Quick & Easy

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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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Bacon & Eggs Risotto

We’ve been basking in gorgeous 70-degree weather for the past couple of days in Boston, and I’ve been enjoying everything that comes with it: drinks outside on a sunny patio, the return of Boston’s bike share program, and commuting to school along the Charles river. But the weather’s dipped back down to the mid-40s and … 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

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Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I developed these chewy oatmeal cookies for February’s Recipe Redux, the monthly cooking challenge I joined last year. The challenge this month was to develop a recipe that highlights chocolate, and sweets, I have to say, aren’t my strong suit. When it comes to sweet versus salty, I’d pick salty every day. Baking is typically … Read more

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Sunny-side up eggs atop baked potato pancakes

Eggs and toast are David and my usual weekend breakfast fare. Every Saturday and Sunday morning we choose between scrambled versus over-easy, toast a couple slices of bread, and put on a pot of coffee. The Recipe Redux challenge for this month is breakfast, so I’ve been experimenting with egg-based dishes on weekend mornings instead. … Read more

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Cheesy Chicken Casserole with Kale

A tale of two pastas: one decadent and delicious, the other a healthier bake that still tastes impossibly fresh and cheesy. After David and I planned our Thanksgiving menu, we bent our heads together over the grocery lists and divvied up the ingredients we needed to buy by store: Whole Foods will have happy turkeys … Read more

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Hasselback Potatoes

These are the best, absurdly easy potatoes I’ve made in awhile. I saw the idea posted on a friend’s pinterest page and thought they looked super simple and whimsical. Over the last few weeks I’ve made them twice with great success: once as a run-through of sorts to see if they really were as easy … Read more