From the kitchen of a semi-vegetarian with a serious sweet tooth
Years ago, when I received my first Indian cookbook as a gift, I was living by myself and cooking for one. The recipe for butter chicken was among the first I tried, and since it didn’t naturally lend itself to being halved (I can’t be the only one whose leftover half cans of tomato paste languish in the fridge for months, right?), I went all in and made the full amount. One of my friends came ...
My parents handed over the task of making school lunches to my brother and me at a relatively early point in our educational careers. If my memory serves me correctly, I was only seven or eight. Since I was already too much of a food snob to make my lunch the night before and end up with slightly staler or soggier sandwiches, I ate years and years of the two sandwich varieties that I could pack ...
This past week, the boyfriend and I have been visiting his family in Arizona, where the temperatures have been akin to what Michigan experiences during the summer, but without the attendant humidity. Even though we had a mercifully moderate winter (after one winter with record-setting amounts of snow and another winter with record-setting cold), I’m already looking forward to warmer weather, and ...
Ever since our trip to Puerto Rico in November, I haven’t been able to get Caribbean food off my mind. While I’d love to drop everything and jump on a plane (again), eating tropical food is the closest I can get to a(nother) tropical vacation at the moment.* Perhaps it’s because of the winter weather—while this winter has been relatively mild in Michigan, I certainly wouldn’t pass up the ...
When I first described the concept of this mango carrot cake French toast casserole to my mom, she replied, “You’re just trying to have dessert for breakfast, aren’t you?” She knows me so well. ...
I know very little about Irish cooking. As far as I can tell, I don’t have a drop of Irish blood in me. I’ve never been to Ireland. I have been to a few Irish pubs and eateries, and while I do love me a good boxty (my love for potatoes is no secret), my most memorable Irish restaurant experience was an unfortunate incident in which I eagerly dug into a scoop of Guinness ice ...
I knew I hit the cake jackpot with this lemon snack cake as soon as I took it out of the pan, when I scraped the crumbs off the parchment paper and ate them. It was love at first bite! This cake is ridiculously moist, full of cheery lemon flavor, and topped with perfectly tart yet sweet raspberry frosting that is so vibrant that it puts artificially colored frostings to shame. ...
Earlier this month, Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his burrow without a shadow in sight, prompting the prediction of an early spring, although here in Michigan, we didn’t need a groundhog to guess as much. It has been an unusually mild winter—I have yet to see negative numbers on the thermometer, but there have certainly still been some below-freezing days ...
When I was in high school, my Spanish teacher required all of his students to participate in a certain number of designated, off-campus “cultural events” each semester. Unfortunately, Señor (as we called him) completely dropped the ball on scheduling these events, and by the end of the year, he had only offered a fraction of the number we were supposed to attend. ...
These poppy seed blood orange bars were a real labor of love…or probably more accurately, a testament to my stubbornness. What you see above is a bar comprised of juicy, tangy orange curd and a buttery crust replete with tiny pop(py seed)s of crunch, whose vibrant color is cheery enough to brighten any cold, dreary winter day. This was not the case with batches one and two. ...
