Thousand Island Dressing

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by Lisa

It’s a snack food, a packable lunch dish, a side dish, an appetizer, an all around helpful thing to have in your kitchen. It’s lightening fast to make. It’s completely addictive.  It’s a way of getting your kids to eat more raw vegetables.  And even you won’t be able to stop eating it with salads, with crudite, for lunch, before dinner, after school. Even if you don’t like the bottled stuff, try this.  There’s no comparison. And there’s nothing like having a big batch of something healthy to pull out and feed the kids when they’re begging for food and dinner isn’t quite ready.

I dug up this recipe a few years ago, and while we don’t always have it the refrigerator, it’s the kind of thing that the kids suddenly remember and beg for. Last week it was Finn’s turn to remember that “pink dipping sauce” and so I made it. I had half a head of iceberg lettuce in the refrigerator, left over from fish tacos the night before, and we whipped up a batch of dressing, and it has lasted us all week.   I served it to them first over wedges of lettuce, which Finn thought was just about the best thing ever.

The recipe makes a lot, but it keeps really well (even gets better as the flavors blend), so we portion it out all week long, mostly with carrots and celery, which I precut and keep in the refrigerator.

The original recipe is here. My only change is to substitute ketchup for chili sauce and add a dash of tabasco (or more or less to your taste).  I usually don’t have pimentos, so I often leave them out, but when I’m short on pickles I’ve thrown in a few pimento  stuffed olives; you can leave out the egg, but it’s much better with it in.

Homemade Thousand Island dressing

  • 1 1/4 cups mayonnaise
  • 1/3 cup ketchup
  • 1/4 cup chopped drained pimiento
  • 1 large hard-boiled egg, shelled, finely chopped
  • 3 tablespoons finely chopped dill pickle
  • 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • 2 tablespoons drained capers
  • 2 tablespoons chopped green onion
  • Tabasco or other Hot pepper sauce

A Dinner Surprise

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by Lisa

This is another fast, easy, intensely flavorful recipe that’s great for a weeknight change. It’s also really affordable & relies on things that you can easily keep in your pantry &/or freezer.  It saved me over the last month, when I needed to get dinner on table with a minimum of prep work.  For the kids, it has the added bonus of being sort of fun and surprising. They get their own, individually wrapped entry on their plates, and they get to unpack it by themselves, which of course makes them feel sort of important .   And like most everything  I cook, it can be varied depending on your taste  and what you happen to have on hand.  The basic recipe is from Food and Wine and you can find it here.

Basically, it’s a pork chop topped with mustard, cured meat, & herbs en papillote (a fancy way for saying wrapped in foil or parchment) and baked for about 20 minutes. It produces a deeply flavored, tender chop surrounded by a few tablespoons of delicious juice. Pair it with some quick sauteed greens, a salad, and a side of white beans with garlic and olive oil.  You’re kids should be delighted when you serve them a plate with their own packet to open, even happier when they cut into it, and you’ll be surprised at how good and easy it is. Every time.

My strategies are below. See the original recipe for a lovely picture.  I only got the taste tester’s verdict:

Pork Chops With Mustard and Bacon

For each packet you’ll need:

  • One bone-in pork chop (the bone is ideal for tenderness and flavor, also you want chops with some fat)
  • 2 t Dijon mustard
  • 1 Slice Canadian bacon, prosciutto, or thinly sliced pancetta
  • Fresh or dried thyme, or other herbs to your taste
  • Foil square

Place the pork chop in the center of the foil square. Top with a teaspoon (or more or less, to your taste) of mustard. Layer the sliced bacon/pancetta/prosciutto on top, then top with another teaspoon or so of mustard and sprinkle with herbs.  Tightly crimp the foil packet closed all around the pork chop. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Let rest. Serve with or without packet, reserving juices.

Nuoc Chom

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by Lisa


This is one of those things that can save your day, and it may be my new favorite thing to keep in the refrigerator. It’s not a dish, per se, but a basic recipe for a Vietnamese dipping sauce that is incredibly versatile and fantastically delicious.  The kids go nuts for it.

Composed of garlic, chilis, fish sauce, Nuco Cham is sweet and savory and light.  You can vary the proportions for your family’s taste, and then use it as a cooking sauce, a dipping sauce, a light dressing.   It works on poultry, beef, pork, tofu, crisp vegetables like cucumbers, cabbage, robust lettuces, bean sprouts, even fresh tomatoes.  It works with rice or noodles.  And the bonus is that you can make a double recipe, keep it in the refrigerator, and pull it out when you only have 20 minutes to get dinner on the table.   It’s especially delicious and easy if you have a countertop grill and want to make some quick grilled meat.  I buy whole, boneless breasts, and cut them into slim fingers, use a bit of fajita meat, or a pork tenderloin, which I also slice very thinly. These small bits are kid friendly, and easily handled by children with chopsticks, or threaded onto skewers (making utensils unnecessary), and most important, they literally grill (or stir fry) in a matter of minutes.  If you have your rice ready, or use glass noodles, which also cook in minutes, you can get a healthy, really delicious dinner on the table in a flash.

There are many recipes for Nuoc Chom, but the one I start with is from an old Food and Wine Cookbook, reproduced below.  Double it, use half, and save the other half in a glass jar in the refrigerator for a night when you really need it.  You can use the herbs or leave them out if you don’t have them on hand, and you can add the vegetables that your family likes. You can also use rice, or rice noodles instead of the pasta. Think of this as a general guide and technique. The possibilities are endless.

Vermicelli with Chicken Skewers and Nuoc Cham

serves 4

  • 5 T Asian fish sauce
  • 2 T sugar
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 T cooking oil
  • 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut lengthwise into 12 strips (or an equivalent portion of beef, pork, or tofu)
  • 1/2 t dried red pepper flakes
  • 1 t red wine vinegar
  • 2 T  + 1 t lime juice
  • 2 T water
  • 1/2 lb vermicelli, or rice noodles, or enough rice to feed your family
  • 1 cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded and cut into thin slices
  • 2/3 cuup fresh mint or cilantro or basil–or any combination of these three
  • 1/3 cup chopped peanuts–also optional, but delicious if you have them on hand
  • Special equipment if you have it:  bamboo skewers, soaked in water so they don’t combust when you grill the meat
  1. Heat the broiler or light the grill. In a medium bowl, combine 1 T of the fish sauce, 1 T sugar, 2 cloves garlic, and oil.  Add the chicken(0r other meat/protein) and toss. You can let this marinate in the refrigerator for several hours if need be, or you can thread the meat directly onto wooden skewers.  Broil or grill the chicken until just done, about 2 minutes per side. Seriously.
  2. In a small bowl, combine the remaining fish sauce (4T), 1 T sugar, 1 clove of garlic, and the red pepper flakes, vinegar, lime juice,and water. Set this nuoc cham aside.You can also make this very early in the day.
  3. Cook the vermicelli in a pot of boiling, salted water until done.
  4. Put the pasta or other noodles on a platter and top with the cucumber, herbs, and chicken skewers. Pour the nuoc cham over all and sprinkle with peanuts.  Alternatively, use the nuoc cham to dress the chicken and cucumbers separately, have a large dish of herbs for sprinkling, and serve with individual rice bowls.

Chard with Caramelized Shallots & Orange

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by Caroline

This recipe, from Mark Bittman’s indispensable How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, is my new favorite way to eat chard; the only flaw in the recipe as he writes it, I think, is that he calls it simply “Chard with Oranges and Shallots.” Why, when you have the chance to use one of the most appealing food words in the English language, would you skip it? But Bittman is a busy guy with a thousand recipes to cover, so I can understand why he skips the adjective. Not me, though. The shallots and orange are caramelized here, and that adds greatly to the appeal of the dish (if you really don’t think you’ll like the chewy bits of peel, then by all means, peel the fruit before you add it, but I think it adds a nice contrast to the tender chard leaves).

This would make a great side dish, of course, but I’ve been eating it all week on a bed of Trader Joe’s harvest grains, a pilaf you can recreate yourself with Israeli couscous and lentils or split peas. Sprinkle with toasted almonds and maybe add a drizzle of yogurt, and you’ve got yourself a terrific lunch.

1 lb chard
2 T olive oil
2 shallots, thinly sliced
2 T sugar
1 small, unpeeled orange or tangerine, seeded and coarsely chopped
2 T sherry vinegar
salt & ground pepper

Strip the chard leaves from the stems. Cut the leaves into wide ribbons — the quickest way to do this is to stack a number of leaves, roll them up into a cylinder and then slice the cylinder. Then, keeping the stems separate, slice them into bite-sized pieces.

Pour the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the shallots and sugar and cook for a minute, then add the orange or tangerine bits and lower the heat to low. Cook, stirring frequently, until everything is caramelized, about 10 minutes. Stir in the vinegar. It looked so beautiful at this stage, and smelled so fabulous, that I paused to take a picture:

Raise the heat to medium and stir in the chard stems. Cook, stirring once or twice, until they soften a bit, just a couple minutes. Add the chard ribbons, cover the pan and turn off the heat. Let the chard steam for a few minutes, then stir and recover the pan for another 2-3 minutes. I didn’t really believe this would be enough time or heat to cook the chard, but it absolutely is — the chard turns out beautifully tender.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve right away, or within an hour or two at room temperature.

Fizzes for the Family

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by Lisa

A few months ago, I had a gin fizz at the Moss Room in San Francisco and fell in love.  You might remember my first unsuccessful search for orange flower water .  I did find it, however, at Whole Foods, and a few weekends ago I whipped (or shook) a couple up for the husband and me.  They were done in the late afternoon on a Saturday, and we promptly banished the kids to their bedrooms for a lovely 25 minutes, and Kory and I sat in the living room and had a quiet cocktail.

The drink is outstanding. It’s a little fizzy from the splash of seltzer, creamy but not rich, and slightly sweet.  It’s my new favorite, and I urge you to try it.

Recipes online abound.  I used this one, originally posted here, and it was perfect.

  • 1-1/2 ounces gin (Old Tom gin if you can get it)
  • 1/2 ounce lemon juice
  • 1/2 ounce lime juice
  • 1 ounce simple syrup
  • 3-4 drops orange flower water
  • 2 drops vanilla extract (very optional; there’s some controversy over whether this was ever really used, but it does add a nice touch)
  • 2 ounces cream
  • 1 egg white
  • Soda water

Shake all ingredients except the soda water WITHOUT ICE very vigorously for at least one minute, preferably longer — the longer the better. Then add ice and shake for 1-2 minutes, as long as you can manage, until extremely cold and frothy. Strain into a tall thin glass, or a very large old fashioned glass, and top with soda water. Stir gently.

When we finally let the kids out, we were refreshed and relaxed (an argument for making an small oasis of time for the adults in the house, even in the middle of the day), and Kory mixed up a version for them, which involved bubbly water, a few drops of orange flower water, a dash of (maybe raspberry?) syrup, and a small scoop of  vanilla ice cream.  Certainly, a better, more authentic kids version would involve lemon and lime syrup, but we didn’t have any in the house. We’re happy to improvise when necessary, and the kids, of course didn’t care.  This was probably their favorite one yet.

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