Homemade Potato Chips and French Onion Dip

From Unplanned Cooking

Homemade Potato Chips and Real French Onion Dip

It’s game day! A win today would earn our beloved purple Vikings a ticket to the Superbowl and our fellow Minnesotans bragging rights.

While I don’t follow football, I do follow parties, and for tonight’s, I’m making homemade potato chips with real french onion dip to feed our men, who’ll uncharacteristically stay glued to the couch. Continue reading »

Roasted Beet, Orange and Avocado Salad

From Unplanned Cooking

Roasted Beet, Orange and Avocado Salad

Tonight’s our big night: Will our commercial for I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter air during the American Idol premiere?

And, more importantly, can Matt and I stay up late enough to find out? Because we’re here in San Diego, along with our kids, living it up on West Coast time, vacationing in a beach house that belongs to a friend of a friend, and discovering how the other half lives … while sunning with my favorite lady. Continue reading »

Panko-and-Bacon-Coated Turnips

From Unplanned Cooking

Turnip Kabobs

What I love about a new year is it’s full of promise. It’s a chance to let go of the past — after all, who cares what you did last year — and reinvent yourself. Today.

You can let go of your fears. You can let go of your failures. You can start to believe you can cook. Better than Bon Appetit.

You see where I’m going with this?

‘Cause she does:

Tonight, I tried out an appetizer recipe from Bon Appetit for our Turn the Tub Around viewing party at Hot Mama.

(Despite the photograph, I swear I did not stop halfway through the shoot to eat some butter straight from the bucket. Not that I’m above that. It’s just our tub was empty. I know. I checked.)

Only I didn’t have sesame seeds, but found Panko bread crumbs in my pantry. Nor did I have pancetta, what I’ve come to think of as fancy, overpriced bacon (not that I’ve ever bought it; is it expensive?).

And so rather than following their Pancetta-and-Seasame-Coated Turnip recipe, I came up with my own: Panko-and-Bacon-Coated Turnips:

16 slices bacon
2 large turnips
1 large egg
1 cup panko
vegetable oil

Looks yummy, right? Well, it was. But Bon Appetit knows two things I do not:

First, there is a reason you use a deep-fry thermometer. Although, I must say, our fire alarm works just as well, if you hold your hands over your ears. And second, thinly-sliced pancetta sticks to the turnips, unlike my fat slabs of Lorentz bacon, which unraveled.

We ended up with Panko-and-Bacon-Coated Turnip Kabobs. Which were clumsy, but surprisingly tasty.

Next time, I’d still use Panko. Only I’d invest in pancetta, too.

Directions: Wrap a slab of bacon around each turnip chunk. Then, dip in egg. Coat with Panko. Deep fry in vegetable oil until Panko lightly browns, about one minute. Then bake at 350 for 7 minutes.

Blueberry Oatmeal Bars

From Unplanned Cooking:

An After Christmas Special: Blueberry Oatmeal Bars

We’re snowed in here in Minneapolis. Which doesn’t stop our kids. Our 3-year-old braved the cold, stepping barefoot in a foot of snow to snag our newspaper from our front step. Anything to beat his brother to it. But me? Not me. I’m happy to heed to a snow emergency and stay inside where it’s warm. Better safe than cold is how I roll. And since we’re snowed in with no eggs, we’re making Blueberry Oatmeal Bars to tide us over at snack time. (You can only ask your neighbor to spare an egg so many times.) We’ll use our leftover bananas, which are browning on our counter. Continue reading »

Pumpkin Lasagna

From Unplanned Cooking

Pumpkin Lasagna

Michael Pollan recently posted his twenty favorite food rules, as submitted by readers, and here are the two our family will try to follow:

“Don’t eat anything that took more energy to ship than to grow.” — Carrie Cizauskas Continue reading »

Tabbouleh with Quinoa

From Unplanned Cooking

Tabbouleh with Quinoa

Yesterday, our 4.5-year-old dribbled an invisible basketball across our wood floor. He refused to pass it, and so our 2.5-year-old sat down and cried.

“Here’s one for you,” I said to our 2.5-year-old, pretending to pass him a ball.

“That’s not an invisible basketball,” he cried, because, for him, an invisible basketball only exists if his brother says it does. Ah, the power of the first born. Continue reading »

Holiday Recipes: Pan Roasted Duck

From Unplanned Cooking

Pan Roasted Duck that Holds You for the Night

Our 2.5-year-old is obsessed with picking out our dinner at the grocery store. Last week, he coddled salmon.

This week, it’s duck. Continue reading »

Holiday Recipes: Roasted Chestnuts

From Unplanned Cooking

Roasted Chestnuts and Sleeping on the Floor

Our 2-year-old insists he’s outgrown his toddler bed. ”It’s too small for me,” he says, and, to prove his point, refuses to sleep in it at night. Rather, he sleeps on the floor with his head on his pillow and his blanket wrinkle free. ”I want it everywhere!” he proclaims when I tuck him in. Because there’s nothing my boys like more than right angles. Continue reading »

Blue Cheese Spread

From Unplanned Cooking

Party Preparation: Blue Cheese Bruschetta

Matt and I invited some friends over on Saturday night for a bonfire. We’ve been married long enough (7 1/2 years) to know we prepare for parties differently. He’ll forgo food preparation to clean our home, while I’ll labor over a new recipe, flour landing where he just swept. And with three kids between us, we’ll be lucky if either of us gets our job done. Continue reading »

Thanksgiving Sides: Cranberry Sauce

From Unplanned Cooking

Pear, Brandy and Pecan Cranberry Sauce

It’s Turkey Day! Not the Turkey Day. Turkey Day as in our bird is here, in store, waiting for pick-up. We’ll rub its body down with some salt, and swaddle it up in a plastic bag to dry brine in our refrigerator for three days. But before we drive over to Linden Hills Co-Op to meet our little guy (or gal? What is our gender preference? Doesn’t matter; we’ll love eating ‘em just the same), we’ll whip up some cranberry sauce. Continue reading »