On Our Table
Welcome to the newest addition to the blog! I come from a long line of Italian and German women who like to cook and love to eat. In my family, one of the ways you love on people is to feed them. But since getting married and having kids, it's been a struggle to make meals that we can all agree on. My perfect meal involves lots of garlic (I think my love language is lasagna), my husband's lots of ketchup, and my kids are a funny mix of both. So I try every new recipe cautiously optimistic. When it works, I feel like kissing my family and calling everyone I know. "Hey, this is good, and my husband...er, kids like it, too! You should try it." So this is my "You should try it" list. I'll try to add a little to it each month.
Healthy eating disclaimer: Most of these recipes would qualify as healthier, rather than strictly healthy. As in, they're healthier than a lot of other awful things we could feed our families. I'm not really a low-fat cooking kind of girl, unless I can get it without sacrificing flavor. I try to cut down on sugar in all recipes I follow, and whenever I can use whole wheat flour without reducing my baked goods to hard bricks, I do. To me, healthy eating is more about using natural ingredients and achieving a balance in your diet than enforcing restrictions, anyway.
French Toast and Pancakes...who doesn't love dessert for breakfast?
Ina Garten's Challah French Toast
This is the best french toast I've ever eaten. Hands down.
Fluffy Ricotta Pancakes from The Kitchn
You can do all kinds of amazing things with ricotta cheese. It even makes marvelous milkshakes. If you're looking for a pancake that's more than a conduit for maple syrup, this is your cake. I didn't have lemon curd, so I added some lemon zest and lemon juice and served them with homemade blueberry sauce and a little powdered sugar on top. It's a miracle of pancakes!!! (and full of good protein for the kids).
Something to go with the eggs and bacon...
Ina Garten's Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins
OK, I really like Ina Garten's recipes. These muffins are fantastic. I like to substitute a little whole wheat flour for some of the white. Not too much, though! Or they lose their coffee cake texture! If you don't plan ahead and warm your eggs to room temperature beforehand, placing the eggs in a bowl of very warm water for ten minutes or so can accomplish the same. And as a general rule, when baking anything cake-like, especially something that requires you to separate the eggs, working with eggs at room temperature is always best. The whites fluff up so much better. There's a scientific reason for this, but my literature mind can't remember it.
Banana Bread from Simply Recipes
My mom discovered this one. For years I've been making dry banana bread. I always thought I was overcooking it. Turns out the secret is in how many bananas you use. This recipe calls for 3 or 4 large bananas. Brilliant! It makes moist banana bread with less butter/oil than other recipes I've found. And it tastes better. We like to cut down on the sugar (3/4 c is plenty! You could even go with less.) and sprinkle chocolate chips or nuts or both on top before baking. It's a good recipe for kids to help with. It only requires one bowl, a fork to mash, and a wooden spoon to stir. No electric mixers necessary!
We skip to...Dessert!:
Our favorite summer cupcakes!
This brings you to a previous blog post that features Martha Stewart's recipe for strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream frosting. Yum!
Healthy eating disclaimer: Most of these recipes would qualify as healthier, rather than strictly healthy. As in, they're healthier than a lot of other awful things we could feed our families. I'm not really a low-fat cooking kind of girl, unless I can get it without sacrificing flavor. I try to cut down on sugar in all recipes I follow, and whenever I can use whole wheat flour without reducing my baked goods to hard bricks, I do. To me, healthy eating is more about using natural ingredients and achieving a balance in your diet than enforcing restrictions, anyway.
Breakfast:
For some reason, Fall always makes me think of home-cooked, slow-cooked breakfasts where you linger longer at the table. Mark hates it when I start a breakfast project on Saturday or Sunday morning, mostly because he's the official dish washer of the house and he'd rather be spending his Saturday a million other ways than washing dishes. He also just loves cereal. In fact, we've reached an unspoken agreement that he can pass on my cooking for his usual bowl if he wants. But he often ends up going for both. Here are some breakfast favorites that we've been known to eat as lunch or dinner, too.French Toast and Pancakes...who doesn't love dessert for breakfast?
Ina Garten's Challah French Toast
This is the best french toast I've ever eaten. Hands down.
Fluffy Ricotta Pancakes from The Kitchn
You can do all kinds of amazing things with ricotta cheese. It even makes marvelous milkshakes. If you're looking for a pancake that's more than a conduit for maple syrup, this is your cake. I didn't have lemon curd, so I added some lemon zest and lemon juice and served them with homemade blueberry sauce and a little powdered sugar on top. It's a miracle of pancakes!!! (and full of good protein for the kids).
Something to go with the eggs and bacon...
Ina Garten's Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins
OK, I really like Ina Garten's recipes. These muffins are fantastic. I like to substitute a little whole wheat flour for some of the white. Not too much, though! Or they lose their coffee cake texture! If you don't plan ahead and warm your eggs to room temperature beforehand, placing the eggs in a bowl of very warm water for ten minutes or so can accomplish the same. And as a general rule, when baking anything cake-like, especially something that requires you to separate the eggs, working with eggs at room temperature is always best. The whites fluff up so much better. There's a scientific reason for this, but my literature mind can't remember it.
Banana Bread from Simply Recipes
My mom discovered this one. For years I've been making dry banana bread. I always thought I was overcooking it. Turns out the secret is in how many bananas you use. This recipe calls for 3 or 4 large bananas. Brilliant! It makes moist banana bread with less butter/oil than other recipes I've found. And it tastes better. We like to cut down on the sugar (3/4 c is plenty! You could even go with less.) and sprinkle chocolate chips or nuts or both on top before baking. It's a good recipe for kids to help with. It only requires one bowl, a fork to mash, and a wooden spoon to stir. No electric mixers necessary!
We skip to...Dessert!:
Our favorite summer cupcakes!
This brings you to a previous blog post that features Martha Stewart's recipe for strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream frosting. Yum!