I can’t believe how little of summer is left. I am holding onto it like a toddler holds on to a lollipop. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled to send my kids to school (for their sake and mine) but I am chaffing at the schedule that comes with the school year. September means football and soccer and a ton of family birthdays, so I am trying to savor you, August. You and your staying up past everyone’s bedtime playing games and sleeping in late, beach days and long runs, swimming in rivers and endless ice cream and gorgeous hikes in the woods.

So to help with this transition that can be brutal, I am starting a series before the school year is upon us.

THO Tuesday Dinners.

I find it helpful to have, in any given season, a repertoire of 5-7 meals that I know everyone will like. Using seasonal ingredients that we seem to crave, and that I will likely have most of the ingredients for in my pantry or my weekly shopping, that cooks fast. The new and exciting recipes I will save for the weekend, when I have more time. I hope that sharing these helps you to make your week easy peasy. And lemon squeezy.

I will publish them every Tuesday, so you can either jam it into that weeks line up if you didn’t meal plan or you can get all the ingredients together for it for next week.

This week I am showing you how I make shrimp scampi.

It is so easy, a five year old can do it.

Seriously, my five year old loves to help me peel shrimp. I usually soak them in a bowl of hot water for 15 minutes to thaw them, and then peel them. If your crew doesn’t love shrimp, you can use chicken tenders or cubed chicken breasts. Rotisserie chicken can be added at the end too. See, easy peasy.

I usually make this dish at the end of summer, when the parsley is overflowing in my herb garden and we are hungry from playing outside all day but still want something sort of light. My kids love it, it cooks super fast 10-15 minutes and I always have a bag of shrimp in the freezer and angel hair pasta in the pantry. If you have tomatoes overflowing you can add those too, they are traditionally in shrimp scampi but mine were still green when I made this last week.

I love how lemony and butter this meal is, and I add a ton of hot pepper flakes to my plate and lots of Parmesan cheese to their plates.

Hope this dish helps you ease into the school year while still tasting a little bit of summer. xoxo Katie

Shrimp Scampi (printer version here):

Have you ever had real Chocolate Mousse? If so, you know there is nothing else like it. So light and airy, but still with an intensely rich chocolate flavor and the absolute creamiest texture ever. It is so good it hurts.

When I was thinking, what inspired me the most in France? I came up with the answer that they keep things very classical, and once you learn those things, you can endlessly improvise. I know I am not the first person to come up with this, (**cough, Julia Child**)but I am here to say how true I am finding it. So when I thought about what classical thing I loved the most, it was very simple.

Chocolate Mousse.

When my husband handed me a little glass jar of this stuff with my sandwich on the train on our way to Dinan, I was completely transported. It was like chocolate frosting, but better. It was like chocolate pudding but better. It was like itself, completely.

And basically I had to have it again.

So when my extended family planned to get together for dinner, I volunteered to bring dessert. Chocolate mousse, si vous plait. I researched recipes (I ended up with a combination of Ina Garten’s and David Lebovit’s) and put a movie on for the kids (even though the prep time said 30 minutes and it didn’t really take that long for something so good).

I cut up some good chocolate:

And whipped all the eggs:

^^ When Ina says whip the egg yolks until they fall back on themselves like ribbons, this is what she means.

^^ And when she says whip the eggs whites until they formed stiff peaks, this is what she means.

And then, you stir them into the melted chocolate. That has some booze added to it.

Well, I guess the technical term is fold them into the chocolate (if we are going to talk about classics we may as well learn some basic skills, right?).

And then you pour them into ramekins and chill. Don’t they look amazing? I think my egg whites were a little too stiff, so check out that video to avoid this! But it didn’t impact the flavor at ALL. They were amazing.

So if you are scarred just give it try! Mine were not perfect but were SO yummy.

Once you get this recipe down, the options are endless. A chile spiced chocolate mousse? Or an orange chocolate mousse? Or some whipped cream with Grand Marnier in it? All yum.

Hope you are having a great week!

xoxo Katie

Chocolate Mousse (adapted from Ina Garten and David Lebovitz’s recipes, printer version here):

INGREDIENTS

SERVINGS: 8

• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1⁄4cup freshly brewed coffee
• 2 tablespoons Dark Rum
• 1 teaspoon  pure vanilla extract
• 12 tablespoons  unsalted butter, diced, at room temperature
• 8 extra-large eggs, separated, at room temperature
• 1⁄2cup  sugar, plus
• 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
• kosher salt
• 1⁄2cup cold heavy cream
• sweetened whipped cream, for decoration

DIRECTIONS

1. In a heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, melt the two chocolates, coffee, coffee powder, rum, and vanilla extract. Cool to room temperature. Beat in the softened butter.
2. Meanwhile, place the egg yolks and the 1/2 cup of sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high speed for about 5 minutes, until pale yellow; when you lift the beater, the mixture will fall back on itself in a ribbon. With the mixer on low speed, blend in the chocolate mixture. Transfer to a larger mixing bowl.
3. Measure 1 cup of egg whites and freeze or discard the rest. Combine the cup of egg whites with a pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon of the remaining sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk on high speed until stiff but not dry. Mix half of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture; then fold the rest in carefully with a rubber spatula.
4. In the same bowl of the electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the heavy cream and the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar until firm. Carefully fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. Pour the mousse into a 2-quart serving dish. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for a few hours or overnight and up to a week.
5. Decorate with fruit and/or sweetened whipped cream just before serving.

 

Sorry if you were waiting for Part II of our trip to France – my computer got a virus! While it was out of commission I forced myself to have fun at the beach and eat at every yummy Portsmouth restaurant with friends who were in town. But it is so fun to think about food, and France, and travel again. This post is SUPER long, but I have a great-line up of recipes to share so I wanted to finish the story of our trip. If you are in a hurry just skip to the story of our Best Meal Ever at the end. Happy reading!

There are a few stories from our trip that warm my heart just thinking about them.

The first is Claude’s tea shop – Le Maison du Bleu Lin. The people who owned our house recommended going there for tea, so I brought sweet Sophie, who loves tea, there one afternoon.

As I was taking these pictures, Claude, who is a lovely tall, strong French woman with curly hair and beautiful eyes, totally yelled at me for taking a photo of her shop without asking. After a few excuse moi! si vous plait! she warmed up to us – well, Sophie at least. We quickly started chatting about rude tourists (Claude kept exlaiming “they don’t even say bonjour madame!” after every person ducked their head in) and of course, food. In her shop she carried 12 different varieties of chutneys from England. I wanted to buy them all, even though it would make my bag heavier then it already was. So she let me try them. She had sample jars ready in the fridge! I sat there like a kid in a candy store, or a food blogger in a tea/chutney shop, and savored the amazing spices and interesting combinations. I settled on a pickled lime chile, a cheeseboard chutney, and a red pepper chutney that we ate that night with chicken with herbs de Provence, fresh tomatoes and lemon. RJ said it made his mouth explode with flavor.

 The next day we headed to Paris. (Barely. Carrying bags up this hill almost did us all in.)

Our three train connection went so smoothly and we all read the whole way. When we got into Paris, it was a 100 degree heat-wave. Luckily our hotel was air conditioned. We stayed at The Millennial Marriott, which was so enormous, it must have been a hospital before. It was painted in lovely French colors, gorgeous grays and blues and mirrored French doors everywhere. I may have come home and painted my dining room the color of this door and picked up a gray and white rug that looks like this one. And these Bensimon shoes and shorts from Boden were the comfiest clothes to travel in. (Shorts are sold out but see similar here). Did I mention it was the 4th of July?:

We braved the heat for our first night and ventured out. We ate at Le Trumilou which was a recommendation from David Leibovitz’s website, who JUST did a whole post about this restaurant on his website! The guy he pictured with the beard and blue shirt was our waiter, and the olives and sausages were amazing. Sadly, his post talks about the smoking outside when people are eating and my father in law couldn’t even down his gorgeous food because he was eating smoke. On our end of the table though, it was fine, and the people watching was superb. 

The lardons on the frisee salad were soaked in some kind of vinegar that was so delicious. I didn’t think you could make bacon taste better then it already does, but I was wrong.

Sorry for the half-eaten plate BUT I had to show you the Cote de Boeuf that was SO good and SO huge. Good thing we walked a few miles back to the hotel.

^^RJ is apparently in a no-smiling phase. My father-in-law during happier times before he got smoked out.

The next day, we saw some of the gorgeous sites, starting with Mass at Notre Dame.

We saw all the Locks of Love at Pont Neuf:

We ate lunch at a lovely bistro just in time to sit under a canopy while it rained. I had a country salad that was delicious:

And we saw this old thing which I can’t even look at the same after reading the Da Vinci code (ugg. Thanks a lot Dan Brown!)

Outside the Louvre was hot and crowded. Inside the Louvre was hot, crowded and beautiful.

^^ I grew up with a charcoal copy of this Da Vinci so I love it.

Even though my husband thought it was sort of a waste of 30 euros to go to Louvre (we had already been there before), the morning after we got home, I heard RJ telling Lucy as he pointed at pictures on my phone, “See this Lucy? This is the most famous museum in the world. And this is the most famous painting in the world.”

I am going to call that a parenting win.

From the Louvre my kids could see this ferris wheel towering up on the sky line and were like, “we are going there.” They were such good travelers I couldn’t argue.

We made our way to the Tulleries, which thankfully had lots of entertainment. I didn’t remember an entire fair in the middle of the Tulleries last time I was there, but the proximity to the Louvre makes me think they were just meeting the demand of bored kids.

Then we had a quick photo op by the Eiffel Tower:

RJ really wanted to go to it, but it was after 5 and we had been walking in the heat since 10. It was worth getting only this close to the Eiffel Tower to be back in an air conditioned hotel where we hit up the Concierge Room hard for cold drinks and snacks (hello best spicy eggplant and zucchini ever!).

But the best story of our whole trip was what happened at the very end.

Dinner with my husband.

This was sort of an anniversary trip, and a dinner out alone in Paris was sort of the heart of the trip for us. So we left the kids with grandpa, who after a day of heat and crowds were in heaven doing this:

And at 6:30, we set out on our mission: To find the best meal of our lives.

I had researched the dinner the night before, but tonight we wanted to be spontaneous and discover a hidden gem. My husband had walked by one that looked great, near our hotel. But when we got there it was closed on Sundays. We had seen a bunch of restaurants in the 2nd Arrondissement the night before near Le Trumilou and thought we’d go back. But when we did, we found that all of the restaurants were the standard bistro fare that we had eaten many times or had very touristy food. The atmosphere was fun, but like Fanueil Hall in Boston, you can get really bad food in a fun area. And our mission was most definitely good food. My husband was really craving warm salmon as well (after our beef the size of a labrador the night before).

We headed out and stopped to have a drink at a little place, studied the menu and thought about it as a dinner venue. All the while we were silently asking ourselves:

Was this the place where we would get the Best Meal of Our Lives?

^^Not a winner. But it had a solid charcuterie board that was our pre-game.

Then we did that on repeat for two hours. We didn’t mean to bar crawl our way through Paris, but we did. Because we would sit down and read the menu, and be disappointed, or one of us would go to the bathroom and get a weird vibe and we were like, nope, this isn’t the place. Or they lacked salmon on the menu, which became increasingly important as the night wore on. After a while I thought, are we just being picky? Is the Best Meal of Our Lives too much pressure, do you think? Why didn’t we pick from the million and one recommendations online?

Guinness sustained us in our quest. (My husband studied abroad in Ireland. And we are Irish.)

Finally, after leaving a restaurant that my husband was sure was the one but I veto’d after it had karaoke going in the back when I went to the bathroom, I looked at my watch. It was 10:00. We decided to walk back to the hotel. I had seen some places the night before that I hoped were open on Sunday. Or at 10 pm. If not we could eat at the hotel. At the very least, we had a fun night out and we would be back someday, right?

{Commence Panic.}

Then, when we were almost to the hotel, we looked down an alley and there it was, like an oasis in our desert of hunger:

It was called Le Poule au Pot, or Chicken in a Pot,which just sounded like a place where you might have the Best Meal of Your Life, non?

And guess what?

It totally was.

The menu looked incredible (see all those VERY recent awards and recommendations?) and when we sat down, the waiter sensed our hunger/panic and was like a monk in the middle ages offering us food and drink.

We started with the best wine from their very short wine list (because they only picked great ones, obv):

And started with the most delicious thing I have ever eaten. If you have been reading for a while you know of my love of artichokes. 

But you may not know of my dislike of the runny egg. I know, how can I even be called a food person if I don’t like soft cooked eggs? But I finally discovered what all the fuss is about, because it was delicious here. The artichoke heart was so fresh, and the smoked salmon with dill on top had a vinaigrette that mixed with the egg and made it all delicious.

And then came the main course. My husband got (can you even guess?):

The salmon. But not just ANY salmon. The kind with the cutest puff pastry man on the side (endless possibilities on that front), and his favorite, creamed spinach.

I got a braised lamb shank that was just so good it hurt. And the potatoes were stacked like lincoln logs, something I must try in the future.

My favorite thing about eating really good food, the kind that fills your soul and your belly, is how you have to close your eyes when you take a bite. And this food was so good we practically ate with our eyes closed.

The search made this meal even more sweet. It was a total adventure, exactly what we wanted on our last night in Paris.

Finally, all week I had wanted to order a Tarte Tatin, and we were always too full. But I insisted, and I am so glad I did:

When we THOUGHT we were done, our waiter brought out a complementary shot of pear distilled liquor that was delicious but strong. I think he liked the story of our quest. Or my bad French accent.

Either way, we walked back content and full and touched by the magic of Paris.

(Of course all these photos were taken at night on our phones and are not the best. But I had to share them because this really will go down as one of my favorite food memories ever.)

Thanks for reading this novel! I promise to turn around and bring some of this deliciousness to the food blog. But if you have any fun magical Paris stories feel free to share them!

XOXO Katie

Hi all! I am SO excited to introduce you to my Insanity instructor – that’s right, the lady who kicks my butt every Thursday. She has just launched her own website, jackiegarnett.com, and is a Personal Fitness Coach to the stars…I mean moms in Portsmouth.

She heard my plight about going out of town (we leave for France tomorrow…I am halfway packed which is pretty good for me) and having a few freelance writing magazine articles due before we leave, so she brought her A game to the Humble Onion and is sharing with all of you how to bust those late night snacking cravings. I just read what she wrote and will be referencing this post nightly when my Salt & Vinegar Popchips are calling.

Hope you love this one as much as I do, and if you do show her the love and check out her new blog! She is one of the most positive, mentally tough girls I know, so I can’t wait to follow. xoxo Katie

 

by guest blogger, Jackie Garnett of jackiegarnett.com

 

It’s 9pm. You finished dinner with the family a couple hours ago. You’re not hungry but you want a snack.

Well, hello, internal struggle, it’s nice to see you again. I’ve missed you since last night.

Your mind is telling you no but your heart is all like: snuggling up with that ginormous box of Cheez-Its on the couch during the Bachelorette sounds like the best thing in the world right now. We convince ourselves that we deserve it. The kids are in bed, it was a long day, this is our time to enjoy life’s little pleasures.

Sound familiar? Well, I’ve got news for you: you’re not alone. I asked my Facebook friends what their Achilles heel is when it comes to late night snacking and I received 45 comments about chips, cheese, crackers, ice cream, chocolate, wine, cereal, popcorn, pretzels, and Nutella. I loved this thread on my timeline because it felt like a confession of sorts. We don’t talk about it a lot, but look, when you feel like you’re the only loser in the world going to town on an entire sleeve of Thin Mints, I promise you– you’re not. And I’ve got something to tell you: it’s not your fault.

After years of research, Dr. Nora Volkow recently presented a lecture announcing that refined processed foods are equal to, if not more addictive than, cocaine, heroin, and morphine. Through brain scans, she discovered that during the moments before consumption, we experience the exact same kind of anticipation as drug addicts before taking a hit. That’s right, you heard me correctly. Your salivation for those hyper-palatable foods is in fact an addiction. Habits formed along the way that eventual led to a lack of control. Luckily, these habits are reversible. Or rather, there are ways to create new, healthier habits that will take the place of your old ways.

I typically hear about 5 different scenarios that paint the picture for our reasons to snack at night. Here are some ideas for how to make these scenarios a little prettier.

 

#1. When you are convinced you deserve a treat.

You ate healthy all day, and you deserve a little indulgence. I’m right there with ya. I teach my clients about the 80/20 rule because it works for me: 80% healthy food, 20% fun food. That’s why at the end of every day I indulge in 5 Dove dark chocolates. They are 210 delicious calories. They don’t ruin my entire day of clean eating. And they satisfy my sweet tooth. So when you’re craving something bad for you, fine, have it. Don’t deprive yourself. Instead, portion out the amount you know you should consume (hint: there’s usually a “serving size” on the label. Follow it), eat only that, and let that be it.

(in case you’re wondering, the serving size of Trader Joe’s cookie butter is just 1 Tbsp.)

 

#2. When it’s all in your head.

You know there are treats in the pantry but you also know you have the willpower to say “no” to them. This is when you have to remember the bigger picture. Your “why” for wanting to make a change. So why do you want to make a change? My guess is that your answer is somehow related to your health. When it’s all in your head, this is when you should pull out your Pinterest board of healthy motivation. What, you don’t have one of those? Well go make one! And pin everything that will inspire you to take baby steps toward your goal. If Pinterest isn’t your thing, scatter other reminders around the house that will keep your head in the right place. Maybe there’s a hot dress you want to fit into again. Hang it on display in your bedroom. Maybe you have a new grandkid you want to stick around for. Post a picture of him on your fridge. Anything that will help you visualize your success.

 

 

#3. When you have a major craving.

Make a healthier version of it. Make a whole bunch of it on Sunday so that you have it ready to go for your entire week. Even better, portion it out into individual servings. Because it’s the convenience you want late at night, right? Air popped popcorn, chocolate peanut butter protein balls, baked sweet potato chips, and banana “ice cream” are all perfect alternatives. I could show you pins all day long, but you can do a search yourself to find a healthy alternative to your favorite snack.

 

#4. When you want company.

When you want a friend to share your favorite tv show with, or if you have to get work done on the computer and you need something next to you. Substitute the junk with some herbal tea. You can milk that puppy all night and it will be with you through the entire thing.

 

#5. When you’re bored.

Go to bed. Seriously. Unless you’re a sleepwalker, there is a 100% chance that you will not eat when you’re asleep. As my friend, Jaynie, mom of 3 adorable kids, says: “I’m a toddler…put me to bed before 7pm and all is good. After that…I’m a wanna be frat boy!!??”

 

Because everyone’s brain functions differently, maybe all of these will work for you, or maybe only one of them will. But try them all out, see how they go, and let me know what’s working for you. Got other ideas? Please share them!

 

If you want to read more from Jackie Garnett, be sure to subscribe to her newsletters to receive weekly blog posts.

Don’t feel like spending hours in the kitchen with all this gorgeousness happening outside? Me either. Here’s some great quick ideas that I cannot WAIT to try.

// I am a big fan of non-breakable plates. Ballard designs has so many pretty melamine plates like these ones that I could use every day or these ones from Bunny Williams (love her, she is one of the most inspiring designers). 

// This fennel and apple salad looks perfect for a date night salad.

// A bloody mary salad? Yes please.

// I can’t wait to make Ina Garten’s Gazpacho.

// Pioneer Woman’s Panzanella: Crave worthy. Basil and Tomatoes and Vinegar and Bread = Yum.

// Martha Stewart’s Tuna Nicoise Sandwich. Of course, you could put ketchup on ciabatta and it would look yummy to me, but I love salad nicoise and putting it on delicious bread just makes sense.

// These ideas of mixers for your beer made me super curious and can’t wait to try them out. Not all at once, of course.

// For non-alcoholic drinks, these looked super refreshing and yummy. 

//If you are a Trader Joe’s fan (and really who isn’t?) you probably second this list. They all belong at a picnic, don’t you think?

What are you making this weekend?