Lately I can’t live without a little heat. Sweet Chili Sauce provides a nice balance between the sweet AND the heat and it goes great in a pork chop marinade!

ingredients:
4 boneless pork chops (1/2 inch thick)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons sweet chili sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
juice of half a lime
pepper

In a small bowl whisk together the soy sauce, sugar, chili sauce, garlic, lime juice and a dash of freshly ground pepper.

In a baking dish pour the sauce over the chops and marinate for 1 hour.

Heat a pan over medium-high heat and cook the chops on both sides until they are no longer pink in the middle.

Marinating pork makes for a flavorful and quick weekday dinner!

This weekend I am on a panel at Geek Girl Con about parenting, and the question people always ask me is how I get my kids to try different foods. The answer is easy – make dinner fun and engaging!

A good friend who knows how to have fun – gave the kids these cool Fred and Friends Food Face plates as a gift. I knew they’d be a perfect vehicle for an entertaining, healthy dinner where I could introduce some new foods.

I decided to go with all one color, green. Just because there are so many healthy green foods and it was also a nice palate to work with.

Here is what we used for our ‘green’ meal:

Green Tea Udon Noodles
Spinach Tortillas
Seasoned Seaweed cut into strips
Edamame (shelled)
Sliced Cucumber
Green apples

Once the kids got into it they started thinking of other foods that would make good hair, accessories, facial features – and they got really excited about planning our next meal. As the Baby said, “every dinner should be like this!”

The Baby went for the obvious with noodle hair while the Kid thought seaweed was the way to go. Apples became ears, edamame became eyes.

I tried to stay away from the obvious greens (broccoli, beans) and try different textures and flavors but also go for good ‘shapes’ that would help them be creative. My fave was the seaweed unibrow – courtesy of the Baby, of course.

The plates became a great way to get kids to be imaginative and creative and also get them involved in planning and eating a variety of foods. The empty plates don’t lie – they ate everything and had a great time!

Shoyu chicken is a plate lunch fave in Hawaii and sometimes you can even get it fried to a crisp. OMG so yum.

However, while I love fried foods, I’m not keen on frying at home so I came up with this baked version which I promise you is just as crispy and still has that comforting shoyu chicken taste.

ingredients:
8-10 chicken thighs
1-1/2 cups flour
salt
pepper
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons mirin

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep a baking sheet by lining it with foil, then placing a wire rack on top.

Prep your ‘dipping station’ – in one shallow dish season the flour with salt and pepper and whisk together. In a second shallow dish whisk the egg with the soy sauce and mirin.

Wash and dry the chicken. Dip the chicken into the egg mixture, then rolling it in the flour, shaking off the excess.

Place the chicken on the wire rack prepped baking sheet. Bake for one hour.

My kids LOVE this. It’s so good you may never eat shoyu chicken the old fashioned way again!

I knew I wanted the kids to fully experience it so we had ‘dinner and a movie’ night to watch the previous Pirates. Luckily they loved the movies (and weren’t scared) and mostly because of our family love of Disney they were ready for the full experience. It’s a good thing too because I got VIP tickets to see the new Pirates at the El Capitan in Hollywood (recap, here).

To go along with our Pirates celebration I made a Pirates themed dinner of course!

We talked about what pirates eat on the ship: “Bread! Chicken! There’s not room for anything else!” Hm. Ok. And if you remember green apples are BIG part of the movies as well. I also made a special pirate-y dessert.

Salt + Pepper chicken drumsticks (recipe, here)
Garlic Bread
Green Apples
Cap’n Crunch Treasure Treats (recipe, here)
Milk

The Baby wanted RUM “like the pirates drink.” Yeah, nice try 5 year old, it’s milk or nothing. We enjoyed our pirates dinner and re-watched the old movies – the Baby in full pirate regalia, of course.

When I made the Mac ‘n’ Cheese Pie it was for a party and I kind of wanted to make something along the same lines for dinner, but not in such a large serving. I love to miniaturize things. Someone grab my ray-gun.

The obvious step was to use ramekins and make mini pot pies! I freeze them ahead, and whenever I don’t have a meal plan or need a side dish, I simply bring them out and bake them up! Perfectly cute and comforting.

ingredients:
1 pound small pasta (elbows or shells)
2 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
1-1/2 cups cheddar or jack cheese

Pie dough

In a large pot of boiling water, cook the pasta according to package. Drain. DO NOT rinse.

Ready the ramekins buy buttering the insides so the mac n’ cheese doesn’t stick. Set aside.

In the same pot you cooked the pasta in, melt the 2 Tablespoons of butter over medium heat, add the flour and stir constantly until combined – cooking through for about 2 minutes.

Add the milk and heavy cream and bring to a boil for about 2 minutes, take off the heat and add the mustard, paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Add the cheese and stir until thickened and combined.

Mix the pasta with the cheese sauce and spoon into the prepped ramekins.

Now for the tops – you can make your own dough of course, but if you’re short on time, frozen dough works well too. Just defrost it, roll it out and cut it fit the top of the ramekin. I like to have overlap of about 1/2 and inch.

Cover the filling and press the edges onto the sides of the ramekin. Cut vent slits on top. Cover them with plastic wrap and freeze for later.

When you are ready to serve them, say – a few days or weeks from now, just unwrap them, butter the tops and sprinkle lightly with kosher salt. Bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for 20 minutes, then serve. Be careful – the ramekins are hot!

My kids love these little pot pies!

Every night while I cook dinner the kids pick out books to read and somehow the books they choose always revolve around…food! What can I say, I have two little foodies. One night the Baby chose Where the Wild Things Are, a classic.

If you remember in the end of the book when Max comes back to his bedroom, a hot dinner is waiting for him. We read the book and talked about Max coming home after his long trip and the Baby decided that Max’s dinner was obviously a warm bowl of soup with MEAT in it (the Baby’s fave) and a nice BIG piece of yummy yellow cake. That’s some dinner.

The Baby asked me to make my version of Max’s dinner, so here you go:

Roast Pork Stew (recipe, here)
Mascarpone Poundcake (recipe, here)
A glass of milk

A nice meal to come home to at the end of a long journey…or day at school.
Let the wild rumpus begin!

(drawing by the Kid)

Whenever we go back to Hawaii the kids love the food – especially breakfast. There’s something comforting about Portuguese Sausage and eggs that makes you full and happy.

Since we often have breakfast for dinner around here I put together a hearty meal – an egg frittata studded with savory portuguese sausage. A quick, easy dinner perfect for the middle of the week!

ingredients:
1 portuguese sausage
6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
salt
pepper
1/2 cup shredded cheese

Cut the portuguese sausage into small pieces – slices cut into quarters works well for me. In a fry pan, cook the sausage until it’s caramelized a bit, then set aside to drain.

Wipe out the same pan and set it back on medium-high heat. Put the portuguese sausage back in the pan. (Now, you can skip this back and forth, I just don’t like too much grease.)

In a bowl whiisk together the eggs, milk, garlic powder and season with salt and pepper.

Pour the egg mixture into the hot pan over the sausage. Let the egg mixture cook until the edges of the egg start to firm up. The middle will still be runny.

Add cheese to the top of the egg mixture. Turn on your oven broiler and place the pan in the hot broiler (make sure it’s an oven proof fry pan!) Let the eggs cook under the broiler until the center of the frittata is cooked through, about 5-7 minutes.

Take it out of the oven and the frittata will slide right onto a serving plate. Cut into slice and serve!

This is a quick and easy dinner, but nice for a weekend brunch too!

By the end of the day I’m tired. Too tired to boil pasta?? YES. Hey, I’m a woman on the go – I AM THAT TIRED. So I decided to experiment with making baked dish where I didn’t even have to boil the pasta. If you get your kids to assemble it – even better – less work for you!!

My kids loved it and it gave me a little extra nap time. Zzz…

ingredients:
4 cups Mini Ravioli, frozen
4 cups marinara sauce
1-1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Butter 6 mini ramekins (so the pasta won’t stick when you bake it.)

Spoon a Tablespoon of marinara into each prepped ramekin. Here’s the kicker, add the FROZEN pasta – distribute evenly into the 6 ramekins.

Top with the rest of the sauce, then the mozzarella cheese. Season with a little salt and pepper.

Place the ramekins on a baking sheet (in case of spill over) and bake for 35 mins.

The ramekins will be hot, so be careful when serving.

Bacon, LEMON and tomato. Yep. Hey it’s not lettuce week! These are some of my favorite ingredients and I think they come together really well in this dish – fresh lemon, salty bacon, it’s a great combination.

ingredients:
2/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
kosher salt
fresh ground pepper
zest of one lemon
1/2 cup reserved pasta water

6-8 slices bacon
2 cups tomatoes, diced
one package of pasta

Cut the bacon in small pieces so that you don’t have to crumble it later. Cook it until crispy, let drain and set aside.

Boil the pasta according to directions. I like these tiny farfalle, they are too cute, and just the right ‘bite.’ When draining the pasta, set aside 1/2 cup of the hot pasta water. Using this later will help the dressing stick.

While the pasta is boiling, in a bowl, whisk together the olive oil, cheese, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Toss the dressing (you may not need all of it) with the pasta, adding the reserved pasta water. Add in the tomatoes, bacon and lemon zest. Toss and serve.

I love ridiculous one-off appliances. Yes I own a Donut Maker. A deep fryer. A Hello Kitty shaped waffle iron. If they have one sole purpose, well that purpose is to make me happy.

My friends know this, so for my birthday I received…a Corn Dog Maker. Even I was shocked at that one. I love all things fried and was a little skeptical DESPITE the fact that I make my own corndogs in the oven. Typical, I lost the instructions for the maker, so I just went with my own batter recipe:

ingredients:
1 c. flour
1 c. corn meal
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon oil
1 egg
1-3/4 cup buttermilk (more if necessary)

I decided to try turkey dogs and cheese ‘dogs’. Cheese for the Cheese-atarian Kid of course. I pierced each with a skewer and set aside.

In a large bowl mix together the flour, corn meal, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the oil, egg and buttermilk. If I’m making a dipping batter I like it to be slightly runny, so add as much buttermilk as you like to get a nice consistency.

I had the kids dip the dogs in the batter, no dice – the ‘Maker’ was not happy about that.

So I went for a second try by spooning some batter right into the maker, placing the dog on top of that, then more batter. Perfection! It worked just like a waffle maker!

I have to say I wasn’t a real big fan of the Cheese-dog. Not just because it seemed gross, but it was pretty ooz-y and didn’t bake up quite as nice as the other lil’ doggies, as you can tell in the pic.

While the kids ate their homemade dogs I got experimental (or just mental) and topped some of the hot dogs with pizza sauce and mozzarella. Well, I have to say THAT was the hit. It really punched up the flavor and it became a Pizza Dog! Dizza? Pog? Whatever it was good.

If you don’t have a maker you can use a deep fryer or a skillet of hot oil, just the same. Just adjust the milk accordingly so that the batter sticks!

This thing was a lot of fun to use and I can’t wait to try it again. The kids loved it and yes, very minimal mess. Always a plus in my book!