Cauliflower Soup

Cauliflower is one of those vegetables I enjoy eating, but never think to buy for myself. For some reason, my eyes always move right past them and towards broccoli when I’m meandering in the produce aisle. Embarrassingly, this was the first time I’d ever prepared cauliflower (though I did have some fun hacking away at the core and leaves with my giant kitchen knife).

I ended up trying this recipe because I knew I wasn’t going to want to eat chickpea soup every day of the week for lunch and wanted another option. Given that I had every ingredient save for cauliflower already in my kitchen made this a very attractive option.  

Boller

I am part Swedish, but I tend to ignore Scandinavian cuisine for the most part – I’m not a big herring fan, I can easily pass on turnips, and I don’t even really like potatoes. However, Scandinavian cuisine uses one of my favorite spices of all time. And it uses it really really well.

Cardamom is possibly the most expensive item I have in my cupboard right now, but it was worth every penny. It’s addition to baked goods is almost sublime; when you use it, the whole house just smells warm and inviting. My mother tends to use it in coffee bread with pearled sugar, but when I saw this recipe for raisin buns and cardamom, I knew I had to try it. And it was amazing.

Berry Hand Pies

Does anyone else remember those small handpies you would buy at the convenience store or gas station for a dollar? They’d be wrapped in a wax wrapper and supposedly have a fruit filling, though it always tasted vaguely of cough syrup. Yeah, I loved those things.

This recipe appealed to my gastronomical nostalgia as well as my still-lacking-a-rolling-pin kitchen (I know, I’ve been working for a couple months now, I can totally afford to buy a rolling pin. I’m just lazy at this point). It uses premade puff pastry and a quick fruit filling. While my version was a bit sloppier than the gas station version, I think I’m a convert. No cough syrup taste in sight and a flakey crust. Sold.

Vegetarian Carbonara

I first tried making carbonara when I studied abroad in college. I had a few disadvantages then: a semi-working cook top in place of range, a refrigerator the size of my foot, a kitchen that tripled as a hallway and closet, and a complete lack of understanding how to make carbonara. I had the vague idea that cheese and eggs were involved, so I went to the grocery store and bought a kilo of pasta, some cheese that I hoped read parmesan (my Greek is still not particularly great), and some whole milk. I then mixed all three together.

It wasn’t particularly good (I would even use the word "horrible"), but as it was the second to last weekend I was in the country and was completely broke, I ate it for every meal for three days.

I think you can understand why it’s taken me four years to try again. But I’m glad I did. This is not a low-fat dish. This is not a vegan dish. This isn’t a non-dairy dish. It is, however, perfect for those cold nights when you need comfort food. And now that I kind of know what I’m doing, I’m definitely putting this recipe into rotation.

Emma's Super Delicious Broccoli!

My sister Emma asked me to figure out how to make pork meatballs, which I did in this post. As a thank you she sent me her recipe for Super Delicious Broccoli, which I had to share with everyone (without her permission. Luckily it'll be another two years before she's a lawyer and can sue me for IP infringement). I've included both her pictures and the pictures I took when I made the recipe myself. Hope you all enjoy!

Roasted Eggplant Soup

Sometimes you just feel like soup, even if the weather is conspiring against you. When I made this soup, DC was a bit confused - instead of inching towards fall like most locales in the country, DC had decided it wanted to be a temperate rainforest. It was grey, drizzling, and overall dreary for a good part of the week. It also had 95 percent humidity. 

In a word, gross.

If I couldn't have a lovely fall day, at least I could have a tasty soup (served with awesome cornbread). This recipe combines the last of the available fresh tomatoes with eggplant, onions, and garlic. How could it go wrong?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

You know how sometimes you just really want chocolate and peanut butter? And sometimes a Reese’s just doesn’t cut it? In those cases, you should do what I did when I was craving peanut butter and chocolate and knew that my friend Amber was coming over to help me eat whatever I baked.

This cupcake combines the best of many worlds – a rich, moist chocolate cake, peanut butter cream cheese frosting, and a chocolate peanut butter ganache. All you need are some friends to help you with the extras and a tall glass of milk.

Or just the milk depending on what kind of week it’s been.