This year marks 8 years of me doing “12 days of holiday cookies” at work before our winter shutdown. It feels like I’ve been doing it for forever, but 8 years isn’t even half the age of the OG food blogs.
Chocolate Ginger Sugar Cookies
Tastiest Book Posts
Salted Brown Butter Rice Crispy Treats
Full confession, I didn't particularly like rice krispies nor rice krispie treats growing up. I thought the cereal by itself was pretty boring (Oatmeal Squares were my favorites) and I thought the treats were just a cardboard imitation of what a real dessert should be. But then, I made friends with people who liked rice krispie treats, including Caleb, and one day someone convinced me I should make a homemade batch. It turns out what was missing all along was a) browned butter, b) more marshmallow, and c) a little salt.
...Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies Filled with Peanut Butter Cream (aka "the Nora Ephron")
I was at a holiday party a few weeks ago and someone asked for the recipe for the chocolate chip cookies I'd brought. I was more than a little mortified to admit that I haven't actually published anything on my blog in two and a half years ... I have plenty of recipes I want to post saved up, but have failed completely at actually making time to write them up, edit photos, and wrap everything into a neat little post. Filled peanut butter cookies seem like an easy enough re-entry point, even if the original recipe was something of a disaster.
...Ideas Post 87: Vote for a Recipe
In spite of the fact that we're anticipating the remodel to start sometime in May/June, I haven't been able to stop myself from buying new cookbooks. There were just so many good-looking April releases, and I thought to myself, "what's another book to pack?" We must be about 10 additional books deep and I definitely haven't followed the one book in-one book out policy.
...Nutmeg Cake
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I have been doing some baking and cooking in the last two months (not as much as I would like, but not none). I spent a couple days making four different croissant recipes to explore whether the recipe I'd been using (from Tartine) was really the one I should keep using (spoiler alert: no, the Tartine croissant was the recipe the most people were divided over, and the only one that leaked butter like a faulty sieve - it's not my error!).
I even signed up for Christina Tosi's excessively intense class on Monthly with a friend, and have been madly trying on catch up on all the recipe development steps. First cookies, now pies, soon cakes. Hopefully I'll be caught up for cakes, as that's really where I'm not excited. Turns out I'm not a creative genius when it comes to connecting flavors with a time, place, etc.
In any case, this post isn't about croissants, pies, cookies, or Tosi-like cake. This nutmeg love cake from Love, Bake, Nourish falls under the category of snacking cakes (the title of another cookbook I recently bought, and need to spend some time with, but haven't yet made any time for yet). Amber Rose's nutmeg cake is a genius little cake that makes use of a big batch of what's essentially a nutty crumb cake "topping", split in half and used as A) the pressed in crumb cake bottom plus B) the moist sour cream cake-y batter on top.
...Shrimp in Chipotle Sauce (Camarones Enchipotlados)
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Bull Taco made the very best shrimp tacos and shrimp burritos I've ever had.
Unfortunately, Bull Taco started in Oceanside, CA, expanded their branches too quickly, and eventually shuttered every location. No more glorious shrimp-only burritos for me.
...Ideas post 86: Vote for a Recipe
I’ve been going through a rough patch with cookbooks lately.
...Hot and Sour Soup
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Caleb’s favorite soup has always been hot and sour soup. It’s how he judges a Chinese restaurant and over the years he’s developed quite a specific opinion on the proper balance of heat, vinegar, meat, tofu, egg strands, and other various mix-ins.
When Caleb’s parents were here last winter, his dad and I spent some time digging through a giant file of pinned hot and sour soup recipes, hunting for the best candidate to try. A few were a little too Americanized, a few seemed overly complicated; this pick from the Science of Good Cooking rose to the top of the pile.
...Thin-style Wheat Focaccia from Divine Foods
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Although the sweet focaccia with oranges wasn't a unanimous crowd pleaser, I've evolved the base recipe over the years until this thin-style wheat focaccia from Divine Foods has become one of my most frequently made recipes and Caleb's most requested bread.
If you're hesitant about making bread, focaccia is a great place to start. It's pretty forgiving, doesn't require any biga or poolish or starter to rest overnight, and you can leave your focaccia to rise for longer than the recipe says without any major deflation or flavor loss (if, for instance, life/meetings/puppies/children interfere with your original baking schedule).
...Cucumber and Almond Gazpacho
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The good news is, it’s still warm enough in California that I can post this cucumber and almond gazpacho recipe by Kevin Gillespie in mid-October and it’s actually seasonal. The bad news is, it’s still warm enough in October that gazpacho is more appealing than just about anything else. Also, it’s snowing in Michigan.
Kevin’s cucumber gazpacho was the idea vote winner (all the way back at the very end of August). And I did make the gazpacho then... but somehow, time flew by and now we’re in October.
...Ideas Post 85: Vote for a Recipe
I wrote the options for this ideas post up ages ago - way back in June! I kept missing Saturdays, telling myself I would catch up the next Saturday, and somehow we're almost into September now.
I loved Kevin Gillespie on Top Chef in his first season, so of course I bought his cookbook, but after reading through it I wasn't particularly inspired to make anything. Then Kevin came back for the most recent season of Top Chef and we were planning to move and I felt like I should give Fire in my Belly a second chance or officially pass. So... here we are with this list.
Full disclosure, Fire in my Belly is somewhere in a stack of boxes right now, but I'll check a copy out of the library and know how to organize FimB once I find it.
...Pesto Brown Rice Bowl (Sqirl's or MiYO)
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This little rice bowl comes together really quickly if you already have some homemade pesto you like, a bit of cooked rice, and a favorite hot sauce. By contrast, if you actually want to make the original Sqirl pesto rice bowl, you're going to need a full month to make the Sqirl lacto-fermented jalapeno hot sauce. A good middle ground is buying fermented jalapeno slices from Trader Joe's and making the rest of the bowl "on demand". It's my favorite kind of meal: pick your level of effort and enjoy no matter which option you pick.
...Kabbouleh (aka Sqirl's Crispy Brown Rice Salad) {v}
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Jessica Koslow of LA's super hip Sqirl took tabbouleh as a concept, reimagined it into a raw kale+cauliflower salad, and then made it everything extra with deep-fried crispy brown rice.
Admittedly, I am not a tabbouleh fan. The texture doesn't bother me, but I don't love the heavy handedness on the raw herbs. In the recipe header, Jessica says she created this as a more "winter-y" tabbouleh option, because tomatoes aren't good year round.
Without the rice, this salad is pretty good, full of tart, punchy flavor and delicious crunchy bits of raw cauliflower and kale. But it's the crispy rice that really elevates this salad from just another internet salad to truly the salad you should make for yourself. Right now.
...Charred Broccoli Salad
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I didn't have very high expectations for the food director of Bon Appetit's new cookbook, Where Cooking Begins. I've been badly burned recently by several cookbooks that launched to major acclaim but are completely undeserving (in my view).... and plenty of that hype came from Bon Appetit.
However, I can never resist a new cookbook, so I gave Carla Lalli Music's cookbook a try via the library. I loved this salad so much I bought her cookbook. The first week I tried this charred broccoli salad, I made it 4 times in that one week.
Carla's charred broccoli salad is filled with crispy bits of broccoli, salty cheese, salty almonds, more salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, honey, and a few chopped dates. It's everything you want to eat for lunch or dinner, or maybe even both.
...Ideas Post 84: Vote for a Recipe
Sticky Chile Chicken with Peanut Veggie Noodles
What's not to love about a cookbook called Big Salads? I can't remember how I first stumbled across Kat Mead's first cookbook, but it caught my attention enough for me to check it out of the library. The first salad I made from Big Salads was this one, Kat's Sticky Chile Chicken with Peanut Veggie Noodles. Caleb asked that it go into the regular rotation and I liked the salad so much I bought the cookbook immediately; three recipes policy notwithstanding.
...Chocolate Cake with Brown Butter Frosting
This is a chocolate cake everyone can enjoy, the crumb is tender and the flavor chocolate-y without being overly rich. What puts this cake over the top is the brown butter frosting, which brings a punch of rich warmth and toasted nut flavor that pairs flawlessly with the delicate chocolate cake.
I have a love-hate relationship with the Little Flower Baking cookbook. When the recipes turn out, they are really good...... but quite a few of the recipes are flawed and require some tinkering to work. This chocolate cake from Little Flower Baking is yet another example of an insufficiently tested recipe making its way into a cookbook.
...Wild Mushroom Salad with Quinoa Aged Goat Cheese Caramelized Shallot Marmalade
What can I say? I failed to implement my resolution to blog consistently rather spectacularly, and right from the get-go. Oh well… I can always try to do better.
Brunch with Bobby is no longer on my cookbook shelves. The blackberry sticky buns and yogurt brûlée were both very mediocre and certainly not worth making again. The blackberry sticky buns were a particular disappointment; super sweet, with no actual hint of spice coming through nor any obvious blackberry flavor, the buns didn’t hold together well, my properly-toasted hazelnuts burned during the additional bake in the sugar, and trying to transport them caused such a syrupy mess that I had to have my car professionally detailed.
...Magic Espresso Brownies
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I used to spend a lot more time on the Food52 website, when they were more about community recipes and less about selling upscale and up-marked household items. When Food52 Baking (the cookbook) came out almost 5 years ago, these Magic Espresso Brownies graced the cover and I decided they were the obvious first recipe to test.
...Ideas Post 83 and a Flop: Breakfast Sausage Patties
Reflecting on the amount of time I have to blog, the delays caused by recipes from ideas posts that aren’t quite/ever ready for prime-time, and the fact that we are going to move again eventually.... I’ve decided to tackle my 2020 cooking resolutions in 3 parts:
1. Cook/bake one “project” recipe at least once a month. I love project recipes, but with the multiple steps they usually involve, it’s not practical to plan to make them any more frequently. They’re also a labor of love to post, and I’m guessing most people aren’t coming here for that kind of recipe.... although I personally feel like feedback on whether a project recipe truly works and is worth the time is super valuable.
2. Cook/bake one “easy” recipe at least twice a month. These can be “standard” or appliance-related (e.g., instant pot, slow cooker, smoker, ice cream, ...).
3. Start meal prepping/ideas gathering from my heaviest cookbooks first, to determine which ones are really worth keeping around to warp my bookshelves, and which ones shouldn’t get moved next time.
...German Chocolate Cake
I made German chocolate cake for the first time when I was about 11 or 12, for a friend who had just officially "become a woman" and requested German chocolate cake to celebrate. I am pretty sure I hadn't eaten it before that day. I remember the cake I made being good, but full of super sweet coconut flavor. Until this past Thanksgiving, I was never interested enough to make it again.
In one of those strange and happy coincidences that sometimes happens with the Baked Sunday Morning recipe schedule, I'd been looking ahead at the upcoming recipes from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking when ME mentioned that she'd like to celebrate John's birthday at Thanksgiving with his favorite cake; German chocolate cake. Around the same time, Caleb's mom mentioned that Dallas' favorite cake is German chocolate cake, and wouldn't it be nice if we had some over the winter holidays to celebrate both of their birthdays.
...Double-Dipped Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
There are a lot of recipes I haven't gotten around to posting yet, but somehow, I now have three different recipes for a chocolate crinkle cookie on this blog. Can you tell what one of my favorite cookies is?
...Brown Butter Carrot Cake with Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting
I don't believe in raisins, nuts, or pineapple in carrot cake. Those things are fine, generally, but carrot cake should be all about the carrots (and the cream cheese frosting). If those things are a requirement to your ideal carrot cake, maybe this cake will change your mind.... either way, you've been warned. If you agree with me already; thank goodness. We can be real friends.
...Thai Ground Turkey and Veggie Bowls
Well, hello October. How did you get here so fast?
Let me catch you up really quickly on what's been happening in the last two-ish months.
