My Perfect Strawberry “Shortcake” (With Homemade Biscuits)
Recipes
Baked Penne
Spectacular Spinach Lasagna
This isn't a dish I make all that often, but every time I do, I re-resolve to pull it back into more frequent rotation. It's so, so good.
The cons: It's a little labor-intensive - not "difficult" at all; it just involves quite a lot of ingredients (none of which are expensive) and a bunch of different pots and pans. I hate cleaning pots and pans with a passion, so if I'm willing to clean four of them, that means we're talking about a seriously delicious meal.
The pros: It makes children eat spinach. Like, request it. What?! (And it keeps really well in the freezer if you want to eat half now and save the rest for a day when you are too tired to do things like construct layered pasta dishes.)
Dinner Suggestion: Breakfast After Dark
My Father-In-Law’s (Seemingly) Effortless Apple Crisp
My father-in-law is one of those people who will appear to be doing nothing more labor-intensive than puttering around in the kitchen, moving a bowl over here and a carton of milk over there...and will then all of a sudden sail over to the table carrying a tray of expertly baked goods. And then he'll whip up some from-scratch icing in the time it ordinarily takes me to locate a fork. And then the bowls go ahead and clean themselves. Or that's what it seems like, anyway, because I never see him do it, and then poof: clean.
I don't get it. When I bake, or cook, or do anything at all in the kitchen, there is always a flour avalanche, or a vanilla mishap, or a stick of butter that I forgot to remove from the refrigerator in time to soften and that must be cursed at for awhile. Not my father-in-law; with him, it's all (seemingly) effortless production of delicious things.
And that makes him a very fun person to visit on a cold winter day, when he without fail produces a big tray of this apple crisp. Thanks, Tom!
