Grilling season has officially started at the Copley house! The weekend before last I spent a few hours scrubbing the heck out of our grill to get it ready for cooking and then this weekend we hosted friends for our first barbecue of the year.

I didn’t used to like grilling very much (honestly, I hated it) but that’s changed completely in the last few years. The big attitude adjustment came when I bought my husband a gas grill for his birthday. Where charcoal is slow, unpredictable and messy, our gas grill is fast, fun and saves a ton of clean-up. I know it’s blasphemy in some circles, but to me a gas grill is the difference between dreading a barbecue and loving one.

The food is part of the fun of grilling, of course, but we keep it pretty basic around here. Burgers, sausages, steaks, veggies and the occasional batch of chicken drumsticks are about as crazy as we get. It’s fun to try a new marinade or something now and then, but what I like best are the social aspects of grilling. When I’m making dinner in the kitchen I’m usually by myself, but when I head outside to the grill I almost always have company.

If it’s just us, the kids will usually come out and bounce a ball or draw on the patio with chalk while I keep an eye on the grill. After awhile, their giggles will lure my husband out of our home office to chase them around the yard or kick a soccer ball back and forth.

It’s even better when we have friends over to grill, though. I set up our patio table right next to the grill so while I’m flipping burgers the the other grown-ups sit at the table drinking beers and chatting me up. Meanwhile the kids chase each other around the yard screaming and playing. When we’re inside our tiny house, the confusion and noise of a bunch of people can stress me out, but outside I find the chaos kind of fun.

My favorite part is after dinner. Everyone has calmed down and we’ve all grabbed our sweatshirts from inside to keep us warm as the sun sets and the fog rolls in from the bay. (San Francisco Bay area barbecues are cold!) I light a few candles and turn on the lights inside the house to give us a little extra light. Then one of the kids climbs up on my lap to snuggle while we talk to our friends about old times and new times and sip gin and tonics.

These are just some of the reasons why Grilling is my Happiness. Besides all of the tasty food, tell me what you love about grilling. One of my lucky readers who answers below will win a $25 Sears Gift Card!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Sears. The opinions and text are all mine. Official Sweepstakes Rules.

If you told me on Monday that my children would willingly eat fish cakes for dinner, I would have called you a liar. Liar, liar pants on fire! Then I would have sneered and questioned your ability to hang onto telephone wires.

But here we are on Thursday morning and I am here to tell you that Wyatt and Augie like fish cakes. My mind boggles.

My children don’t have a stunning history when it comes to eating fish. Wyatt has never been a big fan and while Augie loved fish as a toddler, he hasn’t been too into it lately. My husband has fond memories of eating fish sticks as a child though, so he has started buying a box now and then in hopes that the boys will share his passion. Lately they’ve been enjoying them and I think that’s what paved the way for them to eat the fish cakes we had for dinner the other night.  Zach and I really like fish and we’re trying to get in the habit of eating it more often so despite the children’s fishy reluctance I’ve been on the look-out for interesting fish recipes.

Last week I came across this Real Simple recipe for Dijon fish cakes on Pinterest and I thought it looked like a winner. I love crab cakes, but rarely buy it because of the cost, so I thought this might give us something similar for a lot less money. I followed the recipe very closely. I swapped out cod for the tilapia (it didn’t look nice at the store) and I used grainy mustard instead of the Dijon mustard. The cod was fine, but I was sorry about the mustard swap because we all thought these needed a little more of a kick. Otherwise they were great. Wyatt picked up his fork, immediately ate his fish cake, then asked for another. I was flabbergasted, but kept my surprise mostly in check. Augie was a little more reluctant, but after I fed him a few bites he finished one off on his own. (I don’t usually hand-feed my three year old, but sometimes it can help get the ball rolling.) Zach really liked the crust on the cakes, so we all decided we should have them again soon.

For side dishes I served broccoli (the peppers in the photo were what I ate with the leftovers) and Israeli couscous cooked in chicken stock. We have been eating a lot of this bigger, chewier couscous lately. We all like it better than the little kind and Augie is especially nutty for it.

How about you? Do your kids eat fish? How do they like it prepared? I’d love it if you linked up to any recipes in the comments!

I don’t know about you, but dinner time can be extremely frustrating for me. Sometimes it seems like no matter what I cook, one or both of my kids complains bitterly about their meal. We have firm rules about the use of the word “yuck” at our dinner table (hint: not allowed), so my kids have learned to turn “I don’t care for this,” and “This is not my favorite food,” into a searing insult merely through the tone of their voices.

Can anyone relate?

Here’s the deal though: they’re actually pretty good eaters. I like a lot of variety in my dinners and my husband does too, so we try new recipes frequently often interspersing them with old favorites. Getting the kids to try — and then consume — these new dishes can be challenging but they will do it now and then. I’ve decided to begin an occasional series where I share the successful meals with you all. I call it: My Kids Ate It!

The first two recipes I’d like to share are from the current issue (April 2012) of Cooking Light magazine. I’m a long-time subscriber to Cooking Light and I always find several recipes to try in the magazine but this particular issue was a knock-out. After I’d finished reading it, Zach sat down to flip through it and he started laughing because about a third of the pages were dog-eared with recipes I wanted to try. Go get it, right now!

I started out by cooking this recipe for Chili-Cheese Mac. I just about always make a few changes to recipes when I cook and this one was no exception. In this case I made the recipe with a full pound of hamburger rather than the 3/4 pound the recipe called for because I had a one pound package of hamburger and I don’t believe in freezing 1/4 pound of hamburger. It would just get lost in my freezer and then I’d throw it out some time next year, so I decided to cook the extra meat rather than wasting it. I also subbed high fiber penne for the elbow macaroni because that’s what I had in the cupboard. Otherwise I left the recipe as is.

It took longer to cook than the 20 minutes the recipe indicated, but not much longer. I’m guessing maybe 30 minutes start to finish?

I thought it was pretty good, but maybe a tad on the gummy side. Next time I’d add a little more liquid to loosen up the sauce. It wasn’t as spicy as I’d like, but the heat was just right for the kids so I wouldn’t do anything to change that. My husband doused it with Tapatio hot sauce, but I left it as is. It took a bit of convincing to get Wyatt to try it but once he did he really loved it. Score! Augie was sick and didn’t want any dinner but he ate some at lunch the next day. That’s four thumbs up so I’ll make this again for sure!

I served it with raw carrots and sugar snap peas and another new dish: Creamy Ranch Dip. I decided to make this with the pasta dish because both recipes use a half a block of cream cheese and I knew if I used it all at once I wouldn’t have to deal with finding a use for any leftovers. I followed this recipe exactly, but when I finished I thought the consistency was too thick so I added a few more tablespoons of buttermilk. Much better! Everyone loooooved this and there were enough leftovers for lunches so this will be something I’ll make frequently. Too bad one of Wyatt’s school-mates referred to it as “bird poop dip“!

What have you made recently that your picky eaters liked? Link up your recipes in the comments so we all can be inspired!

I’ve started to notice some backlash against my beloved Pinterest lately. There is no doubt that the site if filled with tons of creative inspiration but lots of people have begun to question how many people are spending their free time completing projects they’ve pinned on Pinterest and how many are frittering that time away by sitting in front of their laptops pinning and pinning some more. I’m a very active pinner (you can follow me here) and I’d like to speak up as the voice of someone who does act on the inspiration she gets from Pinterest! I’m not saying I’ve done something with all of the 800+ images I’ve got saved, but I have made use of dozens of the ideas I’ve pinned to my boards.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Home-made Naan by Budget Bytes — I came across this recipe a few weeks ago and I’ve made it twice in the last two weeks. I’ve made yeast breads a few times before — and loved eating them — but I’m still pretty intimidated by them. This recipe was fast and didn’t require much skill. Also, if you read my bento posts you may have noticed that my kids kind of love naan! I’m hoping that at some point I’ll be able to add this bread to their lunch boxes, but so far they’ve eaten all this bread before I had a chance to give it to them.

Brassy Apple’s Star Wars Valentines — I loved this idea to use a glow stick as a light saber so these were Wyatt’s valentines last week. The Brassy Apple offers a free download, but I ended up making my own version because Wyatt wanted a different light saber handle and I wanted to fit more valentines on a page. These were super cool and Wyatt’s classmates loved them.

Made by Joel’s Paperclip Dinosaurs — This project is one of those simple, brilliant ones that I never would have thought of on my own. Print images from the web, cut them out and then tape bent paper clips to the back so they’ll stand up. If you’re feeling fancy, draw a background on a piece of paper. It’s awesome because you can apply the basic concept to just about any theme. We ended up printing out dinosaur pictures like Joel did in his original blog post, but you could make a farm scene, a safari, robot war, paper dolls — anything!

Ice with Toys Frozen Into it from Counting Coconuts — We did this one last summer. I spent a week or so adding layers of water (sometimes colored with food coloring) and plastic toys to a large Tupperware container, then I pulled it out and let the kids excavate the toys. They used squirt guns, hammers (wearing safety glasses), the garden hose and also just left it sitting in the sun for awhile to get everything out.

Warby Parker Glasses — This is my most recent Pinterest discovery. Warby Parker sells vintage-inspired glasses for $95 per pair lenses included. You select up to five pairs of frames you’re interested in trying, then they mail them to your house and you can try them out for up to five days. When you decide on a pair you like, you send the glasses back, upload your prescription and they mail a complete pair of glasses back to you. The best part is that they donate a pair of glasses to someone in need for every pair you purchase! I got my sample box yesterday and I’m trying to decide which ones I like best right now. Augie has settled on three pairs for himself.

How are you using Pinterest? Do you pin and pin and pin some more? Or do you take the ideas and run with them? I’d love it if you shared your favorite pins in the comments. Also, if you need a Pinterest invite, leave your email and I’ll send you an invite!

I went waaay overboard on the Valentine’s theming this year, but I love how the kids’ lunches came out. In fact, I couldn’t wait until Friday to share the bentos I made for the kids this morning so I’m coming at you with a special Valentine’s Day post!

Wyatt’s lunch had popcorn with pink sprinkles, a few heart candies, an apple with a heart-shaped chunk cut out and a heart-shaped piece of fruit leather put in, heart-shaped strawberries and heart-shaped sandwiches.

Augie also had a lovey dovey lunch: smaller heart-shaped sandwiches, strawberry hearts and an apple with the same treatment. He also has some apple slices below the big piece and a little tub of peanut butter for dipping.

My work area even looked festive when I was making the lunches, so I had to take a picture.

I also wanted to show you what my little stinkers did when I had my back turned at breakfast. They put candy in their cereal. Naughty!

And finally, the fruit trees are all blooming here and I had to take a picture of their pink, Valentine-y loveliness on my walk this morning.

Happy Valentine’s day to you!

Thank you to Hunt’s for sponsoring this post and encouraging my culinary skills! Visit Hunt’s Signature Recipe Collection to find tons of delicious ideas for using Hunt’s tomatoes in your meals.

I’m can’t put my finger on exactly what’s changed this year, but now that Wyatt is in second grade we are really busy during the week. PTA, play dates, scouts, work projects — we’ve been doing all these things for the past few years, but suddenly we’re finding that we have something going on almost every day. I’ve always been about fast and easy for our week night meals but now I’m really about fast and easy.

Chicken with tomatoes and olives is one of my favorite meals to throw together when I have to make dinner quickly. I’ve been making this dish since I was a bachelorette living over a bakery in Berkeley  (say that three times fast) and it continues to be delicious and satisfying almost 20 (!!) years later.

You only need three ingredients to make this dish: kalamata olives, canned, diced tomatoes and chicken breasts or tenders. I like to use tomatoes that are pre-seasoned with basil, garlic and oregano, but you can use plain canned tomatoes and season them with spices you have on hand if you like. You can also sub green olives for the kalamatas if you prefer. And come to think of it, you can sub chicken thighs for the chicken breasts. This recipe is totally flexible!

Start by cooking the chicken over medium high heat in enough olive oil to coat the pan. Chicken tenders will only need 2-3 minutes per side. Breasts or thighs will take longer. Once the chicken is cooked through, remove it to a plate.

Next, dump in two cans of diced tomatoes and as many olives as you like. I used the entire jar of olives pictured above. Drain the juice off the olives before adding them to the pan, but be sure not to drain the tomatoes because you’re going to use that juice to make a little sauce. When the tomatoes start to bubble, scrape up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan and stir them into the sauce until they dissolve. They’ll give your sauce extra depth and flavor. Continue to cook the tomato mixture at a steady bubble until the juices have reduced and thickened to your taste.

To serve, put the chicken on a plate and top with the tomato mixture. I usually serve a steamed green veggie and some rice on the side and sometimes I sprinkle a little crumbled feta on top of the chicken which is extra delicious. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should tell you that when I make this my kids eat the chicken and sometimes eat the tomatoes, but they always pick the olives out complaining bitterly the whole time.

What do you cook for a fast dinner on school nights?

Thank you again to Hunt’s for sponsoring my post. Find more ideas for cooking with tomatoes at Hunt’s Signature Recipe Collection. I was selected for this opportunity by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions expressed here are my own. #HuntsRecipe #spon

Thank you to California Grown for encouraging me to connect with California growers and encouraging California consumers to “Choose California Grown” when they can.

There are a lot of things I like about living in California — my husband, the weather, the ocean — but the fantastic local produce is really high on my list. I grew up in Iowa where the farmland is excellent to be sure, but the midwest has a hard time competing with the amazing fruits and veggies that are grown year round in California. Even after living here 20+ years, I am often amazed by the beautiful food I find in the markets.

I love so many California crops: artichokes, peaches, cherries! But avocados are the absolute best — so creamy, so smooth, so yummy! 90% of the U.S. avocado crop is grown here and I love that when I buy them I am supporting my state’s economy. I also like that I’m eating a locally grown food and all of the benefits that come with that. This is important enough to me that when I’m at the grocery store I seek them out — sometimes even going so far as to ask the produce guy which produce is California grown.

Yes, I sound like a commercial. Yes, I’m being paid to write this post. But I would say all this anyway, I can assure you! My love is real, the money a bonus.

Here are three of my favorite ways to eat avocados:

Out of Hand with a Spoon

This is how we usually eat avocados in our house. Cut an avocado in half, pop out the pit, sprinkle with salt and dig right into it with a spoon. The skin acts like a little bowl. When my husband and I are mad at each other (like say, when we’ve been yelling at each other about the Christmas tree…hypothetically), I can make things right by bringing him half an avocado and a spoon.

On Toast with Cream  Cheese

I love avocados. I love cream cheese. But putting avocado and cream cheese together is magical. I don’t even understand how the two interact to become so phenomenally delicious.  This is one of my favorite breakfasts in the world.

Mixed with Mangos

Dice an avocado and a mango, stir together with a little orange juice and a sprinkle of garlic salt. I eat this on crackers, plopped on a salad or just straight out of the bowl.

The avocados in these photos were grown by a Alex MacLachlan, a farmer based in Bonsall, California. Here is a little more about him and his farm:

How do you eat avocados? Do you manage to keep them around long enough to cook with them? Or is your house like mine where they get gobbled up plain?

Thank you again to California Grown for sponsoring this blog post. Please click here to learn more about all of California Grown growers. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own. #CleverCAGrown #spon

Thanks to Duncan Hines for sponsoring my writing. There’s no limit to the baking possibilities, so grab your favorite Duncan Hines mix and Comstock or Wilderness fruit fillings and Bake On! www.duncanhines.com.

My husband and I are horrible entertainers.

It’s not that we don’t like having our friends over — we do! And it’s not that we don’t like cooking or anything like that — we love cooking! It’s just that we can never seem to get our act together to invite people over. And when we do try to invite people it always seems to be a major ordeal to find a time when everyone is available at once — especially in December. Either one family is out of town, or someone has a school program they need to attend or someone has to work that night or whatever! It’s just complicated enough that we never end up inviting people over.

I’ve decided we need to rethink the idea of “having people over”. Instead of planning a multi-course dinner that four adults and 3-5 children will enjoy, we need to keep it simple. My brilliant-to-me-but-probably-totally-obvious-to-everyone-else idea? Have friends over for dessert!

Here’s my plan:

1. Bake a batch of brownies from a mix. Easy!
2. If you want to make the brownies fancy, bake them in a fluted pie plate. Or not — no one will really care because they’re brownies.
3. Set out a tub of vanilla ice cream and a few toppings. In my cupboard right now: chopped nuts, mini-marshmallows, chocolate chips, an unopened jar of hot fudge (hmmmm…not sure how old that is — better check before giving it to people!) and a boat load of sprinkles.
4. Plop a fancy (or not-so-fancy) brownie into bowls and let people add toppings as they like.

It’s so easy that we can do it on a school night. We could even do it on the spur of the moment! And if we put out red and green sprinkles and tune Pandora to a Christmas station we can even call it a Christmas party. Ooh la la!

Honestly, I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Do you entertain? What do you do to keep it simple?

Remember to check out Duncan Hines’ website www.duncanhines.com to find some great recipes for your holiday get-together! I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective.

A few weeks ago, I attended an event at my local Safeway store centered on winter health and wellness. Along with a few other bloggers, I walked the aisles of Safeway with a pharmacist and a registered dietician who offered us tips on how to avoid catching winter colds and flu and how to recover more quickly when we did get sick. Some of the information they provided us with was common sense — wash your hands frequently, sneeze into you elbow so you’re less likely to spread germs, stay hydrated — but there were quite a few gems that I hadn’t heard before tucked into the presentations. Here are some of the things I learned:

• Vitamin D! We are big fans of vitamin D in this house. I’m not a supplement kind of gal, but this is the one exception I make. Since my husband and I started taking vitamin D regularly, we have barely been sick. In addition to supplements, most dairy products are fortified with it.
• Throw used tissues away immediately. OK, I know this one is probably a no-brainer to most of you, but this something I never thought about much. When I’m sick, I let used tissues pile up on the table next to me as I lay on the couch blowing my nose and then I throw them all away when I get up to get a drink or something. Even worse, when we’re out and about and I wipe one of my kids’ noses, I often stuff the tissue in my purse until I can find a trash can. I inevitably forget them there and then they roll around in my purse rubbing germs all over my wallet, my phone, my pens — everything! Gross! No more though — those babies are going right into the trash from now on!
• Stay hydrated when you’re sick. We all know we’re supposed to stay hydrated, but I never knew exactly why. Aside from the general health benefits of proper hydration, if you keep your liquids up it can help to thin mucus which in turn keeps you from getting too stuffed up and keeps coughing to a minimum.
• Ask your pharmacist questions! I’ve never hesitated to talk to my pharmacist when I’ve had questions about prescription medications, but it never occurred to me to ask her about over-the-counter products. I was truly shocked when Dr. Vatanka (the pharmacist giving us the tour) told us that more than half of her time with customers is spent answering questions about over-the-counter medications. Since so many products are designed to treat multiple symptoms — fever, cough and stuffiness, for example — she recommended that we check in with our pharmacists when taking multiple OTC medicines to make sure that there won’t be some sort of harmful drug interaction. I will absolutely be doing this from now on.

On to the giveaway!

Safeway has generously donated a $50 gift card to one Wendolonia reader! Woo hoo! This gift card can be used at: Safeway, Vons, Dominick’s, Genuardi’s, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Pavilions, and Carr’s stores.

To enter:

• Leave a comment on this post offering up your best tip for avoiding or dealing with winter cold and flu. I’ll close comments on Friday, December 2, 11:00 am PST and randomly select a winner shortly thereafter. If you win and you haven’t included your email address along with your comment another entry will be selected, so be sure to enter one on the form. The winner must contact me within 48 hours of being notified or another winner will be selected.
• Sorry, this giveaway is limited to winners with U.S. addresses only.
• I’m only counting comments as entries, but if you wanted to follow me on Twitter or Facebook I would think you were extra cool.
• I hope you win!

Disclosure: I received a Safeway gift card and a grocery gift bag from Safeway in exchange for hosting this giveaway. I donated all of the shelf stable groceries to a local food bank, but we ate the perishable items. Have you donated to a food bank this year? I hope you’ll consider it!

Thanksgiving is just a few days away and I think it’s fair to say that the holiday baking season has officially started. For me, the only acceptable Thanksgiving dessert is pie. PIE, I say! And with all this pie baking going on in the States right now, I want to be sure — absolutely sure — that everyone knows about pie treats!

“What in the heck are pie treats?” you ask. Pie treats are only the very best way to use up the extra scraps of pie dough you cut off the edges of your pie after you crimp the crust. My mom used to make them for me, and my Grandma made them for her. I looked forward to eating them every time she made a pie and now I’m equally excited every time I start rolling out my own crusts.

They are ridiculously easy to make:

Gather up your scraps and roll them out into a disc about an eighth of an inch thick. Spread the disc evenly with butter and then sprinkle with a thick, even layer of cinnamon sugar. You should put on more cinnamon sugar than what is pictured in the photo up above. I ended up adding more after I took it.

Roll the dough up jelly roll-style and then cut it into 3/4 inch slices. You probably won’t get very many — I usually get about 5 or 6. Scarcity is part of the reason these are treats! You can put them on a baking sheet however you like — either standing on their edges or swirly side down like a cinnamon roll. I baked mine in our toaster oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees. You can also slide them into the oven with your pie. Either way, keep a close eye on them because the sugar can make them burn really easily.

After a few minutes they’ll be light, flaky and cinnamon-y. Yummy!

Do you make pie treats? Is there another tiny little holiday treat that brings you joy?