It's common knowledge the picky child is the bane of the dinner table. The tears. The recriminations. The invocations of starving children from Africa to China, children who would kill, KILL I tell you, to have this plate of delicious healthy food. But in some bizarre food flip-flop, the pickiest eater in the evening is sometimes the easiest person to pack a school lunch for in the morning. They value nothing higher than the warm hug of repetition. Pack the same boring thing and they are happy campers, plus you don't feel awful about it. School lunches are about getting some non-sugary …

Our tomatoes are finally red and ripe, the red leaf lettuce is looking gorgeous and our local farmers market is bursting with all kinds of goodies. But as wonderful as a bountiful August harvest can be, it also means school, and therefore fall, is right around the corner. Lazy nights at the grill will soon be replaced with digging around in some Target bin for the last pair of Fiskar blunt-tipped scissors. Fun Mom, the one who counts hours in a chlorinated pool as a fine bath-time equivalent, will have to turn into "Get to bed now!" Mom. That makes August the perfect time to capture the …

A few weeks ago I asked Patch readers for inspiration on how to use an over-abundance of jalapenos from our container garden. Now I know where to go for cooking advice! Here and among our Patch friends in Connecticut, I received a bumper crop of fantastic ideas, everything from Jenaro Reino's mango red pepper salad recipe to homemade hot sauce ideas — even a tip for making the perfect flavored vodka for what promises to be an insanely good bloody mary. I asked to get out of my fresh salsa rut and now I have more ideas than time, a great problem to have. (As soon as I see September hovering in…

As I've said many times, I'm all for doing things as easily as possible while still maintaining good quality. That goes for in the kitchen, too, where I'm loathe to crank up the oven during the summer. And I strive to spend as little time as possible slaving over the stove.  So if I can cut corners by incorporating a rotisserie chicken into a recipe instead of roasting my own, I'll do it. Yes, I'll use packaged tortilla chips instead of frying or baking fresh tortillas. The first recipe I thought of making—a meatloaf with an interesting origin—required the use of the oven for over an hour. …

Coming from a family of farmers — my dad grew up on a dairy farm in New York's North Country and my brother grows acres of sweet corn in Rochester — you'd figure something green could flourish on my watch. But this summer the only truly thriving crops on our slice of land seem to be weeds and jalapeno peppers. I still have the poison ivy scars up and down my legs to remind me of my last weed-wacking session, but I don't have a "Hey, wear jeans next time" kind of strategy in place to deal with what promises to be a countertop full of ripe jalapeno peppers.  It's an early photo accompanying …

In my world there is salsa, homemade salsa and Rick Bayless salsa. I use to love the first two until I tasted the third. If you haven't tried a Bayless recipe yet, you should — today. One of the first Bayless dishes I tried came from the kitchen of a friend and neighbor who grew up in Chicago, home of his flagship Frontera Grill. She came to a small gathering of neighborhood moms bearing a clay casserole dish of his Chipotle Shrimp, which uses a bit of simple roasting to take shrimp and a $2 can of chipotle peppers en adobo into something worthy of your best company. It was almost four years …

All the men in my family cook. And since there are plenty of them — Dad plus six brothers — no one ever has to worry about going hungry. They also outnumber the women in the family — three girls and Mom — which means we've had plenty of opportunity over the years to observe exactly what it means to be both male and Ryan, especially when it comes to food. First, it means cooking isn't just cooking. It must involve some part of a sliding scale of "Ryan-ness" that I now realize is not necessarily shared across all families. I'm assuming I'm not related to most of you — unless this column is …

Five or six years ago I didn't even know candied ginger existed, let alone where to find it in the supermarket. Ginger, sure. Any foray into Asian cooking requires a nub of this amazing root to always have a home in your kitchen somewhere, countertop or freezer. But candied ginger? Sounded too sweet to my taste — a bit like those sugar-encrusted jelly candies I never liked as a kid. Then I tried a recipe that melded finely chopped candied ginger with cream cheese and sugar and turned it into a giant flag-shaped Fourth of July berry tart. It was amazing. I haven't looked back at the recipe in …

One of my favorite comfort foods is risotto, the creamy rice dish that can be made to please almost any food craving.I actually enjoy standing at the stove stirring constantly as the rice absorbs the broth—when I have the time and feel like zoning out—but the dish will be fine with occasional stirring as well, so you can make a salad or feed the dog without sacrificing the quality.Heck, I've made a decent risotto in the microwave. Years ago, Newsday was doing a story for their Wednesday cooking section on people who use their microwaves for more than reheating coffee and popping popcorn.I was…

Stretching my cooking mojo away from favorites like meat lasagna and a killer meatloaf toward healthier fare such as seafood hasn't been without major kitchen mishaps or giant grocery bills. The latter is from when only expensive fatty salmon could be counted on to survive what my husband lovingly jokes are my "flame-control issues." Maybe if you are born the daughter of a Sardinian fishmonger all this is intuitive, but this girl from the shores of Lake Ontario grew up thinking fish is best battered and fried.  So in an effort to reduce our red meat consumption (and not send the kids off to …

Diets. I’ve tried a few. Most of us have. They all have pluses and minuses. Most work just fine if you actually follow them. They also have a tendency to make us a little nutty. A number-phobe, I've run complicated cost/benefit analysis on waning Weight Watchers points. I've dreamed — and I mean dreamed — of fresh-baked French baguettes on South Beach, waking up one step away from emptying my 401K for a permanent move to Paris. I started off strong with Couch 2 5K (not a diet, but a great exercise plan) only to be stymied by the realization I live on a mountain and dashing out for a quick …

It’s amazing how quickly things can be consigned to the dusty memory bins of our brain. A much-sweated test score is long forgotten. An old grudge barely recalled. Even first love can fade from all-consuming fire into something more like the passing scent of wood smoke on an autumn night—suggesting warmth but packing no heat. Time does its thing. Eventually the sharp edges dull. But not so with food. Food is hard to forget.Take your first perfect summer tomato. You can still summon the exact taste 30 years later but blank on whole semesters of college because in truth, there were tomatoes …

From Katie Ryan O'Connor: I'm taking a brief vacation this week, so I'm thrilled to have our New Rochelle Patch Editor Michael Woyton take the reins. He inspires nothing but jealousy for his close proximity to the Pelham Manor Fairway. Take it away, Michael! I'm all about convenience.Especially with the jobs I've had over the last decade—erratic hours, hard-to-schedule meals and lack of sleep—I really look for ways to have good food at the ready when I'm ready.And that means taking short cuts and having some staples in the pantry, so I can throw together a quick meal or make something that …

A quick note to all vegetarians: A column devoted to meatballs is likely not your cup of tea so I'll link to an amazing asparagus and tarragon soup that tastes like spring itself. I can't stop making it or eating it. Heck, even the 4-year-old loves it. But for the omnivorous set, today we honor the humble meatball, saver of weeknight meals and trigger of childhood comforts.  Cue soundtrack screech. Weeknight meals? Dragging out raw meat, a pan, olive oil, a zillion other ingredients on a Tuesday night? No way. Or maybe you are thinking, "Puh-leeze lady, it's Saturday, and even for today this …

Many home cooks started their journey in the post-dining-hall era of their early 20s with an urge to create dishes like the perfect hangover egg and cheese or an amazing dip for a party that would bring all the boys around. What we lacked in cash for high-end ingredients or microplane zesters, we made up for with youthful abandon. Bacon 10 different ways! Hummus with triple the garlic, why not!Then we got married and woke up to a kitchen full of shiny new toys — I still use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer 11 years later — and an urge to test drive. Plus we gained a captive, in-house audience and …