By Natalie from Bloorb

I, Natalie, am a geek. And no, not a geek like I write code and buy the latest gadgets, but a geek like I get both small and big thrills from getting stuff DONE, from making stuff TIDIER, from feeling more FREE of things. While most would call it nesting (or even “being anal”), my husband calls it “geeking out” – something I do quite often.

In my house – while my husband would kill me for writing this – nothing thrills me more than ticking stuff off a to-do list. As a project manager by day, I know that the simplest stuff ALWAYS falls through the cracks if it’s not written down, so at home, I write it down! If it’s cluttered, piled, or just plain annoying – I write it down, and that means, eventually, it gets done! Because even if it doesn’t get done RIGHT AWAY, I can at least sleep easier knowing that it WILL eventually get done – because it was written down.

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Pizza is has replaced pork as the foodstuff that the food mafia can’t stop buzzing about.  Those of us with kids have always known that pizza is the greatest food in the world, and that sometimes even bad pizza is great.  There are lots of fancy-schmancy pizzas out there, and lots of foodie talk about artisanal cheese and fine-milled flour, but for the rest of us, it’s a little daunting to think about making pizza at home.  But hopefully your secret weapons sitting right in your backyard - the grill.

Here are the two major tips to remember:

1) Watch the temperature, aiming for medium-high.  If it’s too hot, the pizza can scorch and if it’s too low it might stick or come out soggy.

2)  Flipping the crust after two minutes or so means that the top of the pizza dough will have firmed up, so that you can layer on your cheese and whatever else you fancy, and not end up with a disappointing wet, undercooked layer of dough between the bottom crust and the toppings.

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll make this a summertime staple.  People are always very impressed to see a pizza being grilled up, and while of course it’s a guaranteed kid-pleaser, it makes grown-ups extremely happy as well.  You can stick with tomato sauce and cheese, or you can get inventive with the toppings.  Blue cheese and figs?  Greek olives and feta?  Broccoli and fontina?  Let the kids — and your friends — invent their own combos - do remember to precook some of the more dense raw ingredients, like broccoli, onions or sliced red peppers.

Here’s the drill:
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By Jen Wilson of Hey Mrs. Wilson

Bullying is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I can safely say that I hate it. I was bullied mercilessly as a child and therefore know first-hand how damaging it can be. I was never physically hurt, but I think that if I was, those wounds would have healed faster than the emotional ones. I was a nerdy kid. I wasn’t at the top of my class, nose stuck in the books, but I wore mismatched sweat suits, I had glasses, and I hadn’t a clue about social norms.

One memory that sticks out in my head is of two girls chasing me into the church nursery yelling repeatedly, “Split ends! Split ends! You have split ends!” I remember begging for a hair cut after that. I also remember being even more self-conscious than I already was. In Jr. High, one of my “best friends” would constantly pick at any imperfection she could find. Her favorite one was my crooked chicken legs. She loved to make herself feel better by making me feel horrible about myself. I also had a habit of moistening my lips, and was teased so mercilessly by the girls on the basketball team that I eventually quit the team, telling my disappointed coach that I really just didn’t like basketball all that much.

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By Ali Martell from Cheaper Than Therapy

We recently introduced ALLOWANCE at Casa de Martell.

Now, I know that this is one of those. A controversial one. There are people who are in the YES! Allowances are the best, yo! They are great for kids! camp. There are people who are in the NO! Allowances are bad news. Kids shouldn’t be paid for doing things they should already do.

I will admit, until this past year, I was just sort of “meh” about allowances. But, I made the decision to do it. And my reasoning is three-fold.

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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.

Ever bite into one of those warmed up frozen chicken nuggets only to peer inside and think…”What in the world in in here?”  Sometimes you get lucky and inside it looks like actual chicken.  Sometimes it looks grayish, or like some indeterminate filling that may or may not have a significant percentage of chicken inside.  And a whole lot of other miscellaneous ingredients besides.  There are over 30 ingredients in McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets*, according to their very own recipe on their website, including imethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent. Yikes. Gross.

I have been making chicken nuggets at home for a long time now, and not once have I ever foaming issues.  Look, it’s not like I haven’t bought my kids a Happy Meal once in a while, and God knows those french fries are to die for, at least while they’re hot.  But once you try your hand at these homemade chicken nuggets or tenders or strips, whatever you want to call them, you will breathe a sigh of relief at being able to give your kids something they will happily snarf down, and something you can not add to your list of things to feel guilty about.  Moms’ guilt lists are long enough already, thank you.

Use eggs or milk, or skip that step altogether if allergies or time is an issue.

15-Minute Homemade Chicken Nuggets
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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.

I have been on a couscous bender lately.  But not the fine, granular couscous that we often see in Middle Eastern dishes.  I’ve been obsessing over Mediterranean couscous, also called Israeli couscous or grande couscous.  These are tiny little balls of cooked semolina pasta which plump up when cooked into toothsome, chewy slightly less tiny balls of pasta.  The brand I have been using of late is Marrakesh Express, and they describe their couscous grande as “creamy pearls of pasta,” which I wish I made up, but I didn’t.

Regular couscous is nice, but I’ve never fallen in love; I know there are lots of fans out there.  This bigger version is great stuff.  I’ve been making variation after variation, and the following is a variation that I made recently, and the one that my friend Abby harassed me daily for a week to write down.  She really did, and she also said the harassing wouldn’t stop until she got the recipe.  See how good it is?  Or maybe she’s just really really persistent.  Or both.

This is an infinitely flexible recipe, and with water or vegetable broth (and no bacon - duh) is vegetarian.  I made a veggie version last night which served as the main dish for my vegetarian friend, and a side dish for everyone else.   Throw in whatever ingredients/flavors you have and like. The ingredient list is SO flexible - use onions or shallots instead of garlic (less garlic, more onion). You can skip the bacon or the peppers or the feta or the olives, or even two of them for a simpler dish.  The scallions at the end are mostly for show (though they do add a nice flavor), so they are quite optional.

You can add chunks of cooked chicken, or shrimp, to make it a main course, or use it as a bed for sliced steak or a filet of salmon.

As a bonus, it’s kind of funny to see little kids chase the little pasta balls on their plates with a fork.  If you want to be nice, you could give them a spoon, but it’s not as much fun to watch.

Here’s the recipe, it serves 10 as a side dish.
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From Well-Heeled

1. Bury your head in the sand. Given the doom and gloom of the news lately, it’s hard to blame anyone who wants to turn off the TV and just tune out the news for the next 12 months. But while hibernation works for a bear, it won’t work in this bear market. Now is not the time to be blissfully ignorant of what’s going on. Right now IS the time to stick to the boring basics of personal finance: get out of high-interest debt, refrain from taking on new debt, and start, or add to, your emergency fund.

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