Lisa is the author of the award-winning memoir, A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood, which was an National Book Critics Circle Top-10 Independent Press Pick for 2011. With Caroline, she's the co-founder of Learning to Eat and co-editor of The Cassoulet Saved our Marriage: True Tales of Food, Family, and How We Learn to Eat. She holds an MA in creative writing, a PhD in English and has taught literature and creative writing widely, most recently in the MFA Program at the University of San Francisco.
We have continued our tradition of kidtinis on these winter weekends, even though MadMen is no longer sustaining us. The kids love them, and think their dad is famous because if you Google “kidtini drinks” the first hits are the recipes on this site: The 7Up Kidtini, the Pomegranate Kidtini, and the one that started it all. One of the latest was also one of the simplest and prettiest, and followed the basic rules of not-too-sweet, seasonal goodness for kids.
Pomegranate Clementine Kidtini
For each drink, pour into a durable martini glass:
Pomegranite soda or Seltzer + splash of pomegranite juice
A thin slice of clementine, floated on top
It’s true that these drinks are more style than substance, not unlike Esme Squalor’s Aqueous Martini (very, very cold water, served in a fancy glass, with an olive), but at our house, like those self-same villanous drinks, they continue to be very, very in.
We have never posted someone else’s work here in lieu of our own, but I’m making an exception and giving you this link because, well, it’s the funniest thing on feeding young kids I’ve ever read. And it’s also about exactly what we’re doing here: building a family food culture, one day, one meal at a time–which can be, as Frazier implies, a job of biblical proportion with apocalyptic consequence and no shortage of revelation.
Read it and laught til you weep. And then come back here and for more ideas about how to feed those unruly, ungrateful kids another meal.
I used to make fresh pasta a lot. As in once a week. Before kids, or when Ella was very little, it was easy to whip up a batch of fresh pasta for dinner, even for a first course. Fresh, it’s like nothing else in the world, and I even got good at making the right kind of pasta for the right dish. Wide paparadelle for a fresh olive oil emulsion, fettucine for alfredo, lasagna noodles for a casserole with bechamel, spaghetti for ragu, orichetta for broccoli rabe and sausage, raviolis and tortellini, even bite-sized, whisper thin sheets that encased a single spray of tarragon, or a tiny basil leaf, etc. With practice, it became a very easy thing to do and I had a nice wooden kitchen table at which to work.
Then, I had a new baby, and then a new home with a really terrible tile counter on which it was impossible to roll pasta. Our new kitchen table was similarly unsuitable. A few years passed, and while we got a new countertop pretty quickly, aside from a few batches of pumpkin ravioli, it took a while to work the past back in to any regular rotation. But back it is, and I can say now, that I am really sorry it ever went away, even briefly.
It can take a little time to master, and more time to master efficiently, so you’re not spewing flour everywhere and making for an unpleasant and lengthy clean-up, but if you stick with it, you get better fast, and it’s not hard and not messy.
It’s also one of the most fun things–hands down–you can do with a kid in the kitchen. In fact, it can make a great play date if you’re game.
I like the old fashioned method of mixing the pasta and eggs: I dump the flour on the counter, make a well, and break the eggs right into it. With a fork, the eggs get beaten, and the flour is slowly incorporated into the egg, a little at a time. The kids love this bit because it looks so, well, risky. No bowl! What a mess! The thing is, it’s not messy, and the dough only takes up as much flour as it needs. Certainly, you can dump the flour and eggs into your Cuisinart/food processor and mix it up until it rides the blade. But sometimes this produces an overly dry dough (say, on rainy days). It’s not fool proof. The counter method is.
The ratio, straight out of Marcella Hazan’s Classic Italian Cooking which is no longer in print:
1 egg to every 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
For 3-4 people, use 2 eggs + 1 1/2 cups flour
For 5-6 people use 3 eggs 2 1/4 cups flour
For 7-8 people, use 4 eggs, 3 cups flour
You can be brave and roll your dough by hand, or once it’s mixed, finish the kneading by passing it through your pasta machine until it’s very smooth, then keep passing it through until it’s the right thickness. Then, you cut as needed. A good machines will cost you about $70 at William Sonoma. I bought mine for $50 the minute we got back from our honeymoon in Italy ten years ago, and it was money very well spent.
The kids adore the machine.
This night, Finn rolled most of the pasta…
and he cut most of the pasta….
and he was very pleased with his work…
The cream sauce is really fettucine alfredo, but if you haven’t had it this way, with fresh pasta you really haven’t had it in its most fundamental, most extraordinary form. This recipe will make you realize why people go nuts for this dish, when all you’ve ever had is, well, a rich, flavorless, goop.
This recipe is fast enough for a weeknight if you’ve frozen your fresh pasta so it’s ready to go, and elegant and delicious enough for a dinner party or first course. You will never, ever tire of it in the cooler months.
Again, right out of Hazan:
Fettucine with Butter and Cream Sauce
1 cup heavy cream
3 T butter
2/3 cups freshly grated parmesan
freshly ground pepper
a very tiny grating fresh nutemg
Fettucine, made w/3 eggs
In a heavy pan, that can later accomodate all the cooked pasta, heat 2/3 cup cream and butter and simmer over medium heat fro less than a minute, until the butter and heat have thickened. Turn off the heat.
Cook the fettucine in a large pot of well-salted boiling water. They will take only a few seconds-1 minute to cook after the water returns to a boil. Drain immediately and thoroughly and transfer to the pan containing the butter and cream.
Turn on the heat under the pan to low, add the remaining 1/3 cup cream, all the grated cheese, 1/2 teaspoon salt, pepper to taste, and nutmeg. Toss briefly until the cream has thickened and the fettucine are well coated. Taste and correct for salt. Serve immediately from the pan, with a bowl of additional grated cheese on the side.
If you do something like this, and serve it from a serving dish, get it to the table and onto plates immediately. Say grace after dinner.
birthday flowers, whipped cream, maple syrup, blueberries…
Generally speaking, I’m not in charge of breakfast, and I prefer pancakes to waffles. This is not so true of my husband, who loves waffles, and who counted a waffle maker among the very few kitchen machines in his bachelor home. He made waffles pretty regularly (from a mix, yes, but he still made the effort).
However, about a week ago, the kids requested waffles, and I found a Fanny Farmer recipe for Raised Waffles at Epicurious. It’s an interesting recipe that calls for yeast (which we always have) instead of buttermilk (which we don’t). Also, the griddle cakes we are devoted to are also a Fanny Farmer recipe, so I figured this one had to be a hit as well. And it is. These are incredibly light, not too sweet, and perfectly tender and crisp when they come off the waffle iron. Ella asked for her dad’s “special platter”, which the waffles certainly deserve.
They are very, very, very easy to make, and like the English muffins, they have the benefit of being a make-ahead meal. I don’t really like to make an effort in the morning. But for these waffle, you make the better the night before, let it rise, then add 2 eggs and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda in the morning. And, voila! They’re ready to go. There’s no mess (unless you overfill the waffle maker), no flour to sweep up, no extra baking tools to wash in the morning. Apparently the batter will keep in your refrigerator for a few days, but we just make the big batch all at once, and then reheat the waffles in our convection oven for school days. The only down side is that, like all fresh waffles, you have to make them one at a time, and this can take time. But I sit on a tall stool, and baby sit the waffle maker while my family eats them hot. I’m very happy with my coffee, talking to them (we have an open kitchen), and by the time the last is done, I’m fully caffeinated and ready to eat. As far as I’m concerned, it’s win-win.
The first time we made them, we had leftover whipped cream and frozen blueberries, so they went on the table. This was a very. big. hit. Kids + waffles + blueberries + whipped cream=fruity, creamy waffles sandwiches for breakfast. We’ve made them twice now, so I can safely say that the waffle maker Kory insisted on registering for when we married will have a more regular place in our slow-food breakfast rotation.
Hop on over to Epicurious for the recipe. You won’t need another one. And as long as you can dust off, or buy, a waffle maker, you definitely don’t need frozen.
I would have added “simple” to this title, but it’s just too much alliteration. Still, it is a side benefit of another great winter pasta dish. In fact, I feel like I have (I definitely should have) written this one up before, but I can’t find it in any search. So here it is, again, perhaps , for some of you, one of our favorite cold-weather dishes, a family pleaser in any form. It’s also another dish that holds up to whatever you have in your pantry. If you only have sausage and tomatoes, it works. You can use fusilli to equal (if not greater) effect. You can certainly leave out the onion and garlic if you like and the saffron is an added bonus.
But if you want the full measure of this dish, use the saffron. It might be a new (fun! colorful! strange!) ingredient for your kid, who can yellow her palms crushing the pretty threads for you. It adds a gorgeous golden color to the tomato and adds its incomparable flavor to the dish, giving a rather ordinary dish an extra-ordinary twist. I believe I found the original recipe years ago in Food & Wine.
Also, I am certainly not one to keep expensive saffron in my pantry, but Trader Joe’s sells a Spanish version that does the trick nicely and which fits my family’s budget. I’ve also seen something called Mexican saffron, which is probably pretty similar. If you can splurge for the top quality stuff, by all means do. If not, these more affordable versions serve as a great introduction for your family and nice, new addition to your weekly dinners.
Spaghetti with Sausage & Saffron
1 lb spaghetti
3/4 lb (more or less, 3-5 small links) mild Italian sausage
1 bay leaf
1/2 onion (sweet, red, whatever…), sliced thin
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can tomatoes (whole plum or chopped, your choice)
saffron threads, a generous pinch or to taste
Sautee bay leaf, onion, and garlic in a few tablespoons olive oil until soft.
Squeeze the sausage out of the casing, and cook, breaking up the sausage with a fork until the sausage is cooked through.
Deglaze the pan with a little water (or wine or vermouth if you like).
Stir in the tomatoes with their juice, and, if whole, use your spoon to crush them.
When the tomatoes are nicely crushed and simmering, add the saffron threads, crumbling them a little between your fingers. Use enough to get a nice, golden color and stir them in thoroughly.
Let the sauce simmer over very low heat for 15 or 20 minutes or so, or longer, to incorporate the flavors.
Cook the pasta in boiling salted, water.
Drain pasta and add to the sauce. Let it simmer for just a few minutes to incorporate the flavors.
Serve immediately with grated grana, parmesan or pecorino romano.
