Weekly Dish

Hello, hello. It’s been so long, I know. I have, for some time now, been longing to come here and share what we’ve been up to with all of you, and, well. You all know how that pesky time is. Despite all your best intentions, it just keeps right on going.

In fact, I don’t have much of it to spare, but I did want to stop in for just a moment. I am in the midst of one of those degree milestones — my defense of my comprehensive exams is in just a few weeks, so I am writing like a mad woman, and have been reading and researching for months. So, it isn’t that I haven’t wanted to post. David has taken over nearly all of the cooking (and most everything else too), and Josie is busy toddling around the house carrying, usually, a book in one hand and a kitchen gadget of some sort in the other. At the moment, she’s wielding a wire whisk and Erving Goffman’s Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. And that’s as fitting a picture of our life as I can imagine.

So, while I wish I were here to tell you all about the birthday party I threw in May for me, my sister, and Josie, as we celebrated our thirtieth, twenty-first, and first birthdays respectively, these pictures will have to do the talking for me.

The cake is one of the only exciting things I’ve made in a while; it’s a simple recipe, but I doubled it to get the three layers plus cupcakes for the kids, and one that I formed into Josie’s very own strawberry (her favorite food in the world) for the top.

Mostly, we’re surviving, reveling in the delightful curiosity of our daughter, and enjoying simple fresh food. I hope, once I’m through this part of the process, I will be back in the kitchen and back here to tell you about it.

In the mean time, pictures will have to do.

Thanks to all of you who have written to tell me that you found an old recipe that was useful or that you hoped we were all okay or that you missed my posts. Your encouragement has meant a lot, especially on days mired with the fog of research (which has been most of them lately).

Happy summer to all.

And a month later…everything has changed again. Such is the nature of caring for an infant, I know, but I’m still not used to how impossibly fast life changes when you are enmeshed with one who measures her life in months rather than years.

I don’t know how the last month went for you, but around here, February stole through our back door when we weren’t looking, hung out just long enough to bluster and spit and stir up the fickleness that is Louisiana weather, and then, just like that, he disappeared.

Thankfully, in his wake, he left us with a baby who has learned that food is good. Which is quite a relief for us, I have to say. In case you haven’t noticed, we pay a good bit of attention to what we eat. Food is, in some sense, what we do: it’s how we spend a lot of our time, how we entertain ourselves, how we commune with each other and with our friends and family. So, for Josie to so violently reject food felt like a rejection of us somehow. I know that sounds ridiculous because it is — she just wasn’t ready yet, as all of you wise moms out there reassured me. And, she’s a baby for crying out loud.

But here’s the other thing I’ve learned about my child through this process: she is some kind of opinionated (I say that in my very best southern drawl). My mother is laughing out loud right now (can you hear her glee?) that I am dealing with the fierce independence that she faced nearly thirty years ago in the guise of another baby with a mind of her own. I’ve been hearing these stories my whole life — how when Mom tried to brush my hair, I grabbed the brush and declared, “Me do it! Me do it!” or if my dad ever actually won the game of Candyland, I would throw the whole board across the room in protest. But I never expected that strong willed streak would show up so early in my own child — it seems that her already-formed opinions have been coded into her DNA.

Regardless of how it got this way, Josie has made up her mind that she will eat on her terms, which means, she is the one who puts the food in her mouth. Once we crossed that hurdle — she grabbed the spoon out of my hand one day — she has been delighted to try all kinds of things.

And just like that, I had to figure out what to feed her. Now, I’m guessing by now that you’ve picked up on the fact that I have a few opinions of my own about food, but I should say that my philosophy is very much in process. Over the last year, David and I have been making a concerted effort to stay away from processed food and to spend as much of our food budget at the farmer’s market on seasonable fruits and vegetables as we can, but we haven’t always been this way. And we could certainly still do better, but we’re trying to stay away from food that has been trucked in from far away and move towards eating the fruits of our neighbors’ harvest.

And so, of course, looking at a jar of pureed bananas and thinking about putting it into my child’s body, I had lots of questions. Even if I buy the organic brand, where were those bananas grown? What kind of farm? How are the workers treated? How long did it take them to get here? How many nutrients were removed in the processing stages they went through to get into a jar that could sit on a shelf indefinitely? I know, I know. I’m taking this way too seriously, you might be thinking. But if I am conscientious about the food I put into my own body, shouldn’t I be even more concerned about a growing, developing body that, for the time being, I have complete control over? I know that won’t always be the case, and so, for now, yes, I’m being picky about what Josie eats. We’re trying to give her only whole foods — and to take Michael Pollan’s advice, mostly plants.

Perhaps my ideas about all of this seem hard-core or militant or just too fussy. But I believe that taste in food is cultivated, and as David and I are working towards intentional habits of eating, we’re bringing Josie into that lifestyle, and we want to prepare her taste buds for it as best we can. I’m not so naive as to think that she’ll never have sugar or refined flour or (heaven forbid!) French fries. But if I can prolong her exposure to those things and increase her taste for real food, then I want to try.
Practically speaking, this decision means that we exert a little bit more effort than opening a jar to prepare her food, but in the grand scheme of things, not that much more. One afternoon’s worth of prep work — cooking, blending, storing — will last us a whole month.

For the month of February in Louisiana, that meant a Sunday afternoon roasting a winter squash and a couple of apples, steaming spinach and Swiss chard and broccoli and carrots, pureeing it all in batches with a little bit of the cooking liquid, and spooning it into ice cube trays and tupperware containers. I also ground some brown rice and oats to make her morning cereal, and we keep whole milk yogurt in the fridge.

Once the prep work is done, meal time is as simple as opening a lidded container or thawing out an ice cube.

Clean-up, on the other hand, is another story.

You all were so kind and helpful as I worked through getting my child to eat; now, I want to know, what kinds of decisions have you made about feeding your kids? What challenges to your kids’ healthy eating have you faced? What should new moms be cautious about?

And, then, I promise, I will stop using this space to obsess about my child’s eating, and Weekly Dish will return to its regularly scheduled programming. Thank you for your patience!

Oh, I wish this post had a different title. I’ve been wanting to tell you about Josie’s forays into the world of solid food for some time now. You’ve all been so kind to be interested in her developments and to comment on how much she’s growing and to let me know that it’s okay that I devote a little bit of this space to talking about her and not just food, even though this is, technically, a food blog.

But, well, I really wanted to have some good news for you. I wanted to say how much fun it is to share the wonders of fresh fruits and vegetables with my little one. I wanted to tell you how much she loves to sit in her high chair, how she leans forward to welcome the spoon into her mouth, how she can’t wait for the next new food. Instead, I have only this to show you:

Some days are better than others—she seems to tolerate spinach and carrots better than anything else, and yogurt for breakfast is sometimes okay with her. But, very often, she turns her head from side to side, tightly closes her lips, and refuses. If she’s feeling particularly witty, she’ll perform her newest saliva trick and blow bubbles right as the pureed food meets her mouth for a fantastic fireworks display of vibrant green or orange (as you see in the photos above). We’ve tried it all, it seems: mashed avocado; applesauce, both freshly made and from a jar; carrots, in commercial baby food form and steamed and blended by hand; spinach; bananas; rice; oatmeal; yogurt; yogurt and oatmeal with pureed fruit mixed in; butternut squash; sweet potatoes. She seems to dislike it all equally, with rare exceptions.

She’s eight and a half months old now, and I’m starting to get discouraged. So I come to you, dear readers, to ask: What in the world do I do to convince my child to eat? Will she just eventually accept that food is part of her life? Am I worrying too much? Is her dislike of bland food somehow connected to the way I eat? I tend to like my food on the robustly flavored side, and my taste for seasonings seemed more pronounced when I was pregnant; the more well-seasoned, the better. That has not dissipated since I’ve been breastfeeding, so is it possible she has acquired a taste for more flavor than the average pureed fruit or vegetable has? Should we go straight to table food? Has anyone else encountered this problem, or is this my particular punishment for being a picky eater as a child? (So sorry, Mom!)

At this point, I’m willing to try most anything (well, within reason, of course; the point is to get nutrients into her body and to cultivate her taste for healthy foods, so I’m not willing to give her chocolate pudding or ice cream just so she’ll like it. At least not yet.)

She’s usually such a happy thing, disgruntled only for the expected reasons — hunger, discomfort, fatigue. Oh, and when we try to put a spoon in her mouth. So, if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them. I want her to look like this when she sees food coming:

While we’re waiting for the happy, food-hungry Josie to emerge, we have needed food to sustain our own appetites, preferably of the hearty, comforting sort. More often than not this time of year, that comes in the shape of a warm bowl of pasta. Because locally grown broccoli is so plentiful right now, we buy it at the market every week, and this little dish has become something of a standby. I particularly like it with whole wheat penne or tiny shells; the toothsome noodles stand up well to the cloak of creamy, ham-infused sauce. Plus, it cooks quickly, so there’s time for, oh, I don’t know, dancing around a baby in her high chair begging her to open up. One day, I’m hoping I will feed her whatever I’m making, straight from the stove, with minimal cajoling, and we’ll have put this whole baby food stage behind us. I can’t say that I blame her all that much; I’d rather have this pasta than plain, pureed broccoli any day of the week. Wouldn’t you?
Oh, well, in the mean time, at least I won’t be starving.

Pasta with Ham, Mushrooms, and Broccoli

The trick to this being a quick recipe is the order of the steps: if you start the water to boil for the broccoli and pasta, by the time the noodles are done, your sauce should be ready too. In terms of flavor, this is a dish that benefits from frequent sprinkles of salt: don’t save the seasoning step until the end, instead, sprinkle a little in every time you add something new to the skillet.
1 head broccoli, chopped up into bite-sized pieces
16 ounces small pasta shells or penne rigate
4 ounces ham, diced (we used leftovers from a honey-baked ham)
1 t. olive oil
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1 t. flour
1/2 cup white wine (if you don’t have wine on hand, chicken stock would probably work too)
1/4 cup milk
2 T. heavy cream
Coarse salt, to taste
Parmesan cheese, grated, for serving

Bring a pot of salted water to boil. You’ll use this pot for both the broccoli and the pasta.

Meanwhile, prep your ingredients: chop the ham, broccoli and onions, and slice the mushrooms and garlic.

When the water is boiling, add the broccoli, and blanch for about 3 minutes; it should be crisp-tender and bright green. Drain the broccoli and set it aside, but reserve the cooking water, putting it back in the pot. Let the water return to boiling, and add the pasta. Cook until al dente.
While the broccoli and noodles cook, heat the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet. Add the ham and cook over medium heat until well-browned. Remove the ham with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add the mushrooms and onions to the skillet and cook over medium-high heat until the onion is beginning to turn golden. Add the garlic slices and stir them in, continuing to cook until all the vegetables are tender. Season well with salt. Rubbing it between your palms, sprinkle the flour evenly over the vegetables, stirring quickly to coat.
Pour in the wine, and cook over medium-high heat for a minute or two, then stir in the milk. Reduce the heat to medium. Season with salt. Keep stirring and cooking until the liquid has reduced by half, about 5-7 minutes. Stir in the reserved ham and broccoli, and finish with the cream. Cook for just a minute more. Serve the sauce over the pasta, and top with plenty of grated cheese.

From all of us here in the Weekly Dish kitchen, may your holiday be full of joyful celebration and delicious food. I, for one, am especially grateful this holiday season to have such kind readers. Thank you for visiting, for commenting, for listening to my stories and sometimes making use of my recipes. Without you, I’d never keep this up.

After a short trip to celebrate with family and friends, we’ll be back soon after the New Year. Merry, merry to all!

A few weeks ago, I was catching up on my food blog reading, and I came across this post on What We’re Eating in which Amanda put out a call to other bloggers to join her in Paying It Forward. Since I happen to love giving gifts so much, and since it is that time of year, after all, I couldn’t resist joining in the fun. I love the thought of packaging up some homemade goodies to send out to some of you people out there who stop by here to spend some time in my virtual kitchen. (Plus, now Amanda has to send me a present too — everyone wins!)

So, here’s how it works: I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, which is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

So, if you have a blog and you like the idea of giving away stuff you’ve made to folks who read your blog, then leave me a comment and I’ll start dreaming up what to make you. Just make sure you leave an email address so I can get in touch with you about how to get said gift in your possession.

I love the holidays!

In college, I lived in the dorm all four years with the same group of girls, who, now, ten years later are still my best friends. Our lives have taken different paths over the years, but we gather periodically for weddings, baby showers, and holidays, and we try to take a trip together once a year, although that has proven more difficult than we would like. My friend, Mica, a part of that group of college girlfriends (and the one in the center above), was the first of us to really exhibit any domestic skills. She was always in charge of food for parties, and when four of us lived together in an apartment one summer, Mica was really the only one who knew how to cook.

Mica’s culinary adventures that summer went something like this: after her summer school classes, she would come home and whip up all kinds of things — yellow cake mix cookies, brownies, and a divine key lime pie that I have particularly fond memories of — and then, without ever even sampling what she’d made, she would go work out for a couple of hours, come home, and make dinner, which was sometimes, but not often, just a little healthier than the sweets she left lying around. In retrospect, the three roommates who consumed all of this food — Lydia, Patty, and me — decided that Mica’s plan to stay skinny that summer was twofold: first, exercise all the time and eat very little; second, make the three of us fat so that she appeared even skinnier by comparison. Perhaps this plan was not exactly a consciously thought-out one, but I know of no other way to explain the image I have in my head of Mica in her work-out gear nibbling at a hardly-dressed bowl of iceberg lettuce while the rest of us feasted on fried pork chops, some sort of casserole, mashed potatoes, and whatever there was for dessert (for, there was always, always dessert).

Despite the number of calories consumed, living in an apartment with our own kitchen was a most-welcome change from our college cafeteria, and Mica was one of the first of my peers that I remember appearing comfortable in a kitchen; she and I have shared a love of cooking ever since. So, recently, when she asked if I had a recipe for chicken marsala that I liked, I started thinking about how our lives — and thus, our cooking habits, — have changed since our college days. Mica married a boy named Micah (I know, what are the odds?), moved to a small town, and is expecting their second child in just a few months. She now spends her days selling real estate and chasing after her two-year-old, so she’s as interested in good food that requires minimal effort as I am. With her in mind, I developed this recipe for what may not be the prettiest food I’ve ever made, but it is definitely tasty and easy to put together. And while it is certainly not the caloric equivalent of something as light as, say, undressed iceberg lettuce, for a recipe with a cream-based sauce, it could be much worse. I do hope that my dear friend Mica is eating the food she cooks these days and that she, along with the rest of you busy cooks out there, finds this recipe useful. I have made it for a couple of special occasions — an anniversary dinner or two — but it is also simple enough for a nice weeknight meal as well.

I am not claiming authenticity here; rather, I was interested creating a version of this traditional Italian recipe that would make quick work of what could seem like a labor-intensive or complicated dish. A heavy, oven-proof skillet (preferably cast iron) is the only pot you need, which makes clean-up a little less work as well. I served the chicken and its sauce over grits thickened with a little butter and some grated Romano cheese, but wide noodles, rice, or a mound of risotto would also make a nice bed for this dish. A simple green salad was all we needed for a side; next time, I’ll wilt some spinach with plenty of garlic for a warm green side dish.

Chicken Marsala with Oven-Roasted Shallots and Mushrooms

2 ounces bacon, diced
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
2 T. flour
4 large shallots, quartered
1 small red onion, cut into large chunks
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 T. balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup Marsala wine
1/2 cup half and half
2 T. Dijon mustard
Kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large, oven-proof skillet, cook the bacon over medium heat until crispy. Remove the bacon pieces and set aside.

While the bacon is cooking, prepare the chicken breasts. First, place the breasts between two pieces of wax paper or plastic wrap and pound with the bottom of a heavy skillet. You’re looking for a uniform thickness for all 4 pieces of chicken. Then, dust the chicken with the flour on both sides and sprinkle with salt. After you’ve removed the bacon, add the chicken pieces to the skillet and cook, over medium-high heat, without disturbing for about 2-3 minutes on each side, or until nicely browned. Remove the chicken to the plate with the bacon.

Add the vegetables to the skillet — mushrooms, onions and shallots — and pour in the vinegar and mustard, stirring to combine. Sprinkle the vegetables with salt. Put the whole skillet into the oven and roast the vegetables for 30 minutes. During this 30 minutes, you can fix the side dishes (or have your husband do it and you feed your baby and put her to bed).

Return the skillet to the stove, and turn the heat to medium-high. Add the chicken breasts and bacon pieces back to the skillet. Pour in the wine, and deglaze the pan: stir, scraping the bottom of the skillet and letting the chicken and vegetables absorb the liquid. When the wine has reduced by half, after a couple of minutes, pour in the cream. Add a bit of salt to taste and stir, until the sauce is thickened and brown and the breasts are cooked all the way through, another couple of minutes. Serve immediately.

At home with my precious new baby girl. Please meet Josephine Hannah, who we’re calling Josie. She was born on May 11 at 5:28 a.m., weighing in at 8 pounds, 11 ounces, and measuring 20 3/4 inches long.

I am slowly returning to the joys of menu planning and cooking and I hope to return to the blogosphere shortly with recipes and menu reports. In the mean time, I hope all of you are enjoying the bounty of the season; we certainly are. In fact, Josie’s first outing was to the Farmer’s Market!
Happy summer to all!

Merry Christmas from everyone here at Weekly Dish — Jennifer, David, and Chester Claus (pictured). We’ll be back after a short vacation to visit friends and family. May the peace, hope and joy of the season follow you and your family into the New Year. Happy Holidays!

I love to give gifts. Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I also love to receive them, which is true. But during the holidays, the pure delight for me comes from making my list of what to give and trying to think of creative ways to tell people in my life how much they mean to me. Some people might be inclined to think that being on a limited budget would take some of the fun out of gifting. True, I would love to not have to think about money when I decide what to get, but at the same time, there’s something to be said for the inventiveness required to give thoughtful gifts on a student budget.

Maybe it’s because I enjoy a good challenge, but I love it when I think of ways to give thoughtfully without breaking the bank. One of the easiest ways to do that, of course, is to make things. I used to think I was a craftsy person—and I do still have those impulses—but I’m happier in the kitchen than with a glue gun. I am great on the ideas part of crafts, but not so good on the follow-through. Even as a teenager, I would spend my babysitting money on craft supplies, and then get half-way into the project and tire of it. Maybe I’m not patient enough. Or maybe I like the immediate gratification of cooking—no month-long projects for me.

This season, as I thought of what I could make that would provide some homemade goodies for people in my life, I also wanted to consider buying from my local farmers and making the most of what is in season here. The oranges and Meyer lemons from the market have been a weekly staple at our house since they first appeared in November, so they seemed a logical choice. Then, when my sweet Aunt Prissy brought me the new Barefoot Contessa cookbook and I turned to the marmalade recipe, I knew at least one gift item that would come through my kitchen. I have not canned before, which made me a little nervous, but the process went pretty smoothly, and as you can see from the picture, the marmalade is lovely in its tiny glass jars. I made little pound cakes to give with the marmalade — a yummy holiday breakfast or tea combination.

Packaging is where my craftsy insticts kick in: if I’m going to the trouble of making homemade gifts, then I want to make extra sure that they are packaged well. The tiny jars of marmalade received a striped gross-grain ribbon (part of a surprise gift from a lovely friend) and a colorful tag, and each jar nests inside a Chinese take-out container with a tightly wrapped and ribboned cake. Seal the outside of the box with a festive card and tie on a cute spreader for the marmalade, and I am one happy gift-giver.

I feel a little like I’ve packaged up part of myself in each little box. And who wouldn’t want to open that on Christmas morning?

Even though we traveled to Mississippi to see our families over the weekend, David and I spent this Thanksgiving Day at home. The semester schedule is hard on Thanksgiving holidays — we both had class on Wednesday and decided that getting up early to travel on Thursday was too stressful. Besides, David’s brother, Jon, and his wife, Hannah, are spending some time with us in between moves, and Hannah and I have always talked about how fun it would be to cook our own holiday meal.

And that is exactly what we did. We took our time, assembling and prepping on Wednesday so we wouldn’t have too much to do on Thursday, and made everything from scratch. I am notorious for overdoing everything, and when we sat down to make out the menu, I could tell that narrowing down a Thanksgiving spread to a simple dinner for 4 would be no easy feat.

But, in the name of a relaxing, stress-free holiday, I practiced all of the self-restraint I could muster and decided on a simple menu. The mother of a student I tutor brought me a quart of Spinach Madeline, so that was a for-sure side dish. David wanted to be in charge of the bird, so we sent him and Jon on a quest for an organic free-range turkey and let them take over that part of dinner. The other things we decided on were my grandmother’s cornbread dressing, which she taught me to make last Christmas; the World’s Best Green Bean Casserole (sans cream of mushroom soup, thank you, Alanna); cranberry sauce; and my great-grandmother’s sweet potato pie.

On Wednesday, we made cornbread, baked and mashed the sweet potatoes, made the cranberry sauce, and assembled the green beans minus the topping. It was a luxurious day of cooking — no rushing, no panicking, no worrying. And when Thursday came, all that was left was the bird and the dressing.

Oh, and the most ceremonious part for me: the setting of the table.

I come from a long line of women who have adorned their tables with beautiful things: fine china, cut-glass stemware, and sterling silver appear on my mother’s and grandmother’s dining room tables at every special occasion (and on many ordinary days too). These things are not necessary to enjoy a special meal, to be sure, but I love that I have them.

One of the benefits of getting married in the small southern town you grew up in (and marrying a boy from a nearby small town) is that people still feel like it’s important to arm the bride and groom with every dining accoutrement they could possibly need for their whole lives. And there’s something very sweet about that for me — that when my grown children come to dinner at my house with their families, we’ll feast on the dishes I was given on my wedding day, years and years before anyone could know what my life would turn out like.

We don’t pull out the china and crystal very often, but when we do, I feel like I’m pulling out all of the people who saw me through to this point in my life, all the people who came and celebrated with us when we married, all the people who wanted us to have pretty things and share them with our family.

My favorite of these possessions is a silver chest that belonged to my mother, filled with the pieces my grandmother has been giving me for what seems like my whole life. On my sixteenth birthday, when I opened up my gift from her to find a spoon, a knife, and two forks, I’ll admit that I didn’t quite know what to think. But, now, after many more of those birthdays, and other people adding to the collection along the way, it fills me with joy to pull out those lovely pieces and use them to share food with people I love.

On this Thanksgiving Day, of course I was thankful for the three people who immediately surrounded our small, simple Thanksgiving meal. But I love that I felt the presence of so many others who have contributed to kind of cook, hostess, and person I am. If only my table were bigger.