by TT Jr. on May 14th, 2012 | Recipes, Spreads & Sauces
I love bagels. I just love them, specifically toasted. And with cream cheese. They are so delicious when they are still hot and the cream cheese starts to melt on them. My favorite flavor is salt bagels, and they are delicious with plain cream cheese, but sometimes that gets a little boring. So, I decided to make a vegetable cream cheese to see how it tasted with my mom's yummy salt bagels. It tasted like heaven on a hot bagel. The sweet crunchy carrots with the tangy, slightly spicy chives against the salty, hot, soft, crunchy bagel is incredible.
A
by TT on April 26th, 2012 | Recipes, Spreads & Sauces
In an attempt to broaden my 14 year old's seafood palate, I decided to cook tuna last week. Unfortunately, the fish counter that I visited had none available, so I went with her current favorite fish, salmon, and jumbo shrimp. Shrimp is a type of seafood that she doesn't like, but the rest of us do. I figured if I got her to try it again, it may start to be a seafood item that she likes. She adores coconut, so I thought some
coconut shrimp might do the trick.
Apparently, the lure of a coconut coating isn't enough
by TT on February 26th, 2009 | Healthy Cooking, Main Dishes, Recipes
The diverse range of foods that our children like and dislike amazes me. There are some foods that typically aren't kid favorites, that some of our kids like, such as sushi, crab, and brussel sprouts. Then there are foods that many kids like that aren't enjoyed by all of ours, like oatmeal, blueberries, and grilled cheese sandwiches.
Of course, with four kids you get more diversity. Even with that in mind, every once in a while one of the four surprises me with a request for a certain food. A few weeks ago, the surprise factor was attributed to our 11
by TT on February 25th, 2009 | Healthy Cooking, Recipes, Side Dishes
We were forecast to have rain and snow this past Sunday. So, after spending all day Saturday shopping, my husband and I were looking forward to a quiet day on Sunday. As we had this whole weekend without any of our brood at home, we had only our dining pleasures to consider.
A slowly braised roast was our planned centerpiece for this meal. We simply needed to choose some side dishes to accompany it. Rather than going with tried and true recipes, we chose vegetables that would have garnered "No thank you" serving requests. Parsnips seemed like a perfect choice.
I never
by TT on February 23rd, 2009 | Restaurant Reviews
On a Saturday morning with no children at home, my husband and I decided to go out for breakfast before engaging in a day of shopping. Leaving our house around 9:30, we were pretty hungry, so we wanted to eat before we started any of our errands. This made choosing a restaurant easier, as we only considered restaurants located on the way to our first stop in Londonderry.
Luckily for us, we discovered a new restaurant in the Londonderry Commons. Apparently, others had discovered Janie's Uncommon Café, as all of the tables were full when we arrived. However, the staff was
by TT on February 17th, 2009 | Healthy Cooking, Main Dishes, Recipes, Soups & Stews
This weekend we had a request for homemade chicken noodle soup. While it holds little appeal for myself or my husband, it is a favorite for three of our four children. As we hadn't made this simple soup in quite a while, I didn't feel the need to have the kids choose a more creative soup.
However, that didn't mean that my husband and I needed to eat this same soup. I planned on making homemade broth on Sunday morning, which could be divided between two pots to make two different chicken-based soups.
In the past, we have used chicken broth as
by TT on February 16th, 2009 | Main Dishes, Recipes
On a recent Saturday, the kids were tired from a late Friday night. So, rather than eating dinner together, we made an early kid dinner and put them to bed a little before 8. After they went to bed, we had a nice quiet, candlelit dinner for two.
As chicken and spinach were our dinner ingredients, they worked well for both meals. The kids were pleased to have grilled chicken breasts and a "no thank you" serving of spinach. (In our house, that is a petite serving, enough so that you are sampling but not enough to feel torturous for the
