J. smoked beef ribs last Saturday (yes, more than a week ago), and at his request I made mashed sweet potatoes and sauteed green beans tossed with French’s Fried Onions. When he tasted the sweet potatoes he said “This is exactly what I wanted.” Ah! I was in heaven! A. has started eating beef recently, for the first time since he was about 2 years old. He liked these ribs a lot, too. The boy has good taste.

Last Sunday, for Father’s Day, I made up a fantastic mushroom pasta:

It was a simple preparation: I sauteed shitake, baby bellas, and white mushrooms in olive oil until they were softened, then added a little butter and flour to form a pseudo-roux. I deglazed the pan with a bit of sherry, and added mushroom broth, then simmered for about 10 minutes until the sauce thickened. I seasoned it with salt and chopped green onions. I tossed a pound of pasta with the sauce and served it along with a baked ziti, garlic bread, and salad (we had a lot of family here). It was very mushroom-y, and really delicious. Though not as well-liked as the ziti, I still got compliments on it. I will make it again, because I adore mushrooms.

I found a way to love turnips, in a slaw with apples and carrots:

I shredded an apple, a handful of baby carrots, and the bunch of turnips in my food processor, then tossed it with the juice of a lemon and a lime, a scant tablespoon of sesame oil, and some salt and green onions. It was delicious, and very crisp and refreshing. My mom loved it, too. You could add shredded cabbage to the mix as well; it’s a great side dish for a barbecue.

My most complimented creation of the week was the Susanna’s Sangria I brought to Merrie’s New Moon viewing party (a refresher before Eclipse comes out on Wednesday, and yes I already have tickets). She served Bloody Marys as well, natch. But my favorite part of her spread was Bella’s birthday cake:

I thought this cake was a stroke of genius… and if you are a Twilight fan I think you’ll agree.

I also finally wrote up Week 3 of my Roxbury Farm CSA. That sums up my absent week, I think. As you wish.

Last weekend we put in a small garden. Before we belonged to a CSA, we would grow lots of lettuce and tomatoes, plus some peppers and sugar snap peas. With the farm share, though, we get more lettuce than we can eat, so we held off on planting any this year.

We did plant several varieties of tomatoes, a black bean plant A. started growing in school, sugar snaps, and a couple of hot peppers. We filled in the rest of our squares with some flowers A. chose. I’ve never had flowers in a vegetable garden before, but we had the room and I like seeing them as I pull into our driveway.

Updated on 4/25/10: The bake sale raised more than $1,000 for Share Our Strength! And sold out of all the donated goodies.

This Saturday, April 24, Club Fit in Briarcliff is hosting a Share Our Strength Great American Bake Sale. The event is organized by my friend Alison, all the goodies are donated (by Club Fit and bakers like me), and the money raised goes to Share Our Strength, a charity aiming to end childhood hunger in America.

I made two types of muffins: Chocolate Chip Banana, and Apple Flax. They both turned out well, and look cute all wrapped up in the cello bags and ribbon we were given for packaging.

Stop by this Saturday, April 24th, from 8 am to 1 pm, and pick up a treat or two while making a contribution to a worthy cause.

I am not turning over my house for Passover this year. (Here’s what I did in 2008 and 2009.) I’ve been thinking about taking this year off for a while, and my decision was reinforced when we dealt with a 4-day power failure a month ago. I had to toss everything in my fridge, and while it was empty it seemed appropriate to do a deep cleaning. It felt like Passover — the cleaning part beforehand at least — had come early.

I have never been good at explaining the “why” of the choices I make for my kitchen to my boys. The why, to me, is often “because that’s how my mom did it” and that’s not a very satisfying answer to a little kid. It’s not satisfying to me when I say it out loud either, though I guess that is the very definition of tradition. I label my kitchen kosher-style, but over the past year or so I have become a lot more lenient in what that means. Without the personal conviction that I’m keeping this set of rules because of my own religious beliefs, it has been harder and harder for me to see a reason to keep shredded mozzarella off the table when I am serving meatballs. The boys don’t eat the meatballs anyway, so there’s no actual mixing of meat and cheese going on — they just want some cheese on their pasta. And I could not care less if you want butter on your baked potato while eating a steak. I still don’t combine meat and milk in the same dish when I cook, but this is more a lifelong habit than anything else.

This relaxing of my overall nod to kashrut has definitely colored my feeling about keeping Passover, and the work involved in doing so in my home. So, 2010 is a trial year. As we get closer to the start of the holiday, I am feeling a little left out of that small club of people that completely turn over their kitchens. I am, however, really looking forward to making a great dinner for my parents on Sunday. They will be in the jaws of that no man’s land of no more chometz in the house, but the holiday hasn’t started yet — what do you eat? I’m glad we’ll be able to feed them! Then on Monday I’m looking forward to cooking for the first seder with my family at my parent’s house. The Pesadich dishes, silverware, and pots I grew up using for just 8 days out of the year are touchstones that bring the holiday home for me.

Still looking for Passover recipes? Here’s a roundup I put together last year: Passover Recipes, Past and Future. I’m going to be making a version of the Beet, Orange, & Arugula Salad pictured above, using my newly-learned knife skills to supreme the orange.

At about 3:30 AM on Friday morning, February 26 we lost our electrical service during a heavy, long-lasting snow storm. And we have been without power — or heat — since then, until 4:30 PM yesterday. That’s four days of no utilities in the middle of winter. We spent Friday night in the house, sleeping around our fireplace, but then had to jump ship and go to J.’s parents. It was just too cold. I’m back now, in my warm house with every convenience around me, and a very big smile on my face. Look for a meal plan posting later today.

The other day A. was feeling a little under the weather, so I let him choose dinner and he asked for noodle soup — my homemade chicken soup, strained until clear, with thin egg noodles cooked in the broth. Luckily I had one more container in the freezer, and he (and G.) happily slurped up those noodles as if he knew they’d make him feel better.

That virus is still lingering, so he stayed home from school today in that weird in-between where you’re not quite well enough to go to school, but you certainly don’t feel sick enough to stay in bed (or even nap, dammit). He had plenty of energy to act like a loon with his brother, scarf down three full meals, and still have room for ice cream.

I started a fresh pot of chicken soup at noon today, and let it simmer all afternoon so that he could have noodle soup for dinner again (his request). And now I’m restocked. I keep these containers in the fridge overnight, skim off the fat, and then freeze them. Hopefully I won’t need another noodle soup dinner as medicine anytime soon.

On Friday, I went in to G.’s school to help cook for that night’s school-wide family dinner. I actually didn’t do much cooking, just prep work — skimming the fat off the top of four vats of chicken soup, slicing eggplant, lining enormous baking pans with foil, and so on. It’s fun being in that huge commercial kitchen — everything is stainless steel and you never seem to run out of room.

In addition to the 160 pieces of barbecue-sauced chicken you see above, there were also plenty of chicken nuggets, pigs in blankets, and this:

Yes, that’s 8 lbs. of tater tots, times two. We also made 12 eggplants-worth of chatzilim, an Israeli eggplant salad:

The school’s director uses one medium onion per large eggplant. Slice and fry the eggplants and onions until soft and golden, then drain well. Mix with tomato paste, salt, and pepper, then throw everything back on the stove to cook down for another 30 minutes or so. It is delicious! Here are the eggplant frying, along with three of the five huge ovens in this kitchen:

With all that oven space we were able to make enough rosemary-roasted potatoes for the group:

And we baked twice this amount of challah, the dough of which had been mixed and then shaped by the kids and teachers:

Just like with my morning of latke-cooking last month, it is no surprise I smelled like oil for the rest of the day. Thankfully there was another mom there who was able to chop all the onions without a problem, because I’d forgotten to bring my goggles.

Since this past September, I usually make a travel mug of coffee in the house before I leave for the morning, rather than stopping at Starbucks. (I never thought I’d get to the point where I felt stopping at Starbucks was inconvenient, but that’s how my schedule has played out recently.) I used to use a simplehuman pod coffee maker, but I could never get a strong enough cup of coffee out of it. I occasionally use our 12-cup Krups automatic drip brewer. But most often I boil water in a kettle, and then use a Melitta filter cone.

After I’d already boiled the water this morning, I realized my filter cone was in the dishwasher, and the dishwasher was in the middle of a cycle. So I jerry-rigged the set-up above, using a chinois, a bottle of olive oil to balance its handle, a filter, and my travel mug:

Not bad for something so ridiculous-looking! I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, and my mug was about half-way full before…

I could only laugh at myself — after I ran my hand under cold water to wash off the scalding grinds, that is. And then, like a good blogger, I took a photo of the debacle to share with you.

I spent some time over the past two weeks looking at Chick in the Kitchen site statistics for 2009, and thinking about ways I’d like this blog to grow in 2010. It was particularly interesting to me to see that my top five posts (by the amount of direct traffic they received) in 2009 were actually written in 2008!

They were:
1. Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins
2. Slow Cooker Italian-Style Turkey Meatballs
3. Unstuffed Cabbage with Ground Turkey
4. Spinach & Cheese Muffins
5. Slow Cooker Ratatouille

I feel like those were really good dishes that, with the exception of the savory muffins, I come back to again and again. But it was still surprising to me that something more recent didn’t make the cut.

If you take the 2008 posts out of contention, the top five 2009 Chick in the Kitchen posts actually written in 2009 were:
1. Have You Tried Truvia?
2. Dimer Dalna (Egg Curry)
3. Chicken and Figs
4. Slow Cooker Coq Au Vin, First Try
5. Chicken Scarpariello, Take Two

I do love the egg curry and have made it several times. I feel the same way about the Chicken & Figs. See the Coq Au Vin post reminded me that I want to try it again with boneless, skinless chicken thighs. And the Scarpariello, well, it’s still not for me.

The most popular keyword search used to find my site was “chick in the kitchen.” I hope they found exactly what they were looking for here! Second and third place go to “slow cooker ratatouille” and “quinoa pudding.” And while simplyrecipes.com refers the most direct traffic to me, Facebook is (not surprisingly to me!) in the top five.

Most of all, my site statistics remind me that although I’m looking at anonymous numbers, all those digits represent real people worldwide who, even if just for a moment, came to read something I wrote. The thrill of that can’t be measured.

I have a dealer up North… my friend from Canada who likes to send me and the boys boxes of treats every now and then. The reason behind this package was that Jodi wanted me to taste CheeCha Puffs. These airy chips are gluten-free, and are basically hot-air puffed potato flour and starch. Mine are the Sea Salt & Pepper variety, and they’re really tasty. Plus, they’re not bad nutritionally: 2 cups is less than 100 calories, and no fat. Unfortunately, you can only order them online in the U.S. at this point, and that’s where my personal Canadian supplier stepped in!

In addition to the CheeCha Puffs, we received enough chocolate to last us for months: Kinder Surprise (oh, G. is heaven and asks for them all day long), Smarties (two kinds), Cadbury Mini Eggs, Cadbury Popping Mini Eggs, mini Kinder Chocolate bars, some additional Cadbury chocolate bars and chocolate-covered sunflower seeds.

Although I’m not a chocolate fiend (the Puffs are more my style), I can’t help but want to eat it if it’s around! Thankfully I am very good at the whole out of sight, out of mind thing when it comes to chocolate. It’s tucked away in my pantry and will be doled out to the kids in reasonable amounts. G. has tried to argue that one Kinder Surprise for breakfast is reasonable, but I’m not buying it. At least not until vacation…