Sometimes the aim of a dish is simply to get something on the table that everyone will eat.  Add-in that you have a house full of kids who cringe at the thought of anything made with vegetables and it can become an issue.  The answer?  Cover those veggies in something they’ll gobble up so that the dog doesn’t get fed under the table.

This is one of those dishes that has its roots in necessity more than any plan of culinary greatness.  it was designed to be something that my whole family would eat with a minimum of funky faces or groans about how nobody in the house but me likes broccoli or mushrooms. (They do like mushrooms, but not if they know they’re there.)

The simple solution was to smother everything in a nice, creamy Alfredo sauce, with the addition of some lightly sauteed mushrooms for some extra body.  Not only did the kids eat their vegetables, but they asked for more!

This recipe was created for the FoodBuzz Family Bites series, sponsored by Newman’s Own products, so the sauce used was not my usual classic Alfredo, but in this case I don’t think that was an issue at all.  The kids loved it, from the 11 year-old picky eater to the 3 year-old with a diet of four items total, all enjoyed this dish. (And the sauce was pretty darned good for a cream based Alfredo.)

In the end, i’ll give this meal a 5 for creativity, but a 10 for kid-friendly, and that’s what it was all about.  Give it a try with your picky eaters and I hope you get the same results!

What’s your favorite simple kid friendly meal?  We’d love to hear about it. (Especially me, because my kids are extremely picky!)

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Popularity: 3% [?]

No matter what skill level you attain as a cook or what triumphs of culinary complication you manage to master over the course of a lifetime it’s a plain simple truth that sometimes simpler is better.  I feel that the simplest of dishes with the fewest ingredients actually takes more skill to master than dishes with complex ingredient lists and prolonged methods.

In a simple dish there is no room for error.  You can’t cover a mistake with another layer, or a touch of this or that.  This dish is like that.  It has just 5 ingredients and takes less than 15 minutes to prepare.  A novice cook can easily make this dish and make it well. To make it perfectly every time is something that I strive for… And so far have not mastered.

My kids don’t mind that I keep trying.  It’s one of their favorite dishes, whether as a side dish or as a meal in itself.  My wife fell in love with it on her last visit as well.  Both of these things make me push myself to make it better every time I cook it.  To add just a little more care.  To be sure the pasta is perfectly al dente.  That there isn’t too much or too little of any one thing. Because there’s no place to hide if I screw it up.

Do you have a simple dish like this in your arsenal?  Is there something that you feel could always be just a little better than it was the last time?  For me this is that dish..  But then, it’s so delicious that even if I’ve never achieved its pinnacle, the other versions are incredible, too.

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Popularity: 16% [?]

One of the best parts of having my wife home for a visit is that she is also an excellent cook.  This has not only given me a much needed break from the kitchen, but has given the entire family a perspective on cooking that is different from my own.

While my cooking style tends towards Asian influence with go-to spices and sauces like soy, curry and five-spice powder, my wife’s cooking is heavily Puerto Rican and Mediterranean in influence. The change has been welcome and has me longing to broaden my horizons as well.

This was one of the dishes she made during her visit and is one that I could eat over and over again if it were possible. I am very much looking forward to having it again at the end of her time in Turkey.  The roasted garlic in the filling makes all the difference and elevates this Manicotti above many of the others that I’ve had.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Cooking for three growing boys has its challenges.  They may always be hungry, but having been raised up to this point on primarily convenient foods, they have a very limited idea of what is acceptable to eat.  Unfortunately for me, just about any vegetable that I consider to be amazing is not currently on that list.

After months of trying to accommodate their wants with a real need to get them to eat in something like a healthy manner, it has come time to put on my “Dad” hat and just start making the right foods, regardless of the amount of noise coming from the dining room when something green comes out of the larder.

What do you do to get your kids to eat better?  Do you have tricks for sneaking healthier alternatives into the mix, or do you just sit staunchly by until they finally cave in and eat what they should eat?  I’d be very interested to know what other parents are doing here, especially since I’m starting with kids that haven’t been eating my food for the last four years.

I’ll grant that the only nod towards health that this particular dish shows is the spinach itself.  This is not the world’s healthiest pasta dish, but I’m using sausage, butter and garlic as gateway foods to introduce healthier items like spinach and fresh basil. (They loved the basil… Not so much the spinach, but they ate some of it, so it’s a start!)

Another trick I’ve begun using is to decrease the amount of “the good stuff” in the dish.  While I more than likely would have made this a year ago with a pound of sausage and simply saved the leftovers, now I’ve cut it down to 1/2 pound, knowing full-well that the two older boys will not leave even the smallest meaty bit in the pan or on their plates, regardless of how little they touch the vegetables.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

By Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali, Author of Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes>

I would like to extend my thanks to Caitlin Price of FSB Associates for making this piece available to the readers of CBSOP.  It’s a valuable article and one that I hope you enjoy!

There is no more appropriate time than now to think about how and why we cook. Food is a way of connecting with the people who surround us. Through it, we communicate emotions like love, compassion and understanding, and there is no better opportunity to communicate with our children than at the table. It’s where we can discuss our values of life that are important to us as individuals, as a family and as a part of the world we live in.

As overconsumption and greed have come to haunt us, now is a time for reflection. We should be looking back at the generations before us to understand their approach to the table. Growing food, shepherding animals, foraging for the gifts of nature is all part of respecting food. Nothing needs to be wasted. Bread can be recycled and used in soups, casseroles, lasagnas and desserts. Water is carefully conserved as in the pasta recipe I share below where the same water in which vegetables are cooked is used to cook the pasta that follows, and then that is saved for soups or for making risotto.

When one respects the food we prepare, it also leads to a more sensible and balanced intake of proteins, legumes and vegetables.

So “waste not, want not” and make it delicious!

Excerpt from Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009)

FRESH CAVATELLI WITH CAULIFLOWER
Maccarun ch’I Hiucc

Serves 6

Cauliflower is one of my favorite vegetables, and I regret that many people don’t sufficiently appreciate its unique flavor and nutritional value. This is not the case in Molise, where it is cooked often and creatively, as exemplified by the following two simple vegetarian pasta dishes. The first recipe, maccarun ch’i hiucc, is zesty with garlic and peperoncino.

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for the pasta pot

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

7 plump garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

1/2 teaspoon peperoncino flakes, or to taste

2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley

1 large head cauliflower, cut in small florets

1 batch (11/2 pounds) Fresh Cavatelli (preceding recipe), or 1 pound dried pasta

1 cup freshly grated pecorino (or half pecorino and half Grana Padano or Parmigiano-Reggiano, for a milder flavor)

Recommended equipment: A large pasta pot; a heavy-bottomed skillet or sauté pan, 12 inch diameter or larger

Fill the large pot with salted water (at least 6 quarts water with 1 tablespoon salt), and heat to a boil.

Pour the olive oil into the skillet, set over medium-high heat, and scatter in the sliced garlic. Let the garlic start to sizzle, then toss in the peperoncino and parsley; stir and cook for a minute. Ladle in a cup of the pasta cooking water, stir well, and adjust the heat to keep the liquid in the skillet simmering and reducing gradually while you cook the cauliflower and pasta.

With the pasta water at a rolling boil, drop in the cauliflower florets, and cook them for about 3 minutes, until barely tender. Drop in the cavatelli, stir, and return the water quickly to a boil. Cook another 4 to 5 minutes, until the cauliflower is fully tender and the pasta is al dente (if you are using dried pasta, it will, of course, take longer).

Lift out the florets and cavatelli with a spider or strainer, drain briefly, and spill them into the skillet. Toss well, to coat all the pasta and vegetable pieces with the garlicky dressing, then turn off the heat,

sprinkle over the skillet the grated cheese, and toss again. Heap the cauliflower and cavatelli in warm bowls, and serve immediately.

CHOCOLATE BREAD PARFAIT
Pane di Cioccolato al Cucchiaio

Serves 6

This recalls for me the chocolate-and-bread sandwiches that sometimes were my lunch, and always a special treat. And it is another inventive way surplus is used in Umbrian cuisine, with leftover country bread serving as the foundation of an elegant layered dessert. Though it is soaked with chocolate and espresso sauce and buried in whipped cream, the bread doesn’t disintegrate, and provides a pleasing textural contrast in every heavenly spoonful.

8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

8 ounces country-style white bread, crusts removed

1/2 cup freshly brewed espresso

2 tablespoons dark rum

2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 cups chilled heavy cream

1 cup sliced almonds, toasted

Recommended equipment: A large rimmed tray or baking sheet, such as a half-sheet pan (12 by 18 inches); a spouted measuring cup, 1 pint or larger; 6 parfait glasses or wineglasses, preferably balloon-shaped

Put the chopped chocolate in a bowl set in a pan of hot (not boiling) water. When the chocolate begins to melt, stir until completely smooth. Keep it warm, over the water, off the heat.

Slice the bread into 1/2-inch-thick slices, and lay them flat in one layer, close together, on the tray or baking sheet.

Pour the warm espresso into a spouted measuring cup, stir in the rum and sugar until sugar dissolves, then stir in half the melted chocolate. Pour the sauce all over the bread slices, then flip them over and turn them on the tray, to make sure all the surfaces are coated. Let the bread absorb the sauce for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, whip the cream until soft peaks form, by hand or with an electric mixer.

To assemble the parfaits: Break the bread into 1-inch pieces. Use half the pieces to make the bottom parfait layer in the six serving glasses, dropping an equal amount of chocolatey bread into each. Scrape up some of the unabsorbed chocolate sauce that remains on the baking sheet, and drizzle a bit over the bread layers. Next, drop a layer of whipped cream in the glasses, using up half the cream. Top the cream layer with toasted almonds, using half the nuts.

Repeat the layering sequence: drop more soaked bread into each glass, drizzle over it the chocolate sauce from the tray and the remaining melted chocolate. Dollop another layer of whipped cream in the glasses, using it all up, and sprinkle the remaining almonds on top of each parfait. This dessert is best when served immediately while the melted chocolate is still warm and runny.

©2010 Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali, authors of Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes

Author Bio
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, coauthor of Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipe, is the author of five previous books, four of them accompanied by nationally syndicated public television series. She is the owner of the New York City restaurant Felidia (among others), and she lectures on and demonstrates Italian cooking throughout the country. She lives on Long Island, and can be reached at her Web site, www.LidiasItaly.com <http://www.lidiasitaly.com/>

Tanya Bastianich Manuali, Lidia’s daughter and coauthor of Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipe, received her Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance art history from Oxford University. Since 1996 she has led food/wine/art tours of Italy. She lives with her husband and children on Long Island.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Fettuccine Alfredo is one of Italy’s most wondrous exports. A perfect pairing of rich, creamy sauce and perfectly cooked pasta that serves equally well as a main dish or as a side to nearly anything you feel like serving with it.  It’s complex yet simple,  filling and decadent.  What could be more wonderful?

Now what if I told you that every recipe that you’ve probably ever seen for Fettuccine Alfredo was wrong?  What if I told you that it was probably the most simple dish in the world to make?  What if I told you that Mr. Alfredo’s Fettuccine has been done a glaring disservice by a million cooks, including renown chefs around the world.  Would you believe me?

If you won’t believe me, would you believe Saveur magazine? Their May issue features an article by Tod Coleman titled “The Real Alfredo”, which details the history and creation of this iconic dish from its birth just after the turn of the century.  Alfredo, it seems, created the dish for his wife, who had lost her appetite after giving birth to their son.  His modified Fettuccine al Burro featured far more butter than the original, a combination that “…neither his wife or his customers could resist.”

While most versions I’ve seen are fairly complex and require a fair bit of attention to detail, the original Fettuccine Alfredo has just four ingredients and takes mere minutes to make, but results in a dish far more complex and wondrous than any Alfredo I’ve ever eaten in an Italian Restaurant anywhere… Ever. And I’ve eaten a lot.

So please be so kind as to take a moment to meet the real Alfredo.  You’ll never think of this dish the same way again.  But you may find you eat a lot more of it.

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Popularity: 50% [?]

Every now and then I crave something that I’ve eaten a long time ago, but haven’t seen or heard of in a while. It doesn’t matter what it happens to be.  It can be something my mother used to make, my father’s chili, a food that reminds me of somewhere I’ve visited or just something attached to a memory of some time in my life.  Whatever it is that causes me to want that particular dish, once the idea is planted, it stay with me until I give in.  If ignored long enough it overwhenles me completely. This dish began with an inspiration like that.

My first real cooking job was as a line-cook (Or chef de partie) at a chain restaurant called Lyon’s, a California chain sort of like an up-scale Denny’s. It was the very early 90′s.  pasta was served with a blob of somewhat-Italian sauce on top, salad’s were huge and healthy meant you added chicken (cooked with butter.) In the winter, the side vegetables were always broccoli and caulflower.  In the summer we cooked zucchini and Yellow squash.  There were no other vegetable options.

While a side of squash might sound very healthy, the cooking method we used back then gave a lot of flavor, but definitely didn’t do anything to improve the health of our diners.  Several handfuls of squash were tossed into a saute pan with a serving ladle full of butter and tossed until soft, seasoned with salt and pepper, then served hot. Not what we’d call healthy in today’s world.

Unfortunately, it was this dish that taught me to love squash. It was cooked on my station.  I made a ton of this stuff every day, but I hadn’t thought of it in years.  Then the other night I was talking with my wife about old jobs we’d had and the memory of simple squash simmering in butter hit me like a brick.  I could smell it, I could taste it.  I had to have it, and nothing was going to get it out of my head until I made it.

Even though the memory of the original has a special place in my heart, I just can’t bring myself to use an entire stick of butter to cook two squash. I know better.  My cholesterol levels know better.  My family means more to me than that.  So I had to find a way to get the same flavor without all the fat.  I also had to keep it simple, because this side was never meant to be complex.

In the process, I needed a full meal to go with it, lest I sit and simply eat the entire pan of butter soaked veggies on my own, then be relegated to a diet of water and broccoli for the next month so that I can get my checkup without having the good doctor go insane.

In the end I decided on a combination of butter and olive oil and a bit of fresh red bell pepper to up the flavor that would be pulled out by the lack of fat.  The combination is wonderful and I highly recommend it the next time you’re looking for a simple side dish for a meal.

For the rest of the meal I added simply cooked turkey cutlets and an orzo and spinach salad that were both simply divine, if not paired perfectly. (serve the orzo on the side or in it’s own dish and you’ll be happier.  The squash and the Turkey are perfect together.)

Now that this trip down memory lane has reached an end, I feel invigorated and renewed.  Many of the things that I used to cook there are fresh in my memory and ready to be modernized, which is just the kick in the rear that my inner-chef has been lacking over the past few weeks.

Please give this dish a try and let all of us know what you think.  It’s dear to me in a strange way and I’d love to hearyour thoughts.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

I’ve recently fallen completely in love with seared tuna.  Not just because it’s healthy, but because the flavor of this fish is really quite nice, even when purchased frozen. (The safest bet when you live nearly 400 miles from the nearest ocean.)  cooking time is minimal, the family loves it, and it’s versatile without being terribly expensive.  What’s not to love about it?

This is a second try of a recipe that I originally made with pouched tuna, but the texture of that particular dish was off, even if the flavor was good.  I wanted to try a riff on the concept with fresh tuna instead, and I’m incredibly glad that I did, it was worth the second try without a doubt, as this version had far more flavor and a more pleasing texture by far.

If you’re looking for a lovely little introduction to spring, you can’t go wrong with this one.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

From the lost recipe files:  I found the pics for this hanging out in a folder from JUNE!  Luckily, I still remember how I made the dish.

As Italian chefs the world over will tell you, the key behind a great pasta dish is that no one ingredient ever overloads any of the others, and that the pasta is truly supposed to be the star of the show.  This is one dish that follows those guidelines, even with the strong flavors of bacon and greens tossed into the mix.

The secret with this or any other pasta dish is to make sure that you add just enough sauce to coat the pasta, not drown it. This may go against the American tradition of dumping a full three cups of sauce over the top of a quarter pound of noodles, then topping it with some form of meatball, but believe me, it’s worth the restraint.

Let’s revisit summer, shall we?

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Popularity: 3% [?]

If you’re looking for something a bit different, completely savory and sumptuous and more than a bit over the top, this is the meal for you.  Preperation is relatively simple and the flavors are something that most only experience in high-end establishments, thinking that something of this calibur could never be prepared in a home kitchen.  While there is a bit of long-term preparation involved the process really isn’t all that hard, it’s just the big fancy name that makes it sound daunting.

To quote the Grand Dame of the American Culinary Revolution:

“Noncooks think it’s silly to invest two hours’ work in two minutes’ enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.” ~ Julia Child

For most people, confit automatically brings to mind images of something cooked in duck or goose fat.  While this is the current trend, confit is actually a much simpler premise than that.  The definition of confit is quite simple:

Confit: [kohn-FEE] A meat slow cooked in its own fat with spices. Or a jam-like sweet spread.

In using this definition, anything cooked in its own fat is a confit, and to be tied to only using duck or goose fat would be a crying shame, since chicken confit is probably the simplest of all to make with just ingredients from your local BigScaryMegaMart, namely chicken leg quarters.

You know the ones.  You’ve seen them before.  They sit in the poultry section in a forlorn ten pound sack, partially packed in an impotent brine. These are the byproducts of the American love of the boneless-skinless chicken breast, cast off to obscurity because someone convinced an entire nation that white meat was the best meat.  In this case their loss is our gain.

The chicken sold in bulk bags is mostly from roasting chickens.  Roasting chicken are larger birds with a higher fat to body mass ratio and because of this have become less popular in todays marketplace.  Bulk chicken is also not trimmed for excess fat, it’s just sold by weight, meaning that the producers are not interested in making it look pretty.  It’s perfect for confit and it usually costs around $4.00 for 10 lbs of chicken!  The rest is almost blissfully simple.

So step out of your comfort zone for a moment and take a journey with me to the land of gourmet, where with just a bit of time and effort the most humble ingredients transform themselves into something more than you could have ever imagined where flavors and aromas transcend the parts that make up the whole and become something entirely wonderful.  The experience may only last a few moments, but it is very much worth the effort.

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Popularity: 4% [?]