Pasta with Eggs

Between work and the early evening shuffling to tae kwon do, gymnastics or whatever else, getting a healthy dinner on the table quickly feels overwhelming at times. You too? One of my go-to weeknight dinners when I'm short on time has just four ingredients, takes less than 30 minutes to pull together and is really affordable. Here's my favorite part: all five of my family members love it! 

Spinach noodles with egg

Pasta with Eggs came about one night when I started making carbonara and realized that I didn't have bacon. The process to make it is nearly identical, but this version has neither bacon nor cheese. Since that evening, this has become a staple in my house and my kids love to take the leftovers for lunch. Eggs are versatile, delicious, and nutritionally dense. One large egg has a satisfying 6 grams of protein and is high in vitamin B2 so even when I'm serving what seems like plain pasta for dinner, it is anything but plain. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that eggs are dear to my heart. (also, collecting them with my daughter on a recent farmstay was seriously cool!)

But back to the pasta... the four ingredients you'll need are pasta, eggs, butter and salt. I'm sharing my recipe with you now and hope that it serves you as well as it has served me for years. You can make it completely dairy free by substituting oil for butter. 

Here's what you'll need: 
1 pound of pasta (fresh or dry will work) 
3 whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk
2-3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1 teaspoon of coarse salt

Here's how to do it:
1. Cook the pasta as directed, reserve 1/8 cup of the cooking water and set it aside. Drain the rest of the pasta and set it aside as well. Here I'm using fresh spinach noodles, but really, anything will do. I've also made this with gluten free, bean pasta and it's delicious!

2. Add the butter to the pot that you used to cook the pasta and turn the heat on medium low. 

3. Add the pasta back to the pot and stir to combine the melted butter. Add the reserved cooking water and then slowly add the eggs. 

4. When you've added the whole eggs and the egg yolk, stir with a wooden spoon to break the yolks, add the salt and combine into the pasta. 

5. With the heat still on medium low, keep stirring until the eggs just cook. It will form a rich, creamy sauce. Taste it to determine whether you'd like to add more salt (or add pepper). You might have some small egg clumps. That's okay. They're still delicious! Check to make sure the temperature on your stove isn't too high. 

6. Have patience. It takes about 7-10 minutes of low heat for the sauce to set. These are best eaten immediately, but my kids also love them cold for lunch the next day. 

Enjoy! 

DIY Meals for Kids

I'm a big fan of kids in the kitchen. But I'll be honest, despite all of the reasons to get kids cooking, sometimes the reality of the giant mess that usually follows is completely unappealing. On the days that I just. cant. deal. with that kitchen mess, but still want to keep the spirit of kid involvement alive and well, I go DIY. 

Below are five ideas for you to have some fun with mealtime. They've been a huge hit in my house and as an added bonus: the prep is done by me so my kitchen isn't a complete disaster by the time the meal is served. I hope they're a hit in your house too!  

1. DIY Tacos
Who doesn't love tacos? Actually, one of my kids doesn't love tacos, so when we have DIY Tacos, he makes himself a quesadilla and eats beans and pineapple on the side. Fine by me. But for those who DO love tacos, you can make it fun with black beans, ground meat (season with chile powder and garlic), cheese, cilantro, limes, pineapple, avocado, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, lettuce, peppers and cucumber. Don't forget the tortillas! 

2. DIY Bruschetta 
The inspiration for this one comes from What's Gaby Cooking. I saw it and was instantly smitten. My family went bananas for this because there are so many flavor opportunities! DIY Bruschetta is fabulous for entertaining as well. Here we've got grilled bread with: goat cheese, ricotta cheese, fresh mozzarella and a slicing cheese, grilled corn, roasted tomatoes, roasted pepper puree, bean dip, hummus, grilled mushrooms, olives, caramelized onions, guacamole, grilled steak, prosciutto and pesto. Note: when we do this for dinner for just my family, we don't have this many options! This photo was taken before entertaining some guests. :) 

3. DIY Oatmeal  
Cook a big old batch of oatmeal and put some favorite toppers in a muffin tin for the kids to choose from. Ours include: strawberries, raspberries, coconut, banana chips, pumpkin seeds, chopped apple, chopped banana and golden berries. 

4. DIY Pasta
Pasta can be a challenge in my house because my youngest can't eat dairy, my oldest loves dairy and doesn't like too many ingredients in her pasta and my middle child doesn't love meat and eats cheese sparingly. DIY Pasta is a blessing for us! We usually have it with meat or chicken (often leftovers cut up), peas, ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, basil, tomatoes and peppers. I frequently have tomato sauce as well.  

5. DIY Egg Roll Ups
I got the idea for Egg Roll Ups from Aviva Wittenberg. Essentially, it's using egg as a tortilla replacement and it's pretty genius! Scramble the egg and fry it in a pan with a little butter, flip it after a few minutes and then slide out of the pan onto a plate. Once cool, you can use it like a tortilla and roll up anything you want! For us, it usually involves cheese, quinoa or rice, veggies (below, we have purple cabbage, zucchini, green beans and tomatoes) and ham or chicken (often just cut up leftovers). 

Are there DIY meals that you make at home? We'd love to hear about them! 

Carrot Soup for Cold Weather

Tonight's dinner plan calls for turkey meatballs with marinara sauce and pasta. I'm not sure what to do about that because it's freezing here in New York and a craving for warm soup completely took over and I've just made this giant batch of carrot soup. 

It was innocent enough; I had all of the ingredients in the kitchen and this soup is easy enough to prep and finish in under an hour so it seemed like a good idea. And that giant bowl I just had for lunch really hit the spot. The hardest part of this soup was pureeing it, because after my run-in with a stick blender a couple of years ago when I almost lost two fingers, I threw it out and my only option is a blender, which does the job, but not as seamlessly. 

If you're craving something hearty and warm and also vegetarian, I've got you covered. 

Carrot Soup with Sweet Potato

ingredients
4 tablespoons of grapeseed or vegetable oil
5 -6 cippolini onions, chopped, or one small yellow onion chopped
2 pounds of carrots, peeled and cut into pieces  
2 sweet potatoes
7 cups vegetable stock or water
1/3 cup fresh dill, chopped  
Salt and pepper to taste
Juice of one lemon + zest of one lemon

In a large pot on medium high heat,  add the oil and onions. Sauté until translucent, approximately 3-5 minutes. Add the carrots and potatoes and stir. Add the stock or water, bring to a boil and simmer for approximately 35 minutes. Add the dill, salt and pepper and continue to cook until vegetables are soft. Add the lemon juice and purée with a stick blender.  Garnish with lemon zest.

Want more carrot soup ideas? Right this way and here too. 

For more deliciously hearty winter soups, check out: 
Winter Root Soup  
Lentil Curry Soup
Kale Soup

Quick Weeknight Meatballs

I'm all for letting my kids have a say in their breakfasts and lunches. Their choices aren't a free for all; I customize the foods available to them by managing the Food Library on our LaLa Lunchbox and LaLa Breakfast apps and the rest is (well documented) history. The process makes my life easier, and as a working mom of 3, it's exactly what I need to survive. 

But dinner is all mine. I love thinking about and talking about what to cook and what to eat for dinner. While I appreciate the occasional request, and even ask my family what they're in the mood for when I'm in a dinner rut, I like being Queen of the Dinner Castle. Lately I've been making turkey meatballs with tomato sauce and pasta about once a week. It's a meal that comes together in under 30 minutes, it's filling and satisfying and if I'm lucky, there are leftovers (usually requested for lunch by my 3 year old). Despite the fact that 2 of my 3 kids won't go near a tomato, somehow they like it in the form of sauce, so this is a meal that all five of us can enjoy together. Major victory. 

Here's the secret: A couple of months ago, we harvested a bounty of basil from our tiny garden and I pureed it to make vegan pesto with garlic and olive oil and froze it in small containers. It's the "flavor pouch" to our meatballs, and as long as I can remember to defrost one of those containers in the morning, everything else falls into place. It's easy to find basil even if it's not in season, so don't fret – just puree a large handful of basil leaves with one clove of garlic and 1/4 cup of olive oil and you've got it. Here's the confession: I don't always use homemade sauce. Time is tight. There are a few places by me that make a good marinara sauce (and in a perfect quantity) so if there's no time to make this one, I outsource the job. Bottled sauce also works perfectly well. 

These Quick Weeknight Meatballs have just 5 ingredients: 
1.5 pounds of ground turkey (I prefer dark meat to white meat)
3/4 cup panko (or unseasoned breadcrumbs)
1 jumbo egg
2 tablespoons pesto
1 scant teaspoon salt (or salt to taste) 

Preheat the oven to 375. Combine all ingredients thoroughly in a bowl and form meatballs about 2-3 inches in diameter. Place the meatballs on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 25 minutes. 

The meatballs will be fully cooked. You can eat them just like this! Or you can place them in a pan, cover with tomato sauce and heat until everything is warmed. While this is happening, cook the pasta as directed. We make 1 pound of pasta for our family of 5, and because it's not a ton of pasta, the meatballs really take center stage. While you wait for the water to boil, it's a great time to enlist the help of kids to quickly gather and wash salad ingredients, peel produce or do some basic chopping, if they're old enough. Dinner will be on the table in 30 minutes or less. Score! 

What are your go-to weeknight meals? 

Quick, Easy Pasta for Busy Weeknights (and Egg Experiments too!)

Between spring fever, family birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day and the end of the school year, it's a wonder that anything gets done. Apologies for the silence of late, but we've been knee deep in egg-related science experiments, end of year activities and preparations for the busy Back to School season for LaLa Lunchbox and LaLa Breakfast. In the midst of everything, I've discovered a super easy, really fast dinner that has made our crammed days much easier: Pasta with Boursin and Peas! Here's my favorite part: once the kids tasted it, they immediately requested it for their lunches. And boom! Just like that, the ten minutes it took to put this dish together saved me big time on lunch as well. 

As an aside, did you know that if you put eggs in vinegar, the acid breaks down the egg shell? 

Did you also know that if you place a hard boiled egg in toothpaste for 24 hours, remove it and place the egg in vinegar for 48 hours, the part that was submerged in toothpaste will not decay? Pretty cool – and also a really cool way to show the importance of brushing teeth! 

Anyway, back to the pasta. I've made this once a week for the last four weeks and two of my kids have been wolfing it down for dinner and lunch (my third child can't have dairy). Remember Boursin? I remember slathering it on crackers as a kid and absolutely loving it's creamy, salty, garlicky flavor. Okay fine, I admit it: I used to eat Boursin with a spoon. Didn't you?! I hadn't even thought about Boursin for decades but when I came across the concept on Pinterest, I tried it immediately and the kids went nuts. 

Here's how we did it: cook one pound of pasta (whole wheat or white) and when it's finished and still hot, add 4 ounces of this (use the remainder for crackers, naturally!): 

Add peas to that (I used 6 ounces of frozen peas that I quickly steamed) plus fresh pepper and some lemon zest and bam! Dinner is done. Lunch is too, if you've got leftovers. Hat tip to Joanna Goddard for finding this deliciousness and Danielle Oron for creating it! 

Here's the full recipe (slightly modified from the original):
1 lb pasta - I used penne but anything will suffice
4 oz of Boursin Garlic & Fine Herbs
6 oz frozen peas, steamed
fresh ground pepper to taste
zest of 1/2 lemon 

Cook the pasta as directed on the package. Drain the pasta and while still hot, add the Boursin and stir so that the cheese gets all creamy and delicious. Add the steamed peas. I included 2 TB of the water from the steamed peas so that the pasta had better moisture. Add the lemon zest and mix thoroughly. 
 

I removed the peas one night and had them on the side instead.