number two, I let the dough rest for 2 hours (instead of the 40 minutes) before I put it in the oven.  That did the trick - this one was far better.

For loaf number three, I decided to try the baguette.   It is made using the same basic dough recipe.  Again, I let it rest longer before I put it in the oven - about 1 1/2 hours instead of 20 minutes.  Apparently, I did not slash the top deep enough so it really isn't as pretty as I had hoped.  It didn't matter - it was really good.  So far, this one is my favorite.

I'm anxious to try another recipe from this book - perhaps a sandwich loaf.  It's really nice to have the dough sitting in the fridge, ready to go at my whim.  I'm also thinking up ways to get my girls in on the action.  It really is easy enough for kids to do with some supervision.

Before I mix up another batch from this book, I am going back to the dutch oven, no-knead variety like Leslie just made.  It's been awhile since I made that and I want to do a little comparing.  I'll let you know how it all turns out.

It's been a slow week, crafting wise over here.  OK, I take that back.  It's been a slow week, crafting wise, since Sunday afternoon when I sewed up a storm.  I've knitted a bit, but the rest of the time, I have been cooking.

We went apple picking last Friday and Saturday night, I made Ina's Apple Crisp.  Emily told me to do it and then someone else I know said that it was her favorite recipe, too.  So I did.  And it was good.  Really good.

So good that I ate it for breakfast the next morning.

And it was lunch too.  That good.

We still have tons of apples left so I am going to cook up a bunch of applesauce tomorrow.  I don't follow a recipe for that - I just cook the apples with some water.   Easy peasy.  I don't like adding sugar so I don't.  It'll go in the freezer right next to the jam.  I am also going to make this apple cake.  Doesn't that look fabulous?

The latest Everyday Food has some really good recipes in it - if you don't subscribe, you might want to buy this one.  It is the best I have seen in a long time.  There are lots of great recipes in there - the chicken tacos will be a staple around here, for sure.  Easy, inexpensive and liked by all four of us, even the picky eater.  We made the pot roast on Saturday and it was really good, too.  Both the tacos and the roast were done in the slow cooker - bonus!  There is a fabulous section on dark chocolate desserts that aren't too taxing.  Leslie, I am thinking of you here.

Enough rambling.  I have a studio to clean out.  I have big sewing plans this weekend so I have extra incentive to get my little space organized and spiffed out again.  Wish me luck.

I've been wanting to try this potato and summer squash torte that Tracy made from this recipe by Smitten Kitchen.  It sounded like a new and different way to get through all the squash we've been receiving from our CSA.  I finally made it on Friday.

I hadn't used my mandoline for a long time and I forgot how great it is to slice veggies thinly and fast.  I quickly had a mound of squash and a mound of potatoes.

I cut the recipe in half and followed it except I didn't butter the pan.  Instead I used my olive oil spray.  Oh, and like Tracy, I added some heirloom tomatoes to the top.  I didn't have a red onion on hand or I would have added that too.

I didn't get any photos of it after it came out of the oven.  We ate it too fast.

The verdict?  Well, Fatty kept saying, "Why haven't you made this before?"  Yes, it was that good.

For those of you, like me, who are counting:  I cut it into 6 servings.  After placing it in the recipe builder on Weight Watchers, it came out to 3 points per serving.

Saturday morning, I went to the farmers market just to buy local strawberries for jam.  I wanted to take the girls to pick our own, but the forecast was for temperatures in the high 90's.  They would have been fine for about, oh, five minutes in that heat.  And considering the amount of jam I wanted to make, it would have been in exercise in whining (for them) and frustration (for me).  I took the easy route.

I make freezer jam just like my mom does and like my grandma did.  (Recipe here).  It's all I have ever known, really.  As a child, I didn't realize how lucky I was.  There was never store-bought jelly in my sandwiches or on my toast.  We had a chest freezer in our garage and when the jam jar was empty, you just went and got another one.  Some years there were choices, too.  We always had strawberry and sometimes raspberry.   One year my brother asked for blueberry and my mom made it for him.  I was spoiled and I intend to do the same to my children.

Cleaning and washing the berries was my job once I was old enough to help.  I didn't much care for it then, but now I enjoy holding the familiar paring knife in my hand and cutting the tops off of the warm berries.  My mom did the rest.  The process was always a mystery - it involved sugar and sure-jell, but beyond that I didn't pay much attention.  Now I do, though.  Freezer jam is one of the easiest things I make.  The process is just as familiar to me as making chocolate chip cookies.  I have established a good rhythm, working on multiple batches at a time.  It takes a few hours, but in the end I have jam to last us the entire year.

Saturday afternoon as I sliced and mashed berries, stirring in sugar, I thought about my mom and my grandma.  I remembered being at my grandparents' farm, getting up in the morning and walking out the door to pick berries for my breakfast.  And then returning a bit later to get some more.  I remembered how much my mom hated to pick berries when she was younger, so my grandma told her if she didn't want to pick, she would have to cook.  So she cooked and my grandma picked instead.  I thought of my mom's old kitchen, the counters splashed with sugar and lined with jars, the smell of berries everywhere.  And I remembered the jam - all those jars, stacked in our freezer, labeled in my mom's handwriting.  The taste!  How nothing will ever bring me right back to my childhood as quickly as homegrown berries and strawberry jam.  And then I wondered what my girls will remember.  What thing will take them back in time?

My secret wish?  I hope it's jam.

Over the three day weekend:

I read this book.

I watched this movie with Fatty, the girls and one of Jane's friends.  Scarier than I remembered.

I pieced the back for the x quilt.

I ran three miles two days in a row.  Woo hoo!

I helped the girls cut and sew nine-patch pillows.  And then ran out of stuffing.

I wanted to chuck the little machine out the window.  I hate it.

I made ribs. And corn salad.  Twice.

We went to some friends' house and let the kids stay up too late.

I made my craft for my local craft swap.  And then swapped.  Details to come.

I took lots of photos of peonies.

It was great - hope yours was too!