This Week for Dinner – Weekly Meal Plans, Dinner Ideas, Recipes and More!: call for recipes

Category: call for recipes

Thursday, June 13

Call for Recipes: Sandwiches!

I looooooove sandwiches. I can eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t know what it is, but they hit the spot! I really like making sandwiches for dinner because they are simple and quick but are (or at least can be) filled with all kinds of balanced goodness. And in the summertime, when the last thing you want to do is turn on the oven or stove, sandwiches are a really great dinnertime option.

Since summer is here and since I love sandwiches, I have decided we need to do a sandwich Call for Recipes! Share your favorite sandwiches, whatever they may be…hot, cold, easy, complicated, open-faced, closed-faced, silly-faced, anything! Feel free to link to recipes or just give a quick description of how to make the sandwich. Let’s put together a long, fabulous list of sandwich options for us all to choose from. I know you can deliver!

I’ll kick us off with the Rachel. I think it is safe to say this is my favorite sandwich. My friend Jami introduced them to me years ago in Cambridge, MA at a little deli near our work. I was hooked at first bite, and the great thing about the Rachel is that it is completely replicatable (new word alert!) at home. My Rachel sandwich is as good as any Rachel sandwich I’ve had in any restaurant.

Your turn! Share your favorite sandwiches! Ready, set, GO!

The Rachel
- Your favorite bread, sliced
- Sliced turkey
- Classic coleslaw
- Swiss cheese
- Thousand island dressing

Spread dressing on both slides of bread, top with cheese, coleslaw and turkey, then put sandwich together. Butter outsides of the bread (or add butter to the pan) and grill in a frying pan on both sides until golden.

Posted by Jane Maynard at 10:16 am 25 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, fab faves, featured recipes, main dishes, Recipes Tags: call for recipes, favorite sandwiches, rachel sandwich, recipes, sandwiches |
Tuesday, June 4

The Magic of Vanilla Bean Paste + Vanilla Vanilla Muffins
Another fabulous discovery from the Favorite Things gift exchange I went to last December was vanilla bean paste. It’s so cool!

And just why is it so cool? You get the flavor and pretty speckliness (new word alert!) of vanilla beans without the work. It’s less expensive than vanilla beans, too. Vanilla bean paste is more viscous rather than paste-like, so it’s easy to pour and measure. It also is good for use in sauces and batter where you don’t want the vanilla extract to make things more liquidy (new word alert!).

You can substitute vanilla bean paste in recipes for both vanilla extract and vanilla beans. This stuff is super versatile!
- If you want to substitute vanilla bean paste for vanilla extract, just measure the same amount that the recipe calls for. Easy peasy!
- If you want to substitute vanilla bean paste for vanilla beans, use 1 tablespoon of paste for each whole vanilla bean called for.
You can purchase vanilla bean paste at Williams-Sonoma, but you can also find it on Amazon where it’s cheaper. I use Nielsen-Massey’s vanilla bean paste. Apparently Trader Joe’s once carried it, but it has been discontinued so don’t bother looking for it there if you hear rumors!

I finally bought a bottle myself and used it for the first time today. I decided to make my friend Kristen’s Vanilla Vanilla Muffins. The muffins are simple, vanilla goodness. I don’t have one thing to say or change about the recipe, so be sure to click through to Kristen’s beautiful site to make them yourself!

I can’t wait to use my new vanilla bean paste in more recipes! Oh the possibilities!

In fact, I created a collection of 21 very vanilla recipes over on Babble that would be perfect for using vanilla bean paste in. Be sure to check them out!

Also, please feel free to share your favorite recipes featuring vanilla!
Posted by Jane Maynard at 11:45 am 7 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, fab faves, Recipes, sweet things, the goods Tags: vanilla, vanilla bean paste, vanilla bean substitute, vanilla extract substitute, vanilla muffins, vanilla recipes |
Wednesday, May 29

Call for Recipes: Cooking During Difficult Times

Megan, a new mom returning to work this week, recently emailed me with a request that inspired today’s Call for Recipes. Megan emailed asking for dinner ideas for moms and dads with brand new babies. In Megan’s own words, “I am looking for ideas and suggestions on how you get dinner on the table during the week that’s easy and relatively healthy when we’re both back at work and I won’t be walking in the door until around six-ish and more interested in lavishing attention on A than spending a lot of time in the kitchen.”

I was definitely in survival mode when this guy came along, but it sure was worth it! Look at that yummy face!

I think we all struggle with this on a fairly regular basis, but there are definitely seasons of life where it is more difficult than usual to get dinner on the table. Case in point: newborn baby. Also, sickness in the family, stressful work/school, the list goes on and on! We’ve all been there and we all go through these seasons.

Often during difficult times friends and family step up to the plate with meals. I wouldn’t have survived after Owen was born if people had not been so generous in this regard! But even with help, dinner doesn’t come every day and it doesn’t last forever.

Time to share ideas! What meals, recipes and/or strategies do you have around getting dinner cooked even when you’re stretched for time and/or energy? Please share your wisdom because Megan is right–sometimes (all the time?) you’d rather be cuddling with your new baby than slaving in the kitchen!

I’ll kick us off with a tip! Make sure your fridge and pantry are stocked up with basics so you don’t have to go to the store very often. That was key for me. Whether it was having cooked meals in the freezer at the ready or just a jar of sauce and a package of spaghetti in the cabinet, if I had supplies we didn’t starve and ate relatively well. One more piece of advice…don’t be afraid to ask for help!

Posted by Jane Maynard at 11:12 am 31 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, meal planning, Meal Planning, Pregnancy and Babies, Recipes Tags: cooking after baby, easy meals, quick and healthy dinner ideas, quick meals |
Tuesday, April 9

Call for Recipes: French Toast

I love French toast. So do my girls. Nate? Not so much. But I make it anyway because is it really that torturous to make someone eat French toast? I think not. Plus, he’s lying anyway. Who doesn’t like French toast? I mean, really.

Years ago I went to my friend Karen’s bachelorette weekend in Palm Springs, where we stayed at the Parker. (Side note: that hotel is funky and crazy and fun. Loved it.) The morning of our departure, we ate breakfast at Norma’s, one of the hotel’s restaurants. The entire meal was amazing. I ordered the “Crunchy French Toast.” Ever since that morning I’ve been on a quest to replicate that freaking awesome French toast. I have a few good runners-up, but nothing has matched. (If you’d like to check out the runners-up, both recipes are really good: Baked French Toast and Crispy French Toast. If you have NOT had Norma’s Crunchy French Toast, then you will definitely not be disappointed.)

On a related note, I used to always use nice, soft bread (like Brioche) for making French toast, but for the last 5 years or so, I’ve almost exclusively used crusty breads. I don’t know when or why I made the switch, but I did and and thought that all was well in my French toast world. Then we moved back to San Diego and found ourselves living near the Village Mill Bread bakery. They bake these giant, beautiful loaves of Brioche that make the most amazing French toast EVER. And just like that I’m back on the soft, fluffy bread bandwagon.

Wow. I really must love French toast because I feel like I could keep talking about it all day! But I’m going stop and give you the floor. We would love to hear your favorite ways for preparing and eating French toast. Comments, tips, and recipes are all welcome! Also, if you happen to have a recipe for crunchy and/or crispy French toast that you love, I would really love for you to share!

French toast lovers unite!

(Note: Yes, I am aware that I italicized the word ‘really’ 3 times in this post. I guess I was just really feeling the ‘reallys’ today. Make that 4.)

Posted by Jane Maynard at 9:15 am 40 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, Recipes
Monday, April 1

Call for Recipes: Hard-Boiled Eggs

We had a few requests in the weekly menu comments yesterday for a special Easter-themed Call for Recipes. Specifically, what are we all going to do with the colorful hard-boiled egg bounty sitting in our refrigerators this morning?

Bonnie, a loyal commenter, said she trusts us more than she trusts Google or Pinterest, and I have to agree with her! That’s why I love this blog…because you all share your REAL menu plan ideas and recipes that have REALLY worked for you. So, yes, I’m sure there is a plethora of beautiful hard-boiled egg recipe collections out on the Interwebs today, but do we really trust them? Really truly? Not like we trust you!

So, please, share with us your best, tastiest, most creative uses and recipes for hard-boiled eggs! Bring it on!

Posted by Jane Maynard at 10:22 am 21 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, eat less meat, holidays, Recipes, side dishes
Friday, March 8

Cast Iron Skillet ‘Call for Recipes’ {and a fabulous giveaway involving butter, Le Creuset and Anthropologie!}
This giveaway is now closed, but please make sure you read through the comments for all the great cast iron skillet recipes!

People who use cast iron skillets swear by them. I know these skillets are supposed to be awesome, but here’s my “true confession” of the week: we received one as a wedding gift and then used it all of ONE time. Then it ended up buried in a box for a few years. And then I found it during this move all covered in rust and looking sad and ruined. Poor, neglected iron skillet that never got to live up to its potential!

I just received a brand, spanking new, rust-free Le Creuset cast iron skillet, compliments of Land O’Lakes®. I have decided to turn over a new leaf. I am going to use my BEAUTIFUL skillet and I am going to let it do its job of making delicious food! But I need your help…hence today’s Call for Recipes! Please share your favorite recipes that use a cast iron skillet! I’m ready to get cookin’!

~~And now for the giveaway portion of our program!~~ So, why is Land O’Lakes giving me a skillet? I recently participated in a webinar with Land O’Lakes and a lovely group of fellow food blogging friends, including Ree and Maria. The topic was food trends, including meatballs and popcorn! As a thank you for participating, Land O’Lakes sent me a beautiful gift package, which we are also giving away to one of you lovely people (see below)!

Land O’Lakes also shared with us two of their new products, Sauté Express® Sauté Starters and butter Half Sticks. I have yet to try the Sauté Express (I was planning to for this post, but time got away from me! Ree said it was delicious and her boys gobbled it up). But I CAN tell you that I love the butter half sticks. They are so handy and have already been useful in my kitchen!

Giveaway time! One lucky, randomly-selected winner will receive one each of the following:
- Full-value coupon for any Land O’Lakes Butter Half Sticks
- Full-value coupon for Sauté Express Sauté Starter
- Le Creuset Cast Iron Skillet (WOOHOO!)
- Completely adorable Anthropologie kitchen goodies, including the atom art serving bowl, half-stick painted amaryllis butter dish and pop-print measuring spoons
To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment on this post by Midnight PT on Thursday, March 14. Winner will be announced on March 15. Prize must be shipped to a U.S. address.

Please share your favorite cast iron skillet recipes! Thank you!
Posted by Jane Maynard at 10:37 am 313 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, Giveaways, Recipes, the goods
Wednesday, December 12

Call for Recipes: Inspired Slow Cooker Recipes!

A reader named Tony emailed me recently requesting a Call for Recipes. I LOVE Call for Recipes posts. They make me happy, seeing all your favorite recipes. I especially love it when the theme of these posts comes from one of you, which they often do!

Tony recently found a slow cooker cookbook that was inspiring, including a recipe for cake. Tony’s reaction was, “Slow cookers can bake a cake?!?!” So, Tony hit the keyboard and sent me a great email, including this: Almost everyone has a slow cooker from their wedding, but many hardly use them, so it was inspiring to learn that breakfast foods, cakes and other non-traditional foods were possible in a slow cooker. With the holidays coming up, having easy to prep and serve food is a necessity, but great/creative recipes for the slow cooker have been few and far between.

Thus today’s Call for Recipes was born! Tony and I want you to share your favorite traditional and non-traditional slow cooker (a.k.a. crock pot) recipes. Tony thought it would be cool to see what ideas are out there, and I agree! Can’t wait to see your creative and fun slow cooker recipes!

I’ll admit, my slow cooking experiences have not been very out-of-the-box. I love to make pulled pork, teriyaki chicken and pot roast with my slow cooker. These are all great recipes, but that’s about all I’ve got up my slow cooking sleeve. My slow cooker is hoping you will have something fun for it to try!

Please note, if you have a slow cooker recipe that isn’t necessarily fun and creative but still wonderful and delicious, please feel free to share it!

Posted by Jane Maynard at 12:57 pm 14 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, Recipes
Wednesday, November 28

Holy Long Recipe, Batman! (Confiture de Lait)

Remember a few years ago when I went to the Fancy Food Show with my lovely French, food-blogging friend Vanessa? And how she introduced me to confiture de lait, a.k.a. milk jam, a caramel sauce made from milk that is a specialty item from Normandy? And how my life was never the same because from that moment on I knew milk jam existed but had no way to actually buy it? You don’t remember? Well, trust me. It’s all true.

You may be wondering even after my roundabout description above, what the heck is milk jam? It’s just that…a jam of sorts made from milk and sugar. It’s kind of like sophisticated sweetened condensed milk. And it’s heavenly.

Since you can’t buy it in the States, I decided to make confiture de lait myself once. And I failed. Miserably. This past month, however, I felt like I needed to give it another try, maybe using a slower cooking technique. I followed this recipe for confiture de lait exactly because it looked like it would turn out very nicely. I had a day where I was going to be home all morning and doing a bunch of other cooking anyway, so I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. If I started cooking the milk around 9 am, it would be done by the time I had to pick kids up at school at 2 pm. No problem. Easy peasy.

Yeah, not so much.

ELEVEN hours later I had a small pot of confiture de lait. Yes, you heard me. Eleven. I picked Anna up at school then rushed home to stir. I picked Cate up at school then rushed home to stir. I dropped the girls off at dance then rushed home to stir. I picked up the girls from dance then…you guessed it…rushed home to stir. It was bananas, people. Bananas.

So, was it worth it? Nope. It wasn’t. My milk jam just wasn’t the same as the stuff from Normandy. Mine is still good, but just not the same. And, to top it all off, once I refrigerated the confiture de lait after it had cooled, I ended up with a giant, hard, sugary lump of milk jam in the center of the container. Only half of the batch ended up being useable. Quel horreur!

It’s story-sharing time! Tell us about the most time- or work-intensive recipe you’ve ever made. And tell us if it was worth all that time, labor and love. And, if it was worth it, please share the recipe because it must be amazing!

Posted by Jane Maynard at 10:46 am 21 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, musings, Recipes, sweet things, Way Gourmet
Tuesday, October 30

{Call for Recipes} Canned Tomato Recipes, and Hunt’s FlashSteam Tomato Deliciousness

First off, lots of happy thoughts/prayers/positive energy to everyone on the East Coast affected by Sandy. I planned today’s post before the storm hit, but the topic and call for recipes might actually be helpful for those of you living off your pantry this week, as long as you have access to the Internet to even read this in the first place!

Each Sunday when I plan my menu, I build my grocery list based on that menu. As a result I am a pretty efficient shopper and only buy food for that week. We spend less money and waste less food this way, but I tend not to have much stocked away for go-to dinners. However, one of the few ingredients that I always have on hand is canned tomatoes. As long as there are canned tomatoes on my pantry shelf, I can always throw something together!

As I have mentioned, I am currently working with Hunt’s canned tomatoes. When they first approached me, it was a no-brainer deciding to work with them. I use canned tomatoes all the time and love the Hunt’s product. You’re probably going to get sick of hearing me say this, but the Hunt’s petite-diced tomatoes are my FAVORITE and I’ve been buying them for years. The size of the dice makes the tomatoes super versatile for many of my recipes. They’re the best!

Once I actually started working with Hunt’s, I learned more about where the tomatoes come from and how they are canned. What I found out makes me like the Hunt’s product even more.

Hunt’s tomatoes are all grown in Oakdale, California and are picked when they are ripe. All of the tomatoes go from harvest to can in a matter of hours, which means they really are canned at the peak of freshness. I think this approach does in fact make for a flavorful canned tomato, which becomes obvious whenever I make my super fresh-tasting homemade tomato sauce.

Here’s the other great part of Hunt’s canned tomatoes that I did not know previously. Hunt’s uses what they call the FlashSteam process for peeling the tomatoes, as opposed to using chemicals like some other brands, and there are no added preservatives.

I tried canning tomatoes once. The peeling process about killed me. As much as I would love to can my own tomatoes every year, I simply do not have the time or, quite honestly, the energy. But canned tomatoes are a staple, so, I’m just going to let Hunt’s do the work for me! They’ve got it figured out and the tomatoes taste great. Done and done.

Time for today’s Call for Recipes! Please share your favorite recipes using canned tomatoes! Now that we are entering the winter months when fresh produce is scarce, I’m ready to crack into the canned tomatoes more frequently and would love new recipes! And I’m pretty sure there are lots of folks on the East Coast who could use canned food recipes this week!

I’ll kick us off with my most favorite recipe using canned tomatoes: Tuscan Tomato Soup. This is super crazy delicious soup, people. On your mark, get set, go! Share your canned tomato recipes!

Posted by Jane Maynard at 11:09 am 13 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, the goods
Thursday, May 17

Call for ‘Recipes’: Introducing Solid Food to Baby

I have to admit something to you. One of my least favorite parts of parenting is feeding kids…of all ages! But I especially dread the days when it’s time to introduce baby to solid foods. It involves way too much thinking, it takes FOREVER to feed the baby, it’s super duper messy, my hand cramps up from holding that tiny spoon ‘just so’…you get the drift. Of course it IS cute, don’t get me wrong, but STILL…

Call me crazy, but I am tempted to eat that scrumptious baby!

Owen is finally beginning to eat baby food. He’s not that into it yet, but we’re getting there. Today we let him have his hand at toasted oat cereal, you know, the classic first finger food. I thought for sure he’d pick them up and immediately stick them in his mouth, since that is what he does with everything else that he picks up. Funny enough, he just played with the o’s for 10 minutes or so before one ever found its way to his mouth. And when he finally ate one, well, he was not such a big fan…there was a lot of gagging going on there. So funny.

Going in for the o…

Look mom, I’m totally going to eat this…

Gotcha! Come on, why would I put that in my mouth? It’s food! Dirty shoes are much tastier.

Anyway, as I struggle through this process yet AGAIN, I am thinking maybe this would be a good Call for Recipes of sorts…a call for baby food recipes, advice, tips, favorite products, anything! I’m sure I’m not the only one frustrated and/or overwhelmed by the prospect of feeding a baby FOOD. Let’s share our wisdom with one another…hopefully it will make some of our lives a little easier. Or at least we can commiserate together! And if you love feeding babies solid food, please share some of that good positive food kharma. I need it!

All I have to offer is that avocado is a good first food and that I like the Earth’s Best Whole Grain Rice Cereal. Beyond that, I’m useless! It’s amazing what one can forget in just a few years’ time!

Posted by Jane Maynard at 1:19 pm 36 Comments
Categories: call for recipes, Kitchen Tips, Pregnancy and Babies