I am in LOVE with cold peanut noodles, but they always have a ton of peanut butter and sesame oil in the sauce which is incredibly caloric, and noodles aren’t exactly low cal either. My muffin top is big enough already so if I want to eat these I feel I have to make them a slightly different way, wherein the noodles are augmented by lots of colorful vegetables and the caloric parts of the sauce are cut down a bit. After much experimentation, this is the happy medium I came up with!

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My friend Laura likes chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. I told her husband I would surprise her with a very special version of that flavor combination so I made her some homemade Hostess cupcakes. These are fun because they look like a boring chocolate cupcake with shiny glaze, but they have a surprise inside- a big yummy blob of vanilla frosting!

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Last week, we had a terrific meal at Picán Restaurant in Oakland. One of the highlights was a seasonal tomato and peach panzanella (bread salad). I did my level best to re-create it at home and it made for a hearty, simple, summery side dish. Of course, the one at Picán had bacon in it, so that’s always an option…

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Back when I worked at Azie, we made a lovely sauce for salmon by steeping corn cobs in a cream and broth mixture, and then adding back the roasted corn. The other night, when I needed a vegetarian meal for my visiting in-laws, I reworked it with crispy portobello mushrooms–an excellent complement to the creamy, sweet corn–and served it over fresh fettucine noodles. A perfect summer meal!

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Recently a friend was coming over for dinner, and asked if he could bring some fish over for me to cook. I loved this idea because a) fish is hella expensive, and b) I loathe going to the store. He very kindly went all the way across town to Yum Yum Fish Market to get the most delicious, high quality, enormous hunk of tuna for me to make this. (Future dinner guests: take note. If you come to my house, a large piece of high quality fish is an excellent hostess gift.)

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I like my blue cheese salad simple and I like it chopped- with iceberg lettuce, lots of tomatoes and avocadoes, and if I’m feeling gluttonous (which I almost always am) croutons and chunks of bacon.

Homemade dressing is the final piece in the perfect salad puzzle. The Smitten Kitchen recipe is my favorite. It’s easy to make and tastes divine, without any of the funky multisyllabic ingredients that store-bought dressing is full of.

Get the recipe here!

This recipe is:

• super easy
• gluten-free
• dairy-free
• eaten up in mere moments
• good for passover, as they are not leavened (I’m not Jewish, but I know how that stuff works)

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I saw this post on Good Life Eats about all of the easy things you can do with feta, and I realized I’ve never shared one of my favorite last-minute appetizers: feta with stuff on it.

My mom taught me this trick to transform a boring ol’ block of feta into a somewhat shmancy-seeming appetizer in like 10 seconds. All you do is take a block of good quality brined feta out of the brine. Put it on a plate or in a shallow bowl. Drizzle it with good olive oil and sprinkle it with chopped herbs (oregano or mint are my two favorites.) Sprinkle coarse salt on top (I used black salt from Hawaii but any salt will do) and a cracking of pepper. Serve it with a baguette, crackers, or pita chips. People will not realize how little work you put into this, because it looks good and tastes even better!

I saw this strawberry sour cream pie mentioned on my Twitter feed and the name alone had me clicking through to Worth the Whisk before I knew it. A quick read of the recipe and it was bookmarked. Then I used the husband’s iPad in the kitchen to make the pie. So I say, thank you, technology for helping me get to this tasty and tantalizing pie!

It was near perfect… the sour cream filling comes out kind of like a cookie texture, studded with strawberries. Next time I will probably add vanilla extract to the filling, and a few more strawberries. It was a big hit with the guests.

A note: it would be a CRIME to serve this pie without ice cream.

Get the recipe from Worth the Whisk here

Some of my favorite meals start out by throwing a bunch of tasty things into a food processor or blender and adding oil and cheese. It’s reasonably hard to go wrong and it’s insanely easy and fast to make. In fact, the most difficulty I encountered when making this recipe was walking 2 blocks to the market to buy the ingredients…

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