Healthy

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Spaghetti with Cilantro-Peanut Pesto

I’ve been on a bit of a Southwestern kick lately. Over the last year, I’ve made more and more dishes that involve the classic combination of cilantro, lime, corn, tomatoes, and beans. Part of it has to do with the fact that so many of the things you can make with a Southwestern bent are … Read more

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Red Lentil Dal with Asparagus with Perfect Roasted Potatoes

This August, I’ll be coming up on the 1-year benchmark for posting regularly on this blog. I actually started the blog a year earlier, in 2010, but it took awhile to find my rhythm and figure out what I actually wanted this space to be. It took another three months or so to figure out … Read more

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Open-faced Caramelized Onion and Fontina Grilled Cheese Sandwich

It’s almost summer in Boston, but sometimes it doesn’t quite feel like it. Luckily, we’re seeing the seasons change with fresh summer produce turning up in the grocery stores, and the farmer’s markets have opened across the city. Sometimes it’s warm enough to grab a drink outside after work. But as I’m sitting here writing, … Read more

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Strawberry & Tomato Bruschetta with Goat Cheese

This is a twist on a dish I’ve been making for years, and it’s a perfect accompaniment to a Memorial Day party. Here, strawberries are paired with the classic combination of tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and basil, resulting in a fresh and summery dish. A smear of goat cheese lends the bruschetta a hearty,  tangy … Read more

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Shrimp & Mango Tacos

Over the weekend, one of my favorite websites, Food52.com, won the James Beard Award for Publication of the year for their cookbook, a compilation of winners from their community cooking contests. I’ve used their contest themes for inspiration before, one of which was selected as a Community Pick on their site (pretty exciting, I thought). … Read more

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Wild Rice & Cauliflower Casserole

About two weeks ago, I gave a talk to a group of medical students at Boston University. The idea behind the presentation is that there’s a pretty significant dearth of nutrition education in our medical school curricula, so I tried to highlight some key points that they would find most helpful – for both their … Read more

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Crispy honey & wine roasted Brussels sprouts

A few weeks ago, my sister sent me a (late-night) text message asking me to come up with a recipe for crispy honey or teriyaki Brussels sprouts. Happily, about a week before that, I’d had dinner with a friend at a restaurant downtown which had crispy sprouts on its menu. They paired theirs with a … Read more

Black beans, roasted sweet potato, and just the right amount of cheese come together for these crispy, filling quesadillas

Black Bean, Sweet Potato, and Chipotle Quesadilla

Even though I’d like to think that working & studying at home leaves plenty of time to cook creative, hot lunches, I usually fall back on a reliable favorite: a lightly-toasted quesadilla. This version is an incredibly satisfying vegetarian substitute for the classic chicken and cheese combination. Don’t be too skeptical about the sweet potato + … Read more

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Chinese Chicken Salad

  Back when I was interning at Cook’s Illustrated last summer, this was one of my favorite dishes to test out in the kitchens. The test cooks would make batch after batch, making revisions and listening to our feedback as the process went along. The romaine and cabbage make this a colorful winter salad, but … Read more

Pasta with a creamy roasted red pepper and goat cheese sauce

Pasta with a creamy roasted red pepper & goat cheese sauce

So often, when I think about what I want to make for dinner, I crave creamy pasta. Obviously, loading up a plate of pasta with heavy cream and cheese isn’t going to work out in the long term, so a lot of my experiments over the fall and winter months have been playing around with … Read more