So I know I just posted a kale salad recipe, but you can never have too much raw kale in your diet, kiddies.

I made these Brussels sprouts twice this week. Yes, this recipe’s a definite keeper, but also I had to make them a second time because the first time I was too distracted by what our new edition, Joey, was getting into to take pictures. And the distraction was totally justified; I took my eyes off [...]

About a month ago we had dinner with our friends Ruthie and Forrest, and Ruthie made this kale tart. While we were eating it she totally talked it down, saying how it wasn’t as good as it normally was and she had to leave out the cranberries, etc., but I loved it. So much so [...]

Bring this to Thanksgiving this year only if you want the majority of your family and friends to glower and sneer. It’s a slawlike salad of finely shredded kale and sliced brussels sprouts, topped with toasted walnuts and parmesan, and dressed in a mustard vinaigrette; Bon Appetit advertises that it will “cut through the richness [...]

The first time I tried to carve a pumpkin, I was shocked by how difficult it was and ended up having to draw the face on with a Sharpie. All those Halloweens I’d watched my dad do it in the backyard, it had looked easy; he, and the job of carving those big pumpkins, suddenly [...]

The span of days between posts is creeping to greater and greater numbers, and I’ve been going back and forth between feeling guilty and defensive, between wanting to explain/justify/apologize for this obvious lapse and wanting to ignore it, pretend it’s not happening, hoping that in the grand scheme of the blog this summer will be [...]

The moment I’d resigned myself to having eggs for dinner, even though I’d had them for lunch, because I’m the worst dinner eater/cooker ever these days, I looked out my window into the backyard and spotted all these bright red ornaments.

I’m not one of those people who likes fresh berries best by the handful. I need them doctored: sugared and baked into pies, cobblers, and crumbles; blended with yogurt and honey and juice into a smoothie; churned into an ice cream; simmered into a sauce, compote, or jam. If I was my normal self these [...]

Ironically I’m pretty sure I’ve actually lost weight since becoming a full-fledged baker/pastry chef/chef or whatever I am nowadays. The sweltering heat of my basement kitchen is utterly appetite-killing; the prospect of having to taste test a new scone or muffin, vomit-inducing. I throw back glass after glass of icy water yet rarely pee. All [...]

It’s been an unusually busy week, what with jetting off to Massachusetts to see a new baby and other relatives in from out of town, getting back late and working all the next day, then going straight to a seder, then working all day, going straight to another seder, working all day again, going straight [...]

If anyone ever gets wind of me deciding to spend my one day off making homemade ravioli again, please please try to talk me out of it. Call me up and tell me it’s really not necessary, that instead I should put my feet up and relax. I probably won’t pick up but you can leave [...]

There are two things I can count on the husband to say every time we eat a meal together at home: (1) “Did you make a pie?” (this during the last bites of the meal) and (2) “Where’s the appetizer?” (this at the moment he walks in the door and sees that I’m still sweating [...]

What with holidays and more holidays and birthdays taking precedence, I didn’t get to tell you about this fantastic breakfast I made like three weeks ago. Similar to wheat berries, farro is apparently something you can eat for breakfast. Hearty and satisfying, a little bit sweet, a little bit creamy, a little bit licoricey, this [...]

I feel a bit uncomfortable referring to butternut squash as simply squash, since to me “squash” refers to the crook-necked yellow variety that my mom would always make. But up north the default squash seems to be butternut, a winter squash, which makes perfect sense seeing how it’s winter here for most of the year.

I’ve been saving this one for a lull. It’s not like I haven’t been cooking over here (although I’ll be the first to admit that the scale has tilted sharply in favor of desserts, leaving actual food by the wayside), it’s just that a recent slew of ambitious recipes has failed to excite me as [...]

One of the best things I’ve ever eaten is the casunzei at Babbo. It’s a beet-and-ricotta-filled ravioli in a butter sauce, topped with poppy seeds. The pasta sheets are super thin and light, the sweet beet filling melts in your mouth, and the butter makes it all go down easy. Al di la has a version, [...]

When you make these carrots (and you will make them), do yourself a favor and double the recipe because it’s really disappointing first of all to only have a teensy bit of them left over and more disappointing still to come home after a long, hard day of work and gym to discover that that [...]

I wasn’t sure exactly how many beets I’d need for the ice cream, so I overbought, planning to make one of my favorite salads with the extra. There’s nothing revolutionary about pairing beets and goat cheese, I know, but there’s a reason everyone does it. Sweet, earthy, firm beets are simply perfect with slightly tangy, [...]

In a bout of confidence, I decided to just wing it with these sweet potato latkes, and I must say I, we, were quite pleased with the results. Latkes are a bit of a tricky business. You need to make sure they hold together and aren’t too liquidy and that you’re frying them in the [...]

My sister-in-law’s father’s stuffing. We loved it so much when we had it for the first time a few years ago that I had to get the recipe. It’s vegetarian, which for whatever reason makes me really happy. On holidays and big gatherings where lots of food is involved, I always find myself thinking of [...]

Behold. The mac and cheese that has ruined mac and cheese for me, that has turned me into such a huge mac and cheese snob that I’ve found I have to feign enthusiasm at restaurants when people suggest ordering a couple sides of it for the table. I just know I’ll be disappointed. Bacon it [...]

This was so super delicious and pretty. Spicy, savory, sweet, nutty, herby, creamy, and seasonally appropriate. Basically perfect. Except for one thing. It’s so troublesome, I can’t put it out of my mind: the sage-hazelnut goat cheese looks like crumbled blue cheese. If you were approaching this dish at a buffet table, for instance, you’d [...]

I have to get something off my chest. I’d already been feeling guilty that I hadn’t posted a main course in a while because I know sometimes people are just like, gimme something to make for dinner tonight, and yo, where’s the beef? And then I was looking over my ridiculously long queue (I say [...]

The husband said that if I ever wanted to make a noodle kugel to, ya know, just have in the fridge, he would eat it. I thought this was his way of asking me to make noodle kugel, and I was happy to oblige because it’s one of those things I need to know about, [...]

We had some truly delicious spaghetti squash at a friend’s house the other night. It was simply prepared, mixed with tomato sauce and zucchini and garlic and onions and herbs and maybe peppers (I can’t remember exactly), but it was just so good and perfectly seasoned. I knew that if I attempted to replicate it [...]

Ever since I got my KitchenAid stand mixer, the husband has been asking me when I’m going to make fresh pasta. I keep telling him, no, it’s not a pasta maker, the pasta maker is a separate attachment thingy that costs extra money. Well then what does that thing do? he asks, referring to the [...]

I have a real big problem with Indian food, not because it gave me horrible, debilitating food poisoning the last two days of my honeymoon in Africa, but because whenever I try to cook it at home it just outright refuses to taste like anything even close to authentic. Great Indian food, especially when it’s [...]

I’m particularly fond of any recipe with dried fruit and nuts (wonder why?), and this is one I’ve made multiple times. The husband finds the greens a bit bitter, which they are. But he seems particularly sensitive to bitterness whereas I handle it pretty well. Like it, even.

This is, to me, what cheesesteak pie is to the husband. It’s the best thing ever. Since I made it, I’ve been thinking about it nonstop. I want to eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In fact, I’m eating it right now. I think I may have to go out and buy another butternut squash [...]

We may have to emphasize quantity over quality this week. I didn’t even know where to start. I have eight posts queued up and not one is expendable. For no justifiable reason I am panicked about this and maybe just maybe a bit scatterbrained. Also, I’m losing a lot of hair. Does that happen from [...]

What a charming little ragout this is with its pretty okra flowers. This is reassuring. This means it’s still summer, at least for today. I keep expecting to arrive at the farmer’s market and see that poof! all the corn and tomatoes have been replaced with sweet potatoes and butternut squash, but apparently it doesn’t [...]

Ooh ahh do I have treats for you today, not just one recipe but four. Okay, so one is hummus, and I know I’ve already given you a hummus recipe, but this here is a different version, so it counts. Having apparently gotten over my aversion to pita and hummus and the like after I was [...]

Here’s a lovely story, and I’m sure many of you have a similar one. So I go to the grocery store and, among other things, buy some ricotta. Some ricotta that has not yet reached its expiration date, I might add. I make this pesto. I get to the part where I’m supposed to stir [...]

Number one, it is a frickin’ miracle that this post is even happening right now. How is it possible that every time the last four times I’ve managed to transfer pictures from my new camera to my computer I’ve forgotten how to do it and spent many many minutes, I might even say hours, trying to [...]

Ahh. It does feel good to be back. I just spent 17 days in Israel with no computer, no cell phone, and no kitchen, feeling completely cut off from my normal life in the best possible way. What I treasure most about vacations are the totally inane daily decisions that take on such importance. Should [...]

Back when I made that Spring Panzanella, I decided I was going to do one for every season. This is the summer one. Oh. You got that? So I was eating this and I was thoroughly enjoying it, but then I realized that I was leaving a lot of the bread at the bottom of my [...]

Oh, hey there! How’s it goin? It feels like it’s been forever. I’ve been thinking about this bruschetta post for days but, um, I’ve been distracted. With changes. Changes in my life. Big deal end of era changes. Huge sigh of relief rebirth kinds of changes. Maybe I’m being a bit dramatic. It doesn’t feel [...]

I’m always surprised when people tell me they’ve never made hummus. It’s such a good candidate for home cooks because the payoff is so great. Homemade hummus takes almost no time at all and is far superior to anything you can buy at the grocery store, not to mention much more economical. Plus, there are so many [...]

This is exactly the kind of recipe I love. A little bit weird, something you’d never think of, maybe something you didn’t even think possible (when I told my mom I was making spelt crackers, her response was, “There’s a recipe for that?”). I love it when recipes surprise me, and I love surprising others [...]

As many of you know because you were there, I recently took a ‘lil cruise (where to? irrelevant), and delightfully stuffed my face with escargot soaked in pools of butter, greasy cheeseburgers, unlimited French fries and onion rings, milkshakes, chorizo pizza, midnight corn dogs (corn dogs!), sausage rolls, chocolate fondue…wow, I’ll stop now before I embarrass myself [...]

This picture doesn’t even do justice to the aggressive magenta that was this risotto. Really, I can’t imagine a brighter pink without it veering into the fluorescent zone. It…was…awesome. I had very high expectations of this recipe, first of all because I’m in love with beets and second of all because I’m madly in love with risotto. And [...]

A runny egg yolk is one of life’s simplest pleasures, guaranteed to produce smiles on thesis-writing and non-thesis-writing faces alike. I love puncturing that gelatinous sac, my heart never failing to swell a bit at the river of bright yellow saucy deliciousness that floweth forth. Mmmm and then sopping it up, in this case with a thick slice [...]

Summer is all about the cold or room temperature side dishes whipped up in the kitchen while (at the risk of being sexist here) your manly man is manning the grill. Here’s a classic three-bean salad for all your summer barbecue needs. It’s very sweet and tangy, with black-eyed peas added for a Southern twist, and because they’re [...]

It’s difficult to resist a pile of edibles that’s literally overflowing onto the asphalt, so when I spied these sugar snaps I felt compelled to help reduce the bounty. I like sugar snaps because they’re refreshing, and this recipe highlights their cool crunchiness. A recent unpleasant experience with fresh mint left me wary of the herb. (Fyi, fresh mint ice cream [...]

with Parmesan, Hazelnuts, and Avocado My original intention was to make this as a first course along with something else I had planned. But this salad was looking so delicious as it was coming together, and I was feeling lazy (that’s what 95 degree heat will do to you), plus the husband wasn’t coming home for dinner anyway, so I [...]

It’s not officially spring until the asparagus stalks rear their precious little heads. Finally, the farmer’s market is overflowing with bunches of them charmingly tied up with twine. There’s a myriad of ways to cook and serve asparagus: you can roast it, grill it, saute it, stir-fry it, you can serve it with a poached or fried [...]

Wow! Who knew wheat berries were so delicious? (Seriously, who among you knew and why were you keeping it from me? Fess up!) Well now that I’m in on the secret, you can bet your booty I’ll be stockin’ up on wheat berries and making this salad over and over again because it’s just perfect. Chewy, nutty wheat [...]

Sometimes this happens. I’ll be on the fence about posting a recipe, and then I’ll have the leftovers, and realize that oh, yes. People must be told of this. Now I am not a fan of fennel in its raw form (licorice, blech!), which is what drew me to this dish initially. Clotilde, creator of [...]

I normally steer clear of stir-fries. Anything that requires me to move quickly in the kitchen is automatically ruled out because, according to most people who know me, I am as slow-moving as a sloth. Or a snail. Or a slug. Your choice, I’ll accept comparison to any of these fine creatures any day. However, [...]

Who is David Chang? David Chang is the much-lauded chef/owner of a smattering of restaurants here in New York, all named Momofuku something-or-other. Last fall, he published a highly anticipated cookbook that revealed a bunch of the recipes from his restaurants. I’ve never laid eyes on the cookbook, nor have I been to any of the [...]