When Mom Comes To Visit & What I Cooked Last Week

Cheesy twice-baked potatoes, lemon roasted chicken, broccoli mac & cheese, and veggie tostadas

Happy Friday, folks, I hope you’ve had an amazing week. Welcome to the first issue of my weekly newsletter! 

I’m SO excited to finally launch this newsletter. My hope is that it’ll be a place where you can easily access my recipes and cook from them. Every Friday, I’ll share ~three recipes I cooked the previous week in a printable PDF format, along with personal stories and other fun tidbits. When I started working on this newsletter a few months ago, I kept coming back to what I’m most passionate about: Inspiring people to cook. And one of my top requests has been to create a searchable, printable archive of my recipes. So here it is! It will be updated weekly as I add new recipes. 

A young Maxi & mommy :)

I get a lot of questions about my mom and how close we are, so for this first newsletter, I wanted to share a bit more about our relationship. (Especially since she planned a last-minute trip to see me this week!) My mom is such a big part of how I got here. In seventh grade, I had a falling out with all of my friends and spent a formative year at home with her, learning how to make our family recipes. That’s what really sparked my love of cooking. (You can read more about it here!) Fast-forward to today and my mom is still an integral part of my life. Every few months she flies from Northern California to visit me in LA or NY, and whenever she’s in town, we get right to work testing recipes.

My mom is such a workhorse and is super efficient, so when we’re together we end up doing way more recipes than my usual 4 to 5 a week. In the days leading up to her visit, we’ll start planning on the phone and making a list of ideas.

Once she’s landed, a typical day looks like this: We wake up at around 7am and brainstorm a plan while taking my dog Kimchi for a walk. Then I’ll do my morning routine (exercise and meditation) while she goes to the grocery store. She’ll start prepping—washing veggies and measuring out all the ingredients—and by mid-morning we’re on camera filming the first recipe. Halfway through the day, I’ll start to lose steam, and I’ll say: “Mom, I’m tired… Should we just end it here?” And she’s like, “NO, we can do another one!” So back we go, making another two recipes.

She’s the one driving us forward, plus she does all the dishes while we’re cooking through the recipes (we joke that she’s my Cinderella). It’s always fun because of how collaborative our dynamic is, we’re constantly discussing whether to add a little more of this or that, and we laugh a lot (as you saw in my behind-the-scenes video of my mom biting too quickly into the halloumi sandwich, lol!). Doug is holed up in his office, working away, though we bring him snacks throughout the day. Sometimes he makes an appearance but at his own risk!! At night we’ll eat what we cooked that day or we’ll go out to dinner at one of our favorite spots, like Haidilao Hot Pot, Raffi’s Place, or Mother Wolf.  

I’m always tired after my mom leaves because it can feel like we’ve been running a marathon (this week we did 9 recipes in 3 days!), and of course, I really miss her. She’s such a light in my life and a true force of nature. There’s a period of adjusting back to my normal life… But we talk on the phone every day, so she never feels that far away, plus I have to recharge before her next visit :)

Mom and me on my wedding day July 3, 2022 at Château de Tourreau in France. She was my maid of honor 🥹!

Scroll down for the recipes I cooked this past week with some extra tips. I hope you love these as much as I do, and I can’t wait for you to try them! See you next week!

Love,

Maxine

What I Made Last Week! ↓

Creamy Chicken and Broccoli Twice-Baked Potatoes

This is everything I dream of in a twice-baked potato: cheesy, creamy, and hearty enough to be the star of the show. Don’t forget to set aside 1 cup of the chicken and broccoli sauce in Step 5 for that extra creamy top layer under the melted cheese!

Serves 4

Prep time: 25 minutes | Total time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Creamy Chicken And Broccoli Twice-Baked Potatoes

80.9KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Potatoes

• 4 large russet potatoes (2½ pounds)

• Extra-virgin olive oil

• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Sauce

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

• 2 cups whole milk

• 1½ cups finely chopped broccoli (4 ounces)

• ½ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste

• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste

• 1 cup shredded rotisserie chicken breast (5 ounces) 

• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Toppings

• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

• Finely chopped fresh chives (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF. 

2. Make the potatoes: Place the potatoes on a sheet pan and pierce them with a fork in a few places. Drizzle with a little olive oil and season with some salt and pepper. Bake until the potatoes are tender when squeezed and a fork pierces into the middle with little resistance, 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool on the sheet pan. Reduce the oven temperature to 350ºF. 

3. Make the sauce: In a medium pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the garlic and flour and cook, whisking, for 1 minute. Add the milk, ½ cup at a time, whisking constantly to incorporate between each addition. Increase the heat to medium-high and continue cooking, whisking constantly, until the sauce bubbles and has thickened slightly, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the broccoli, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring, until the broccoli is almost tender, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the chicken and cheddar cheese. Cook, stirring, until the chicken is warm and the cheese is melted, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and cover to keep warm.  

4. Using a sharp knife, slice off the tops of the potatoes. (Keep these tops as you will bake them.) Using a spoon, remove the insides of the potatoes and place the flesh in a large bowl. (Keep the sheet pan as you will use it to bake the potatoes again.) Mash the potato flesh with a potato masher until smooth. 

5. Set aside 1 cup of the sauce, then add the rest to the large bowl with the potato flesh. Mix to combine, then season to taste with salt and pepper. 

6. Fill the potato shells with the potato-sauce mixture and place on the same baking sheet. 

7. Top the potatoes: Cover the filled potatoes with the reserved sauce. Place the potato tops (skin-side down) alongside the filled potatoes. Sprinkle the filled potatoes and the potato tops with the cheddar cheese.

8. Bake until the cheese is melted and potatoes are warmed through, 15 to 18 minutes. Turn on the broiler and broil until the cheese is golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Top with the chives and enjoy! 

You can watch the video here :)