One of the great pleasures of the summer season is dining outside. The meal is relaxing and who cares if anything drops on the floor. Well really, that’s for the dog to take care of inside and outside. Don’t feed him from the table, but anything that drops to the floor, or flies from your…
Author: aliceknisleymatthias
Alice Knisley Matthias writes about food, family, garden and education. Her work appears in The New York Times for Kids, Washington Post Kids, Food Network, Allrecipes, Taste of Home, Delish, The Kitchn, Eating Well and Parade. Her book, "Tasty Snacks in a Snap!" is published by Scholastic for young readers. She is a regular contributor for Parade covering food trends, product roundups, recipes, profiles and celebrity chef interviews. Her work for Boys' Life and Kids Discover has covered subjects like a Master Chef Junior finalist, music and theatre kids at work, how to make food from kitchen scraps and the science of yeast. Other credits include an America's Test Kitchen cookbook, Highlights for Children, Redbook, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, Meatless Mondays and regional parenting publications.
School’s Out for Summer
Not much to share today since a second-grader and a sixth-grader have closed out their careers. The end of June is a whirlwind of activity, and wrapping things up and finishing projects. To celebrate, we are heading out to a favorite restaurant to have dinner. We’ll pick up the discussion tomorrow where we left off about salads…
Dressing Up Your Salad
Yesterday we talked about salad dressings and how much hidden sugar there is in those bottles lining the shelves of the market. With a few simple steps you can be mixing up your own vinaigrette to toss your salad greens in your bowl. Follow the easy steps to make a basic vinaigrette to keep your…
Easy-to-Make Vinaigrettes
There are some decent salad dressings available in stores. Look at the labels and read the list of ingredients carefully. There is so much added sugar. According to many nutritionists making salads is one area where someone can be unknowingly sabotaging their healthy eating habits. If you’re having a salad that means you are eating healthy….
Meatless Monday Pasta Dinner with a Tomato Pesto
Here’s a Meatless Monday dinner idea we use and it’s a hit with the guys. We came across this recipe in an issue of America’s Test Kitchen’s Cook’s Country or Cooks Illustrated. There are so many cooking magazines that land in the mailbox. This is an Italian recipe that is a riff on pesto replacing the…
compound butters add layers of flavor
Compound butters are a delicious addition to your menu ideas all year long. The butter flecked with bits of cinnamon and flakes of brown sugar that make your waffles taste even better on a cold winter morning can also be the dab of delicious for your summer corn laced with the kick of ancho chile powder,…
Frozen
The reality of seasonal ingredients is that when the time comes for your favorite fruit or vegetable to say good-bye they are gone until the next growing season. Some items have shorter windows than others. This is where your freezer can help extend your enjoyment. It’s a common misconception that frozen foods are inferior to…
Get the Cheese on the Grill
The cherries in the market are still in supply. This is the time of year when we play with all sorts of ways to use this fruit. Last year during the blogathon of 2013 we made cherry bruschetta with goat cheese. There is something about the tang of goat cheese’s creamy texture and the sweetness…
dinner revisted with new starring ingredients
Last night’s dinner took advantage of the herbs that are bursting in the garden. Farfalle is a favorite pasta shape for the guys. We picked some basil leaves, sprigs of thyme and a few chives for our pesto bow-tie pasta. The guys prefer a combination of green herbs to mix with the extra-virgin-olive-oil, cheese and pignolia nuts rather…
memo from the grill and flying objects
This picture pretty much sums up summertime. Outside at the grill, kids in the pool, only to get out when dinner is ready. We use our grill for just about everything. People forget that a grill, with the oven closed, is just like an oven. Most gas grills will tell you what the internal temperature…
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