find a recipe!

A Life From Scratch.

A Life You Adore Around A Table You Love.

C’s picks.

/ By / 6 Comments


Pay attention to meeeeeeeeeeee – not that cool looking lobster!

It’s Sunday – you know the drill.

Tonight I’m taking a night off from cooking. We devoured greasy mexican take out for a late lunch so I’m hoping that tides us over through dinner time. If not, I have plenty of leftovers from last night. Hold the wine.

Memorial day we are having family over and will be enjoying this recipe (such a huge hit) along with some grilled ribeyes. Trying out these crash hot potatoes on the side.

Let’s get some burgers going Tuesday. Got to love a healthy turkey burger option. My new secret is adding diced roasted red peppers in for flavor and extra juciness. It works. Hand cut sweet potato fries on the side.

A light summer pasta dish sounds good for Wednesday. Curtis Stone has a fettuccine with fresh tomato sauce and shrimp I’ve been eyeing for a while.

Wow we’ve made it to Thursday without some type of chicken dish? Shocking. Let’s change that ASAP with some yogurt marinaded chicken cutlets. (Shhh – don’t tell M it’s yogurt. He still has no idea). Grilled veggies on the side.

And that brings us to Friday and to the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL for my kindergardener. Seriously? Where did the year fly by. I think L’s favorite dinner is in order – grilled italian sausage and tator tots. You rock L, I’m so proud.

Anyone cooking anything fun this week?
C

Need a warm up?

/ By /

Sigh.

It’s not that I’m not excited about this recipe, because really, it totally rocks. I just thought somehow we’d be able to sneak by the chilly temps that somehow seem to always return before summer. I was banking on putting this recipe up come fall.

Yet typical Chicago – that is not the case. Back to a chilly 48 degrees and suddenly nothing sounds better than a bowl of soup. It’s hard to believe the other night I was sweating on a fast paced walk, thanks to L on his bike. Seriously, how many times can one say ‘stay to the side of the road!!!!!!!!!!!!’

Anyway, luckily this recipe is incredibly easy to whip up, totally healthy, and somehow the peas still make it feel like a spring dish. We don’t want to go to far back into winter mode when we’ve come so far.

Let’s hope for warmer temps this weekend (it HAS to happen – the pool opens!). Until then, ladle me another bowl please. I’m freezing.

Split Pea Soup w/ Cheesy Croutons
Write a review
Save Recipe
Print
Ingredients
  1. 1/4 cup olive oil
  2. 1 large yellow onion, chopped
  3. 2 carrots, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
  4. 2 celery ribs, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
  5. 3 garlic cloves, minced
  6. 3 large springs of fresh thyme
  7. kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper
  8. 1 lbs green split peas
  9. 4 cups chicken stock
  10. 1 4 ounce smoked ham hock
  11. one baguette, crust removed
  12. 1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
  2. Heat a large dutch oven over medium heat. Add 2 TBS olive oil to warm. Add in the veggies and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. Season with salt & pepper.
  3. Stir in the split peas, 8 cups water, and the stock. Add the ham hock, cover the pot, and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for about 1 hour and 45 minutes or until the ham hock meat is tender.
  4. Meanwhile, tear the baguette into bite sized pieces. On a large rimmed baking sheet toss the bread with the remaining 2 TBS olive oil. Season with salt & pepper. Arrange in a single layer and sprinkle with parmesan. Bake for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Set aside to cool.
  5. Reduce the heat under the soup pot to low. Using a slotted spoon, remove the ham hock to a cutting board to cool. Remove meat, discarding the skin and bone, and chop into bite sized pieces. Return the meat to the soup. Remove thyme stems and season the soup to taste with salt & pepper.
  6. Ladle the soup into deep bowls and top with homemade croutons.
A Life From Scratch. https://a-life-from-scratch.com/

 

 

Eat up!
C

Easy breezy summer entertaining.

/ By / 5 Comments


With Memorial Day weekend just around the corner it’s time to kick off the best entertaining season of them all – summer. Here are my top tips to make sure your summer entertaining is relaxed as you are after a glass of rose.

1. Plan ahead. Duh, right? This seems to be the most basic concept at all and yet there are so many people I know that are scrambling the day before and the day of. If you know you are hosting a get together in a week, start seriously thinking about it on Monday.

2. Set your menu – and write it out. With ideas for food, drinks, guests etc, all floating around in your head no wonder you feel overwhelmed! Write (or type if you’re a typer) out how many you’ll be serving, what your menu is, and what errands you need to run. Then, cross of as you go. By the end of the week shoot for 80% complete. The day of most parties I end up with very little to do aside from pick out what summer dress I’ll be wearing and figure out a way to sneak in a pedicure.

3. Prepare food ahead of time or grill. This summer dish is perfect in every way if you don’t want to cook or grill in front of guests. It’s beautiful. If you’re grilling, plan it out. For instance I will be serving 3 different meats on the grill this weekend and I also want grilled vegetables. That’s a lot to put on M to grill, so, I will grill vegetables the morning of so they are out of the way.

4. Signature summer cocktail. Who’s with me? Pour me one of these, ASAP.

5. Big jug of water, full, prior to guests arriving. Have you ever tried to fill a huge pitcher during a party? It seems to take practically an hour. Get it done early. Bonus if there are lemon & lime slices floating on top.

6. Ice. You can never have enough. Fill your water pitcher and glasses to the brim. Apparently Burger King sells the BEST (and cheapest) bags of ice. Oh yes, there are various levels of ice. Thanks to Jeff and Catherine for this tip!

7. I’m convinced drinks are just more fun if they are served in mason jars. I refuse to have a cocktail any other way.

8. Make your summer playlist. Topping ours? Well, we each have a selection. B’s song is ‘Ho Hey’ by the Luminers. L loves ‘Chicken Fried.’ M is digging ‘Stay’ by Rihanna and I’m going old school with ‘Hey Jude’ by the Beetles. The best playlist mixes it up and ours seems to naturally do exactly that.

9. Hit up TJ Maxx or similar stores for paper plates and napkins that are cute – not cheesy. They often have Kate Spade and other adorable brands.

10. Dress the part. We almost always entertain with the kids, so, I’m in flats (or barefoot which negates that pedicure) and a very breezy dress. Maxi’s are awesome as they have a bit of elegance to them but still fit the relaxed vibe. (I will be living in this). A hostess running around in heels just makes me uncomfortable to watch.

11. Flowers. Locals, if you can pull it off and get them from Piscaw Gardens in Woodstock – GO. It is beyond worth the drive. There are sold at the farmers market on Tuesday & Saturday there. If you can’t, keep the relaxed feel with bunches of wildflowers picked from around your neighborhood or your local farmers market. Keep them off the dining tables though – no scent by your delicious food!

12. Take this cookie recipe, use 2 TBS cookie dough for each cooking, up the cooking time by 2 minutes and bake away. Once cool, put vanilla ice cream between two cookies and you have homemade ice cream cookie sandwiches that are out of this world.

13. Have a bucket of water balloons filled and ready to go. For kids and adults. I’m just saying…

14. Realize that you can’t control the weather. It just helps on so many levels to accept that.

15. Pre slice (if needed) any hot dog or hamburger buns you are using. Saves a lot of time.

16. Relax. That’s the whole point right? I promise if you follow the above come party day you’ll so be that hostess that just nails it.

Happy summer planning my friends!
C

C’s picks.

/ By / 2 Comments


Whew. After a whirlwind weekend in the city (too fun!) it’s time to settle back into reality. With those boys being my reality, it’s pretty easy to do.

Lucky for me, this week is easy as pie. M is flying off to the big apple for awhile, so, I’m going to keep things low key on this end.

I’ll be making a big batch of this on Monday. So fresh, healthy, and light – it’s perfect to have on hand.

Monday and Tuesday evening I will grill myself some protein, one night marinated chicken another night salmon. I’m going to give this marinade another go on the chicken. It gets rave reviews but for some reason I didn’t seem obsessed with it the first time around. Perhaps this time it will be better – I want to try it out for grilling season. A second chance is always good.

That leads us to Wednesday and to this salad. It was just so magnificent last week I’m craving it again. And it gives me an excuse to buy Whole Food Kildeer’s black forest bacon. Please tell me you’ve tried this.

Thursday my man meat arrives back home so it’s time for something hearty. Nothing says welcome home from New York like his favorite sandwich. Have you made this one yet? Oh my.

Let’s end the week with something that always brings us together. Do I even need to type it by now? You know the drill. It’s our pizza.

Eat up!
C

Well, I tried.

/ By / 1 Comment


I’ll admit it – I’ve been in a baking rut lately. Ever since I discovered the most perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe (ever!) I just haven’t felt the need to bake anything else.

I mean – it’s just too easy. No joke I can go from start to finish in 5 minutes. Dough is done and at my leisure to bake off whenever I or anyone else in the house just happens to need something sweet.

Well, after waaaaaay too many batches of cookie dough I decided it was time to get a bit more creative with my mixer again. I was paging through Ina’s new cookbook and came across chocolate chunk blondies.

Well, hello there.

I was too mesmerized by the glorious picture of stacked bars I didn’t even dwell on the fact that there is white sugar in her recipe, which clearly indicates these are not authentic blondies. Only brown sugar goes into those. I forgave Ina quickly thought and focused on the next task: Must. Make. Now.

My little sous chef’s legs were kicking frantically as I got out my trusty black mixer. B gets super awkwardly excited by it. My guess is that it reminds him of the womb. My big belly was at the perfect height to hear it going round and round…

Anyway – as I’m getting into the recipe I realize that it is literally almost identical to my magic chocolate chip cookie recipe. Of course a few slight variations but my goodness it felt like I was making the same thing. So much for being creative. Hey, I tried!

No surprise here that these were awesome. M asked if he could have a second and I said no. I’m kind of mean that way. He’ll thank me later at this pool this summer. Or, I’ll just thank myself.

Chocolate Chunk Blondies
Write a review
Save Recipe
Print
Ingredients
  1. 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
  2. 1 cup brown sugar
  3. 1/2 cup white sugar
  4. 2 tsp vanilla
  5. 2 eggs, room temp
  6. 2 cups flour
  7. 1 tsp baking soda
  8. 1 tsp salt
  9. 1 cup walnuts, chopped
  10. 2 cups chocolate chunks
Instructions
  1. Grease and flour a 9X13 baking dish and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Just like the cookies, get the butters and sugars going on medium high speed for 3 minutes. Add in the vanilla and eggs, one at a time, on low speed.
  3. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together and slowly add into your mixer. Stir in the walnuts and chocolate chunks.
  4. Press into your prepared dish and bake for 27 minutes. (a little more if your oven runs 'cool' and a little less if your oven runs 'warm.')
  5. Leave them alone to set for awhile and cut into big bars.
A Life From Scratch. https://a-life-from-scratch.com/

 

Eat up!
C

Top