Recipes

This puffed pancake is a favorite in our house for breakfast. We make this puffy, custardy pancake with apples since we usually happen to have some on hand, but it's equally good made with fresh berries, too. This big pancake is also called a "Dutch Baby", which my kids think is funny. The kids love to watch this pancake cook through the oven window, since the batter puffs up dramatically as it bakes.

It's actually quite easy to forget to put on your oven mitt when you're moving the hot pan in and out of the oven—I know this from painful experience—so always make sure you have one on you hand before you reach in to grab the skillet handle. Needless to say, this probably isn't a recipe for little ones to help with, other than with mixing the batter.

Here's what you'll need:

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

As we approach summer and temperatures climb, it's the perfect time to not only enjoy a cold glass of iced tea, but to make your own sun tea, too. I've found myself drinking a lot of iced tea over the past few years (it probably has something to do with parental sleep deprivation). I usually buy bottles of Tejava tea, which I love because it's unsweeted and has a good strong tea flavor.

I decided to try making my own and maybe save a little money in the process. I remember my mom making sun tea way back when, and thought I'd give it a try. The results were really fantastic, so I thought I'd share them here. It's really easy to do, really inexpensive, and the kids actually had fun helping make it.

You'll need:

• A two-quart sealable glass jar.
• Four to six black tea bags
• Sprigs of fresh mint (optional)
• Water

Place tea bags and mint (if using) in a clean glass jar. Fill the jar with water and seal.

Marin Mommies presents this week's guest recipe from Nicole Cibellis, Marin mom and author of the blog A Family that Eats Together, where she shares meal plans and recipes that will please foodies and children alike. Nicole is also the creator of the new Little Froglet line of children's activewear. Here's Nicole's meal plan for this week.

I have fallen in love with grilling over all different kinds of woods, which impart their smoky goodness into meats. In this recipe, I have used apple wood on my gas grill (because I am too lazy to use a non-gas grill). It is really simple. All you need to do is soak the wood for 30 minutes prior to grilling. Then lay them down over hot lava rock* which is usually placed at the bottom of gas grills. The lava rock creates a more even heat and the soaked wood chips release the fragrant smoke. This time of year, all different types of grilling woods can be found from your local hardware shop to big box stores. Apple wood is nice because it does not impart such as intense smokiness as mesquite but choose the grilling wood you prefer.

Serve with my balsamic-glazed oven roasted carrots.

Servings: 3–4
Prep time: 5 minutes
Inactive time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 12 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 pound organic grass-fed rib eye beef
• sea salt

Our friend Chef Scott Howard, of Brick & Bottle restaurant in Corte Madera, offered us this fantastic family-friendly recipe for Mother's Day. This special version of French toast is something that kids can help prepare, and would make a great centerpiece to a Mother's Day brunch or breakfast.

If cooking (and cleaning up the kitchen) on Mother's Day is not your style, Brick & Bottle is offering a fantastic Mother's Day brunch buffet on Sunday from 11 am to 2 pm, featuring treats like smoked salmon, beet salad, eggs benedict, rotisserie leg of lamb, honey clove roasted ham, Scott's famous rum cake, and of course this brioche French toast.

Call Brick & Bottle at (415) 924-3366 for information and reservations, or visit www.brickandbottle.com. Brick & Bottle is located at 55 Tamal Vista Boulevard, in the Marketplace shopping center, in Corte Madera.

Marin Mommies presents this week's guest recipe from Nicole Cibellis, Marin mom and author of the blog A Family that Eats Together, where she shares meal plans and recipes that will please foodies and children alike. Nicole is also the creator of the new Little Froglet line of children's activewear. Here's Nicole's meal plan for this week.

My all time favorite Mexican Restaurant is La Taqueria in San Francisco’s Mission District. They make the best carne asada taco I have ever had. My husband and I were in the city a week ago and decided to drive another 30 minutes out of our way just to go eat tacos at La Taqueria. While sitting there gorging on our tacos my husband looked up at me and said that I need to recreate these at home. So, here is my recipe for Carne Asada tacos—La Taqueria style.

Servings: 6
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

• Refried beans, you can always use my homemade refried bean recipe
• 1-1/2 lbs carne asada or skirt steak

This guest article is by my friend and Marin mom Nancy Grossi, author of the award-winning blog The Wife of a Dairyman. Nancy started her blog at the beginning of 2010, and offers a look into life on one of Marin's many dairy farms. One of her loves is cooking, and here's her recipe for healthy BBQ chicken enchiladas, perfect for Cinco de Mayo dinner on Saturday!

When you have a bunch of leftover BBQ chicken like we did, what do you do with all the extra chicken? I can only eat chicken prepared the same way about five times in a row… no more!

So, I pulled the meat off of four halves and cut it up into chunks to make BBQ Chicken Enchiladas, which was about one pound of meat.

Saute 1/2 an onion with 2 garlic cloves, salt and pepper. Then remove from heat.

This Mother's Day, why not make an old school dessert for Mom—pineapple upside down cake. Pineapple upside down cake is really old school, dating back to the 1920s when canned pineapple from was introduced to the US market by the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, which would eventually become Dole Foods.

Featuring moist and light cake topped with sweet pineapple and a caramelized brown sugar topping, it's no wonder this dessert has been popular for nearly a century. In our recipe, we use fresh pineapple, but you can substitute canned if you don't want to mess around with cutting up and trimming a fresh one. It's equally good with both.

Ingredients

For the topping:

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into rings (you'll probably end up using about half) or 1 14-ounce can of pineapple rings
• Maraschino cherries (optional)

Marin Mommies presents this week's guest recipe from Nicole Cibellis, Marin mom and author of the blog A Family that Eats Together, where she shares meal plans and recipes that will please foodies and children alike. Nicole is also the creator of the new Little Froglet line of children's activewear. Here's Nicole's meal plan for this week.

If you love the sweet taste of fennel you will love this recipe. Fennel scented three times over, this grilled chicken recipe is alluring and reminiscent of a typical Tuscan dinner. Not only is this a quick, easy and healthy recipe but also it is perfect for the grill on a warm summer night.

Servings: 6
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Need help with meal planning? (Who doesn't?) Since we all can't afford our own personal chefs, there's Relish, a handy meal-planning service for busy parents.

Relish is an easy to use, mom-run website that helps you prepare healthy, creative meals every week. You pick from a wide variety of delicious, thoroughly tested recipes, a cleverly organized grocery list is automatically created, then you is hit the store to collect the ingredients for five days worth of home-cooked meals—all of which take no more than 30 minutes to prepare.

Relish offers much to choose from including vegetarian menus, healthy lunches, seasonal treats, and kids favorites that don't include the word "nugget."