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!

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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Mark Bittman seldom disappoints- and he certainly didn’t in this instance. Inclined as I am to trust his recipes, I will admit that I was skeptical about this one. I mean only 6 tablespoons of butter for a whole crisp? That’s not even a whole cube! How could it possibly make a compelling crisp?

I’m happy to report that my worries were totally unfounded. This is a case where the sum of the parts greatly exceeds the parts on their own. This is a fantastic crisp recipe- perfectly balanced sweetness, a nice contrast of textures, and easy as heck to put together. And in case you were wondering, pairing it with Bi-Rite Creamery’s brown sugar ice cream with a ginger caramel swirl is not the worst idea, either.

You can get the recipe here (posted in the New York Times.)

If done well, Tortellini in Brodo is like a super delicious, rich, hearty, filling version of chicken soup. It’s a classic Italian dish, but the way I make it is far simpler than other recipes I’ve seen. After describing it to Ross he decided he wanted some too, so tonight I made it for dinner. It’s just the thing after a long day at work! Plus, it’s so simple I’d bet even your kids will eat it. Since the recipe is so simple, the quality of ingredients is extra important.

It’s probably not technically accurate to call this tasty soybean dip “hummus” but you should think of it as a descriptive, evocative name, not a culturally accurate one. (I’m not alone in this – for example, they’re pretty conflicted about this, among other aspects of edamame hummus, over at The Delicious Life.) But no matter what you want to call it, it turns out if you give soybeans a somewhat hummus-like treatment, you get a whole lotta tasty. Here’s my take on the meme.

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I had some  good quality feta left over and then I was also hungry and had limited items in the fridge. So I invented a dip on the fly to go with some crackers I had laying around and it worked out really well.

I think this would be great with pita or pita chips as well. I didn’t give any amounts in the recipe, because it’s not an exact science and should be put together to taste. I guarantee you won’t mess it up! I like to use a milder feta and a tangy yogurt like Fage or another Greek or Persian yogurt. If you want to make this lower fat you can use lowfat or nonfat yogurt, but it won’t be quite as rich and creamy.

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When I was but a youthful lass of 22, I worked at the fabulous Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego for about a year. If you’re ever in San Diego, I highly recommend stopping there for one of their scones (the best I’ve ever tasted, to be sure) or to dazzle your friends with one of their heart-stoppingly gorgeous cakes. I learned a lot there, but probably the most important thing I learned was that the way to a good bread pudding is simple: make creme brulee mixture and don’t use regular bread. This opens up a realm of delicious and easily adaptable flavor possibilities and combinations that are blissfully simple to make, as well as very forgiving.

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