Chubby Hubby Truffles

Welcome to Day 8 of Baking Extravaganza! Possibly the best and most awesome of the entries, because seriously – Truffles! And because it’s so awesome, it also had to come after Christmas. Whoops, my bad. Next time I’ll start this experiment at the beginning of the month instead of the middle. Even if you think you’re stuffed full of sweets after the holiday and couldn’t possibly eat another item of sugar, you’re wrong. For these, you’re dead wrong.

Does anyone else remember the first time they had Chubby Hubby ice cream? My strongest memory of the time was sheer awe that someone was smart enough to combine so many wonderful things in such a small container. I honestly think that person deserves some sort of recognition. While I searched the internet high and low to figure out who exactly invented the flavor, it let me down miserably. So all I can say is – thank you Ben and Jerry for bringing us such amazingness in a carton.

Clearly, when I saw that someone figured out how to make chubby hubby truffles, well what more did I need? Forget that I’d never made a truffle before in my life – clearly if I made these for my coworkers’ Christmas plates, I’d be the hit of the day. And let me tell you, it was a glorious day.

I hope everyone has a happy New Year! I'll be back in 2012 with even more recipes - so keep an eye out. 

Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Welcome to Day 7 of Baking Extravaganza! While you may be thinking – wait, Christmas is over, why are you still showing me Christmas treats? – you clearly have forgotten the nebulous time in between Christmas and New Years when you meet up with friends and relatives. It’s still the holiday season (kind of), so here’s a recipe you can throw together when you need to bring a treat but can’t bear the thought of another cookie.

I made these for a holiday party a couple weeks ago. My roommate and I tested them extensively and agree that they’re pretty amazing. Make sure you have a glass of milk handy!

Jacques Torres' Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies

Welcome to Baking Extravaganza Day 6! I made these for a cookie exchange at my office. I needed a recipe that would make a ton of cookies and a wide variety of people would enjoy. I found this recipe while browsing Martha Stewart’s archives and thought why not? The dark chocolate chips takes this recipe a step above your average Tollhouse recipe and hey, who doesn’t love a huge fluffy cookie with a nice crisp edge?

I thought about halving the recipe Martha provided, but then misread the instructions (turns out 13 5-inch cookies is not the same thing as 13 cookies) and thought I wouldn't have enough dough for 3 dozen cookies. Boy was I wrong - using the original recipe proportions ended with me literally up to my elbows in cookie dough. In fact, the largest bowl I own couldn’t contain all the dough – flour was going everywhere when I tried to stir. I ended up having to split the dough between my two largest pots to incorporate all the dry ingredients. If you’re cooking for a crowd, feel free to use the original proportions – but make sure you find the largest bowl possible first!

Pretzel Bark

Welcome to Baking Extravaganza Day 5! Seriously, who doesn’t love a good salty sweet combination? Chocolate and salt are amazing together, and personally I think it’s even better when you use dark chocolate. This recipe is ridiculously simply for all the amazingness you get out of it on your taste buds. Chances are you probably have half the ingredients already, so it’s another winner in the holiday budget battle as well.

If anyone asks you if this was hard to make, lie your ass off. You spent hours slaving over a hot stove to make caramel from scratch. The rest of it was too difficult to even describe. But it was worth it in the end to see the smile on their face. And if they call you on it?

Well, aren’t the holidays all about giving anyway?

Double Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies

Welcome to Baking Extravaganza Day 4! I made these for another work birthday party where all the celebrants said they loved chocolate desserts. This recipe certainly fits the bill – melted chocolate, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, and melted chocolate on top. The addition of the peppermint helps offset all the chocolate and nicely brings in a hint of holiday spirit!

Peppermint Bark

Welcome to Baking Extravaganza Day 3! At some point you just can't make cookies any more. Maybe you're out of flour, maybe you're out of eggs, or maybe you just don't feel like waiting in front of your stove for a minute longer. Well, you're in luck with this recipe. 

I used to sell Peppermint Bark when I worked retail - it came in a beautiful tin, but was really over-priced. So make your own! You'll save some money and homemade means no one is allowed to comment on how it looks. 

Drunken Molasses Cookies

Welcome to Baking Extravaganza Day 2! Some of you regular readers might be wondering, what happened to Day 1? And what the heck are you talking about? Thanks to the magic of editing, I went back and started Baking Extravaganza last week, see here for more details. For those new, never mind! I totally had planned this all along and didn't realize an hour ago I have enough sweet and holiday themed recipes to create some a mini-event for this blog. Carry on!


I may or may not have asked my roommate if she wanted a little Captain in her when I offered her one of these cookies. In my defense, the cookies weren’t the only things that had rum in them at the time. In any case, molasses cookies are always tasty but these are a nice change from my traditional recipe – they’re not particularly sweet, but the spices are strong and you can taste the molasses from start to finish. You might think you don't like molasses cookies. I dare you to try these - they'll punch you in the tastebuds and give you noogies until you surrender and admit they're amazing. Because these are bold cookies; they aren't the sweet and non-confrontational sugar cookies. These molasses cookies are the badasses of the cookie world, the ones who in the inevitable robot uprising will blow shit up and walk away in slow motion, not even looking back at the explosion. Kind of like this.

Wow that metaphor got away from me. In any case, these cookies are awesome and you should make them. Did I mention there’s rum in them? Because I feel that’s also a selling point that shouldn’t be ignore, especially around the craziness of the holidays.

Flourless Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Welcome to Day 1 of Baking Extravaganza! When else during the year do you need so many cookie, candy, and sweets recipes in so short a time? The next two weeks will feature some of my favorite cookie, candy, and sweets recipes - some holiday, some classic, and some for people with allergies or food restrictions. Because this kind of excess needs to be celebrated in style, with this blog's first group of purposefully themed entries! I hope you find some new recipes during the next two weeks, or least drool a bit more at all the tasty sweets presented for your perusal. 


As you all well know, I love peanut butter and chocolate. You’ve seen my obsession in smoothies, cupcakes, and crispy treats so here’s another recipe to add to the pile: double chocolate peanut butter cookies.


I know, I started drooling at the name too. So wipe up the puddle that’s somehow started forming on your laptop and get to work! These little treats are easy to make (and easy to eat). At this point, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. Let's go with good. This recipe is plenty easy to double if you'd like to bring in some to share (or you can do what I do, which is form the balls and freeze them, then pop out a couple at a time when you need a cookie fix). 

(Chicken) Tortilla Soup

What is it about tomatoes, black beans, corn, onion, and chili powder that smells and tastes so good? I image this soup would taste even better in the summer when you can get fresh corn, but even with frozen and canned vegetables this soup still tastes pretty amazing. This recipe makes a massive amount of soup, but a full freezer can be a wonderful thing.

Rice with Almonds and Raisins

You know those days when you have nothing in your fridge but it’s cold outside and you don’t want to leave to go get more food and you don’t have the budget for takeout? Just me? Well, you should like this rice recipe in any case. I found this recipe after a couple minutes of googling all the ingredients I had in my pantry in hopes that I’d find something appealing. Luckily the internet gods smiled down on me (seriously, what did people do without Google?) and this New York Times recipe popped up. Rice + raisins + almonds + coriander? Party in my belly.

I also appreciate that it’s one pot. One pot means far fewer dishes for me to remember to wash in the morning when I stare at my empty fridge and try to figure out what to eat for breakfast (Hint: it rhymes with mice with balmonds).

This made my apartment smell like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (fair given it shares two important ingredients) and for that alone, I will love this recipe forever and ever.

Semi-home-made Ravioli

In the interest of total disclosure: I originally set out to make this ravioli recipe. I mean look at the pictures – doesn’t that runny egg yolk look amazing? Seriously – runny egg yolk + ricotta + pasta = love in my world. I wanted it in my mouth immediately. However, I failed miserably. Since I don’t have either a pasta machine or rolling pin, there was no way I was going to take on the task of making homemade pasta dough. So I decided to use premade wonton skins as a short cut.

It was a short cut that took me into raw egg hell. Seriously, my cutting board looked like a scene from a henhouse massacre. I couldn’t fit the egg yolk into the mound of filling, and the one time I managed to, I couldn’t fit the second wonton skin over without breaking the yolk and having it ooze out the side. After my third attempt went horribly wrong once again, I decided to cut my losses and simply carry on sans egg yolk. It’s not my Great-Aunt Joyce’s ravioli by any means (because that is simply divine), but it’s a tender, relatively easy, and tastes good. All’s well that ends well I suppose.

But one day I will master this recipe. One day.

Spinach with Shallots, Almonds, and Feta with Poached Egg

I tend to like savory and sweet breakfasts equally well; while pancakes are divine, give me a bowl of pad-thai or spinach for breakfast and I’ll be pretty happy. After an attempt at my first dinner party meal of Stuffed Chicken Breast, I wondered how the filling would taste with a poached egg on top.

In short, awesome.

As you know, I loved poached eggs. My approach to cooking new foods tends to stem from a recipe or ingredient that I like and moving on from there. This doesn’t always work out (peanut butter and yogurt anyone?), but as I’ve realized which tastes I like together, I’m finding fewer big misses. This recipe will make Popeye jealous with the amount of iron it pumps into you.

Pork Potstickers

Whenever my family ordered Chinese food, I always insisted on potstickers. Our local place made them perfectly – thick, chewy dumpling with perfectly seasoned pork filling. I hated sharing them. It got to the point where other family members would look at me cautiously asking for permission to have a single potsticker with the same tones you ask a crazy person if they can give you the knife. You don't know how badly I always wanted to say no.

I’ve been curious how to make them for years, but once I realized you had to pleat dough I bailed. I can’t hang a picture straight (and there’s plenty of evidence of that in my living room), there was no way I was going to be able to make so many perfectly folded pleats in a baked good.

So this isn’t a perfect potsticker recipe. It’s a starter recipe. For when I feel ready to tackle the scary world of making my own potsticker skin dough and trying pleats. This one uses pre-made skins that I found at my grocery store and a modified seal. Directions below!

Stuffed Shells

I’ve been wanted to make a stuffed shells recipe for a while now, but two things held me up: 1) it was a bit warm for the abundance of cheese and carbs and 2) I couldn’t find jumbo shells anywhere. So finding a box of jumbo shells the same weekend DC had a freak October snow (it wasn’t a storm here, don’t let anyone tell you differently) seemed to be a sign from the cooking gods that this dish needed to be made. I like to rationalize that the equal ratio of spinach to ricotta almost makes this dish healthy.

Almost.

Still, they are tasty and fairly easy to make. Also, don't they look cute in that ramekin? My friend Amber gave me four last time she came to visit and I've tried to think of recipes that make small enough quantities I can use them for photos since. Luckily, two stuffed shells fit perfectly! Thanks again Amber. 

Chicken Stuffed with Almonds, Spinach, and Feta

I made plans with my friend Alisha to meet for dinner a few weeks ago. The plan was for her to come over to my apartment and I’d cook us dinner. I started to panic the Saturday before because I realized two important facts: 1) because of things such as this blog, people think I actually eat well every day, and 2) dinner parties suffer dramatically when the host serves Kraft mac ‘n cheese. Clearly some advanced planning was required.

I started searching for a recipe that would convey the image of sophistication and skill while also being relatively cheap and easy to make. This fit the bill perfectly. It looks impressive – stuffed chicken breasts with fancy sounding ingredients! – while actually taking under 20 minutes to prepare. It’s pretty healthy to boot. Served with some couscous, an apple-spinach salad, and a few black bottom cupcakes, the meal tasted and looked impressive.

Of course, our mini-dinner party never actually occurred due to illness, so I ended up with some very fancy leftovers to enjoy for a week. Still, worth it to know I have this in my back pocket next time I have a guest over for dinner!

Fauxmosas

Sometime I get into trouble with my approach to cooking. I tend to make a big dish on Sunday and eat it throughout the week for lunch. It makes it easy in the mornings to get ready to go, saves me money, and ensures that I eat a balanced meal at least once a day. However, sometimes I misjudge portions.

Take the recipe for Moroccan Stew I posted recently. When I originally made it, I thought it would last me about 4 meals – pretty typical. However, I misjudged badly. After six days, I still had some in the fridge. But I couldn’t bear to eat it as it was one more day. So I did what any sane person would do – wrapped it in puff pastry and baked it.

Fantastic decision.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I love raisins. I may be one of the few people on earth who loves a good chewy oatmeal raisin cookie. It’s almost healthy; you’ve got oats (and everyone knows oatmeal is a good breakfast, right?), fruit, and an egg! Whatever your justification, these cookies really hit the mark when you’re craving a more subtle cookie. The cinnamon smells amazing when these are baking and plays really nicely with the raisins.

Moroccan Chickpea Stew

I made this stew the same weekend as the Cauliflower Soup. I started looking for a chickpea soup recipe because one lonely can of chickpeas had been sitting in my cupboard for a couple months and I had no idea what to do with it. It isn’t quite cold enough for one of my favorite chickpea recipes and I can buy hummus easily. Luckily, I stumbled upon two Chickpea Soup recipes that I thought could be combined to make one great recipe. I loved the spices in the first, but the addition of lentils and rice (and turmeric!) made the second one pretty appealing as well.

This one takes quite a bit of time, but makes enough to last you and some friends the week. If you’re like me, however, and tend to make a couple big dishes to bring as lunch and as a few last-minute dinners, than I think you’ll enjoy this one. 

Peanut Butter Crispy Bars

This blog is almost three months old and it’s pretty apparent that I love peanut butter and chocolate. It would be embarrassing if it weren’t so delicious.

I’d been eying making these bars from SmittenKitchen for a while and finally couldn’t stand it any longer. I wasn’t going to let little things like a lack of candy thermometer, the insane amounts of calories they contain, or incoming hordes of visitor stop me. I would blame visitors or lack of time for the few photographs I managed to take, but really it was because I was too busy stuffing my face to bother with the camera.

The layers in this dish are a pain to make, but a joy to eat. Of course, the entire time I kept flashing back to this commercial, am I the only one who remembers that?

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.

Beef and Bean Chili

There’s a constant battle in my house when the topic of chili comes up. No, not the traditional Texan chili (no beans) versus other states’ chili (beans); rather, it’s over how much spice we’re allowed to use. I like my chili spicy – if I can’t taste cumin in every bite it’s not worth it – but my family seems insistent on eating versions that mostly taste like tomatoes (though they would claim they simply like having feeling in their lips, to which I reply, “whimps”).

When I first started cooking on my own after realizing that I could cook anything I wanted to for any meal (I can have quiche for all three meals today!), the second most important culinary realization I had was that I was in control of the spices. I could add cumin, cayenne, chili powder, and jalapenos if I wanted to – and I do.

This recipe is one of my favorite comfort foods; it’s easy to make, relatively cheap, and fills you up. In other words, the perfect antidote for a cold, gray, rainy day. Sorry for the lack of pictures - chili is remarkably tricky to photograph!

Moosewood Cornbread

My first roommate during graduate school had never eaten corn bread. Cue me fainting when I heard the news. Seriously? Cornbread is one step below chocolate in proof that someone up there loves us. You can smother it in butter, you can dunk it into soup or chili, you can eat it with jam. It's amazing food and having a basic cornbread recipe in your back pocket is always handy.

One day I plan to experiment with the different varieties I know exist. I've seen recipes for cornbread with cheese inside it, with aleppo - you name it, I've seen it. However, I keep coming back to this one because it doesn't let me down; it's quick, it's easy, and it tastes good. The holy trifecta of recipes. I think you'll enjoy this one. I recently ate it with roasted eggplant soup (recipe coming soon) and it was perfect smothered in chili.  

Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

My breakfast habits aren't consistent; some days I'm happy with a quick bowl of Cheerios and milk, others only an egg will satisfy, while still others demand cold pad thai (don't knock till you've tried it). But I also tend not to like eating in the first hour I've been awake. It feels too rushed. Unfortunately, this makes eating during the week a bit tricky. I need a meal that can be prepared quickly because I'm generally eating it during the time I should be brushing my teeth before I leave for work.

So when I found this recipe for a chocolate peanut butter smoothie, you can bet I was excited to try it out. Chocolate and peanut butter in the morning? Prep time under five minutes? Chocolate and peanut butter in the morning? (This point needs to be repeated)

Sold.

Pork Meatballs

My sister Emma asked me to explore the wonderful world of meatballs after an experiment of hers went terribly terribly wrong. She mistakenly thought I would have a better idea of how to make them and could walk her step by step through the process. While I really like the recipe seen below, it wasn’t what I would call a crowning moment of cooking glory.

Here’s a sad confession – I don’t like touching raw meat. It’s one of the reasons I don’t have many meat recipes up on the blog (the other being that meat’s really expensive). The full body shudders and the facial expressions I made while rolling the meatballs would have you believe I was elbow deep in tarantulas or something. Luckily, the end result was totally worth subjecting myself to several five minute long hand washings.

Peach and Blueberry Muffins

The temperature dropped suddenly here in DC and I wanted to celebrate one last hurrah of summer while also reveling in the fact that turning on my oven no longer makes people in my kitchen lightheaded. So fruit muffins it was. I never got around to making a peach and blueberry cobbler, so I decided to use both fruits in a muffin.

This is really stretching the definition of a muffin though; it’s fruit bound together by a bit of spongy muffin. Keep your fruit slices large – blueberries whole and peach chunky – to help you stretch summer out for just a few more hours.

Spinach Quiche

Quiche is one of my favorite foods. It sounds fancy but really just involves mixing all the best things in life together in a bowl and pouring it into a pie crust to bake for about half an hour. Seriously, how can anyone not want to eat something whose base involves eggs and cheese?

In the past my quiches were usually made in a pie pan and had fresh vegetables as their base (typically onion, broccoli, and tomatoes). So I was a bit apprehensive about using frozen spinach and cream cheese. It felt almost like cheating. Especially as it only took me about 10 minutes to make, even with a disastrous pie crust (see below). But this quiche is delicious and I really like the use of the tart pan. It gives a more equal ratio of filling to crust, which for a carbofile such as myself is a glorious thing.

Black Beans and Yellow Rice

When I first tried making black beans, I had no clue what I was doing. I bought a can of Goya and made some rice. Then I opened the can of beans onto the rice and tried to figure out why so many people raved about black beans. They were mealy, kind of cold, and super bland. Then I checked the Internet and it turns out you cook canned black beans and season then before eating. And my parents thought I didn’t learn anything in college.

Additional life lesson? Spices make everything better. I like my beans spicy, so you’ll see a variety combined in the recipe but for some reason I wasn’t feeling my traditional white rice accompaniment when I started making these beans for dinner. I could pretend that it was a culinary yearning to expand my palette, but in reality I just wanted to experiment with turmeric again. I bought my first container for my lentil soup, but it was just sitting in my cabinet begging to be used.

Fun fact about turmeric: it’s also called the poor man’s saffron. Very apt in my situation.

So beans and yellow rice it was, and the turmeric was a very nice addition to a staple of my diet. Give it a shot!

How to: Peel Garlic Quickly

When I first started experimenting with cooking I knew a couple things: I loved onions and I loved garlic. Both are still true today, but I today I actually know how to prepare those ingredients. When I started cooking alone, I could figure out how to chop an onion fairly easily (the hardest part was gaining enough confidence to slice evenly) but it took me a while to figure out how to get the garlic out of its skin. I used to slice off the bottom (where it attached to the bulb) and then try to get the knife tip underneath the skin and slice upwards.

As you can image, this resulted in more than one bloody knuckle.

This technique is one of my favorites. You basically smash the garlic clove while it’s still in its skin. This allows you to easily peel the skin off and gets the clove nice and flat, making it all the easier to slice for usage. Plus smashing things with knives is just cool.

Black Bottom Cupcakes

Part 2 of the “Make My Co-Workers Love Me” Cupcake Campaign. I had wanted to make this recipe for a long time – it’s a chocolate cupcake surrounding cheesecake filling – how could it go wrong? But I knew if I ever made them by myself, I’d spend the next few days in food coma because no force on Earth would stop me from stuffing my face with these treats. Luckily co-workers provided both the excuse to make them, and the audience to eat them.

It worked out perfectly because these suckers are delicious. And surprisingly easy to make.

Peach Butter

Somehow DC is still getting fresh East Coast peaches and it seems a shame to waste the last gasps of summer while I still can. Especially when I have a LivingSocial to Whole Foods to use up. Anyone else buy that? Probably my favorite promotion of their's yet.

Peach butter is not really a butter - it doesn't have any dairy in it at all in fact. It's basically Apple Butter but made with Peaches. It's a great spread for baked goods and I enjoyed its presence in a chicken wrap I made earlier. 

How to: Skin a Fruit Easily

Man that sounds a little “Silence of the Lambs” doesn’t it? In any case, many recipes call for skinned peaches or tomatoes and using a peeler doesn’t work as well on those as it does on a potato or apple (trust me on this one). While you may look at the following trick as more hassle than it’s worth (what I have to boil the water and make an ice bath? What part of this is easy again?), being able to use your fingers to remove the skin from a peach after about 1 minute of effective cooking time is awesome.

Peach Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

My office holds a monthly birthday party for everyone in our group (about 150) that relies on the kindness of my co-workers. Every month the organizer asks for volunteers to bake for the group and every month it’s amazing to see how many amazing bakers there are in the office. This past month’s celebration saw yellow cake with chocolate frosting, lemon cheesecake bars, berry crumbles, fudgy brownies, chocolate cupcakes, spice bars, and two types of cupcakes I brought in to bribe everyone into liking me.

I worked at this office my first year of graduate school as an intern and now that I’m back, I wanted to make sure they’d all think of me nicely again. Mercenary that I am, that meant volunteering to make something when the organizer asked for additional volunteers for this month’s celebration. Never mind that I didn’t have a muffin tin at the time, I was going to make delicious delicious cupcakes and everyone would think “that Julia, where’s she been all my life for the last year?” (Answer: writing a thesis).

This is the first of two recipes that I made and I will definitely be making again. They were pretty easy to make (made even easier by the help of my friend Ellen who gave up five hours of her Sunday, including several long walks up and down the hill leading to my apartment to pick up some last minute ingredients at the grocery story) and received rave reviews from my coworkers. Mission accomplished!

My Mother's French Tart Recipe

This tart is a wonder in that it was a dessert everyone in my family could eat (from my father who is on a low-fat diet to my sister who eats gluten-free to my mother and I who like tasty desserts). It was also amazingly simple. The hardest part was pitting all the cherries and making sure they looked nice on the top of the tart. 

Egg and Pesto Stuffed Tomatoes

This is the time of year where you try to figure out how many ways you can eat a tomato. I always feel vaguely guilty for squandering a wonderful opportunity because my first inclination is always to add some olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette and eat them raw. But you can only eat that dish so many times before it becomes boring and then I ignore tomatoes until January, when I desperately wish they were in season instead of turnips.

Because seriously, in the battle between tomatoes and turnips is it really a question?

So this recipe was a nice discovery. It’s quick, easy, and it’s another way to eat fresh tomatoes. Win all around!

Pear and Shallot Grilled Cheese

Eagle-eyed readers might notice some similarity in ingredients between this recipe and Wednesday’s. Even more eagle-eyed readers might notice a common theme between this recipe and last week’s lentil soup recipe.

Shallots.

Yes, I’m in a shallot rut. When I bought the ingredients for the lentil soup I had never cooked with shallots before; so when I saw “3 shallots” on the suggested ingredient list, I bought three physical root vegetables. Turns out, shallots are a bit like garlic and have bulbs inside their tricky physical exterior. So I’d bought triple what the recipe called for, whoops!

I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with the excess for a while. Caramelizing it alongside garlic worked amazingly well, but I still had a giant bulb leftover. Looking into the depths of my refrigerator, I decided to play my favorite cooking game – namely “what will happen if I toss all these random ingredients together?” So I grabbed a pear my mother had sent me from our last trip to Lyman Orchards, the dreaded leftover shallot, a cooked chicken breast I had prepared in case the power went out (and then didn’t bother to eat because my power stayed on), some cheese, and began to ponder.

Grilled cheese immediately came to mind and since I’m a relatively lazy cook I decided to give it a whirl. And man was I lucky. This turned out to be a pretty great sandwich that comes together very quickly.

Caramelized Garlic and Shallot Pasta with Chicken

My love of pasta is not exactly a secret. It was one of the first dishes I taught myself to cook; I wrote about Barilla for my college application essay; and part of it may be genetic (I’m Italian). In college, whenever I wanted to feel fancy about my box a week habit, I would chop up an onion, sauté it with some olive oil and garlic, and add it to whatever red sauce had been on sale earlier in the week. This recipe is an extension of that trend, but slightly more sophisticated by caramelizing the garlic and using shallots in place of white onions.

This isn’t the most visually beautiful dish I’ve ever cooked, but it tastes amazing.

Hurricane Cake aka Nectarine Buckle

On Thursday of last week, residents along the East Coast were urged to start preparing for Hurricane Irene. So I made cake. If you think about it, this makes total sense. If we lost power, at least my roommate and I would have delicious cake to comfort us in our time of need (no internet, what do we do?!?!). So I made this cake and then went out and bought canned goods and bottled water.

I don’t regret the order of this preparation in the slightest.

Of course, we didn't end up losing power or internet, but we still enjoyed eating this cake while watching television on the couch. My youngest sister Christina joined us (her college campus was evacuated so she spent a long weekend with us) along with another friend (also Christina, and yes, the night did get confusing) and so between the four of us we somehow managed to finish off the cake. It was a chore, but we were only doing our best to ensure all perishable items were eaten first in case the power went out.

Peach Lingonberry Jam Crepes

Lingonberry jam is amazing. It’s most commonly used in Scandinavian cuisine and not often seen in the US (the only time I can remember seeing it on a menu was at Ann Sathers – a Swedish restaurant in Chicago), but everyone should run out and try it. They taste similar to cranberries and have a wonderful tart taste. But where can you find such magical jam? I’ve reliably found it in two places – Whole Foods and IKEA.

Also my mother sends me jars when she finds it because she loves me. A lot.

Lingonberry jam is served with a wide variety of Swedish foods (meatballs, beef stew, mashed potatoes, oatmeal) but my favorite use is with pancakes. This recipe plays with that combination, making a thinner crepe in place of the thick, traditional Swedish pancake, and adding peaches to play with the tartness of the jam.

Easy Plum and Almond Galette

I made this for my friend Alisha’s birthday; she requested a dessert that was mostly fruit and not too sweet. This galette features plums and almonds with only a hint of sugar. It traveled well – I brought it for a picnic dinner on the National Mall for one of their Music in the Park nights. Because it bakes down so much, it’s easy enough to stick on a dinner plate, cover in foil (I lack the gene that allows me to use saran wrap easily), and stuff in a bag that will bounce about quite a bit while you run to catch the Metro.

Lazy Woman's Nectarine Cobbler

Sometimes you really want cobbler, but don't feel like cutting up a whole bunch of fruit. Or maybe you only have one nectarine and don't want to walk to the grocery store in 100+ weather to get more. Whatever your reason, this is a great recipe for a quick and dirty cobbler that you don't have to share with anyone (unless you want to).

How to: Poach an Egg

Poached eggs are amazing, but can be intimidating to attempt if you aren't sure what you're doing. My first attempts were ugly, ugly things. Luckily, I have kind parents who when I call them for advice are willing to talk me through the tricks of making a good poached egg. And only laugh a couple times.

Spicy Red Lentil and Rice Soup

Lentil soup in August doesn't really make sense; it's rich, dense, and warm - who wants that in a month where we've seen 100+ days more than once? However, there is a reason to my madness. There was an earthquake, I wanted comfort food, and I had all the ingredients on hand. All you on the West Coast may make fun of me for freaking out a bit over such a small quake, but I'd never experience once before and my apartment was built in a time where asbestos was considered awesome - I doubt they considered how it would stand up in a earthquake (answer: just fine!).

So soup. In August.

Recipe Index

Breakfast

Peach Lingonberry Jam Crepes

Baked Oatmeal

Cinnamon Heart Buns
Eggs in Southwestern Spicy Tomato Sauce
Double Chocolate Yogurt Pancakes
Huevos Rancheros

Soup, Stew, and Chili

Spicy Red Lentil and Rice Soup

Beef and Bean Chili

Roasted Eggplant Soup

Cauliflower Soup

Moroccan Chickpea Stew

(Chicken) Tortilla Soup
Onion Soup with Apple Cider
Egg Drop Soup with Veggies
Tortellini Soup with Spinach
Spicy Peanut and Sweet Potato Soup
Tomato Soup
Broccoli White Bean Soup

Muffins
Peach and Blueberry Muffins

Healthy Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Muffins
Whole Wheat Banana Blueberry Muffins

Beverage
Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

Thick 'n Spicy Hot Chocolate
Chocolate Peanut Butter, Banana, and Oat Smoothie

Side Dishes

Emma's Delicious Broccoli!

Rice with Almonds and Raisins

Breads

Moosewood Corn Bread 

Boller
Honey Cornbread Muffins
Cheater's Bread

Dumplings, Savory Pies, and Other Stuffed Carbs

Pork Potstickers

Fauxmosas
Beef and Potato Empanadas
Pork and Cabbage Dumplings with Homemade Wrappers

Sandwich

Pear and Shallot Grilled Cheese
Baked Chicken Gyros
Ginger-sesame Chicken Wraps
Barbeque Chicken Sandwiches

Chicken

Chicken Stuffed with Almonds, Spinach, and Feta
Chicken Stir-fry with Mushrooms, Onions, and Broccoli
Asian Glazed Chicken Breasts
Orzo Salad with Chicken and Almonds
Chicken Curry
Cauliflower Crust Thai Chicken Pizza

Turkey
Szechuan Spicy Eggplant with Ground Turkey

Seafood
Lemon Caper Tilapia
Spicy Shrimp with Zucchini
Spicy Salmon Burgers

Pork
Spanish-style Meatloaf Cups

Pasta

Caramelized Garlic and Shallot Pasta with Chicken

Pork Meatballs

Vegetarian Carbonara

Stuffed Shells

Semi-homemade Ravioli
Ricotta Gnocchi
Linguini with Broccoli and Peanut Sauce
Orzo Salad with Chicken and Almonds
Homemade Ravioli with Summer Squash
Beet Gnocchi

Vegetarian Main

Egg and Pesto Stuffed Tomatoes

Black Beans and Yellow Rice 

Spinach Quiche

Spinach with Shallots, Almonds, and Feta with Poached Egg
Baked Eggs with Leeks
Black Beans and Sweet Potato Tacos
Healthy Spinach Gratin
Maria Speck's Artichoke Tart with Polenta Crust
Spinach and Leek Quiche
Tortilla Espanola

Dessert

Lazy Woman's Nectarine Cobbler

Easy Plum and Almond Galette

Nectarine Buckle 

My Mother's French Tart 

Peach Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Frosting 

Black Bottom Cupcakes 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes 

Berry Hand Pies 

Peanut Butter Crispy Bars 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Flourless Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Drunken Molasses Cookies

Peppermint Bark

Double Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies
Pretzel Bark
Jacques Torres' Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies
Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Chubby Hubby Truffles
Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes
Puffy Peanut Butter Cookies with Chocolate Chips
Boozy Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes - 2 ways!
Bailey's Brownies
Homemade Funfetti Cupcakes
Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, and Almonds Cookies
Apple Brownies
Double Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Center
Faux Cream
White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cookie Dough Popsicles
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
Panda Slice and Bake Cookies

Sauces, Spreads, and Marinades

Peach Butter
Spicy Peanut Sauce

How To

Poach an Egg

Skin a Fruit Easily

Peel Garlic Quickly
Freeze Bananas