Make This Recipe & Impress Your Friends

Do you remember back in the late 80's and early 90's where you couldn't open a magazine or restaurant menu without seeing a recipe for chicken with 40 cloves of garlic?

You can't?

Well thanks for making me feel really old.

If you DO remember, then boy do I have a recipe for you.

Last week we had my mother in law over for her birthday dinner and made Ina Garten's Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic. It's tasty and only takes about an hour on the stove. Seriously, that includes browning AND cooking. Would I lie to you?

That's right. No roasting in the oven for 6 hours, no trussing chickens, no stuffing anything. And I used a cheap cut - chicken thighs. Oh, and my last hint - buy those prepeeled garlic cloves in a jar in the produce section and avoid the first step of the recipe. I don't have time to boil and peel garlic, do you?

It turned out so tasty, and the garlic wasn't as overpowering as you'd think. Sure it was a little stinky, but the flavor and ease of this recipe was enough for me (and everyone else) to overlook it. Serve it with some rice pilaf and a green salad and you're good to go.

This one's a keeper. And it could definitely be adjusted for various allergies (let me know if you try it).

You're welcome.

Great Lunch Ideas in Parents Magazine

I saw another good article in the September issue of Parents Magazine:

Lunch is Served
Keep it simple with 25 easy ideas to make school lunches healthy and fun.

These lunch ideas look great, healthy and tasty, and best of all realistic for a working mom like me. Only one of the examples has PB&J and you could easily substitute cream cheese or Sunbutter (if your child eats it - B wont touch it).

They visualize each lunch with photos using the Laptop Lunch system. On that note, we are LOVING B's new LL system. She polishes off her lunch every day since we starting using it. And subsequently she's been gaining weight (which has been a bit of an issue for us).

Meal Planning

I'm always looking for new ideas for meal planning - gotta keep my tiny child interested in eating so she gains weight (boy I wish I had that problem). Here are a few of my recent ' new finds' (that aren't new at all - just to me) :

• Williams-Sonoma Quick Family Meals,which also includes a great section to help get your kids interested in cooking (found via apartmenttherapy.com)
  
• A nice collection of printable forms for meal/menu planning
• Everyday Meal Planning at RealSimple.com
• I'm not a huge fan of 30MM, but Rachael Ray's site has tons of quick recipes (and a great kids section).
  

Oh, and one last thing: Meal Prep Kitchens
I'm still contemplating going to one of those meal prep places (our local ones are called Sous Kitchen and Deeelish!). Have you ever tried one these places? I emailed Sous Kitchen about 6 months ago and they offered (very nicely I thought!) to let me come in early to prep my food before everyone else to minimize cross contamination. I've even noticed that their meals lately haven't really contained peanuts or nuts. Maybe they are changing their menus a bit to attract those families with nut allergies?

Something to consider or to avoid? What would you do?