With Mother’s Day right around the corner I have been finding myself thinking about food. Honestly? I think about food pretty much all the time. Lately I’ve been thinking about the things my mom made when I was young that have stuck with me over the years. With my own tot at home, I want to start great cooking memories with her – just like my mom did with me. The theme for this month’s Shine Supper Club also fits right in – making your mom’s best recipe!

I absolutely love my mom’s homemade Sticky Monkey Bread. Sure, you can follow the recipe found on the side of the biscuit can, but this is the original version straight from the 1970′s church cookbook of my midwestern town. This is the stickiest, gooiest version of goodness out there. While growing up, my mom would hand my sister and I our own plastic baggies filled with cinnamon and sugar to shake-shake the bits of cut canned biscuits and then toss into our well-used bundt pan. After a serious coating of butter, more sugar and cinnamon, and a bit of love, that seriously sticky bread was devoured on Sunday mornings.

She still makes it for us every time we visit.

This isn’t the healthy breakfast dish. And, after talking with my mom, I was planning on adjusting the recipe to make it a bit less sugary and buttery but just couldn’t. Why mess with something so good?  I admit to updating the recipe with brown sugar and vanilla to give it a bit more kick, but other than that, this is the best Sticky Monkey Bread  you’ll ever make.

Ever.

This is a great recipe to make with the kids to surprise mom with on Mother’s Day. It’s super easy and you can’t mess it up. And, along the way, your kids hone fine-motor skills as well as learn more about cooking in the kitchen. Older kids can make this pretty much all on their own – just remember to offer a helping hand when melting the butter and using the oven.

Ingredients

3 tubes buttermilk biscuits

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

3/4 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Open the biscuit tubes (trying not to flinch when they pop) and then quarter. Your kids can use butter knives to cut the biscuits into bits or, if you’ve got young ones, they can tear the pieces into smaller pieces. Go ahead and preheat the oven to 350 F.

Fill a plastic zip-top bag with the plain sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. Enlist the kids to shake-a-shake the bits in the cinnamon sugar, remove, and then drop into the bundt pan.

While things are shaking away, melt the butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon together until things are bubbly. You can also sprinkle in any leftover cinnamon sugar from the zip-top bag.

Pour the melted butter mixture over the sugar-cinnamon covered biscuit bits and then pop into the hot oven for 30-minutes.

Remove the bundt pan from the oven and let cool for 10-minutes. Place a large plate over the top of the bundt pan and carefully flip over. Let the big oeey-goooooey Sticky Monkey Bread rest for a few minutes before digging in.

Enjoy!

I’ve spent a lot of time daydreaming about pizza lately. Crisp, thin crust topped with zesty tomato sauce and coated with amazing cheese… Yeah. I just can’t stop. I make lots and lots of pizzas with the tot, but I’m really trying to find ways to cut the calories. With Easover behind us, we still have a few boxes of matzo hanging around, and they’re going to be there for next year’s Easover unless something is done with them.

Pizza.

Pizza sauce is a seriously tasty thing. It can be chunky or smooth, salty or sweet, tangy or spicy-hot. All I know is that I didn’t have any in the fridge when I had the brilliant idea of using a piece of matzo as a base for my super-low calorie pizza. I did have an old can of tomatoes in the pantry, which wasn’t very appealing. But, with a bit of love, that can of tomatoes turned into something seriously flavorful, and I had total matzo pizza success.

 Ingredients

1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, strained

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon olive oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

Dash of red pepper

Couple of drops of Worcestershire sauce (optional)

What you do

This sauce is a snap to make. Simply open the can of tomatoes and strain away any liquid. You want to use un-seasoned canned tomatoes (I also used organic). Put those tomatoes in the blender with the rest of the ingredients and blend. If you like your sauce chunky, blend for just a few pulses. But, if you prefer things nice and smooth, blend for as long as you like. If you’ve got Worcestershire sauce hanging out in your pantry, don’t shy away from adding a few drops. This adds a lovely smoky flavor and just a bit of an earthy saltiness, which makes the tomato sauce even better.

To make your own mini-matzo pizzas, preheat your oven to 450 F. Place a single piece of matzo on a sheet pan and then coat with a few big spoonfuls of that fresh pizza sauce. Add your favorite pizza toppings, a sprinkling of cheese, and then pop in the oven until the top is bubbling.

Yum.

Even though it’s spring, I still love making soup. There’s nothing like a bowl of nourishing goodness to make a day better. And sometimes I don’t even heat the soup, but enjoy it room temperature or just barely warm. This spring soup is also very filling, which is great for slimming down those winter pounds. Roasting the celery and leeks makes this soup a snap to prepare and really elevates the fresh flavors. Serve with a slice of toasted bread or pita chips for a perfect spring lunch.

Ingredients

8 stalks celery

1 leek

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

dashes pepper

32 ounces good chicken stock (homemade if you have it)

1 cup French green lentils

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon dry vermouth

1 cup water

What you do…

Start by cleaning and slicing the stalks of celery into thin strips on the bias. Nice big thick slices, around 1/2-inch thick,  is perfect. And don’t toss those celery leaves – you’ll need them later. Slice the leek in half, then into thin 1/4-inch half rings, and then rinse in a strainer to remove any icky grit.

Coat a sheet pan with the vegetable oil and crank your oven to 425 F. While you’re waiting for things to heat up, chop the garlic and add to the sheet pan along with the celery and leeks. Sprinkle with the salt, dried oregano, and good dash of pepper.

Place the veggies into the oven and set your timer for 15-minutes.

While the celery, leeks and garlic are roasting, bring the chicken stock to a simmer and add the French green lentils and dry vermouth. Cover and let bubble while waiting for the veggies to roast.

After about 10-minutes, turn the celery, leeks and garlic to prevent any burning. Allow them to continue roasting while the lentils simmer. You can do a taste test of the broth to check seasonings and adjust as desired with more salt, pepper, or oregano.

Remove the roasted celery, leeks, and garlic from the oven and add to the bubbling French green lentils. Chop up those celery leaves and add them, along with the 1-cup water, and simmer the soup uncovered for up to 20-minutes, or until the lentils are to your liking.

Serve with toasted and buttered slices of good French bread.

Happy Spring!

I’m tired of the rain. I really can’t complain – for the majority of our “winter” it was in the mid 60′s and sunny, so this late rainy winter season is lame (but really good for all the plants and stuff). I’ve been busy making soups and stews and casseroles, but not much just for the tot. She’s pretty obsessed with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the moment. We’re restricted from taking anything nutty to preschool, making her indulgences strictly limited to around the house.

I’d love to teach her how to open the fridge, get out the bread, peanut butter, jelly, a knife, and slather the stuff all over the bread because I’m tired of making piles and piles of the sticky sandwiches. Her face gets covered, jelly ends up on the furniture, ants start gathering…

Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m being a bit of a peanut-butter-and-jelly-Debbie-downer.

Oh well.

So, while the rain was doing this outside for the third day in a row,

I came up with a fun way of making that laborious task of tossing together those countless sandwiches into a quick and easy concoction.

Peanut butter and jelly quick bread.

This is a super easy bread to whip up, and if you aren’t feeling like dealing with cleaning the loaf pan, fill your muffin tin with liners and make mini-breads. I know you have all the ingredients (nothing crazy here) and the kids can even offer a helping hand – or make this easy recipe themselves. Just make sure to wash hands after handling raw eggs, not to lick the spoon (or bowl) clean, and offer assistance around that hot oven!

Ingredients

1 egg

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1/4 c plain yogurt (vanilla would be yummy, too)

1/2 c water

1/4 c sugar

Dash salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 c flour

1/4 c peanut butter

1/4 c jelly (any kind is tasty)

Simply whip together the egg, yogurt, water, sugar, and salt in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Go ahead and crank your oven to 350 F while you’re happily mixing away.

Slowly add the flour along with the baking soda and baking powder. Once the batter comes together, take a moment to prepare your loaf pan by giving it a nice slathering of vegetable oil, or a spray of no-stick whatever, or line your muffin tin.

Now measure and add the peanut butter as well as the jelly. Carefully stir (or fold) the peanut butter and jelly into the batter. You want big swirls of the stuff not for the peanut butter and jelly to become completely incorporated.

Gently pour the peanut butter and jelly quick bread batter into your prepared pan and toss into your hot oven for 50 to 60-minutes. Let your bread rest for at least 20-minutes before slicing (if you can wait that long). If you slice into it too soon, you will tempt the happy Quick Bread Gods of Fate and things may crumble to pieces (which is still tasty, but very messy).

Enjoy!

There’s really no way to make split pea soup sexy. It’s green, a bit gloppy, and totally doesn’t top the “decadent eats” list. But, savoring a nice bowl of the healthy stuff could help you be a bit sexier. Split peas are packed with fiber and other good stuff, which makes the body feel nice and full after a big bowl – resulting in a bit less jiggle in the middle.

So the other day, when we were in the middle of a bit of rainy NorCal winter weather, I got the hankering for some split pea soup. I didn’t have much stuff in the house (and had no plans for going out) so used what I had to create something really tasty – and super easy to toss together.

This recipe makes a nice big pot – perfect for a week’s full of lunches with enough to share (if your family or friends are interested). Not only is this a hearty soup, but also it’s also low in calories and vegetarian – and vegan. I was utterly amazed when at lunch my tot wanted a taste of mine, and then gobbled up the rest. Serve with toasted pita wedges or whole-wheat crackers and you’re on your way to being one hot mama!

And, you might just find that this split pea soup is pretty damn sexy with it’s wonderfully smooth texture, full flavor, and resulting oh-so-good feeling in your tummy after you enjoy a nice, big bowl.

Yum.

Ingredients

1 small onion chopped

2 carrots chopped

2 stalks celery chopped

1 clove garlic chopped

½ teaspoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon orange juice

½ teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 lb split peas

¼ teaspoon each of salt, pepper, celery salt, thyme

4 cups vegetable stock

2 cups water

Directions

Chop up all the veggies – and the garlic – and toss into a big soup pot and drizzle with the vegetable oil. Turn the heat to medium and give everything a stir.

Sprinkle the veggies with the salt, pepper, celery salt, and thyme and let simmer for about five minutes over medium-high heat. Once the edges of the onions start to caramelize (or brown), pour in the orange juice. This deglazes the pan and gives the veggies – and split peas – and really lovely flavor.

Keep stirring the veggies until most of the orange juice has bubbled away, and then add the soy sauce and apple cider to the mix. Go ahead and add the split peas and stir until things are nicely coated and simmering away.

Now you can add the vegetable stock and water, cover, and let bubble for about 40-minutes or so. Don’t forget to give things a stir along the way so the soup doesn’t clump up and stick to the bottom of your pot.

After about 30-minutes check in and see how things are going. This is a good time to enjoy a taste test. If you want it saltier, add more salt. Like pepper? Sprinkle on some more. Or, if you want things tangier, dribble in more apple cider vinegar.

Depending on how you like your split peas, at around the 40-minute mark they should be nice and tender – but not mushy. But, if you want things more on the smooth side, add an additional ½ cup of water, cover, and let simmer for another 15-minutes.

Enjoy!

I don’t know about you, but one of my total craves is really ooey-goey French onion soup. It’s so simple and yet amazingly flavorful – and out-of-control comforting. This last week wasn’t one of the best weeks. I don’t really know why or what caused things to be so craptastic, but it just wasn’t a good week. I was craving comfort food fast. Instead of reaching for the flour and sugar and butter and eggs, I decided to go a bit healthier.

French onion kale soup.

Yeah, that’s right. I put a big bunch of healthy and hearty kale in my French onion soup and the result was super yummy. This recipe makes a nice big pot, perfect for a week of total comfort lunches, or enough for a couple of big bowls for dinner.

And it’s really easy and ready to eat in 30-minutes.

Ingredients

4 large onions sliced (around 3-pounds)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon thyme

Dash pepper

1/4 cup dry white vermouth (or white wine)

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1/4 teaspoon sugar

32-ounces good beef stock (the stuff in a box)

2 cups water

1 big bunch kale chopped (about 3-cups)

Whole-wheat bread

Sliced Jarlsberg cheese (or shredded Parmesan)

What you do

French onion soup is all about the yummy caramelized onions (well, really, it’s about the melty cheese), which is the flavorful base to the soup. Slice the onions in half and then into 1/4-inch half round strips. Heat a large stockpot over medium heat and add the oil, sliced onions, salt, thyme, and dash of pepper. Give things a stir to coat the onions.

Let the onions simmer and caramelize for about 10-minutes. Keep stirring every few minutes to keep them from burning or sticking to the bottom of your pot. Before you know it, they’ll shrink up and start browning around the edges…

Deglaze the pan with the vermouth and stir pulling up all those caramelized bits and mixing them in with those onions. Now you can add the soy, apple cider vinegar, sugar, beef stock and water. Crank the heat and bring to a boil.

Once the French onion soup is bubbling, add the kale and let simmer covered for 20-minutes.

Pre-heat your broiler and dig out an ovenproof bowl, a slice of whole wheat bread, and your cheese. Ladle the hot soup into your bowl and top with a slice of whole-wheat bread (I cut the crusts off to prevent burning) and then cover the bread with two slices of Jarlsberg. Don’t have any Jarlsberg hanging around? You can cover with Parmesan or even mozzarella, and this soup is still tasty (I tried both!).

Place the bowl on a sheet tray and then under the broiler. Don’t walk away – keep a close eye on your soup! Once the top of the cheese starts bubbling, you’re good to go.

Enjoy!

(don’t burn your mouth!)

This week pretty much all our meals included spinach. I love fresh spinach and had picked up a couple of big bunches, which were happily added to our meals through the week. Even the tot enjoyed some finely sliced on her pasta. At first she wrinkled up her nose, but then hunger took over and she ate a whole bowl of her tuna, spinach mac-n-cheese.

Spinach is good stuff, full of healthy vitamins and antioxidants. Loaded with vitamin C and folic acid, spinach tastes great on just about everything. And, if you aren’t a big fan, purée some in your pasta sauce, mix fresh spinach with your dinner salad, or chop it up into itty-bitty bits and that spinach will blend right in with whatever you’re making.

I like tossing a few fresh leaves under toasty chicken or on top of grilled hamburgers. The big winner of the week was the garlic and oregano marinated chicken breasts over roasted chick peas (with spinach and homemade tzatziki sauce).

I’m not going to lie – it was a long week. The tot went to preschool on her own, which was big in our world. This was the first time we’d ever left her with anyone other than her Gamma and Opa, and the hubs and I were a bit on edge about the whole thing.

At pick-up, she told me to, “go home!”

Awesome.

We also did our taxes on Saturday, which went as I expected. I planned on owing, and owing I shall. We did enjoy a fun pizza night with friends and the husband had a successful photo shoot (even though his lame-ass (and not so awesome) beauty dish fell on my head). I’m looking forward to another fun week and also taking on the first challenge from the Yahoo! Shine Supper Club!

How was your week? Leave a comment and share your favorite recipe of the week!

*Top row from left to right: Slow roasted pork tenderloin over barley spinach risotto, garlic oregano marinated and seared chicken over spinach and white rice, alongside roasted chick peas (and homemade tziatziki sauce). Bottom row from left to right: Turkey sausage stuffed mushrooms and parmesan pasta with spinach, big mushroom simmered chicken thighs with spinach over mashed potato, boneless pork ribs over spinach polenta with fresh steamed asparagus and peas.

I’ve been really into soup lately. It’s all soothing and nourishing, and super healthy for you when you make it yourself (unless it’s cream based, of course). One of my favorites is roasted corn chowder. It’s full of natural flavor as well as being beautifully creamy – and still healthy! The trick to this soup is roasting the veggies until they are nice and toasty, which creates an amazing base flavor.

This soup is made with just a few ingredients and a couple of steps. Don’t freak out, but part of the deal is making a roux. Sure, that’s a fancy schmancy French thing, but it’s easier than you think. I’m including step by step pictures in the directions to help you along the way. Yes, that means there is whole milk and butter in this soup (which doesn’t sound all that healthy) but once all those veggies are added in, plus some other stuff, you’ve still got one fit as a fiddle soup that’s ready to eat in 30-minutes.

What you need

1 lb frozen corn

1 small onion chopped

2 celery stalks cleaned and chopped

1 carrot chopped

1 teaspoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon water

Dash of salt and pepper

2 cloves garlic chopped

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons flour

3 cups whole milk

Additional salt and pepper

Hot sauce

How to make the goodness

Start by cranking your oven to 425 F and then chopping up the carrot, celery, and onion, and tossing them onto a big sheet pan along with the corn. Drizzle with the teaspoon of veg oil and water and liberally sprinkle with salt and pepper, and then pop into that hot oven for about 20-minutes. You can check on them in a bit.

Okay, now it’s time to start that roux. Toss together the salt, tablespoon of butter and oil into a nice soup pot. Warm over medium-high heat until things are all melty and then add the chopped garlic and flour. Give things a little stir….

Now let the flour, butter, and oil simmer together for about 2-minutes or so. Give things a stir – you don’t want this to start browning, just bubble a bit.

Go ahead and measure and add the milk and give the mixture a stir. Turn the heat down to medium and keep an eye on things. This the perfect time to check your veggies and give them a big stir.

A roux is a way to thicken a soup and right now things aren’t looking that way. The thing is, the milk needs to get nice and hot to work together properly with the butter and flour. But you don’t want things to start boiling, which might ruin your roux. Just keep an eye on things while stirring and, before you know it, you’ll notice that the liquid will start thickening up…

Once the roux pulls together, you can turn the heat way down to low – or even off – and pay attention to those veggies. If they’ve started to brown on the edges, you are ready to go. Pull them out and measure and reserve 1-cup of the veggies. The rest can go into your hot pot of happy milk.

Get out your boat motor (a.k.a hand mixer) and blend together the veggies and milk – otherwise you can puree in batches in your blender, and then add back to your soup pot. Give your soup a taste test and add additional salt to pepper as needed. Hey, if you like things spicy, dash in some hot sauce or sprinkle in some red pepper flakes.

Now mix in the cup of reserved veggies, add 1-cup of water, and bring the soup back to a low simmer over medium heat. Once things are hot and bubbly, ladle up a bowl and enjoy.

It was a bit of a challenging week. We just got back from vacation and then had a day to flip and head back to our regular routines. I’ll be honest – we all had a pretty hard time adjusting. The tot wanted to go back to Gamma and Opa’s house at the beach (which she told me over and over and over and over again) and I was having a difficult time getting motivated about anything.

Oh well.

After moping around most of the day on Monday and then having an action-packed Tuesday, it almost slipped my mind that it was Valentine’s Day. YUP. I really almost forgot. The husband and I don’t really do much of anything for each other (although he is pretty good at providing me with flowers and some amazing chocolate), but I did want to make something tasty for dinner. I made a last minute run to the grocery store and found some fresh clams at the grocery store – yum.

The week continued on without much else of interest. We had a nice lunch with friends at our new favorite restaurant, Miller’s East Coast Deli, which was totally tasty and ended with the befuddling experience of watching a very, very old man back up and then slowly pull forward repeatedly while just barely grazing the car next to him. We all stood a bit wide-eyed trying to figure out what to do alongside a nice group of people. Eventually someone helped the guy back out of the parking spot, he screamed off (at a big whopping 4-miles an hour) jabbering in some unknown language, and the woman walked up to her car, jumped in – without blinking an eye, and drove off.

HA!

This all happened before any of us had a chance to even tell her what happened – or determining what the proper action was for dealing with the nonsensical driver.

(I’m sure we will all be highlighted on one of those exposes showcasing people behaving badly.)

The winner this week was our spaghetti squash dinner – it was so good! Look for the recipe coming soon…

Don’t forget to link up your favorite recipe of the week below!

*Top row from left to right: Leftover try-tip tacos with veggie beans, garlic and white wine steamed clams with asparagus, capellini, and garlic toast, rosemary, oregano chicken breasts over carrot and celery lentils. Bottom row from left to right: spaghetti squash with fresh tomato sauce, spinach and Wisconsin mozzarella, homemade beef and broccoli over white rice, oregano garlic chicken thighs and zucchini fries.

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and, instead of running out and spending a wad on stuff, I wanted to put together something tasty and easy to share with my loved ones. I don’t know about you, but Valentine’s Day screams of chocolate, so chocolate it must be. I wasn’t in the mood for putting together anything too challenging (I’m still pretty lazy since getting back from our vacation), so decided to keep it simple.

Chocolate cream cheese refrigerator cookies.

This is a tasty and easy recipe, which makes a big pile of cookies. You could even make a double batch and have enough to give to friends, family, teachers, and neighbors. Add white or semi-sweet chocolate chips for some extra love or toss in a sprinkling of pecans or walnuts. I didn’t have any of those yummies in the house, so simply chocolate cream cheese cookies it was.

Make sure to set aside some time when doing this recipe. The cookies need a bit of time to set up in the fridge, and you could totally go all fancy and use a cute cookie cutter to perfectly shape your sliced cookies.

Or you can just slice away like I did.

(still really good)

Ingredients

1/4 cup room temperature butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Dash of salt

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 1/4 cup flour

4 ounces room temperature cream cheese

What you do

Start by smoothing together the butter and sugars along with the dash of salt. Once it’s all soft and mixed nicely, go ahead and stir in the egg and vanilla.

Now slowly add the cocoa and flour while gently stirring. Go slow otherwise you’ll have a huge cocoa flour mess! Sprinkle in the baking soda and keep mixing until the cookie batter comes together.

Cube up the cream cheese and add to the mixture. Fold together just until the cream cheese starts blending in with the cookie dough. You still want there to be nice chunks of cream cheese spattered throughout the mix.

Tear off a nice length of plastic wrap and drop in your dough. Wrap it up while rolling and lengthening the cookie dough into a long roll, about 1-foot in length and three to four inches in circumference.

Place your cookie log onto a sheet pan and then into the fridge to chill for at least two-hours. If you can let it hang out over night, even better.

Preheat your oven to 350 F and get out your chocolate cream cheese cookie dough. Release from the plastic wrap and then carefully cut 1/4 -1/2 inch slices and place on a lightly greased sheet pan leaving an inch or so around cookies.

Pop into the hot oven for about 10-12 minutes or until the cookie tops are cracked and crisp.

Happy Valentine’s Day!