Chef Mitch here!
Kelly’s whole family complains about eating; they act like it’s a task or something. Yes, this is definitely weird. But as a man built for generous portions, they’re great people to be around.
Do you guys mind if I eat all the food you left on the table?
Let’s talk about that fridge. What are you looking to get rid of?
No! Don’t throw that away! …I’ll eat it.
Since Kelly wasn’t raised in a food-focused family, it kind of comes as no surprise that she isn’t into cooking. And she’s busy, which only adds to it. While I’m away at work, she’s single-handedly raising Emma, dealing with Noodle, running the house, and trying to keep her business afloat. I get why she pushes cooking to the bottom of the to-do list. And listen: It’s not like I’d want Kelly cooking in the first place. ;) She’s famous for putting a pot of water on the stove, forgetting about it, getting hangry, and then ordering a pizza. The last time she tried to cook a big meal, she blew up our microwave, and as a result, we’ve been microwave-less for almost a year. My guess is that she was cooking her famous aluminum foil soufflé.
(Love you, Kelly.)
She’s also an extremely picky eater, which our friends and family can attest to. I mean, I recently convinced her– a grown woman–to try her first pear. She’d never had a pear before! (What?!) And, of course, she didn’t like it. But after seven years together, I’ve developed a handy guide to Kelly’s food nuances. I present to you…
This food pyramid works. When Kelly is hungry, I work from the bottom to the top, suggesting various foods until she commits and I can shovel ’em down. A well-fed Kelly leads to a happy Mitch and Emma. I rely on this pyramid often.
One major issue is that for 10 months out of the year, I have to go to work all day. I can’t just time-warp myself home, busting through the door like the Kool Aid Man with a plate full of gummy bears to save the day at 1 p.m. or something. But what I can do is turn every Sunday afternoon into “weeklong food preparation time.” Our Kelly-approved meals are then frozen and ready to go.
Peapod
I’m a to-do list kind of guy, and Peapod is a to-do list destroyer. It’s awesome. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to cross off major chunks of my list before I even leave the house.
Peapod is this perfect app, as it lets you grocery shop on your phone and then it sends the stuff to your house at a time that works best for you. The company’s selection is incredible, the quality of food is FAR better than the junk I’d buy if left to my own devices, and you don’t have to go grocery shopping anymore!
So after consulting the Kelly Larkin Food Pyramid, here’s the newest “Cookin’ with Mitch” recipe, fully approved by my picky wife. ;)
Sun-Dried Tomato & Blueberry Couscous
This recipe centers on the capstone of Kelly’s food pyramid:
Sun-Dried.
Tomatoes.
Kelly will eat anything as long as sun-dried tomatoes are involved. Are sun-dried tomatoes actually dried in the sun? Is that the most efficient method for drying tomatoes that we’ve come up with? I feel like if I sliced a tomato and laid it out in the sun, a bunch of bugs and stuff would move in and ruin everything but whatever.
When I set out to create this post, my plan was to grab as many Kelly Larkin Food Pyramid ingredients as I could to make an enormous batch of food. If Kelly went for it, I’d freeze the leftovers in individual portions for her to eat throughout the week. As I mentioned before, we have no microwave, but this recipe works great served cold, too.
Prep Time: 30 minutes (Serves 8)
Ingredients
- 16 oz Israeli Couscous (Confession: we used Tri-Color for aesthetics.)
- 1 Large Onion
- 2.25 oz Bag of Pine Nuts
- 7 oz Jar of Sun-Dried Tomatoes
- 1 Bunch of Asparagus
Directions
- Prepare couscous according to package directions.
- Remove stiff ends of asparagus before steaming for 5 – 10 minutes. Dice when ready.
- Dice and caramelize onion.
- Sauté pine nuts with oil in frying pan.
- Combine sun-dried tomatoes, asparagus, caramelized onion, pine nuts and couscous in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil to taste.
- Add blueberries last to avoid bleeding color, and mix before serving.
And that’s that! Happy wife, happy life.
In collaboration with Peapod. Thank you so much for supporting the partnerships that keep Kelly and Mitch in the City up and running! See what I did there?
