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…
Category: Life With Ben
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…
Head for the Hills!
Summer has come and gone. Since a vacation was not in the cards this year, we have tried to take advantage of sunny weekend mornings by exploring the hills, valleys, and forests of the area in Phil’s ’65 Triumph Vitesse. I wouldn’t exactly characterize us as convertible people – rather as quirky, affordable, vintage British…
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…
New-Haul
Since we moved Sophia to Virginia last summer, Ben has been obsessed with U-Hauls, or “New-Hauls,” as he calls them. He has asked about the plans for moving her from Virginia back to Pennsylvania approximately one million, four hundred twenty-eight thousand, five hundred sixty-two times over the course of the summer. I feel like I…
And Now For Something Completely Different… (Just kidding. It’s chicken again.)
When Ben was but a wee tad (maybe 4?) and he was just starting to put words together, we went out for a nice dinner on my birthday. Ben correctly deduced from the Old Corner’s elegant ambience and cloth napkins, that this was fine dining, and he wanted to order without my help (I sometimes…
It Comes With…
People sometimes ask about our cooking process. I would call it an evolving partnership. Ben thinks of a meal he loves, or he looks through his cookbooks, and usually comes up with something that is not practical to make together. Sometimes, it is too complicated, and requires techniques he certainly doesn’t have, and I can’t…
Coq Au Vin
We have been making this French dish for years, and though it sounds a little like “Cocoa Van” when we say it, there isn’t any cocoa involved, just delicious chicken in a red wine sauce. This week’s batch was particularly delicious, and we got to eat it with Charlie, who was here painting. Ben kept…