Recipes for Real Life

from "The Mom 100 Cookbook"

Katie Workman, author of “The Mom 100 Cookbook” (Workman Publishing, 2012), provided these recipes for a simple, delicious meal. Katie is a mom and she knows how much time and taste figure in to cooking for a family. Her cookbook is filled with recipes that real-life parents can make and that real-life kids will like.

Teriyaki Chicken and Beef Skewers

Serves 4 to 6

When I asked the cook at my kids’ school what the most popular dishes were, he said, “Pizza, meat sauce, breakfast for lunch, and this,” and with “this” he picked up and thudded down the most enormous container of prepared teriyaki sauce I’d ever seen. “If I put this on everything they would love it.”

Turns out, teriyaki sauce isn’t hard to make at all, and you can, in fact, put it on almost anything. Here’s the recipe, and you have the option of using the sauce with either chicken or steak, and also try it with shrimp, salmon, or tofu.

• 2 tablespoons finely minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon finely minced garlic
• 2⁄3 cup low-sodium soy sauce, or 1⁄2 cup regular soy sauce and
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 teaspoons canola or vegetable oil, plus oil for the baking sheet (optional)
• 3 tablespoons mirin (optional)
• 1⁄4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 2 pounds chicken tenders, or 2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into 1⁄2 inch–wide strips, or 2 pounds sirloin steak, cut into 1⁄2-inch slices
• Nonstick cooking spray (optional)
• Toasted sesame seeds (optional)

You’ll also need 18 to 20 8-inch wooden or metal skewers.

Sauteed Spring Vegetables

Serves 4 to 6 as a side dish

Vegetarian

When making this dish, you can use whatever vegetables speak to you at the supermarket—or better yet at the farmers’ market. I often make this with all haricots verts (which is basically French for string beans). These are thinner and more tender than regular string beans, but you can absolutely use any variety of string beans here, or all sugar snap peas or snow peas, or some asparagus cut up into two-inch pieces. A vegetable combo is just slightly more festive. Sautéing in butter and then adding some water for a quick steam results in veggies that have a nice light buttery glaze, without a whole lot of fat. You can use olive oil . . . but try the butter.

• 1 1⁄2 tablespoons unsalted butter or olive oil
• 1 small shallot, chopped or thinly sliced, or 1⁄2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1⁄2 pound haricots verts or green beans, trimmed (see Note)
• 1⁄2 pound sugar snap peas (see Note)
• Kosher or coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (optional)
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest (optional)

Fudgy One-Pot Brownies

Makes 12 huge or 24 reasonably sized brownies

It had been dawning on me that the surest way to achieve brownie nirvana, the kind of fudgy chocolatiness that wimpy people say is too chocolaty (and then go on to polish off another brownie or two), is best achieved by combining cocoa powder and melted chocolate. During this period of intense brownie contemplation, I had lunch with Melissa Clark, food writer and mom to young Dahlia, and mentioned my brownie quest. She thought she had a recipe somewhere with dueling chocolates, and she e-mailed it to me that afternoon. I tinkered with it a bit, determined to decode a perfect brownie that could be mixed right in the saucepan. This is the one-pot result. Fifteen minutes of hands-on time, max, and well worth every minute.

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus butter for greasing the baking pan (optional)
• Nonstick cooking spray (optional)
• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1⁄2 cup unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 2 1⁄2 cups granulated sugar
• 1⁄2 teaspoon kosher or coarse salt
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour