Today is Saturday ! What's for dinner?

Getting everyone together for dinner on Saturday night is probably the hardest thing a Good Cooker Mom has to do.Kids are at soccer practice,ballet,gymnastics, etc,etc. No one wants to take time out to sit down to dinner, let alone talk about their day.Here are several strategies that might work:

                    1) Invite the kids' best friend(s).This means more cooking and
                        more chaos
                     2) Make the kids their favorite meal.If you have more than
                         one child,this can be tricky. Spaghetti,burgers,pizza can
                         lure your kids to the dinner table.
                     3) Make it a special occasion.Saturday is movie night ,for
                         example,and this is preceded by the family sitting down
                         to eat together.
The point is to get the family together to talk about their day ,their friends,anything that is bothering them about the activities they are engaged in,their relationship with their siblings etc. It is so easy to just say "it is not worth it! " But it is probably the only time on that day that the family will be together. I would like to hear  other ideas from you.Just post them on our blog for our community to read.

Every Mom needs a good mashed potato recipe

One of the mainstays of our dinner table was mashed potatoes.The kids liked making roads and gullies in them and plant the infamous peas and carrots (see previous post :-) But how can you make yours the best? Cholesterol is always a worry(at least at our house),so mounds of real butter and whole milk were a no no. So I hand to come up with a "secret ingredient".The way I made the flavor of  my mashed potatoes different and yummy for my kids was to add a 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream.I realize that this was cholesterol heavy, but 1/4 cup spread among 4 people was within the "OK" range. I used Yukon Gold potatoes too.These give a nice golden color to the mashed potatoes. To this day my daughter always says that my mashed potatoes were the best.Do you have a recipe for mashed potatoes you would like to share?

Knock out recipe for Lemony Chicken

As chicken is a mainstay for families today,I have found that this recipe appeals to most families:

                                    Ingredients
                    5 boneless chicken cutlets(I use the Perdue Perfect portions)
                    2Tbs All purpose flour
                    2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
                    White wine for degalzing pan 1/4 cup
                    Chicken broth 3/4 cup
                    2 Tbs lemon juice (adjust this amount for your families taste)
                    2/3 cup of petite diced tomatoes
                    2 Tbs heavy cream

                                    Preparation

                    Trim cutlets of fat and gristle.Pound with meat mallet until
                     1/4 inch thick.Salt and pepper and dust with flour
                                  
                    Saute cutlets in Extra Virgin Olive Oil until golden brown
                    Place in 325 degree oven to keep warm

                    Deglaze pan with white wine.When wine has almost gone
                    Add chicken broth and lemon juice to pan
                    Remove chicken from oven and return to pan and cook
                    cutlets in pan for one minute per side
                    Place cutlets on serving platter and hold in oven while you
                    finish the sauce

                     Add tomatoes and cream to pan.Heat thoroughly and then
                     pour over chicken and serve

Nothing green,no onions and no mushrooms

It was,of course, very difficult to please the younger crowd of eaters at our dinner table.My son refused to eat anything green.That made salads and most  green vegetables off limits for him.My daughter,to this day won't eat mushrooms or onions. I served peas with carrots frequently and used onion powder in things like meatloaf and meat dishes that required cooked onions .I told my daughter she just could pick the mushrooms out of her chicken Marsala. The point here is that the cook has to make some accommodation for her childrens' current tastes.It is really tough to have a pleasant reunion at the daily dinner table when there were too many things your child wouldn't eat.I know this flies in the face of the kind of discipline many of us faced at our dinner tables when we were young.Who doesn't remember old adages like "there are starving children in ----- who have nothing to eat.They would be grateful to have the food you have." Or perhaps this threat,"You will sit at the table until your plate is clean".I disagree with this philosophy. A dinner table that becomes a
battleground is not a happy place.The whole idea here is to bring a family together to share and communicate with each other. accommodating different tastes is a small price to pay.

OK,how do we do this?

It is easier to say we will cook a good meal every night than it is to do it.  The number one task of good cooking ,on a tight schedule, is to decide what to make.Some moms plan a whole week of menus and then shop a week ahead of time for the ingredients they  will need. I was more of a real time cook.I would keep a variety of things on hand and decide the night before what to make for dinner.My motto was always KISM ! Keep it simple Mom.Meat/poultry, starch,vegetable, and fruit .All in under an hour.The main task was to have something defrosted when I got home.Without that dinner was doomed.I would have to run to the store and that blew my schedule away. It was always possible to defrost in the microwave,but believe me,I wasn't going to get a good cooker award if I did that. There are very few things that get cooked in a microwave that taste good.They are usually rubbery in texture and robbed of all flavor.  Tomorrow we will start to exchange some other tips for "good cookers"