Spiced Roast Chicken Thighs & Browned Onion Kugel

I feel like I’ve been exposed to a variety of cuisines, from Ethiopian stew in Berkeley, California, to Sri Lankan fare in downtown Osaka, and a fiery Korean chicken dish straight from the source in Seoul. But it wasn’t until I was given browned onion Kugel as my side dish for the Recipe Swap this [...]

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Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Kalamata Olives & Capers

After a long day of chasing Levi around the house as he’s opening drawers, trying to unroll the toilet paper rolls, and pulling the cats’ hair, not only do I appreciate my own Mom and what she did – twice – I’m also tired and dinner is the last thing on my mind. That’s one [...]

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Baked Fusilli with Marinara, Three Cheeses & Spinach

While making this baked fusilli, my mind wandered to Japan and its cheese situation. We used to travel 15-30 minutes on the train to various import food stores, where we’d pay an exorbitant amount for “exotic” cheeses like cheddar, parmesan, and mozzarella. At regular Japanese supermarkets, some of the few cheeses available were “pizza cheese” [...]

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Orecchiette with Roasted Root Veggies, Pine Nuts & Goat Cheese

It’s that awkward time in between winter and spring where in an attempt to somehow magically control the weather, I wear dresses and flip flops, but end up freezing. Really, the reason I want it to get warmer is so I can wear dresses instead of maternity pants. But I can be patient. In the [...]

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Chorizo Mac & Cheese with Crispy Panko Topping

Who’s your favorite Food Network personality? For me, Alton Brown is up there on the list (next to Tyler Florence, but mostly because he’s cute). Alton’s show is entertaining, informative, and his food isn’t pretentious. I got his newest cookbook from my father-in-law for my birthday, Good Eats: The Early Years, and it’s packed with [...]

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Sausage & Mushroom Penne Gratin

Last Monday was a drizzly day. The overcast sky and the crisp air meant a dinner that was warm, comforting, and (given my current cravings) cheesy. I had just gotten home from lunch with Nikita when we decided to flip through old Gourmet magazines for dinner inspiration (oh Gourmet, how we will miss you when [...]

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Vegetable Lo Mein with Salmon

Our bowls and chopsticks often inspire me to make dinner. Each one tells a different story and conjures up a different time and place. These bowls were hand-crafted at a local artisan shop downtown and were given to us as a wedding gift 3 1/2 years ago. I love that they have little indentations on [...]

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Asparagus Pesto Pasta

My cousin Nikita emailed me this recipe a few weeks ago and said that we had to make it together. Embedded in the email was a mouth-watering picture that drew me in: two asparagus tips neatly garnished a tangle of green pasta, dotted with pine nuts and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. How could I say [...]

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Egg-Noodles with Green Garlic, Chiles, Cilantro & Steak

Dustin thought up this comforting dish using my leftover steak from dinner the night before at Cafe Cruz, where I conquered the delicious (and unwieldy) open-faced “Bistro Steak Sandwich” – a piece of garlic bread, topped with a perfectly medium rare steak, and finished off with a handful of thin, crispy onion rings. Well, I [...]

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Spicy Peanut Noodles with Fresh Vegetables

Yesterday it was 75 degrees. My cousin Nikita, Dustin, and I were in the backyard wearing short sleeves, enjoying pints of Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing Company beer, BBQ-ing Cornish game hens to accompany spicy peanut noodles, and listening to the screams of delight that waft up the hill from people riding the Giant Dipper at [...]

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Farfalle with Golden Beets, Beet Greens, and Pine Nuts

Reasons to love this dish: 1) It’s Green! Using both the beets and their greens means less waste (and less money at the store). 2) If you used red beets in this recipe, you would have pink pasta! Valentine’s Day idea, anyone? Ok, that’s a silly reason to love this dish. 3) The earthiness of [...]

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Four-Cheese Mini Macs

Mmm, look at that cheese bubbling up around the edges … I can’t take the credit for this recipe, other than buttering the muffin tins and later eating the finished product, but I CAN rave about it so that’s what I’ll do! While I was working on my minted pea dip, my Mom was busy [...]

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Cold Somen Noodles with Dipping Sauce

My first encounter with somen noodles was at an elementary school summer festival in Yamaguchi Prefecture 4 years ago. I watched as thin, white noddles were sent sliding down halved bamboo shoots, and children and parents gathered around trying to grab them with their chopsticks on their way down. The noodles that made it down [...]

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Penne with Spinach, Feta, & Toasty Pine Nuts

In American supermarkets, it’s the packaging that persuades us to buy things; catchy slogans, bright colors, and promises of nutritional value catch our eye and convince us to make (sometimes) unnecessary purchases. In Japan they set up little stereos around the store that blast catchy tunes about vegetables, fish, fried foods, or the monotone voice [...]

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Penne with Veggies & Bacon

This is a penne to boast about – boast, of course, meaning Bacon, Onion, Asparagus, Spinach and Tomato. This pasta dish is more than just a hodgepodge of ingredients. It’s a great way to eat your veggies, and the bacon gives it the perfect salty kick. 1/2 a pound of penne pasta 4 slices of [...]

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Fusilli with Sweet Tomatoes, Eggplant and Mozzarella

Lately I’ve noticed several Jamie recipes floating around the food blog world. Most notably, Wendy of A Wee Bit of Cooking made a delicious-looking Chorizo Roast Chicken that inspired me to include one of my favorite Jamie-recipes too — a really simple pasta dish that uses ingredients that are all very accessible to us! (Always [...]

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Pasta with a Melange of Japanese Autumn Mushrooms with Butter, Herbs & Cream

A tribute to the fall fungi at our grocery store that sparked our curiosity. Shitake (“tree” mushrooms), had a slippery texture and a woody flavor when cooked. Shimeji (the Medusa-esque ones above) had a more firm, meaty texture and tasted like button mushrooms. And the third variety Eringi (or King Oyster mushroom), had a really [...]

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“Angry” Gnocchi, Fried Mozzerella Salad & Zucchini Sticks

Arrabbiata is one of our favorite sauces for pasta — it’s a garlicky, spicy tomato sauce and its name means “angry”. But garlic and spice make us happy! That’s why this is our weeknight standby pasta sauce. Dustin’s Arrabbiata 2 1/2 TBS olive oil 2 cloves of garlic, minced 1 can of crushed tomatoes 1 [...]

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