Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies
Sun-Dried Tomato Fettuccine Alfredo with Spinach
Chickpea Tikka Masala with Green Rice
Easy Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
German Chocolate Cake
Verdict:
Enjoyable and usable with the high-quality content and recipes I’m used to from her blog. A good cookbook to buy for your bookshelves, especially if you’re looking for plant-based or vegetarian recipes. I’ve recommended several individual recipes already.
This summer is anything but lazy, there has been no summertime slow down. At least as far as my energy levels are concerned. I’m feeling the lack of a long weekend over the July 4th holiday, and I’ll have to hold on a few more weeks until our vacation in August.
Until then, there’s the option of slowing things down and really relishing what’s going on with food and at meals. So, here’s this shrimp salad sandwich, cool and pleasant on hot summer days.
This recipe reminds me I should cook with tortellini more often. We frequently turn to pasta (usually with some form of protein and vegetable) for a quick and easy dinner option. For as much as I like pasta and cheese (and the two together), I’m surprised tortellini isn’t in a regular rotation.
This dish is a quick, hearty, filling but not heavy option for the summer months. The tortellini take just a few minutes to cook, the chicken sausages are cooked through ahead of time, and some early mid-summer cherry or grape tomatoes are paired with wilted spinach and a not-too-heavy cream sauce. A recipe that might feel like a nod toward the wintry months with the use of sausage and cream turns out to be, in fact, flavorful and satisfying.
I’m tinkering with some ideas for carrying this over into the winter months. The recipe relies heavily on the brightness and freshness of the tomatoes — this really should be made around July or August to capture all that in-season goodness. But I also think it has the basic structure for a quick fall-back meal when nothing else is on hand. If you kept a package of frozen tortellini in the freezer, a store of canned tomatoes in the cupboard, and had spinach, half & half, and grated Parmesan cheese on hand on a regular basis, this could be a quick and easy fall-back recipe for nights when energy is low or a trip to the grocery store just isn’t in the cards, no matter what time of year.
The idea for carrot-ginger soup is not necessarily ground breaking, but the addition of the red lentils, which lends a creamy, hearty texture and flavor to the soup takes this recipe to new levels. The lentils contribute quite a bit of protein, turning what might otherwise be a flavorful starter into a satisfying vegetarian main course.
Title: Small Victories Author: Julia Turshen Date: 2016 Publisher: Chronicle Books
Recipes Made:
Avocado + Kimchi Toast
Kimchi Fried Rice with Scallion Salad
Turkey + Ricotta Meatballs
Broiled Anything with Garlic + Parsley Butter
Apricot Upside-Down Skillet Cake
Chickpea Curry (from “Seven Things to Do with a Can of Chickpeas”)
The idea for this recipe popped into my head in the late months of this past winter, and then not long after, I got clobbered with the can’t get off the couch, don’t even want to think about cooking fatigue of first-trimester pregnancy. So even though this isn’t a huge project of a dinner, the fact that there were two separate components (making the sausage-onion-pepper mix and then drop biscuits) was too much for me on those nights.
Since then, we’ve had a pretty cool, crisp April and May, and I’ve had the opportunity to develop the initial idea into the full-fledged recipe below. And it is so good. While it’s true it takes a little bit of time, so much of this is hands-off time, and even the drop biscuit preparation is unfussy.
Here’s a simple, satisfying idea for a quick weeknight meal (which is what we chose to do) or a make-ahead Mother’s Day brunch for the upcoming weekend.
What a surprising and winning recipe this is. First time I made this, David and ate it up and delightedly looked forward to leftovers. Not long after, I made this for my parents, who were in town for a visit, and it was a crowd-pleasing dinner. (This was true even for my dad, who doesn’t like spicy or Asian-style cuisine all that much, though he says his views on that are changing. I think part of his reluctance to embrace take-out-style dishes is we spent much of my younger years living in areas with only lackluster options.) It took cooking this recipe a third time before I had enough time and chicken to snap a few photos before it was eaten. It’s been worth it every time.
It’s January, which means so many people are turning to things like lentil soups to help with new year’s resolutions. But that’s not what I’m doing (or recommending). This lentil soup is here because I spent December tweaking it and perfecting it. It’s here because after trying so, so many boring and lackluster lentil soups, this one tastes good. It has flavor, brightness, and engages you in your dinner, rather than leaving you limping through a meal you’re not all that excited about. And, it has bacon.
