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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Pan-Fried Red Trout Fillets with Mizuna-Mango-Manchego Salad & a Simple Mango Cocktail

After weeks of writing about Swedish food and travel adventures, it feels both strange and comforting to once again be blogging from our own kitchen! This is a meal that we made a few days after returning home, but it had to wait in line until now! My cousin Nikita came over to cook dinner [...]

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Grilled Lamb Gyros with Tzatziki & Summer Chickpea Salad

We’ve been thinking about gyros ever since we went to a Greek Food Festival with our friends last month. I think my favorite part of a gyro is the tzatziki. The cucumber, lemon and yogurt make for a refreshing sauce that goes perfectly with grilled meat, tomatoes and onions. Last night we made our own [...]

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Shredded Chicken Taco Salad with Sour Cream-Lime Dressing

It’s HOT. The cats are sprawled out underneath the ceiling fan (I may just join them), and I’m thinking about how growing up on the California central coast has really spoiled me when it comes to weather! But thanks to some leftover BBQ chicken breasts from the night before, we didn’t have to cook anything [...]

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Happy Easter! Part 2: Lemony Couscous with Peas, Mint, and Pea Shoots

This may have been another Easter side dish, but my fork kept gravitating to it on my plate, as if it were the main dish. We dressed couscous up for spring with peas, cumin seeds (ground in a mortar and pestle), fresh mint from the garden, refreshing pea shoots (I love how much delicate pea [...]

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Happy Easter! Part 1: Farro Salad with Marinated Baby Artichokes

May the freshness of spring remind you of new hope, new life, and new beginnings. This Easter felt extra special because it was the first one in 3 years where we were surrounded by family and friends back in our own country. We enjoyed a feast full of fresh spring produce, ham that came from [...]

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Mustard-Green Onion Potato Salad

Spring makes me think of eating outdoors and all the food that traditionally gets piled onto a paper plate at barbecues and picnics – potato salad is one of my favorites. This is a delicious mayo-based recipe, but the real focus is on my favorite condiment, the mustard – 3 kinds in fact. And you’ll [...]

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Spicy Shrimp Caesar Salad with Tortilla Crisps

If you love Caesar salad, you’ll be a fan of this one. I first came across this recipe while watching TV in Japan. I used to watch the Japanese version of the food network called “Foodies TV,” my favorite place to learn the Japanese words for boil, steam, grill, etc. Other times I would laugh [...]

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Parmesan Herb Croutons

Turn that stale bread on the counter into crunchy, little satisfying bites! Last night we went over to my parents’ house for dinner and pumpkin carving, so I brought these croutons to use in the salad. I was inspired by the homemade croutons by Ashley of Delish and wanted to try them myself. They are [...]

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Summer’s-Almost-Here “Cobb” Salad

The more colorful your plate, the better. Our interpretation of this salad was a result of cleaning out our refrigerator at the end of the week, but it turned out to be a quick, tasty dinner. Sort of like a carb-free, de-constructed BLT + some other things. Anyway, summer is almost here, [...]

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Open-faced Chipotle Cheese Steak Sandwiches w/ Avocado, Tomato and Red Onion

Sometimes just a single store bought ingredient can inspire an entire meal. That was the case here. My parents sent us a jar of chipotle cheese dip in our last package, and I jumped right on it because I have a weakness for cheese — especially the kind in a jar that you [...]

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Tuna & White Bean Salad with Pesto Crostini

I spent a few hours on Christmas day sitting in front of the fireplace with my new 12 Best Foods Cookbook. Now that we’re back in Japan, it’s been a fun challenge to think of new recipes that use these foods. Of course before we got the book we used tomatoes, broccoli, blueberries, [...]

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Crispy Porkchops with Capers, Lemon, Arugula, and Chopped Eggs

I was looking through the February 2008 Bon Appetit and came across this recipe that sounded promising. We loved the bright taste of the lemon slices and capers with the crispy pork. And the chopped eggs and greens were a refreshingly light accompaniment. We had to use pork chops instead of pork [...]

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Full of Thanks

Things I’m thankful for (in no particular order):
1. My kitten
2. German Shepherds
3. My family
4. My husband
5. Forgiveness
6. Good wine
The hardest time to live abroad is over the holidays, especially a year when your birthday and Thanksgiving finally fall on the same day. This was our second Thanksgiving without family or turkeys (the latter are [...]

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Garlic and Rosemary Pork Tenderloin & Spinach Salad with Asian Pear-Maple Vinaigrette

Finally, finally it’s cooling down enough to use the oven for dinner! We’re still trying to make use of Asian Pears, hence the salad. And our supermarket had lovely looking pork tenderloins that were very small; perfect for two. This is Dustin’s recipe.

For the Pork:
1 small pork tenderloin
1 [...]

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Hummus, Baked Pita Chips, and Cherry Tomato, Cucumber & Feta Salad

A bell chimes as we push open the heavy glass door and enter Kokoro (meaning “Heart”), a bakery the size of our pantry back home. A short lady with a round, smiling face greets us, saying, Irashaimase (welcome!) We grab a green plastic tray and a pair of tongs hanging from a small rack. [...]

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A Birthday Dinner at the Tree House

We have the best of both worlds up in the Santa Cruz Mountains: Ten minutes from the ocean, yet surrounded by communities of redwood trees. My cousin Nikita turned 21 on August 11th, so we had a family birthday dinner at my parent’s place; aptly named “The Tree House.” These were some of my [...]

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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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Lemon-Yogurt Chicken Salad Wraps

Maybe we should rename this blog “delicious” in Greek instead of Japanese, because lately we’ve been craving oregano, lemon, and feta in place of shoyu, dashi and daikon. Anyway, here we have another great hot-weather food. We had never made chicken salad with yogurt before, but I wasn’t feeling very mayonnaise-y at the [...]

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Seared Wasabi-Sesame Tuna with Avocado Cream and Maple Soy Sauce

We laughed at ourselves as we picked out the tuna in the supermarket today. We got it from the section that sells top-quality fish for sashimi, bite-size slices of fish, eaten raw with only soy sauce and wasabi. We predicted that we were the only people in the store who were buying that [...]

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