pepperoni bread

This week so far has been a little like a Chopped episode. We're getting ready to leave for a week-long vacation to the Outer Banks, and so we've been cobbling together franken-recipes from the random items in the back of the fridge so they don't go bad while we're gone.

not your college ramen

If you enjoy the 25c ramen noodles that you get at the grocery store, prepared as directed on the package with the little square seasoning pack, continue at your own risk. I'm not passing judgement—goodness only knows how many of those I had during college—but I am saying that once you make ramen like this, you'll never be able to go back.

matt's mini upside-down cobblers

This is one of those few recipes that disproves the principle of baking which says that more effort leads to a better product. In a lot of cases that's true (looking at you, macarons and eclairs), but not so here. These mini cobblers only take a couple of minutes to whip up, and the result—well, let's just say that Adam and I polished off all twelve of these by ourselves in as many hours... which also included a full night's sleep. 

fig & pig pizza

I've had variations of this pizza at several different restaurants, most recently—and perhaps most deliciously—in the tiny town of Lancaster, Ohio. It's a classic combo. Sweet figs marry savory pork and are topped with fresh, peppery arugula. What's not to love?

tiny stuffed peppers with tomatillo salsa

These peppers are Adam's favorite meal of all time, and I can see why. They're spicy, savory, and sweet. There's no meat, but it's still filling without being heavy. Using small sweet peppers gives you a greater pepper-to-filling ratio than using bell peppers. And let's be honest, tiny food has a certain appeal that regular-sized food just doesn't.

sweet potato, brussels sprouts, & bacon hash

This dish was originally a happy accident. It was the result of opening the fridge, finding a bunch of random ingredients, and trying to make dinner anyway.

salted brown butter & coconut birds-nests

Happy (almost) Easter!

I got the idea for making these festive little treats from a vague childhood memory of making something similar. I can't remember what they actually tasted like; I just remember sitting around the table with the sibs putting eggs in the little nests. So I set out to create something that was as cute and delicious in reality as it was in my mind.

"bugs" mac & cheese

Cheese & crunchy topping for dayssss. 

Baked macaroni & cheese is better than not-baked macaroni & cheese. This is a true and indisputable fact.

Macaroni and cheese has always seemed to me to be a bit of a misnomer, since shells are clearly the far superior vessel to be drowned in and filled with creamy molten cheese. The cheese-to-pasta ratio in each bite of macaroni made with elbow pasta just isn't high enough. My mom knew what was up—growing up, our baked macaroni was always made with shells.

boba milk tea

Boba milk tea is, hands down, one of my absolute favorite edible / drinkable things. Boba is large tapioca pearls, cooked in a bit of sugar and water until sweet and gummy. The pearls are then put in a glass, and chilled tea, whole milk or half-and-half, and ice is added, and you drink it with a big smoothie straw. It's like a cross between tea and iced coffee, with delightful little squidgy bits at the bottom that pop up through your straw. It's kind of a drink, and also kind of a snack.

pineapple fried rice in a pineapple

Adam and I drove down to Atlanta last Friday for the weekend. We walked around the city, saw people and llamas in leprechaun hats, and quickly discovered it's a city with a lot of good food.

chocolate cupcakes with mint frosting

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I'm not Irish, but I love the color green and getting rid of snakes, so I'm game to celebrate.

butternut squash & salmon curry

I love salmon.

It's a very forgiving fish to cook, and it's incredibly versatile; you can simply bake it with salt & pepper, or grill it and add tons of toppings in a fish taco. The hubs is a huge fan of it too. We made it so often that we might have gotten a little burnt out... so we took a salmon sabbatical. And time went by.

In the grocery store yesterday, however, we were walking by the seafood counter brainstorming dinner ideas (pro tip: always do this before you go to the grocery store) and there it was, on ice, in all its pink-and-silver glory.

And there was no longer any question of what we'd be having.