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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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! [...]

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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), [...]

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"Angry" Gnocchi with Fried Mozzerella Salad & Zucchini

The gnocchi is angry because it’s covered with one of my favorite sauces – Arrabbiata (which means “angry”). I’m not sure why it’s angry. Personally, garlic and chiles make me happy! This is our weeknight standby pasta sauce. There’s not much to say, except that we love the spiciness from the chilies, the flavor [...]

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