Cooking Mag Mommy

Just a few days ago, Richard was reading the weekly updates we receive from Babycenter .com, a online site with helpful hints for parents. One of the suggestions of things to do with a young toddler was to have a tea party. Naturally, Eyrleigh is a bit young for tea but she sure enjoyed the scones I made to go with the tea. This month's Gourmet had a wonderfully simple recipe for currant scones on page 13. These scones were light and moist, almost like a cookie. I'm not a fan of the dry, hard scones and these were a perfect blend of sweetness and texture. Dinner was a refreshing change. Gourmet is not a hot dog kind of magazine but tonight's recipe was as close as it gets. Tonight's recipe was basically a dressed-up hot dog and called for any type of of fully cooked sausage. I choose a Chicken and Apple Sausage by Bruce Aidells to make the Sausage, Arugula, and Piquillo Pepper Sandwiches on page 63. This sausage was a good match for this recipe as its mild flavor di...

To be honest, I didn't expect to get very far into my June Gourmet menu. I wrote out a menu that would have allowed me to make all the recipes in the June issue of Gourmet but as I was only going to be home 4 days the entire month, I didn't realistically expect to be able to make many of those menus. I was right, I didn't. In fact, while I traveled, I didn't make any of them. That's not to say I didn't cook at all on the trip. I made a few bowls of ramen noodles at the corporate apartment in New Jersey and actually cooked a couple of real meals at my parents in New Hampshire. None were from Gourmet, however. One thing I did notice was that this project has made me a more creative and adventuresome cook even without recipes. Even some salami sandwiches I made were jazzed up with a little homemade artichoke dip that I whipped together from stuff in my mom's cupboard. I did make a few recipes from the June issue of Gourmet in those few days before I left for ...