Ok technically this is a recipe for Satay sauce. But it was so good that I ended up just pouring it onto my rice alone and finishing it all that way. So I’m calling this a peanut satay curry.

Sad about the world? This might help your mood, if nothing else.

This is just a really nice, hassle-free weeknight meal to have in your back pocket. Minimal prep, maximum flavor, and you literally can’t mess it up.

Looking for something that literally takes less than 10 minutes to make and is loaded with flavor and nutrition? Look no further. Black pepper beef is on the menu!

You could call it an omelet if you wanted, but you’d be wrong. Oyakodon, otherwise known as Parent and Child, is eggs cooked over chicken and onions, with a light sauce. It’s more than an omelet.

This slow cooker beef and sweet potato curry is one of my favorite things I’ve cooked this year, and the kids devoured it. You can serve it with rice, or do like I did and just eat it out of the serving dish like a stew.

I finally did it - I figured out how to make Japanese curry without curry blocks!

In the mood for something crunchy and flavorful and quintessentially Chinese? I got you.

Cassoulet is from the Languedoc region of France, but the one I had in Paris was the best I’ve come across. They used chicken thigh instead of the customary duck, which was great for me when recreating the dish at home because duck is incredibly difficult to source in the part of New York City I’m currently living in. The cassoulet I had in Paris was indirectly smoked because it was cooked in a woodfire oven, and I didn’t think I could achieve that with my conventional oven, and I also wanted to add a little spice, so I substituted Kielbasa for the traditional salt pork and pork belly. In the end it had a bit of a more Creole flair to it, but it had the flavor profile I wanted, and was still luxuriant and rich. The beans serve to soak up all the flavor from the braising liquid, but also impart an unexpected creaminess to the overall mouthfeel of each bite. Adding this one to my weekly rotation for sure.

Well, I had leftover eggplant, and I haven’t really ventured into the world of Filipino cuisine, so I thought I’d give an easy intro dish a try. It’s literally a cooked eggplant with aromatic eggs cooked around it - suuuuuuuuper easy to make, it took about 15 minutes total. The key, I found, is to really to burn the hell out of the outside of the eggplant, and then obviously to add way more garlic and green onion than most recipes call for. The smokiness from the char on the eggplant gives the dish rotisserie chicken or backyard BBQ vibes, but adding the eggs and aromats, not to mention serving it over rice, gives it a distinctly Asian flare. Pro tip: Add chili crisp!

This Afghani eggplant dish is vegetarian and gluten free, and surprisingly light considering the heft of the eggplants, so it’s perfect for a shared appetizer or a a whole individual meal. Serve it with fresh warmed pita, crispy fried pita chips, rice, couscous, quinoa, or even a bowl of cooked pasta for the perfect quick weeknight meal.

I can confidently say that this is actually my favorite soup of all time, and I make it any time I find ground chicken in my fridge. I’ve been craving Taiwanese food more and more lately since my work hasn’t been bringing me to Asia as much, and this soup is so transportative, I can almost close my eyes and imagine being there. I aggressively season with white pepper and sesame oil, and I don’t use as much cornstarch as most recipes, so the soup is light but very very flavorful, and the smell of it alone is enough to make you think you’re about to sit down to some sort of 20 course meal in a Chinese banquet hall (though for me the soup itself is enough of a feast because I always eat at least 5 bowls of it).

Ok technically this is a recipe for Satay sauce. But it was so good that I ended up just pouring it onto my rice alone and finishing it all that way. So I’m calling this a peanut satay curry.

In the mood for something crunchy and flavorful and quintessentially Chinese? I got you.

Well, I had leftover eggplant, and I haven’t really ventured into the world of Filipino cuisine, so I thought I’d give an easy intro dish a try. It’s literally a cooked eggplant with aromatic eggs cooked around it - suuuuuuuuper easy to make, it took about 15 minutes total. The key, I found, is to really to burn the hell out of the outside of the eggplant, and then obviously to add way more garlic and green onion than most recipes call for. The smokiness from the char on the eggplant gives the dish rotisserie chicken or backyard BBQ vibes, but adding the eggs and aromats, not to mention serving it over rice, gives it a distinctly Asian flare. Pro tip: Add chili crisp!

This Afghani eggplant dish is vegetarian and gluten free, and surprisingly light considering the heft of the eggplants, so it’s perfect for a shared appetizer or a a whole individual meal. Serve it with fresh warmed pita, crispy fried pita chips, rice, couscous, quinoa, or even a bowl of cooked pasta for the perfect quick weeknight meal.

Schupfnudeln can actually be eaten in a sweet or savory context. I’ve had them covered in sour cherries and some kind of yogurt-skyr-sour cream deliciousness, covered in butter and crispy bacon lardons, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, served plain alongside saurkraut, and even sprinkled with cocoa powder and drizzled with chocolate sauce with whipped cream on top. My favorite version is the one I’ve recreated and pictured here - seared in sage-infused butter and then topped with crispy sage leaves, served with apple cider-braised red cabbage.

I’ve had many pierogi varieties throughout Poland, the Baltics, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc… and this filling is the one I prefer the most. If you’re interested in buttery indulgence, this is the dish for you!

This is one of my favorite dishes to order at restaurants in China, so last year when I was obsessed with recreating experiences from my travels, I decided to give it a go. It was everything I remembered.

2021 was all about memories of traveling throughout Asia and recreating the food I ate then. It was nice, but in 2022 I’m determined to return to basics, the heart and soul of this blog: Butter. My first dish, scalloped potatoes, is a shining star in that arena, and you guessed it, the shine comes from butter.

The first time I ate this Chinese tomato and egg dish was at a café next to the Nanfeng ancient kiln in Foshan, China. I learned later that this is a common home-cooking meal in China - indeed, throughout Asia. After tasting it in Foshan, I could absolutely see why. It is the epitome of comfort food.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any original dishes because I’ve been obsessed with making other people’s Chinese home-cooking recipes. I’ve been spending a lot of time sourcing Asian ingredient brands and figuring out the right balance to create Chinese flavor profiles that I find palatable. To kick things off, I’ve focused a lot on vegetarian dishes - I figured if I was going to be trying new things, I should try and keep them affordable so my failures could be less costly. Up first - Spicy Chinese Cauliflower!

I’ve had blocks of parmesan in my fridge for months, and massive stockpiles of canned tomatoes since the beginning of the pandemic when we completely lost our minds and started hoarding canned foods, and it was just time to use it all up. I’ve also had this green chile vodka from St. George Distillers for months, and I’ve been wondering how I could incorporate it into some food. Then, the other day, as I was rooting through my spice cabinet for some dinner inspiration, my entire giant bottle of crushed red pepper flakes fell out onto the counter and the top flew off, spraying red pepper all over my kitchen and sending me into a fit of violent sneezing. Suddenly, it hit me: Vodka Sauce!!?

It’s been raining in the Bay Area this week, and I just really needed some comfort food to get me through it. I made a trial batch of these cookies this past Sunday, ate every single one of them, and then made another batch last night, and ate every single one of them, so I’ve eaten about 60 cookies over the past 3 days and I’m a little strung out because the only other thing I’ve consumed is coffee, but I have no regrets.

Sad about the world? This might help your mood, if nothing else.

This is just a really nice, hassle-free weeknight meal to have in your back pocket. Minimal prep, maximum flavor, and you literally can’t mess it up.

Looking for something that literally takes less than 10 minutes to make and is loaded with flavor and nutrition? Look no further. Black pepper beef is on the menu!

This slow cooker beef and sweet potato curry is one of my favorite things I’ve cooked this year, and the kids devoured it. You can serve it with rice, or do like I did and just eat it out of the serving dish like a stew.

I finally did it - I figured out how to make Japanese curry without curry blocks!

Cassoulet is from the Languedoc region of France, but the one I had in Paris was the best I’ve come across. They used chicken thigh instead of the customary duck, which was great for me when recreating the dish at home because duck is incredibly difficult to source in the part of New York City I’m currently living in. The cassoulet I had in Paris was indirectly smoked because it was cooked in a woodfire oven, and I didn’t think I could achieve that with my conventional oven, and I also wanted to add a little spice, so I substituted Kielbasa for the traditional salt pork and pork belly. In the end it had a bit of a more Creole flair to it, but it had the flavor profile I wanted, and was still luxuriant and rich. The beans serve to soak up all the flavor from the braising liquid, but also impart an unexpected creaminess to the overall mouthfeel of each bite. Adding this one to my weekly rotation for sure.

I can confidently say that this is actually my favorite soup of all time, and I make it any time I find ground chicken in my fridge. I’ve been craving Taiwanese food more and more lately since my work hasn’t been bringing me to Asia as much, and this soup is so transportative, I can almost close my eyes and imagine being there. I aggressively season with white pepper and sesame oil, and I don’t use as much cornstarch as most recipes, so the soup is light but very very flavorful, and the smell of it alone is enough to make you think you’re about to sit down to some sort of 20 course meal in a Chinese banquet hall (though for me the soup itself is enough of a feast because I always eat at least 5 bowls of it).

I’ve actually never seen Mongolian chicken anywhere in China. It’s an American Chinese food in my mind, but it’s inauthenticity doesn’t make it any less delicious. It’s a deeply umami, slightly sweet, sleek and sticky lick-your-fingers flavor bomb as well as a textural journey of crunchy chicken mingling with tiny pops of green onion, effectively offset by a fluffy cloud of white rice. In the absence of a vegetable, this dish could be a bit cloying, which is why I upped the amount of ginger; it adds just the right amount of freshness so as not to detract from the well known flavor profile of this dish, but to just hum in the background as a way of harmonizing the other strong flavors.

This chicken souvlaki is actually, dare i say it, better than what I had in Greece, especially with all of the accompaniments I use, which enable a different experience with every bite, but never a bad one.

You should all know by now that Kung Pao Chicken, which I refer to simply as KPC, is my favorite meal on the planet. Obviously I love all food, but I could eat KPC for every meal and be perfectly happy. Unfortunately, the numbing sweetness of Sichuan peppercorn is crucial to my enjoyment of the dish, and since moving to the Bay Area, I’ve actually had a surprisingly hard time finding it in the Asian markets. I’ve been thus unable to satisfy my KPC cravings since before Covid started - the Chinese restaurants in my area don’t include Sichuan peppercorn in their KPCs for some reason. Maybe they also find it difficult to source? Anyway I finally went to work a few weeks ago for the first time in over a year and stopped by some obscure Vietnamese market near the office, about 40 minutes from my house, and omg they had some in stock! I rushed home and made as many Chinese dishes as I could think of. Obviously KPC came first.

My quest for spice has lead me down some pretty deep rabbit holes, culminating finally in this beautiful Thai masterpiece of a dish, which is simultaneously fresh and sweet and tangy as well as an ultimate embodiment of the screaming, scorching hellfire that can only be expected from a dish that literally drips with the oils of 15 Thai chilis.

I don’t care if it’s basic - Chicken Tikka Masala is my all-time favorite thing to eat… but since I moved from San Diego to the Bay Area two years ago, I haven’t been able to find even one restaurant with an acceptable rendering of my most favorite dish. Now, at last, I have finally found a recipe I love, so I can make this for myself and eat it for every meal for the rest of my life like I’ve always wanted to. That’s it - life goal accomplished!

Ok technically this is a recipe for Satay sauce. But it was so good that I ended up just pouring it onto my rice alone and finishing it all that way. So I’m calling this a peanut satay curry.

Sad about the world? This might help your mood, if nothing else.

Looking for something that literally takes less than 10 minutes to make and is loaded with flavor and nutrition? Look no further. Black pepper beef is on the menu!

You could call it an omelet if you wanted, but you’d be wrong. Oyakodon, otherwise known as Parent and Child, is eggs cooked over chicken and onions, with a light sauce. It’s more than an omelet.

This slow cooker beef and sweet potato curry is one of my favorite things I’ve cooked this year, and the kids devoured it. You can serve it with rice, or do like I did and just eat it out of the serving dish like a stew.

In the mood for something crunchy and flavorful and quintessentially Chinese? I got you.

Well, I had leftover eggplant, and I haven’t really ventured into the world of Filipino cuisine, so I thought I’d give an easy intro dish a try. It’s literally a cooked eggplant with aromatic eggs cooked around it - suuuuuuuuper easy to make, it took about 15 minutes total. The key, I found, is to really to burn the hell out of the outside of the eggplant, and then obviously to add way more garlic and green onion than most recipes call for. The smokiness from the char on the eggplant gives the dish rotisserie chicken or backyard BBQ vibes, but adding the eggs and aromats, not to mention serving it over rice, gives it a distinctly Asian flare. Pro tip: Add chili crisp!

This Afghani eggplant dish is vegetarian and gluten free, and surprisingly light considering the heft of the eggplants, so it’s perfect for a shared appetizer or a a whole individual meal. Serve it with fresh warmed pita, crispy fried pita chips, rice, couscous, quinoa, or even a bowl of cooked pasta for the perfect quick weeknight meal.

I can confidently say that this is actually my favorite soup of all time, and I make it any time I find ground chicken in my fridge. I’ve been craving Taiwanese food more and more lately since my work hasn’t been bringing me to Asia as much, and this soup is so transportative, I can almost close my eyes and imagine being there. I aggressively season with white pepper and sesame oil, and I don’t use as much cornstarch as most recipes, so the soup is light but very very flavorful, and the smell of it alone is enough to make you think you’re about to sit down to some sort of 20 course meal in a Chinese banquet hall (though for me the soup itself is enough of a feast because I always eat at least 5 bowls of it).

I’ve actually never seen Mongolian chicken anywhere in China. It’s an American Chinese food in my mind, but it’s inauthenticity doesn’t make it any less delicious. It’s a deeply umami, slightly sweet, sleek and sticky lick-your-fingers flavor bomb as well as a textural journey of crunchy chicken mingling with tiny pops of green onion, effectively offset by a fluffy cloud of white rice. In the absence of a vegetable, this dish could be a bit cloying, which is why I upped the amount of ginger; it adds just the right amount of freshness so as not to detract from the well known flavor profile of this dish, but to just hum in the background as a way of harmonizing the other strong flavors.

This chicken souvlaki is actually, dare i say it, better than what I had in Greece, especially with all of the accompaniments I use, which enable a different experience with every bite, but never a bad one.

This is one of my favorite dishes to order at restaurants in China, so last year when I was obsessed with recreating experiences from my travels, I decided to give it a go. It was everything I remembered.

I can confidently say that this is actually my favorite soup of all time, and I make it any time I find ground chicken in my fridge. I’ve been craving Taiwanese food more and more lately since my work hasn’t been bringing me to Asia as much, and this soup is so transportative, I can almost close my eyes and imagine being there. I aggressively season with white pepper and sesame oil, and I don’t use as much cornstarch as most recipes, so the soup is light but very very flavorful, and the smell of it alone is enough to make you think you’re about to sit down to some sort of 20 course meal in a Chinese banquet hall (though for me the soup itself is enough of a feast because I always eat at least 5 bowls of it).

I went to Maine (Portland is pretty cool!) over the weekend for my brother’s bachelor party. I can’t remember much of the weekend, but I do remember being generally cold. After living in California for 8 years, I am absolutely no longer acclimated to the weather in the North East. Anyway, what do I crave when it is unbearably cold outside? Soup!

I made this soup three times this past week. It took me about 20 minutes total, each time. Cleaning is a breeze because you basically only need a pot, a pan, and two bowls. But that’s all logistics. the flavor is the true success of this dish. The Miso mixed with the fat from the pork results in this beautiful velvety broth. The Fresno chili is no joke - they pack a spicy punch and cut the richness. The orange and lime serve a similar purpose, and add some sweetness. The ginger is fresh and bright. The rest is a textural dream.

It sounds nasty. It looks nasty… like… surprisingly nasty. But it's actually good. I promise.

This weekend was extremely cloudy and depressing and for most of it I was lost in a haze of unfocused drunkness, but one good thing that came out of it all was this soup that I made in an attempt to warm my frigid soul!

Essentially, I live in Mexico, and I'm soaking up all of the Mexican-American culture I can before all of my wonderful south-of-the-border friends are deported from my beloved San Diego, which owes so much of its charm to their presence, so  here is some chicken tortilla soup.

This soup will squish your brain apart. The last time I made it was for Thanksgiving in Florida. I fed it to about 20 people as the first course, and it was so good that no one remembers any of the other food that night (other than the amazing cake I made, of course).

Ok so this soup isn't technically Italian Wedding, but I eat it for the same reasons: cold and rainy days, or just when I'm feeling depressed AF. It's also just my favorite soup to make, so I make it a lot...

So I’ve been on this Eastern European kick, and it just keeps on providing. There’s just something about how rustic and simple, yet jam packed with flavor, their foods are that keeps me coming back for more. So there is a Georgian restaurant in San Diego that I used to go to all the time - That was the first and only time I’ve had it, much to my chagrin. I fully planned to go back once a week for the rest of my life just for that one dish, but then I moved and now I’m sad :( Or at least I was until I decided to make a new and improved version myself this past weekend!

I had leftover potatoes, and any recipe I’ve ever used that calls for tomato paste only calls for 1 or 2 Tbsp, so I had like 3 half-used cans of it. What could I do other than obviously just add butter and make pies?

I went to the grocery store, picked out four random ingredients, and resolved to make something out of them, just like in friggin Chopped. But alas, I have zero originality so I ended up transforming none of the ingredients, and just threw them on a pizza like I do with all the other food I buy. The result was blog-worthy though, so here it is.

You all ready for some garlicky insanity??! This pizza is worth the stink tongue.

Ok! Visitor season is officially over! I now have time to blog again! And what do I do when I have time? Pizza!

Anyone who knows me even a little bit will know that I know how to say "Where is my pizza?" in 50+ languages. In any form, it is my favorite food by far. This pizza was inspired by my mom, who tried to make her minestrone soup fancier one day by putting something with a French name (pistou) on top of it. Little did she know that pistou is just pesto without pine nuts. It's so easy to make, not fancy at all, but still vibrant and powerfully flavored. It adds crazy freshness to the plainest of foods. It completely transformed my mom's minestrone, and when I put it on this pizza it was just like Blam Blam! Massive flavor explosion.

This is the kind of party I can get behind.

My current most favorite thing to make? Pizza. A thousand times pizza. I am eating it for every meal and happily gaining a thousand pounds in the process. The dough is simple and easy. The sauce is even easier. The toppings are all delicious in any combination. My feelings at the moment are "Only dumb people would eat something other than pizza"...