All of these words make sense on their own, but when placed together, they become a culinary puzzle to unravel. If you are not familiar with the Dutch Baby, it is in the pancake genre, but is thick, custardy, and baked in a cast iron skillet. Our breakfast-for-dinner side dish was hash. Why cowboy hash?…
Category: Chef Ben Cooks!
“This is my new gravy” (Chef Ben on his new za’atar chicken with sauce recipe)
This week, Ben and I made Za’atar-Roasted Chicken with green beans and mashed potatoes. When Phil got home around 6:00, we enlisted his help. As all of you who cook know, a single dish will rarely defeat you, but when you are making three dishes for dinner, things get complicated. Lately, Ben has lost his…
Soup Weather
These early autumn days are beautiful, crisp and clear. But when the sun, that feels fantastic at recess time, slips below the horizon, you know it is fall. And what does fall mean at Ben’s Day Wednesday? Soup. Though Ben tends to be a bit of a “soup denier,” the rest of us love it,…
What’s better than steak?
We had a whole Ben’s Day Wednesday planned, but when I got to Wegman’s and found that this was the week for fresh lobsters, I decided to change our course. When I told Ben I brought home something better than the shrimp he had asked for, he guessed steak. When I said, “Better,” he said,…
Labor Day Park Crawl
When the kids were young enough to take direction (do my bidding) but old enough to ride bikes, we started a tradition of biking from park to park on Labor Day, ending at Brandon Park at noon, where Phil would walk over for a picnic with us. Lycoming College always has classes on Labor Day…
A Night (School Year?) at the Improv
My day to cook with Ben this week coincided with my first in-service day of the year, so the theme of the evening was improvisation. We briefly entertained the notion of Chicken Florentine, but to keep things as normal as possible, we made the familiar Quick Chicken Cordon Bleu. (Though it should be noted that…
Ooh La La!
Chef Ben chose a French dish this week: Savory Pain Perdu (like French toast, but with cheese instead of sugar) and greens with a poached egg. Of course, steak is the perfect accompaniment to…um…everything, according to Ben, so that’s what we did. We all loved the delicious contrast of what amounts to giant, warm, custardy…
These Crab Cakes are Poptacular!
This week, after careful perusal of all deep fried items pictured in his cookbooks, Ben settled on crab cakes. While they looked awfully good, I told him we would bake them instead of frying. He repeatedly expressed his skepticism about this approach, but in the end he declared them “poptacular.” Though he refuses to be…
Bacon Corn Chowder and Spinach Artichoke Melts
This week, we tried to make good use of summer’s bounty without working too hard. Ben loves these easy, open-faced toasted sandwiches. While soup appears to conflict with his belief system these days, bacon is his weakness, so he consented to the chowder. We fiddled a bit with Hope Helmuth’s recipe from Hope’s Table, and…
Halushki
This week, we were inspired to make halushki, by a recipe Kristie Lee shared. While the term was new to us, it is similar to something served at Odyssey of the Mind tournaments held in Berwick, PA, an event very familiar to our family. Cabbage, noodles and onion seem to be the heart of this…