You know what the best meal ever is?  Dessert.  But you know what the best meal ever after dessert is?  Brunch.  And do you know why?  Consider the Venn diagram below.  Study it closely.  Learn its truths.

Today was a grand and glorious celebration in the holy and delicious name of a meal time that occurs between 10am and 2pm.  We called it, Brunchapalooza!  Continue reading →

Yesterday was a beautiful day.  Clear skies, not warm but pleasant weather overall, got an awesome massive free lunch at Noodles&Co thanks to my friend Chase, and then I went home to my own personal box of sunshine, aka the remaining mangoes I got from Whole Foods.  If you remember, they gave me a free box of them to see what I could come up with.  The last post was mango ice cream and mango-ancho chili ice cream.  Today’s post is still desserty–I can’t help it, mangoes are just so sweet and soft and dessert-y.  Today’s post is a mashup of mangoes and my lingering obsession with Italian food, specifically ricotta cheese, after eating at RPM Italian in Chicago last week.  Today’s post is a variation of tiramisu.  With mango.  Mango. Tiramisu.

As Isha would say, “That’s a thing.” Continue reading →

I’m ashamed to say that I think that is only the second headline reference to Spaceballs on this blog.  I’m sorry about that.  I’ll do better.

Anyway, how are you?  How’ve you been, Internet?  Oh, really?  Interesting.  I’d love to hear all about that.  We should get together and you should tell me about it over a nice glass of raspberry soda.  Continue reading →

I’m a simple person.  I don’t want much in life.  A warm home, a happy family, an elephant, and a few good, simple meals.  This dish basically evolved out of me wanting a tasty, light dinner but also not having gone grocery shopping in a week and not having any meat or anything thawed.

I had a few odds and ends in the fridge, including a tub of cremini mushrooms that I’d originally bought to make this garlic butter roasted mushroom recipe from Smitten Kitchen.  Instead of making the recipe as is, I decided to use it as inspiration for this pasta dish.  I want all of you health enthusiasts to note that there is no butter in this dish at all.  So there.

Oh, but there are two tablespoons of duck fat. Yeah. Continue reading →

I don’t know that I’ve ever made pizza crust from scratch before, mostly because I suffer from a relatively serious case of selective laziness.  Make my own caramel and nougat for homemade snickers bars?  Sure!  Make pizza dough?  Ha.  Why?  Whole Foods sells theirs in neat little packages.

I don’t claim to make sense.  Continue reading →

Wait, make that “Tortellini-Are-Little-Puffs-of-Heaven and Italian Sausage Stew.”  Kind of a long name, though.  I’ll work on it.

It’s been a very soup-y fall for me, for a couple of reasons.  1)Fall just seems to need soup.  I don’t know what it is but for some reason, fall is a soup season.  2)Soup recipes make a lot and it’s great for pouring leftovers into a jar and taking it work a couple days for lunch.  3)I rarely made soup before last year because I was convinced I was a failure at it.  I’m not nearly as nervous now.  Clearly if I can do, any idiot can.  But I repeat myself.

Continue reading →

You know what I like about these bars?  Everything.  They were easy to make, very fast, tasty, they made the house smell delicious and they are a perfect fall treat for noshing on with a good sized mug of hot cocoa and whipped cream.

They came about because I was sitting home alone, bored, getting over a cold and therefore in sore need of some comfort food.  I didn’t want the usual sort of snack–cookies, brownies, etc.  Or more honestly, I didn’t have enough chocolate on hand for the usual snack.  Instead, I sifted through the 300 or so recipes in my Evernote cookbook tagged with “dessert” and found a recipe for pecan pie bars.

I didn’t have pecans…but I did have a Costco-sized bag of almonds.  Plus I knew that with a bit of extra cinnamon thrown in, the bars would basically be like eating candied almonds atop a shortbread crust.  And yep, that’s pretty much what they are.  Delightfully, they’re not too sweet at all–so they won’t push you into sugar shock if you eat one or two with a good helping of my homemade cocoa. Continue reading →

“Make me a sandwich.”
“Poof!  You’re a sandwich.”

You want jokes?  I got ‘em.  You want funny jokes?  Try back next week.

Josh and I have been trying this radical new thing: “making our own lunches and taking them to work.”  Innovative right?

You see, I work on a college campus that happens to be nicely situated amongst the city’s downtown area.  I am surrounded by restaurants of all kinds–Indian buffets, sandwich places, Mediterranean joints, sushi places, pizza delivery, milkshake delivery and the best soup-shack this side of Heaven.  It is, needless to say, very difficult for me to ignore all of that and eat a lunch I packed.  If I packed.  Hey, sometimes I’m too lazy busy to remember little details like that.  But the down side of this genuine first-world problem of having lots of restaurants nearby is that it’s expensive to eat out all the time for lunch and frankly, eventually it gets boring. Continue reading →

[highlight]”I used to think the brain was the most important organ in the body.  Then I realized who was telling me this.” –Emo Phillips [/highlight]

The brain is clearly the most superior of all the organs, and I’m not just saying that because it told me to.  Well I kind of am.  Ok, I totally am, but with other good–nay, delicious–justifications.  After all, my brain is what told me to buy a couple gallons of cider at the Dexter Mill a couple weeks ago and my brain is what told me to use that cider to make apple syrup, which was delicious, and my brain decided that if apple syrup is good then apple caramel sauce must be just as delicious and obviously, if the brain thinks it’s true, then it must be. Continue reading →

Sunday was a busy day.  I got out of bed–and that was an effort, let me tell you–and made breakfast, prepared bread dough, did the week’s grocery shopping, found out my Twitter account was hacked (again, apologies to all involved), roasted chicken, made stock, made soup and still managed to watch Squid Invasion on Netflix streaming and thoroughly freak myself out.

But the important thing here is the soup.  It’s my cheesy, chunky comfort stew.  I originally made it for Paul and Josh last week for dinner.  Paul and I had a very good trade going: if I made dinner, he would bring cinnamon pie for dessert.  (I freaking love cinnamon pie and Paul makes it brilliantly.)  And since I knew I was going to want to have a really large piece of pie for dessert, I figured I would make something for dinner that was simple (cause I was tired), quick (cause I was short on time), vegetarian (because Paul is not of the meat-eating persuasion) and filling without being super heavy (cause pie).  Oh and delicious, of course, because that’s how I roll. Continue reading →

As I mentioned in the apple dumpling post, we (Josh, Paul and I) recently took a mini-foodie-field trip to Dexter Cider Mill to stock up for Falltopia.  (I’ve decided to re-name autumn from the pessimistic “Pre-Winter” to the more halcyon-sounding “Falltopia” in hopes of learning to appreciate it more.  Will it work?  Probably, right up until it gets cold again.)  We got donuts, apples, and plenty of cider for drinking, making hard cider (Josh’s thing) and lots of other goodies.  This apple syrup here is the first of those “other goodies.”

Continue reading →

One of the perks of living in Michigan is fall.  I know, I know: I said in the plum tart post that I hate fall because it’s basically “pre-winter.”  It is.  It is pre-winter.  However, like any good femme fatale, there are certain things about it that you can’t help but be seduced by even knowing that it will end with gunshots and tears icy roads and snow-shoveling.  Like super crisp blue skies, shimmery gold and red leaves, corn mazes and most of all, Michigan apples.  Because where there are Michigan apples, there’s cider and donuts.  And wherever there is cider and donuts, you’ll find me, nomming out. Continue reading →

Well it’s happened again.  The slow but inevitable progression of time has once again thrown us into the cruel and ignoble gladiator ring known as Fall, or as I like to call it, “The Pre-Winter.”  I know, I know.  Some of you like fall.  The cooler, sweatshirt-y weather, the apple cider and donuts, the corn mazes and the tricks-and-or-treats.  It’s glorious, Josh says.  Ha.  I know the truth.  It’s the beginning of the end…

…of my summer vacation from blogging.  Did you miss me?  We’ll just pretend you did.  I missed you too.  In fact, I’ve brought you this gift.  This beautiful, delicious gift:

Do you like it? Continue reading →

It’s almost officially summer. Which in Michigan means that any given time, it is either thunderstorming or it’s 85 degrees.  For me, late spring is an important time.  The students leave and campus is nice and quiet.  The markets open.  The farm shares begin.  The hot dog stands come out.  The garden gets planted.  My electricity bill goes way down…for a while.  But it also means one very, very important thing: baby vegetables.

I love baby vegetables.  They’re tender and sweet and delicate and tiny…and we all know that making food smaller automatically makes it both cuter and delicious-er.  My absolute favorite is the elusive baby turnip, which is starting to reach nearly mythical status in my household because I can never find them.  I’ve seen them at the market exactly twice in about six years and never in a regular grocery store.  They are so delicious, sautéed with butter and chicken stock and then sprinkled with salt and pepper, almost like very delicate Brussels sprouts.  If you find any, buy them immediately!  Also, send them my way. Continue reading →

It’s been a crazy week since the launch of the first Melties. There’s was a lot going on.  Most importantly, the raised garden beds that Josh has worked so painstakingly on the last few weeks were finally finished!  Stained, put into place, filled with dirt and on Saturday, most of the garden was planted.  We have two beds: one tomato/pepper bed (we’re also planting some lettuce into it) and one herb bed for my kitchen.  Of course, within hours after planting, our mastiff Maggie had managed to jump on and run through both beds, decimating a couple pepper plants and a tomato.  So today, fencing went up as well.  Ah well. Continue reading →

Something awesome transpired here Saturday night.  Josh and I hosted the inaugural Melties, a semi-formal grilled cheese dinner party.

Let me say that part again.  A semi formal grilled cheese dinner party.

You know, as many times as I say it, it never sounds less awesome.  All around, it’s probably one of my better ideas.  I highly suggest that each and every one of you conduct your own Melties as soon as you can.

Let’s start with the invitation.

A few of our grilled cheese lovin’ friends received the following invitations in the mail (real invitations on real paper sent through snail mail.  Retro, I know):

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If you just now realized that tomorrow is Mothers Day and have yet to do anything for your respective maternal figure, don’t worry.  I’ve got just the solution to your procrastinatory, slack-alicious problem: these mini homemade mounds bars.  Or as I prefer to call them, “Mounds Bites,” since they’re just little nuggets of candy. Because moms like chocolate and moms like coconut and moms like things that are homemade.  And because these are quick and easy and have garnered rave reviews for me the past couple of days and since they’re bite-sized, it makes for easier portion control. Also, did I say they were delicious?  Cause they are.

So make a quick trip to the store, throw a batch together, nestle them into a pretty container and let your mom know how much you care…about her having delicious eats.  Do it for the noms.  I mean, moms.  Do it for the moms. Continue reading →

I know what’s going on.  Your path to life has taken a sour turn.  Your mojo is running out of juice.  Food has lost its a-peel.  And my pith-y jokes…well, they lack a certain zest today.  But it’s okay.  I’ve got the cure for what ails ya.  Because, my dear friend, when life has given you lemons, sometimes you wonder…”What the hell am I going to do with this?  Make lemonade?  Uh hello, that is so 1956.  Laaaame.”  Well today, we are going to save your relationship with the lemon.

Because after all, the lemon is a little culinary powerhouse.  There is nothing it can’t make better.  Not only is it full of vitamin C, and not only is it an awesome little addition to homemade cleaning solutions, and not only does it bring out the delicious flavors of foods it’s paired with, but its own flavor is bright and tart and yummy.  To steal a line from Genie, the lemon is “phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space.” Continue reading →