I grew up eating my grandma’s old-fashioned potato salad recipe and there’s nothing better. I’ve tried a dozen different recipes and Ina Garten’s French potato salad with fresh herbs is a close second. But this old-fashioned potato salad recipe remains my favorite. Old-Fashioned Potato Salad Shortcuts If you’re a busy parent, the idea of making…
Easy Creamy Cucumber Salad
My kids can’t stop eating this easy creamy cucumber salad! Seriously, I had to make a second bowl just to snap this picture. But that’s the only complaint you’ll get from me. This easy cucumber salad is full of summer flavor and only needs the simplest creamy dressing: mayonnaise, vinegar, salt and pepper. Just slice,…
How to Make a Pasta Salad Turtle: The Potluck Dish of Your Kids’ Dreams
Even though it’s been a while, moving back to America from Italy has meant many big changes. English. Big cars. And potlucks. So many potlucks. Church potlucks, school potlucks, people who get mail potlucks (you’re coming, right?). We have another one coming up in a couple of weeks and I have to confess something: I…
Cheery Cherry Tomato Salad with Basil
YOU KNOW WHAT you should do this week? Have people over for dinner. Once you get the laundry done and your house totally clean, just invite them over. Ha, ha, ha! Even though the laundry most certainly ISN’T done and your house is stubbornly refusing to clean itself, you should still have people over. And…
kid-friendly spinach salad with carrots and cucumber (a 101 cookbooks makeover)
NO, IT’S NOT A MISTAKE. This is indeed a spinach salad that I served it to our kids, ages 3 1/2 and 2 years. Did they try it? Yes. Did they devour it, no. Did the stars and flowers help? Absolutely. And we just might be onto something.
Grated carrot salad, a recipe inspired by “French Kids Eat Everything”
I don’t know about you but my kids aren’t usually into salad. There was a time when my preschooler, Phoebe, would spot a great leaf of anything on her plate, be it basil, parsley or actual lettuce, immediately pick it off and deposit onto MY plate while explaining “I don’t yike salad.” Sigh.
Endive kiwi salad, a recipe inspired by “French Kids Eat Everything”
LIKE THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, we can thank the French for this one. Karen Le Billon, inspiring writer and author of my new fantasy lifestyle manual favorite book “French Kids Eat Everything“, introduced this endive kiwi salad to our household. And hold on to your hats because the kids ate it. Salad. One toddler, one preschooler, eating…
Tuna nicoise potato salad, Italian style
I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING. What kids eat salad? For dinner? If serving a fresh potato salad isn’t in the cards for your crew, consider using the same ingredients to create a plate that works for everyone, without a lot of extra effort on your part. (Also, French kids eat salad. Really!)
whole wheat penne pasta with pesto & beans
THIS DINNER WAS DONE IN 15 MINUTES. As if that wasn’t enough of a mini miracle for this mom, it was also eaten. Happily. Heartily. And so another spin-off series begins… Get ready kids. There’s more pasta on the way! And more, and more…
Grilled chicken salad with peppers two ways: one for toddlers, one for adults
IT’S AN INDIAN SUMMER IN ITALY. So we’re still into salads here and they come in two versions. One for adults and one for toddlers (aka, one that will not be spit out.) The culprit? Lettuce. So Phoebe’s version is simply a deconstructed salad. Hers is all toppings and no filler, which is basically a…
Straccetti, arugula salad with sizzling strips of steak and Parmesan cheese
STRACCETTI IS A CLASSIC ITALIAN MEAL, so naturally I’d never heard of it. That was before I moved to Rome and discovered that Italian food is more than pasta, tomatoes and cheese. (But they do that very well.) One of my favorite summer meals has turned out to be a version of the Big Salad…
Barefoot Contessa Makeover: Lemon chicken with pesto potato salad
WE’VE HAD A BREAKTHROUGH in the potato department. Never a fan of them, Phoebe actually said, “I ont aunt tatoes” when I was trying to play up tonight’s dinner—a tough task considering that we were swimming (aka, the most fun activity ever) just before the potato conversation. But potatoes it was. Only I added a…