Lorraine Wallace - Mr. and Mrs. Sundays Suppers: More than 100 Delicious, Homemade Recipes to Bring Your Family Together

Text copyright 2015 by Lorraine Wallace
Photographs copyright 2015 by Waterbury Publications. Inc.
Additional photographs copyright 2015 by Yassine El Mansouri

All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhco.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wallace, Lorraine.
Mr. and Mrs. Sundays suppers / Lorraine Wallace.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-118-17529-3 (hardback); 978-0-544-18745-0 (ebk)
1. Cooking for two. 2. Dinners and dining.
I.Title. II. Title: Mister and missus Sundays suppers.
TX714.W26186 2015
641.5'612dc23
2014011682

v1.0115

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the many dedicated and talented people who helped make this book possible.

Thank you:

My husband Chris and our childrenPeter, Megan, Catherine, Andrew, Sarah, and Remickfor the love and encouragement that they give me unconditionally.

Mom, for teaching me to always use organic ingredients, and how to cook.

My family, for both recipes and memories: Kappy Leonard, Pauline and Richard Bourgeois, Jennifer Wallace and our grandchildren William, Caroline, and James. And Miguel Calderon and granddaughters Sabine and Livia Calderon Wallace.

My friends: Ann Free, Josh Bowman, Ricky Lauren, Nancy Ellison, Nelson Sigelman, Josh Muss, Patty Warrender, and Liz Dubin for sharing their favorite supper recipes.

Chefs I admire: Chef Bill Smith of Crooks Corner restaurant, Frank Pellegrino of Raos, Chef Billy Martin of Martins Tavern, the Lobel family and Lobels New York, Chef Luigi Diotaiuti of Al Tiramisu, Chef Ann Marie James of Wagshals Deli, Molly Stevens, Christy and Libby Hughes of the Irish Inn, Myron Mixon, and Jos Andrs, for sharing their one-of-a-kind specialties.

Adam Mahr, Lou Shields, and Sue Bluford for wonderful tabletop and table-styling ideas.

My agent Michael Psaltis of the Culinary Entertainment Agency, who always helps me with the details and never lets me lose sight of the big picture.

Kelly Alexander, an award-winning food writer and editor, for her friendship and culinary expertise in tasting, testing, writing, and editing.

My editor, Justin Schwartz, for his vision and professionalism.

My publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for believing in me and making my vision come true with all of their hard work.

Cover photographer Yassine El Mansouri for his keen eye for photography and for always making me look good.

Most of the recipes in this book are designed to serve 8. Feel free to scale them according to your needs. Cut them in half, quarter them, or double them as needed.

And send me your feedback at my website, www.mrssunday.com .

All my best wishes from my kitchen to yours!

That is the joking way my husband, Chris (aka Mr. Sunday), asks me when supper will be ready. Like so many families, I have to figure out how to put a meal on the table on a busy work nightand also for special larger family gatherings. It has to be reasonably quick and easy, but also I want it to be delicious. This is a hard balance to strike, and yet we all crave spending time together over a tasty and satisfying meal at the end of a hard day of work.

For many years, I balanced the schedules, after-school activities, and appointments for our blended family. And that is not to mention their likes and dislikes and dietary restrictions. And through this experience I believe it is important for everyone in a family to sit down together for supper. There are studies that show children learn to cope better with their anxieties when they share a meal with their parents and siblings. They have a chance to discuss the highs and lows of their days and to unwind together. Now, I realize that every supper cannot be a culinary hit, but I have always tried to make each evening meal special and I hope that in this book, Mr. and Mrs. Sundays Suppers, you can find a guideline to help you get supper on the table.

Chris and I are empty-nesters now, but that does not make the task easieractually, cooking for two is the same challenge. And the goal is still the same: to sit down for supper and share our experiences at the end of the day, whether were by ourselves or some of our adult children drop in for a home-cooked meal. The most important thing Ive learned is that with just a little effort and great ingredients, a satisfying supper isnt very difficult, and all of the recipes in this book are designed to help you do just that: Create great meals that arent a struggle or a chore. Im giving you a formula for success, from my kitchen to yours!

What is supper? While dinner and supper are often used interchangeably to mean the evening meal, most of the recipes in this book are for the kind of meal you probably only use one pot to prepare, whether you bake, braise, or saut them. Most of the recipes in this book serve eight, and I encourage you to make the eight portions even if its just two of you, as nothing makes a week easier than having leftovers. I also thought eight was a good number of servings because you can just split the recipe in half if you want it to yield less.

Last but not least is the Sunday Suppers chapter, which I hope will provide you with insight about the tradition of the Sunday meal and some ideas to start your own. Here I give you whole supper suggestions, including delicious sides and desserts to make the meal complete.

I want to dispel the notion that supper has to mean a frazzled, harried experience for the home cook. And I do consider myself a home cook. I never dreamed of writing a cookbook. My first, Mr. Sundays Soups, came about because I was looking for a way to get my family together for a quick Sunday lunch before we all headed our separate ways. And soup was the perfect solution. It worked so well for my family that I started sharing my recipes with friends. When I realized I had enough soups to fill a book, I had to put up with some doubtseven from my loving husband. But I pressed on. I call that the Little Book That Could and you helped make it a bestseller!

My second book, Mr. Sundays Saturday Night Chicken, came about the very same way. When Chris took over as the anchor of Fox News Sunday, I asked him what he wanted to eat the night before his first show. The answer was chicken, because it is his comfort food, and for over ten years weve eaten chicken every Saturday night. As Chris likes to say, Change is overrated.