Cubby has all the smart ideas for feeding your family — from meal plans that take the guesswork out of the “What’s for dinner?” question to easy, delicious recipes and yummy treats to bring out the kid in us all. Hop in the kitchen with us!
At 5, my youngest has officially left the toddler years, but the struggles of feeding a toddler are not too far away from my memory. Toddlers bounce from happy and inquisitive to tired and cranky easily without the capacity to tell us that they are hungry and headed for a meltdown. All of this is to say that after a day, or a week, or even hours of extraordinary emotional highs and lows and generally wrestling a wild, stubborn 2-year-old, you are tired. And you all still need to eat.
I’ll be honest with you: Classic snickerdoodles are one of my least favorite cookies. I love their crunchy cinnamon-sugar coating, but I’ve always wanted something more—something to really kick them up a notch. So in an attempt to reimagine the snickerdoodle into a cookie I would actually get excited about, I added an additional layer of flavor to the mix, completely transforming them into a brand-new treat that’s bold, delicious, and unexpected. My secret ingredient?
Do you remember the absolute joy you’d feel when your mom would pop open a can of biscuit dough and a package of bite-sized sausages — meaning pigs and a blanket were on the horizon? Our version embraces that exuberance, but we’re upgrading the whole thing. Thanks to our smart technique, you don’t have to individually wrap 50 tiny sausages to create the perfect bite of flaky, buttery pastry and smoky sausage (but more on that later).
Hello, and welcome to the first recipe in my new column, But First, Breakfast! I’ve been thinking about the idea for this series for a long time, probably ever since I started touring to promote my breakfast cookbook, Whole Grain Mornings, and readers told me how much they longed for really simple weekday breakfast ideas. This series is about real-world, make-ahead breakfasts that you can actually fit into your busy, everyday life.
For all the times I have ordered chicken lettuce wraps at Chinese restaurants like P.F. Chang’s, inhaled entire “appetizers” by myself, and sighed with happiness while licking sticky sauce from my fingers, it never once occurred to me to try making this dish at home. Partly, lettuce wraps have always felt like an indulgence that needed restriction to restaurant visits only.
Getting kids to try new foods is simply an exercise in marketing. Case in point: When I made falafel for dinner one night, I called them chickpea nuggets instead of falafel and my children gobbled them right up. They asked for chickpea nuggets again and it got my mind churning with an idea for an actual chickpea nugget recipe — one with all the flavors and textures of chicken nuggets, but baked and egg-free.
Packed with vitamin-rich sweet potatoes, this simple soup is a quick family meal that ensures a dose of veggies even in a relatively small portion. The natural creaminess from the potatoes provides a pleasing texture for kids and is delicious topped with everything from crumbled bacon to a dash of hot sauce for parents. The red lentils are more subtle in flavor than their brown and green counterparts, and they cook about three times as fast, so they’re ideal for weeknights.
This is the macaroni and cheese recipe I grew up on — creamy sauce, chewy pasta, and plenty of cheese. It always felt like a special treat to us kids, although I suspect my mother liked it more because it was an easy stovetop dish that requires just five ingredients and almost no thought to pull together at the end of a long day. Whatever the reason, whatever the occasion, a bowl of this mac and cheese will always spell comfort.
When you come home extra late after a crazy day at the office, it may seem like your only options for dinner are takeout, those questionable leftovers in the fridge, or scrambled eggs and toast. You’re starving and cranky and you need dinner fast, after all. Luckily there’s a fourth option: these 10-minute tacos. Yes, making tacos in 10 minutes is absolutely possible.
Oh, avocado toast — the perfect shortcut meal for any time of day. And one of my absolute favorite ways to serve up a meal that works for the entire family, even the wee ones. Avocado toast is the perfect example, too, of the type of food I am sharing this week for DIY Mama; simple, adaptable meals that with a few adjustments are equally delicious and nutritious for mama and toddler.