Today I have a simple and easy lunch or dinner recipe for you. It is Friday after all, may as well take it easy! And it’s so yummy that after eating it Cate declared I was the best cook in the world. (I think her dad must be paying her to always say such nice things about me.)

We used to have a CPK ASAP near our house and they served a pesto chicken salad sandwich that I loved. Loved so much, in fact, it was one of the few things I could eat when I was pregnant. Well, the CPK ASAP is gone and with it my sandwich.

I’ve taken matters into my own hands. While I haven’t yet tried my hand at the yummy pizza bread that they used, I have nailed the pesto chicken salad aspect of the sandwich. I made it for the first time last night and it was so easy and so yummy. Definitely will be making it again…and again…and again!

Pesto Chicken Salad
From Jane Maynard, inspired by CPK
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup basil pesto
- salt
- 1 heart of romaine lettuce, chopped

Cook the chicken breasts however you like (I boiled mine until cooked through – it’s easy and you’re just going to mix it with sauce). Shred chicken and place in a bowl. Sprinkle with a bit of salt.

Mix together mayonnaise and pesto. Add half of this mixture to the chicken and mix well. Add the other half of the mixture to your chopped romaine lettuce. I like to mix them separately so that if we have leftover chicken we don’t have lettuce that will go wilted and yucky mixed in – the next day I can throw together a little sauce and lettuce. Make sense? Serve on your favorite bread.

I’ve got the winner of the Rockin’ Baby Pouch giveaway. Ready?

Cate, who said, “Ooooooh, I would LOVE to win this! I’m expecting my second baby in late February or early March, and while I have a Moby wrap and love it, it can be a little difficult to manuever when out in public.”

I think random.org picked Cate because her name is so cool. I’m not biased or anything. I mean, just ’cause I named my daughter Cate…or maybe random.org likes that Cate has a baby on the way. Or maybe it was just random. Okay, that was probably it.

Congrats, Cate! And big thanks to Rockin’ Baby for a fab giveaway!

(P.S. I am making some cookies today that you are going to FLIP over. Stay tuned!)

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I mentioned how much I love Calrose rice, the delicious sticky white rice that goes so well with Chinese food. Whenever we have Asian food at home, I lament the fact that my Calrose rice is white because I really like to use brown rice whenever I can. WELLLLL…I don’t know why I didn’t look sooner, but my grocery store carries brown Calrose rice. Woo-hoo!

I love it. There is a bit of a “brown” flavor to the rice, but I like that flavor and the rice is still nice and sticky. I don’t think I’ll ever cook white Calrose rice again. The brown stuff is healthier and tastes fabulous.

That’s all for today. Just a small ode to my new favorite rice.

This morning, French Toast. Mmmmmmm.

I am simply stunned at how fast the weeks go by. How am I planning another menu already? Here we go!

MONDAY:
- Cream of Mushroom Soup (didn’t get to it last week)

TUESDAY:
- Island Pork with Sticky Rice (this recipe is amazing…can’t wait to share it with you!)
- Veggies

WEDNESDAY:
- Stuffed Winter Squash

THURSDAY:
- Leftovers

FRIDAY:
- Stir Fry
- Potstickers

SATURDAY:
- Eat out

SUNDAY:
- Tacos

Your turn! I am LOVING all the menus coming each week! Please keep it coming! Remember, all menus are welcome…no matter how fancy or simple they may be!

This giveaway is now closed. Thanks! BUT…keep reading because this is a cool baby sling!

It’s been a while since I have done a Gearing Up for Baby post…but I still have a baby and I’m still trying out lots of cool gear! Today I wanted to share a nifty sling that I discovered…and of course host a giveaway!

I wanted some sort of pouch or sling for when Owen was born. I did a quick search on Cool Mom Picks (which is also where I first discovered the Orbit travel system), and both Liz and Kristen had only glowing things to say about the Rockin’ Baby pouch. So, I got on the horn (okay, I sent an email, but how long has it been since you said “got on the horn”…I couldn’t resist) to Rockin’ Baby to see if I could try out their pouch and do a giveaway…and they happily obliged!

This pouch is very cool. There are zippers in the back that make it easy to adjust to the right size and it’s easy to get on and off. I don’t know about you, but other slings are intimidating to me, with yards of fabric to contend with. This pouch is simple and to the point. If you do like a more traditional sling, however, Rockin’ Baby has those, too! 

I think my favorite part of Rockin’ Baby is their ONE FOR ONE business model, similar to Tom’s shoes. Every time someone buys a sling, Rockin’ Baby gives one to a mother in Haiti and educates those mothers on the impact a sling can have in their lives. Kathryn Wiley, who purchased the Rockin’ Baby business last year, bought the company because she loved the product and she had the lovely vision to evolve the business into a Mother to Mother model in order to help mothers in need. It’s a cool story and I love supporting Kathryn and her vision!

Giveaway time! If you would like one of these cool pouches, just leave a comment by Midnight PT on Wednesday, January 25. If you have are expecting or have a baby, you’ll love it! If you don’t, this would make for a pretty sweet baby gift! So, get commenting! One randomly-selected winner will be announced on Thursday, January 26. Good luck!

Ahhhh, Pinterest. How we love thee!

This recipe is yet another wonderful thing I discovered on Pinterest. I was able to quickly whip these up today with ingredients that I always have on hand. Gotta love non-complicated, fast and easy recipes!

Cate took a bite and said, “Wow! These taste even better than they look!” I’ll take that! They basically taste like no-bake cookies, but I like that they are in bar form – it’s much easier to make them look pretty!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Bars
From Love Veggies and Yoga (I rewrote the recipe so it’s shorter and reflects exactly what I did…click through for a more thorough description some options for making the recipe vegan)
- 1 stick butter (4 ounces)
- 2 cups white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 6 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 1/2 cups oats (I used Quaker rolled instant oats)
- chocolate chips to sprinkle on top (butterscotch or peanut butter chips would be good, too)

Line an 8×8 pan with foil and spray with cooking oil.

Combine and melt butter, white sugar, brown sugar, cocoa powder and milk in a medium sauce pan. Heat over medium-high heat – bring to boil, let boil for 90 seconds, stirring continuously, then remove from heat.

Add peanut butter and vanilla (vanilla can bubble up on you, so add carefully). Mix until smooth. Stir in the oats.

Pour into pan, spreading evenly. The mixture will be very hot so be careful! Give it a few minutes to cool, then press a handful of chocolate chips into the top.

The original recipe says to put them in the freezer for an hour. I did this and they were very hard to cut. I had also used waxed paper instead of foil with spray. I could not for the life of me get the bars to pop out of the pan – it was crazy town. I think if I had just refrigerated for 20 minutes or so they would have been set and much easier to work with.

We rarely eat red meat, so when we do, we make sure it is high-quality and delicious. My favorite cut is filet mignon…when cooked correctly, it is just so darn tender and tasty. When Nate’s mom was here last November, she made us a fantastic dinner, which included some filet. While we were debating about how to cook our beautiful hunks of meat, she mentioned that she and my father-in-law had used a technique from America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Illustrated that worked beautifully. We dug around the Internet, found the recipe and…

Sorry for the not-so-pretty photos. Truth is I wanted to eat the steak more than I wanted to photograph it!

…PEOPLE. This is the perfect way to cook steak. Seriously. Perfect. It comes out medium-rare and is so juicy and tender. For those of you scared of red/pink in your meat, please believe me when I tell you medium-rare is the way to eat your steak. REALLY. The flavor and texture are so much better than medium or well-done, but it’s still hot and cooked through just enough. The first time I ate a medium-rare steak was at Donovan’s Steak House and I have never eaten it another way since. It’s the only way to go!

So, back to the Cook’s Illustrated technique…you salt and pepper the steak and then bake it in the oven BEFORE searing it on the stove. The reasoning is that your steak will cook evenly throughout and that the final sear will give the steak a nice, caramelized crust. We found another blogger who had used this recipe and he said that it’s been consistent every time. I love reliable recipes like that!

The Perfect Steak
Method & recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, but I’ve written it out here in my own words, so if something goes wrong blame me
- 2 boneless strip steaks 1 1/2″ – 1 3/4″ thick, about 1 pound each (filet mignon or ribeye may be substituted)
- Salt & Pepper (I like to use coarse versions of both)
- 1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil (2 tablespoons for filet mignon)

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F and place rack in the center of the oven.

Cut steaks vertically in half so you have four 8-ounce steaks. Let rest outside of the fridge for about 15 minutes. Dry off steaks with a paper towel then pat liberally with salt and pepper. Place steaks on a wire rack on top of a rimmed cookie sheet so steaks are not resting directly on the pan. Insert an instant-read, oven-safe thermometer into one of the steaks, then put steaks in the oven until the internal temperature of the steak reaches 90 – 95 degrees for medium rare (20-25 mins) or 100 to 105 degrees for medium (25-30 mins). GO WITH MEDIUM RARE!

Heat oil in a heavy bottom skillet over medium-high heat on your stove. We used one of my copper-core heavy bottom frying pans – I think a cast-iron skillet would be ideal, but mine is buried in storage somewhere. When oil starts to smoke, sear the steak in the pan ~ 2 minutes per side. Sear the edges as well, ~ 1 minute per edge.

Place steaks back on rack on cookie sheet, tent with foil and let rest ~ 10 minutes. Eat!

I threw together some chocolate chip cookies last night. I didn’t eat them all. But I should have. The girls woke up this morning, saw the pan and proceeded to beg for cookies for breakfast. Really, I should have taken one for the team and put all the cookies down last night. Now I know. Lesson learned. Also, for some reason, I just couldn’t let the girls eat a cookie for breakfast. Definitely a case of “do as I say, not as I do.” Not that they’ve ever seen me eat a cookie for breakfast, but, well, I’ll admit it may have happened before…

Menu time!

MONDAY:
- Pesto Chicken Salad Sandwiches (recipe to come)

TUESDAY:
- Squash soup (using up some veggies from CSA)

WEDNESDAY:
- Cream of Mushroom soup

THURSDAY:
- Leftovers

FRIDAY:
- Bistro Chicken

SATURDAY:
- Eat out

SUNDAY:
- Stuffed Shells

I hope you all know how helpful your menus are for me (and others) each week. I love the inspiration! So, please keep the menus coming!

I have not eaten a Twinkie in, well, honestly, I cannot remember the last time I ate a Twinkie! I really think it’s probably been since middle school. Maybe even elementary school.

So last week when I was shopping with the girls and spotted a box of Twinkies at the store, it’s not surprising a little nostalgia kicked in. And I actually bought a box. I couldn’t believe it myself. The girls hadn’t even heard of Twinkies and for some reason I just felt like I had to introduce them to this childhood treat.

Two things happened.

1. The Twinkies are still sitting in the box. (The girls are totally uninterested.)
2. Hostess declared bankruptcy.

Okay, I admit, I doubt the fact that I purchased a box of Twinkies for the first time ever jinxed the company. BUT…it does seem like a strange coincidence, no?

Here’s the thing. When I bought the Twinkies, I actually felt guilty. They represent for me everything that is wrong with our broken food system. It’s processed food, packed with sugar and corn syrup and filled with something that can be described as “creamy” but not as actual “cream.” On top of that, each Twinkie is individually wrapped in plastic and then thrown into a cardboard box. So, yes, I felt guilty buying those Twinkies and I don’t think that guilt was necessarily misplaced. I mean, it certainly wasn’t supporting my New Year’s resolution.

When I read a bit about Hostess’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy last night, I learned this is the second time in a decade that the company has declared bankruptcy. So, after failing once and having debts restructured and forgiven, they are doing it again. While I don’t want 19,000 people to suddenly lose their benefits or their jobs, I’m wondering if this is a sinking ship that should be saved. Their problems appear to stem more from labor costs rather than poor sales, so I don’t think this is a statement that people have exhibited less demand for their product. BUT STILL…something isn’t working at Hostess. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

So, you may be wondering, was the Twinkie I ate after shooting this photograph any good? It was just how I remembered it. Which means it was okay. And for those of you who are interested, Nate and I are taking bids on our Twinkies. We will entertain offers of at least $100 per Twinkie. Okay, okay, you can still get Twinkies. But given their long shelf life, I think we’ll hang onto these puppies and cash in at a later date!

Update on our ‘Twinkies For Sale’ – Nate has decided that he’s not good at timing the peak, so he will be auctioning off 1 Twinkie every 10 years. Mark your calendars!

Bethanie, a long-time reader, recently emailed me asking if I would be willing to put the following question out there: What do you pack for your kids’ lunches? Like my daughter, her child doesn’t have the ability to heat food at school but is sick to death of sandwiches. I am in the exact same boat, so I was totally down with this call for “recipes” of sorts!

AND…for that matter…I’m having a bagel for lunch today. Which is what I had yesterday. Not exactly nutritious and definitely boring. SOOOO…

Today’s Call for Recipes is three fold!

• What do you pack for kids’ lunches, especially where they can’t reheat food?
• What kinds of food do you pack for your own lunch?
• If you eat lunch at home, what are you eating?

Bethanie ended her email with “I know the blog is ‘This week for DINNER’, but I’m desperate!” and I actually feel the same way. I’m good about getting my dinner plan together each week, but I’m terrible about lunches! Can’t wait to see all of your great ideas and tips!