Standardby Julie40 Comments

Success, thy name is tuna and whitefish cat food. Except that the crabs it lured in were again too small to keep. Just as well – it’s kind of disgusting to see your dinner’s last supper. Particularly when it smells this bad. So we went down to see the crab guy and bought some. I really really wanted to sneak a few back into the trap, since this was Emily’s last day here, and she has been so diligently dropping her trap off the crab dock and so disappointed each time she hauls it up with maybe a baby starfish clinging to life on it, but guaranteed I would have lost $40 in a matter of minutes as the freshly purchased crabs liberated themselves. Look at me, the crab pied piper, buying crustacean freedom. It turned into an all-you-can-eat crab buffet, as two of the grown-ups are allergic, the 4 boys under 5 wouldn’t eat any and Emily was so grossed out by the killing fields that she actedContinue reading

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Standardby Julie36 Comments

Since I was 15 and hung out at Earls with my friend J, who had a real job as a busgirl there, back in the day of the giant papier-mâché parrots and green and white umbrellas and Mocha Kahlúa Pie, I have been a fan of their Hot Chicken Caesar Salad. That is, until I discovered that (not really suprisingly) one contains 1120 calories and 77 grams of fat. Only 12 saturated, but still… and then there’s the 1531 mg of sodium. So. I figure for that price, I might as well get a burger and fries out of the deal. But I still do love Caesar salad, and today it occurred to me that it would make good use of the bag of frozen shrimp that I so often call into service on days like today when I haven’t really planned anything. It would have made good use of a deli roasted chicken, too. The chunk of leftover baguette I had frozen was chopped,Continue reading

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Standardby Julie35 Comments

Today, I wanted to demonstrate (to myself as much as anyone else) that dinner in under 15 minutes does not have to involve take-out or be previously frozen. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Well, sometimes there is.) We stopped at the grocery store on the way home from a long meeting with our accountant. Tired, with our heads full of numbers and our car in the shop, I was determined to not give in to the lull of the rain and the security of my baggy sweater and pick up fast food – something perfectly excusable on a day when you find out your car, taxes and dental work are going to cost more than a trip for two to Europe. So I picked up some fresh wild salmon (I’ve never understood why frozen battered fish sticks were considered convenience food, when they take 25 minutes to cook, and a fresh fillet of salmon takes only 10) and when we got home, I told Mike to time me.Continue reading

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Standardby Julie43 Comments

I had to go to the Jully Black concert tonight, so wanted to ensure our houseguests were properly subdued on the couch before I left, so that I didn’t miss anything. Remembering how easy it is to make risotto, and with a bag of near-wilted spinach in the fridge, I thought I’d stir up a pot. Their reaction: “risotto?!! That’s so hard to make!” Not really – it requires about the same level of skill as making oatmeal, only you use rice and stock. You don’t need to attend to it religiously; contrary to popular belief, you can walk away from it once in awhile. And it takes on all sorts of additions beautifully. So I made the same lemon Parmesan risotto I’ve made before, stirring in a few handfuls of torn spinach after the cheese, and then threw in some thawed frozen raw tail-on shrimp, stirred them into the hot risotto and put the lid on the pot until they turned pink. Finish it withContinue reading

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Standardby Julie44 Comments

It is a good day when I realize it’s 5:45, I have no idea what’s for dinner, and there’s a bowl of leftover rice and peas in the fridge. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, my favorite 5 minute dinner is fried rice. You can make it out of anything. (So long as you have rice.) Here’s what you do: Heat up a skillet with a drizzle of canola oil (and sesame oil, if you have some). Throw in the cold rice, some frozen peas if they aren’t already in with the rice, and a little blob of curry paste or powder. Break in an egg and scramble it up off to one side. Toss in some raw or cooked shrimp – I keep a bag in the freezer and run a handful under the tap to thaw. Pork, chicken or tofu also work well (I wish I had a bit of that tenderloin from last night), but the shrimp-curry combo is a good one. Season withContinue reading

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Standardby Julie53 Comments

Happy Eggs Benedict Day! Yesterday, being Eggs Benedict Day Eve (I’m not sure who chooses these days, or who makes them official?) we had eggs Benny on the Eyeopener. I made a classic version of hollandaise sauce, which is dead easy to do in the blender; it’s really like mayonnaise – blended egg yolks with melted butter drizzled in, and a bit of lemon juice. Three yolks and a cup of butter to 1 tablespoon of lemon juice is the ratio; you really could not get any more high fat than hollandaise sauce if you tried, which is probably why people don’t generally make it at home. When you order it at a restaurant you don’t witness (nor take part in) the use of cups of melted butter. Not being an accomplice absolves us of at least some of the guilt. I went to Big Fish this past weekend and had crab eggs Benedict (they also do steak eggs Benedict), which reminded me of the crab cakesContinue reading

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Standardby Julie67 Comments

(In a frenzy.) You would think, given that this website acts as a sort of mealtime confessional, I may be tempted to advise the world that I served my family a wonderfully balanced, seasonal meal tonight. Given the fact that W and I spent most of the afternoon at a playdate, perhaps I should have been more on the ball, stopping to buy a frozen steak on the way home before running for my bottle of valium. (Did you know that the term mother’s little helper referred to valium? Or executive excedrine among corporate types and dolls in the ’60s novel Valley of the Dolls. From 1969 to 1982 it was the nation’s most prescribed drug, earning La Roche pharmaceutical $600 million annually. In 1978, nearly 2.3 billion tabs of valium were downed. Perhaps I’m in the wrong business.) So at 6 o’clock the news came on, and suddenly we were all starving and started rummaging through the fridge and freezer in search of someContinue reading

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Standardby Julie88 Comments

Does this count as a same-day post? I haven’t been to bed yet. I don’t want to slip up and miss a day before January is even finished. I say this with the bold assumption that anyone is even going to notice. (Ha – I just noticed this thing is posting 11:50, when it’s actually 12:50. So it would at least appear that I’m ahead of the game!) I have a class on Monday at the Cookbook Company, which I’ve been trying to plan today. The topic: healthy everyday meals. Although it’s a ridiculously broad subject, for some reason everything I come up with seems so obvious. So one of my favorites, that seems to be different and popular and I’ve had several email requests for since mentioning it on the radio, is this curried shrimp I make using marmalade and peanut butter. It sounds reminiscent of those meatballs you make with ketchup and grape jelly, or chicken baked in Coca Cola. But really, it’sContinue reading

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