Dinner With Daddy

One thing I always marvel at is a child's palate. It doesn't matter how well you try to hide something in food they almost always find it. I mean I suppose you could puree all of your ingredients before you put them into your recipe but who has the time or patience to do that? Not me. So I just chop my onions as fine as I can, only use the spices that don't leave black specks in the food, and never, ever let them see little green leafy things. Earlier this week I made lasagna. It was a nice lasagna with sausage that was left over from a pasta dinner a few nights earlier. Of course, Sticky Buns, my youngest doesn't like sausage which created challenge number one. I chopped the sausage kind of small because there were only about four links left and I wanted it to be spread somewhat evenly throughout the dish. I know that a larger slicing of the sausage would have been easier to pick out of the lasagna, but I went smaller. That made it a little more time consuming but he m...

One of my favorite dishes to make, partly because the kids will eat it without a fuss, is pasta with meatballs. I like to experiment with the ingredients but for the most part my recipe has been the same for years. For starters I use ground turkey. Not ground turkey breast because that doesn't have a high enough fat content and you end up with very dry meatballs. I like a lot of onions in my meatballs which is a problem since the kids won't eat them if they know there are onions in there. The trick is a very very fine chop on the onions. That way when they cook, the onions cook down and soften and are virtually undetectable. I make my own pasta sauce as well. If everyone realized how quick and easy it was to make your own sauce minus the salt and sugar content of the jarred sauce, I'm convinced the sauce companies would have gone out of business a long time ago. (Sorry guys) To make a good sauce takes literally minutes to do and it tastes great. My secret is Tuttorosso ...

Well tonight dinner went quite smoothly all things considered. The menu was Steak with sautéed onions and mushrooms, macaroni and cheese and cauliflower. Nothing earth shattering but the kids are all happy with a good steak and some Mac-n-cheese. The cauliflower was fun, as is any veggie the kids don't like because like I said, they have to at least try it. My eight year old, I'll call him Mini Buns because he is often referred to as my mini me, tried the cauliflower and actually told us it hurt. "It hurts?!!" I asked. "Yes" he said, "it hurts." Ok then. I didn't know cauliflower could actually hurt, but now I know. I guess I'll get the less painful kind next time. With the food drama behind us we begin our usual round of,"how was your day?" That is where My Beautiful Wife, (she likes it when I call her that), and I attempt to have a family conversation. I say attempt because I can't actually recall the last time we made it ar...

When you sit down to dinner, at least in our house, you are almost always guaranteed a good show. Last night was certainly no different, although when I sat down at the table I didn’t realize I was now one of the judges at the A-DAD-A-ME awards. You see, at our house we experiment often trying to get the kiddies to try new things. Last night’s secret ingredient was spaghetti squash. Now when my oldest, JD, was a wee tot we tried spaghetti squash as pasta with sauce and told him it was yellow spaghetti. The problem was Daddy didn’t care for it so we stopped eating it. Did you know that children aren’t as gullible when they are 12 as they are when they are 3? I didn’t either. As it turns out, they aren’t as gullible when they are 6, 8, or 10 as they are at 3 either. Yup, you guessed it. I tried to pass it off as yellow spaghetti. This time rather than as a meal I prepared it as a side dish, sautéing it with butter and fresh parmesan cheese. I made the same thing for my wife and I except ...

Hello and welcome to my blog. From this day forth I want to share with all of you that most enjoyable of all family rituals, dinner time. My name is Jim, but for our little gathering here you can call me Daddy Hot Buns. While I think that I absolutely deserve the title, I cannot take credit for it. My lovely wife of nearly 20 years crowned me with that moniker. I would like to start off with a little background about myself that you will soon find is necessary to understand a lot about what goes on at dinner time in the Hot Buns household. I am a father of four lovely children (they get that from their mother obviously) ages 6 to 12, perfectly spaced. By profession I am a 20 year veteran Air Traffic Controller. My major at home contribution to my family is that of chief cook. I like to leave bottle washer to someone else. Quite often my lovely mother in law (I guess that is where my wife gets it) is at the Hot Buns dinner table as well. I have no training in cooking except for my many ...

Zucchini Boats Serves : 4 as side dish, 2 as entrée Time: 30 mins Prep: 20-25 mins Bake: 8 mins Ingredients: 2 Zucchini 1 Medium Red Onion 10 oz. pkg Frozen Spinach 1 Cup Italian Bread Crumbs ¼ Cup   Grated Parmesan Cheese Salt and Pepper   To Taste 3 TBS Olive Oil Directions: Pre-Heat oven to...

Mix these Dry ingredients in a Tupperware bowl so you can seal it and use when you need it. Time: 5 mins Serves: 16 Ingredients: 1 tablespoon garlic salt 1 tablespoon onion powder 2 tablespoon dried oregano 1 tablespoon ground black pepper 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme 1 teaspoon dried basil 1 tablespoon dried parsley 1 1/2 tablespoon salt   To make "Daddy Dip", simply add 1/4 cup of Cider Vinegar, 2/3 cups of Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tablespoons of water, and 2 tablespoons of dry mix to carafe, shake and pour over salad or use as marinade.