Another win from/for The Scramble*. One of the great things about The Scramble’s meals for our family is the introduction of NEW meals every week. There isn’t time to become bored or tired of one dish. Of course, there are favorites that I’ve saved, or special dishes we simply love to share with guests. The great thing is that this meal planning service meets your dietary needs while simultaneously expanding your dinner-time horizons.

Fish is a great example of this. I really love fish. But before the scramble I had only a few solid recipes to fall back on. NOW… In the Spring and Summer programming of The Scramble, there is a fish option almost every week! Major win for our family as it brings this lean healthy flavorful protein option to our plates more often than we otherwise would make time for. It’s so so easy!

XX, Megan

Ingredients for main dish

• 1 – 1 1/2 lb. flounder fillets, or other firm white fish
• 1/8 tsp. salt, or to taste
• 1/8 tsp. black pepper, or to taste
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs (use wheat/gluten-free if needed)
• 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1/2 lemon, juice only, about 2 Tbsp., plus additional for serving
• 1/2 tsp. minced garlic, (about 1 clove)
• 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 tsp. Dijon mustard (use wheat/gluten-free if needed)

Serve with Farro or Pearled Barley and Asparagus with Pine Nuts.

Start: Begin by boiling your chicken broth for the Faro or Pearled Barley first if you are serving it. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Bake: Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray (you can see that I was out of foil, so I just applied the spray directly to my baking sheet). Salt and pepper the fish to taste. Top each portion of fish with the bread crumb mix below.

Mix: Bread crumbs, oil, parsley, lemon juice, garlic, kosher salt and mustard can be mixed in a medium sized bowl. Again, apply equal amounts of this to the top of each fish portion. Bake the fish for about 10 minutes until it is white and flakey. You can also broil the fish for the final two minutes of baking to achieve a more brown crisp appearance.

Saute: Once you put the fish into the oven, heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a skillet. Add 2 tbsp of pine nuts and toast them for 1-2 minutes. (Don’t let them get too brown! They toast pretty quickly.) Add the asparagus (washed, ends trimmed), and stir-fry for 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and a dash of lemon if you have any left over from the fish.

Remove: Take the fish out of the oven. Give it another squeeze of lemon on the way to your plate and…

Wha-la!

You can see that there is a bit of a difference in the face of the first boy looking at the fish and the second. This is simply to let you know that certain recipes still have differences in palatability from one kiddo to the next. My oldest loved this fish so much he is twirling his fork about! 🙂

*The Scramble is a meal planning service to which you can subscribe here. For a fantastic price you will receive 5 weekly meals which means 5 recipes (main course plus a side dish), complete grocery list, the ability to tweak the number of people you are making for, and full nutrition facts. PLUS tips as to how best to PREP your meal beforehand, add a punch of FLAVOR, and how to SLOW COOK almost every recipe if you’re especially slammed that night. This wonderful service really does live up to it’s name. You can come home at 6 p.m. and be sitting down to a DELICIOUS, HEALTHY, HOME COOKED meal by 6:30 p.m. most nights.

The flavor in this dish is DYNAMITE! Especially if you like the snap that fresh ginger brings to a marinade. The recipe comes from *The Six O’Clock Scramble. So savory and a real win over here at Refined + Rugged. Try it for yourself! I’d love to hear how yours turns out.

XX, Megan

Ingredients for main dish 

• 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 lbs. skirt steak
• 1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce (use wheat/gluten-free if needed)
• 1 Tbsp. sesame seeds
• 1 Tbsp. sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp. fresh ginger, grated
• 1 1/2 tsp. minced garlic, (2 – 3 cloves)
• 1/2 Asian pear, peeled and grated
• 1 yellow onion, halved top to bottom and thinly sliced

Served with brown rice and steamed broccoli.

Chop: Chop the onion in half top to bottom and then thinly slice. Grate the pear and the ginger. Mince the garlic (I use a garlic crusher.) Slice the steak into thin strips cutting across the grain.

Mix: In a large bowl mix the soy sauce, sesame seeds, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and onion. Add the steak and coat thoroughly.

Marinate: You can marinate this dish for as little as 10 minutes and as long as 24 hours. I am a huge fan of the 24 let. it. sit! But tonight we were strapped for time, so I gave it a good 15 minutes which is all I had to give!

Start: If you are planning on using quick cooking brown RICE, you can start it now before you add the meat to the skillet. (I was using the 45 minute jobby, so I started my brown rice before I began any meal prep whatsoever.) Now is also a great time to start your steamed you broccoli.

Sauté: Saute the meat by putting 1/2 of the meat (plus marinade and onions) into a piping hot skillet. Cook for about 4 minutes. Remove to a serving dish and then cook the remaining 1/2 of the meat for 4 minutes.

Steam: I actually sautéed our broccoli in 1 Tbsp. olive oil and then added 2 Tbsp. water and covered it for about 10 minutes (maybe less). I added sesame seeds and a Tbsp. of soy sauce to the broccoli just before it was done.

Eat!

*The Scramble is a meal planning service to which you can subscribe here. For a fantastic price you will receive 5 weekly meals which means 5 recipes, complete grocery list, the ability to tweak the number of people you are making for, and full nutrition facts. PLUS tips as to how best to PREP your meal beforehand, add a punch of FLAVOR, and how to SLOW COOK almost every recipe if you’re especially slammed that night. This wonderful service really does live up to it’s name. You can come home at 6 p.m. and be sitting down to a DELICIOUS, HEALTHY, HOME COOKED meal by 6:30 p.m. most nights.

I actually don’t remember the first time I listened to a StoryCorp interview. Which is funny because I used to be able to remember every intersection, every cross-roads, every meeting, every date and almost every name for every person I’d encountered on this beautiful green and blue globe. (I blame having children for my reversion to simple memory.)

I don’t remember the first STORY I heard on StoryCorp either, but there have been so many now, that this is no surprise either. But I do REMEMBER almost every story I’ve heard.

StoryCorp was begun in 2003 by David Isay, longtime documentary film and radio producer. Winner of a MacArthur genius award, and personal story champion extraordinaire!

Isay and his team set up what they called a ‘listening booth’ in Grand Central Terminal, New York, New York. The booth was a small sound studio, where you were invited into a comfortable room by a story facilitator, lights dimmed for ambiance, and given 40 minutes to record whatever you wanted about your life, times, or personal story.

The objective was not only to record personal interviews, but to capture interviews between two people who knew each other well– husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, friends and close co-workers, or you and the guy you’d been drinking coffee next to at the same neighborhood cafe for 20 years. Intimate conversations between family, friends, loved ones. Isay’s purpose was to record the voices of the PEOPLE. These interviews would then be archived in the Library of Congress. The Big Grand-daddy of all other Library’s. The Library in America’s Capitol. The place that holds some of the most treasured works of writing and sound on earth.

THERE, in that edifice to learning, the interviews will be kept so that in 100 years, someone’s great-grandchild could go in and request to hear the interview between their mother and a facilitator about the day her ex-husband called from the 103rd floor before his death in the World Trade Center attack, a grand-niece or nephew could pull up a recording of their uncle and his friend remembering the day they were left alone to care for an entire assisted living facility when everyone else walked off the job, a man describing to his wife what it felt like to serve in Afghanistan, or a police officer interviewing a boy he had talked down from a bridge jump 10 years previous. And that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

You can hear an in-depth (about an hour) description of how Isay came to produce StoryCorp here, here, and here (it’s in three parts). This was a conference address Isay gave to the International Feature Conference in London, 2012. One of the most important take aways from that presentation was a story that David told about one of the sparks that sparked the idea that became StoryCorp.

In brief: Isay did a film project which was later turned into a book focusing on Sunshine Hotel. Sunshine Hotel was a flop house in the Bowery neighborhood of NYC, a hold-over from a huge homeless population that lived in there from the depression era through much of the 50s and even 60s.

Guests of Sunshine Hotel could stay at the hotel for $5.00 a night, and sometimes that night stretched into two years of nights. The narrator Nathan Smith, describes the fact that Sunshine Hotel has its own microcosmic societal universe– a laundry service, a guy who will clean your room for you and Rick, a Vietnam vet who will run your errands for tips.

The cast of characters is colorful to put it lightly, and Isay describes the moment when he took the galleys of the book based on his film work there at Sunshine Hotel BACK to show some of the residents still living there. One gentleman grabbed his picture from the pages of the galley and took off down the hall of the hotel yelling, “I exist, I exist!!” Waving his picture over his head as he ran.

This so impacted Isay, the idea that someone would be so moved, so touched, so excited, so legitimated, so real to themselves by seeing their own picture and story taped and in print that he dedicated his life to preserving the stories of others. Something he was already doing in his film and radio work, but something he dug deeper to the CORE of with StoryCorp.

If you get nothing else from this post, I hope you will listen to/watch the love story of Danny and Annie Perasa. Danny and Annie were some of the first people to be interviewed in that first listening booth in Grand Central Terminal (Isay estimates somewhere within the first 30 days).

Their story is simply beautiful. And because Danny and Annie visited in StoryCorps early days, they actual came back many times to record interviews with one another as well as many, many people they brought with them.

Here is their STORY:

My EXPERIENCE with StoryCorp was cemented over and over again on the commute between our tiny 600 sq. ft. apartment in Alexandria, VA and the campus of The George Washington University where I studied for my Masters Degree, and L St where my husband worked in D.C.

An interview is played every Friday on NPR’s Morning Edition. If you haven’t ever heard of StoryCorp you should check out their website. You can like their page on Face Book and link to every Morning Edition interview, or read the book of interviews, Listening is an Act of Love, Isay published in 2007, or go to the Library of Congress and ask to listen to one of the interviews that’s been archived.

That listening experience has been concreted over and over and over again. Partially through some of my own research into personal natrative and StoryCorp, but mostly from hearing those interviews broadcast Friday upon Friday.

I heard one just last week that brought tears to my eyes. The truth is that these words, these interviews, are the most true and pure essence of the human spirit I have ever come across. They are real, raw recording of people like you and me. They are poignant, and as Isay points out time and time again– they are poetry. The poetry of human existence. Today, instead of that first sound booth in Grand Central, you might record your interview with your loved one in a fully outfitted Air Stream mobile booth.

StoryCorp has taken their initiative to the road and criss-crossed America capturing over 100,000 interviews around the country– all archived at the Library of Congress.

But there’s more, and I’m going to be sharing those exciting updates surrounding StoryCorp on Friday. David Isay won the 2015 TED prize, and what he did with that prize will astound you.

I promise that this affects you MORE THAN YOU THINK. Maybe more than you will ever know. I hope you’ll have a listen.

See you back here Friday! (And hopefully every day in between 🙂

XX, Megan

Our children are on polar opposite ends of the picky-eater scale, almost as far apart in preference as you can get. Our oldest will eat almost everything. This is a kid who was downing legitimate sushi at 3, friends. I couldn’t have been more thrilled as a parent, and I’m sure I patted myself on the back on one too many occasions. Because child #2 really couldn’t have come MORE picky.

I’ve related here (in my Camping with Kiddos post) that he would gladly have eaten chicken nuggets every meal of every day if we had allowed it. He woke up asking for chicken nuggets for breakfast, and honestly, he almost ALWAYS had chicken nuggets for dinner. Sushi? Are you kidding me? Pasta? No way! Sandwiches? I’ll pass. Salads? Yeah, right.

Things went on this way with Chicken Nugget for nearly two years. in his second year of life we subscribed to The Scramble*, and I found myself making two dinners every night. Which, I guess, wasn’t that different from what we’d been doing before. I mean, we didn’t fall whim to his palate and start eating chicken nuggets every blessed day. Eventually I was tired of the two-dinner tango. Even if it only meant that we had to throw some chicken nuggets in the microwave.

It was time to rip off the band-aid. We simply allowed #2 to eat chicken nuggets for lunch EVERY DAY (without exception), but when it came to dinner we let him know that he didn’t have to eat what we were serving but that THERE WOULDN’T BE ANY CHICKEN NUGGETS or other food stuffs offered later (without exception).For the most part, this has worked.

This salad is a perfect example of something the #2 would not have taken one bite of two years ago. Turn up the nose, ask for a nugget. That was his M.O. Now, in the present, the food is eaten. Sometimes varying portions, sometimes a squinty expression, sometimes some actual whining (however, people at our table are invited to spend time in their bedrooms if they don’t want to eat). Man, this makes us sound like we are hardcore, but I promise we are nice about it. Nice, but firm.

On to the salad!

Ingredients for main dish

• 1 – 1 1/2 lb. chicken tenderloins, or use sliced portobello mushrooms
• 8 oz. balsamic vinaigrette dressing, (store-bought or homemade, see Note below)
• 8 oz. mixed salad greens
• 1/2 cup dried cherries or cranberries
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds or shelled pistachios, lightly toasted, if desired
• 10 fresh basil or mint leaves, sliced (optional)
• 1/2 cup crumbled Gorgonzola or blue cheese
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels, or use kernels off of 2 ears of corn

Marinate:  This recipe doesn’t actually call for extended marinating time. I just like the flavors to really mesh with my meat. So I marinated my 1 1/2 lbs. of chicken overnight in 6 oz. balsamic vinaigrette in a baking pan. (You can reserve a few oz. to dress your salad with after it is assembled.)

Homemade Orange Balsamic from The Scramble: To make orange balsamic vinaigrette, in a large measuring cup, thoroughly whisk together 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar and 2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard. Add ¼ – ½ tsp. garlic or dried herbs, if desired. BOOM!

Bake: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the entire pan of chicken into the oven for 10-15 minutes. (Alternative remove chicken from the marinade and grill it for 3-5 minutes each side depending on the temp of your grill.)

Toss: Meanwhile, throw all of the other ingredients– greens, cherries, almonds, basil or mint– except the corn in to a salad bowl. When your chicken is almost cooked, warm your corn kernels for 2-3 minutes in the microwave (or simmer it stovetop). Add them to the mix. Slice the cooked chicken and add it to your salad. Toss the entire salad with the remaining dressing to taste.

Eat!

I don’t have a picture here of #1 happily chowing down on his salad, but his reaction was positive, I assure you. #2 ate three or four bites of this delicious fare, and I count that as a win. Every bite. Every time. If it’s more diverse than micro zapped chicken pound, it’s a win for us with Chicken Nugget!

Have a Fabulous Friday!

XX, Megan *The Scramble is a meal planning service to which you can subscribe here. For a fantastic price you will receive 5 weekly meals which means 5 recipes, complete grocery list, the ability to tweak the number of people you are making for, and full nutrition facts. PLUS tips as to how best to PREP your meal beforehand, add a punch of FLAVOR, and how to SLOW COOK almost every recipe if you’re especially slammed that night. This wonderful service really does live up to it’s name. You can come home at 6 p.m. and be sitting down to a DELICIOUS, HEALTHY, HOME COOKED meal by 6:30 p.m. most nights.

Because my schedule is flexible, I am usually able to prep our meal at 4:00 p.m. HOWEVER, if you are a busy professional parent, remember that you can go through your weekly menu and do a ton of prep on the weekend. Recipes always say how long you can keep the prepared dish in the fridge or whether or not you can FREEZE the meal. Win, WIN! You can read a little more about our introduction to The Scramble on my ABOUT page.