Remember last September when Jeff was craving chicken pot pie? That time we made the All-Sold-Out Chicken Pot Pies with the chicken and vegetables that were bathed in a heavy cream sauce and lovingly tucked under blankets of cream cheese crust? Yeah, they were good.

Last weekend was cold and rainy – perfect pot pie conditions – but I wasn’t up for spending a lot of time in the kitchen or tempting a coronary during the season finale of “Flight of the Conchords,” so it was time to trim this pie to the bare essentials and bring forth a lean(er), mean Spring Chicken Pot Pie.

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If there’s anything I’ve learned as a member of the Barefoot Bloggers, it’s the value of having a package of frozen puff pastry in the freezer. If you’ve got a box of Pepperidge Farm on ice, then AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT, you can turn an ordinary visit into something special with the Barefoot Contessa’s Easy Sticky Buns, Apple Turnovers or these Tomato and Goat Cheese Tarts. Puff pastry is the party pastry.

There’s nothing complicated about making these tarts. Once your sheets of puff pastry have defrosted, you cut circles from the sheets using a saucer, biscuit cutters, a glass, whatever’s handy. Then refrigerate them, and work on your onion mixture. When the onions are lightly browned, you’re ready to score a border inside the pastry circles and prick the pastry inside the score lines with a fork. Once that’s done, you can start piling on the toppings: freshly grated Parmesan; onions sautéed with garlic, white wine and thyme; garlic-and-herb goat cheese; a slice of tomato; julienned basil and a little shaved Parmesan.

We used biscuit cutters to make mini tarts, and each one packed a lot of flavor. They would make excellent appetizers–totally beating down a tray of prefab spanakopita–and you could easily change the toppings to offer more variety. Oh, Ina. I think I love you.

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A soft cake flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon zest and vanilla. A crumb topping loaded with brown sugar and chopped walnuts. Why was I ever on the fence about making this Blueberry Crumb Cake?

Oh, yes. Because I can’t eat blueberries. I know, they’re juicy and sweet and delicious. You’re preaching to the converted. But they put the fear of God into my intestines. I was going to substitute another fruit, but then I learned something new about Jeff: he loves blueberries. He was all about this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie pick being a Blueberry Crumb Cake. So, we negotiated: I baked with blueberries; he’ll be trying goat cheese later this week.

Regardless of my blueberry affliction, I completely recommend this cake. It smells fantastic as it bakes, it stays moist, and the crumb topping strikes just the right balance of sweet, buttery and crunchy. It’s so tasty, I might be able to talk Jeff into trying goat cheese and a radish. I’m just saying.

For the recipe, visit Sihan at Befuddlement, or pick up a copy of Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking: From My Home to Yours.”

When you have six (yes, six!) pregnant friends, your life explodes with things you’ve never thought about before. Boppys and Bella Bands™ and “Baby Signs.” Whether swings should move to and fro, side-to-side, or in a strange half-curve (like the old lady’s chair zipping up the staircase in “Gremlins”). Sonograms and homemade baby food and nursery themes and names. And NO ONE CAN EAT THE SAME THINGS. Seriously. One craves burgers. One can’t stand the smell of ground beef. One craves hot wings. One can’t do spices.

It’s nice to have something simple to fall back on, like the Barefoot Contessa’s Brownie Pudding, one of this month’s Barefoot Bloggers bonus recipes. The prep is simple, and the chocolate flavor is intense. The surface forms a thin, crunchy layer, but underneath, it’s soft and rich and gooey. And a little goes a long way. Seriously, two parts vanilla ice cream to one part chocolate is pretty perfect. If you’re having friends over, take it easy, and make the pudding in one big baking dish. Or, scale it back for one or two, and bake it in ramekins.

So, any gift suggestions for this village of newborns? What was your favorite baby gift? Do you wish you’d gotten more of something? Less? Please, help. Seriously.

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Do you buy the same vegetables over and over again? Guilty, guilty, guilty. So, I was happy to see that one of this month’s Barefoot Bloggers bonus challenges was to try a vegetable I’d never even heard of: broccolini.

Broccolini is a cross between broccoli and Chinese kale. The florets are looser and more tender than you find with broccoli, and the stalks are longer and thinner, more like asparagus. Group members found it listed as broccolini, baby broccoli, aspiration and tender stem, so keep those aliases in mind, and look near the leafy greens instead of the broccoli.

Ina Garten’s Sautéed Broccolini is a simple side: blanch the broccolini, make the garlic-lemon butter sauce, then add the broccolini to the pan with the sauce. The mild-flavored florets soak in the sauce and make a really bright, lemony side dish. But I’m thinking the tender stalks of the broccolini would be even better in a stir-fry. Maybe then Jeff will try them. For now, he’s holding out for the Barefoot Bloggers second bonus recipe: Brownie Pudding.

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A little while ago, a very short, simple e-mail popped up in my Inbox. It said, “I was wondering if you have a favorite maple syrup and if you’ve ever tasted pure maple syrup from Quebec.” I wrote back that I didn’t, and I hadn’t. I thought the company might send me a sample-size bottle of syrup. Instead, Brien Fine Maple Products sent me a lovely package filled with maple syrup, fine granulated maple sugar, chipped maple sugar, maple butter and soft maple candies. No strings attached. They didn’t ask for a review, or three links or so much as a mention.

Pure generosity.

So, I took the box of pure Canadian maple goodness to my grandmother’s house, because Mommaw’s the only person I know who eats waffles with butter and syrup for breakfast EVERY SINGLE DAY. Since it was dinnertime, Mom made pancakes, and we all tried the syrup and dipped our spoons into the maple cream, which was almost as thick as peanut butter. Mommaw was beaming. In total maple syrup nirvana. Most syrup is just sticky and sweet, but this maple syrup had personality. The flavors were complex and depthy. It had a past. If regular syrup were Miley Cyrus, maple syrup would be Meryl Streep. Read More…

Clowns.

Watermelon.

Nickelback.

The films of Kevin Costner.

Burnt Sienna.

“CSI: Miami.”

Today’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe: French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze.

Can you guess what these things have in common?

P.S. For the recipe, visit Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction, or pick up a copy of Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking: From My Home to Yours.”

Few things are as rewarding as beating the hell out of a raw piece of chicken. It’s cathartic AND delicious.

It’s also the first step for making Ina Garten’s Chicken Piccata, one of this month’s Barefoot Bloggers recipes. Traditionally, Chicken Piccata is a seasoned, breaded chicken breast served with a sauce made from pan drippings, white wine, capers, lemon and butter.  With Ina’s version, the chicken finishes in the oven while you make the sauce – minus the pan drippings and capers.

The sauce. It is extremely tart and lemony. Even with three tablespoons of butter, it’ll make you wince and pucker. NOT the sort of sauce you want to indiscriminately pour over the chicken, unless you’re carrying a lot of self-loathing. Instead, taste it first, and then decide how much you want. Otherwise, all of that sweet raw-chicken catharsis will be wasted, and how crappy is that?

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Normally I wouldn’t violate his privacy this way, but Henry the Wonderdog is about four pounds overweight. I found out last week when I took him to the vet to have his nails trimmed, and the vet’s assistant acted like she couldn’t believe I let his fat ass out in public. THE SHAME.

So, she asks me what he eats, and I have to admit I have no idea, because Henry is the Canine Roomba. I used to spend half the day pulling things out of his mouth. Bread ties. Dead leaves. George Washington’s Inaugural Bible. He’s ALWAYS CHEWING SOMETHING, like an old man with a cheek full of tabacky. Once, I dropped a hot wing, and he swallowed it whole before it hit the floor. Did I panic? Yes. Did he so much as burp? No. So, I don’t get involved unless there’s a possibility he’s chewing a.) glass or b.) a fast-acting poison.

What does this have to do with my Arugula Salad with Strawberries and Pecans? Read More…

If you survive puberty, there will come a time when you realize, perhaps with despair and confusion, that you have to make dinner. Again. It helps to have an arsenal of go-to recipes that are quick, cheap and definitely not boring.

Here’s one of my new go-to’s: Hoisin Pork Chops.

Ever tried hoisin sauce? It smells kinda like an Asian A1, but it can take a ho-hum cut of meat and transform it into something sticky-sweet and spicy and completely crave-inducing. Read More…