Katie Workman is the Editor in Chief and Chief Marketing Officer of Cookstr.com , a website devoted to great, tested recipes from chefs and cookbook authors, so she knows her way around the kitchen.

Even really finicky kids seem to love quesadillas. You can describe them simply as round grilled cheese sandwiches, or Mexican grilled cheese sandwiches, if you like.  It’s just hard to NOT like melted cheese between two carbs (see Note).  A salad or some steamed broccoli or some cut up veggies is all you need to make a favorite Mexican restaurant appetizer into a weeknight dinner at home.  Cooking the first batch of tortillas on their own saves you the skilled chore of flipping them, which can result in a quesadilla pinata, meaning the filling flies out all over the place.  Not fun.

If you give each kid the first tortilla on a plate, with the fillings laid out for them to choose from, they can create their own quesadilla masterpiece, the you finish it off under the broiler or on the grill.

The Basic Quesadilla (and its infinite variations)

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By Kami Lewis Levin

Ladies, we were flat out lied to.  Period.  All those teachers, parents, adult role models, and TV characters who constantly reiterated to us girls that we can do anything we put our minds to were effing liars.  They didn’t find it necessary to share the fine print with us.  They didn’t consider disclosing the gravity of the situation to us.  Just like nobody told us that giving birth hurts like hell, nobody told us that choosing to be a working mom is a one-way ticket to our very own three-ring circus.  Except the clowns are our children.  And sometimes our husbands.  And we are the tightrope walkers, fire-eaters, hoop-jumpers, trapeze artists, and lion tamers.  And, on occasion, the lions.  I am woman.  Hear me roar, damn it.

After my second kid was born and operating under the mistaken assumption that I could give both my family and my job 110% of my energy (I was never very good at math), I spent the better part of the past year experiencing my own very special brand of culture shock.  The kind where you just have to go to bed by 8.  The kind where getting dressed to impress is simply not an option (you know, the whole drool, snot, poop, spit-up factor).  The kind where a date with your husband involves a drug-addict like dependency on Netflix.  The kind where your personal identity decides to go on hiatus, leaving a confused, spent, and in my case, fat, out of shape and depressed, shell of a person behind.

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(photo from Gourmet.com)

Oh, how I love strawberries that taste like strawberries (as opposed to strawberries that we eat most of the year, until the summer, you know, the ones that only look like strawberries.) Cartons of locally-grown strawberries have started to appear at the store and sent me looking for some new ideas of what to do with them, in addition to just eating them by the handful.

Gourmet.com: Strawberry dumplings

Yumsugar: Spinach and strawberry salad

Smitten Kitchen: Strawberry rhubarb crisp (where I get to combine two of my favorite ingredients of all time)

FamilyFun: Lady bugs on a stick (now these will make a popular mom around here)

By Sally McGraw from Already Pretty

Tell me that you hate getting presents and I’ll tell you that you’re full of lies. We ALL love presents, for Pete’s sake. I mean, when someone puts in the time and energy to pick out a thoughtful gift, receiving that gift lights us up from the inside and reminds us how beloved we truly are. And that’s priceless and precious. But it’s also just plain fun to get stuff, and gifties from friends and family provide little surges of joy whenever they land in our eager laps.

But there are some gifts that you can only give to yourself, and many of them will make you feel happier than a gorgeous pair of Prada boots or a brand new iPod. There are some gifts that center around self-knowledge, self-care and self-esteem, and it’s best for us to procure them on our own terms and on our own time. There are some gifts that we deserve year-round, not just around the holidays or on our birthdays, and now seems like as good a time as any to enumerate them.

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(Image from New York Times)

I’ve been trying to cook with more seasonal ingredients and there’s been lots of fresh inexpensive asparagus at the store, so I took it as a sign to find some asparagus recipes. To be honest, it’s not one of my favorite veggies, but it’s growing on me (and now I just have to find a way for it to grow on the rest of my family.)

New York Times: Asparagus salad with hard boiled eggs

Barefoot Contessa: Parmesan roasted asparagus (I’ve made this and it’s really simple and flavorful)

Whole Foods: Quinoa with tofu and asparagus

By Chris from Rude Cactus

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not big on “Hallmark holidays.” You know, the ones that were dreamed up solely to sell greeting cards. But it’s hard for me to argue too strenuously because the subjects of the holidays the greeting card industry dreamed up are pretty great. I mean who can dispute the relative merits of mothers, grandfathers, secretaries, or trees? I’m an ass sometimes but not that big of an ass. And it’s not like they also came up with Insider Trader Day or Cracked-Out Prostitute Day (though, really, cracked-out hookers could use a card at the very least). And really, I can’t honestly say that I don’t like waking up on one particular day and being honored as a father. After all, it’s the most important job I have. But there’s the inevitable question that I always get from my wife but never know how to answer. What do you want for Father’s Day? Damn. I can’t escape that one.

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Katie Workman is the Editor in Chief and Chief Marketing Officer of Cookstr.com , a website devoted to great, tested recipes from chefs and cookbook authors, so she knows her way around the kitchen.

Serve this with rice, of course.  You choose, white or brown.  My husband like to sprinkle soy sauce on his.  But then again, he’d probably sprinkle soy sauce on me if I let him.

Chicken Sauteed with Scallions and Ginger

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil (or corn oil, or peanut oil or mild flavored olive oil - don’t worry yourself too much about this)
  1/2 cup chopped onion
  1 teaspoon chopped garlic
  2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
  4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin (or about 8 thin chicken cutlets)
  salt to taste
  Freshly ground pepper to taste
  10 scallions, trimmed and sliced 1/2 inch thick, whites and greens
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth, divided
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon dry sherry (optional)
  Cooked rice, to serve
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By Melissa Summers of Suburban Bliss

It’s nearly the end of the school year and I’m in major denial. I don’t think I’ll believe it until I send the kids to the bus stop and the bus never arrives. Even then, I’ll probably try a few more times, just to be sure it’s really happening. It’s time to say Thank You to the teacher who has guided your child through this last year of learning, leaving them prepared to conquer the next year.

I’ve been giving teacher gifts for the last thirteen years, so I feel reasonably knowledgeable on the topic. Knowledgeable enough to know that baked goods are often trashed, “Teacher Themed” items are rarely a hit and one more “Apple #1 Teacher” coffee mug is going to make your kid’s teacher black list your kid forever.

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Chicken is probably the protein we eat the most at our house and I’m always on the lookout for new, quick recipes. Here are a few I am putting on my list to try:

Food and Wine : Skillet Chicken and Mushroom Pot Pie

Simply Recipes : Chicken with Mango Chutney

Barefoot Contessa: Chicken with Goat Cheese and Basil (I’m pretty sure I’ve made this one before and loved it, but not in a while so putting it on the list to make again.)