Vegetables

Scallion Pancakes (Cong You Bing)

Any time Dan and I get Chinese delivery, we make sure to get an order of scallion pancakes and crab rangoons. They are equally delicious, but I always feel kind of bad eating (and loving) crab rangoons. I mean, they’re fake Chinese food! As a good Chinese person I feel like I should turn my nose up at it and treat it with the same disdain that I have for orange chicken and General Gao’s-anything. But they’re just so creamy and fried and delicious, and I can’t help myself from going back to them again and again. I’m not a strong person. (BTW, we painted our walls. You like?) Scallion pancakes are different, though. My mom used to make me scallion pancakes for lunch...

Cinco de Mayo isn’t until tomorrow, but I’ve already got Mexican food on my mind. This means, as is usually the case when I have Mexican on the mind, that I’m jones-ing hard for guacamole. Lots and lots of guacamole. Why guacamole? Shall I recite its merits for you? There are too many to list! But for starters, it’s easy to make, it’s relatively healthy, and it’s a satisfying dinner substitute when no one feels like cooking. And, you know…it’s super delicious. Four large HASS avocados, one tomato, and half a red onion produced a dauntingly gigantic bowl of guacamole, but Dan and I inhaled every last bite. I was sad to see the last smear disappear into Dan’s mouth, but tomorrow is a...

Grilled Cheese with Kale and Caramelized Onions

Happy Emancipation Day, everyone! Hope you’re all enjoying your day off as much as I’m enjoying mine! Wait…Emancipation Day isn’t a federal holiday? Only DC government employees get the day off? And I’m the only one of my friends who gets to stay home today? Oh man. That sucks, guys. (I love you all, don’t kill me!) Anyway, being at home all day isn’t as great you’d think. Dan had to go to work, so it’s just me and the cats. The furry little bastards woke me up at 8:30am and wrecked my plans to sleep in, and now that I’m awake and bored, they have mysteriously disappeared. So now I’m tired, bored, and grouchy. Ugh. Well, if I can’t be well rested, I...

(I got a new camera! Can you tell?) Both the Pioneer Woman and the Crumbly Cookie assured me that their favorite pizza dough is at its best the longer it’s kept in the fridge, so I took their advice and let the second half of my dough chill for a few days. I didn’t have the patience to wait 3-4 days, but I figured that two days was plenty, so I pulled the dough out of the fridge today for another round of pizzas. Now that I know what kale is, I’m eager to work it into my vegetable rotation. I bought a big bag of it at BJs the other day, but have been kind of at a loss as to what to...

I noticed the other day that I’ve been making a lot of desserts lately. My last five or six posts have been sweet things — girl scout cookies, molten lava cake, mini pies, etc. Come to think of it, I haven’t made a proper meal since the day we had Chicken Fried Steak for lunch. This is not good. A girl can’t live on desserts, you know. So when I came home from work tonight, I was pretty determined to cook something tasty that didn’t involve any amount of sugar. Luckily, there was chicken in the fridge, and leftover pie dough + frozen mixed vegetables in the freezer. Chicken pot pie, hollaaaa! The thing about chicken pot pie is that it’s awesome. Like, really...

Happy St. Patty’s Day, everyone! Are you wearing green? I’m not. I don’t really own anything green; it’s not a great color for me. Thank god no one at work is fanatical about the whole wear-green-on-St. Patty’s Day-or-get-pinched thing. That would have sucked! Elementary school bus rides really traumatized me on that front. Anyway, I’ve been thinking long and hard about what to do for my St. Patty’s Day post. Something green? Something with Guiness or whiskey? Something super Irish? I did the first two last year, so I decided to go Irish this year. What do Irish people eat? Shepherd’s pie…corned beef…soda bread…potatoes! Gotta have potatoes. The Simply Recipes blog had a post on Colcannon earlier this week that looked pretty tasty, and...

Wonton Cups with Spinach and Mushroom Ricotta Filling

Happy Superbowl Sunday, everyone! And…happy 1 year anniversary to my blog! To celebrate both momentous occasions, I spent the better part of the afternoon cooking: crab quesidillas, pizza dip, fresh guacamole, and…wonton cups with spinach and mushroom filling. Why wonton cups? Well, I got really into cooking-themed books last year, and these cups were mentioned in passing in one of my books. There, the cups were filled with tuna tartare, but I had a feeling the people coming to my Superbowl party weren’t going to be thrilled with raw fish, so I went with something a little tamer. Who knew wonton wrappers were so versatile? I’d only ever used them to make wontons and crab rangoons, but they’re actually quite effective as Tostito-esque scoops....

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! All last week I had grand plans to make jiao zi (dumplings) and dou sha bao (steamed buns with red bean paste) and other Chinese goodies, but somehow I never got around to it. Fortunately, the New Year is supposed to be celebrated for 15 days, so I’ve still got plenty of time to make everything. In the meantime, I just had to satisfy my craving for kimchi fried rice. My friend Grace posted a picture of her husband cooking it for a midnight snack a few days ago, and I’ve had kimchi on the brain ever since. It’s just so pungent and tangy and delicious! So good as a side, but possibly even better in fried-rice form. It’s definitely...

This post is kinda misleading because I did not cook a single meal this week. Yup. It’s true. Zero. Cooking. We ate out 3 out of the 5 days, ordered in another day, and the rest of the time we ate leftovers. The tart you see here was actually last weekend — I just forgot to post it. Oops. The thing about phyllo dough is that it’s the best thing ever. Seriously. It’s pre-made, keeps for a long time, can be used in a billion different delicious ways, and is perfectly buttery and flaky in a way that few home-made doughs are. Every time I read one of my favorite blogs and I see a tart with a perfect crust, I scroll down to...

In the last two days or so, I’ve become obsessed with a food blog called “Closet Cooking.” It was started by a guy who realized one day that he was eating the same things over and over again, and wanted to spice up his daily dining experiences. So he dove right into the world of cooking and went from making grilled cheese sandwiches to inventing caramelized pear and gorgonzola quiches. Meanwhile, I’m making 30-minute skillet chicken parmesan… One of the recipes on the blog that caught my eye was the one for Okonomiyaki. My experience with Japanese cuisine has been limited mainly to teriyaki and sushi, but I’m an avid watcher of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, and I knew about okonomiyaki from his visit to Osaka....

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Vegetables

Scallion Pancakes (Cong You Bing)

Guacamole

Grilled Cheese with Kale and Caramelized Onions

Kale and Lemon-Pepper Chicken Pizza

Chicken Pot Pie

Colcannon

Wonton Cups with Spinach and Mushroom Ricotta Filling

Kimchi Bokumbop (Kimchi Fried Rice)

Mushroom Tart

Okonomiyaki

Blogs I Love

Cool Sites