Ah, butternut squash soup – the season’s most basic creation, second only to the pumpkin spice latté. This time of year, farmers markets are abound with a vast array of autumnal squashes – from blue kuri to kabocha to honeynut to 898 (a newer variety, as sweet as candy.) I overload my bags with squash…
Pumpkin Coffee Cupcakes
I almost made it through the month of October without enlisting the help of a can of pumpkin purée and a jar of cinnamon. I don’t like to overdo the pumpkin spice content in my life. I really like to wait until the weather turns. I hold off until a solid week has passed when…
Secret Ingredient Chili
There’s a reason only two letters stand between ‘chilly’ and ‘chili.’ Chilly weather signals the start of chili weather. Around this time every year, when I hear the radiator click on and I wake up to see my dog snuggling up a little bit closer than usual, I know it’s time to take the big…
Celery Salad with Parmesan and Anchovy
Hands down, celery wins my vote as the most underrated and underappreciated vegetable this side of the Mason Dixon. If she had a page in a very cruel high school yearbook, she may be voted “least likely to succeed.” My hopes are that she would turn a fiber-rich cheek to all the losers who mocked…
Concord Grape Manhattan
You guys don’t know the lengths that I went to to make this Concord Grape Manhattan for you. Ever since I can remember, I have had a more than irrational fear of insects. I use the active shooter protocol as a guide for how to deal with a bug in my apartment. First, run. If…
Brown Butter Salted Cornflake Cookies
Recently, a good chunk of my life has been dedicated to figuring out, once and for all, what goes into making the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Not all heroes wear capes. People have very strong opinions about their cookies. It is almost as divisive an issue as candy corn come spooky season. I don’t mean…
Spicy Pork Ramen Noodles
This weekend was one of those lazy ones where the days seem to tangle together. I hit a wall on Saturday afternoon, and the next 24 hours were all a blur. It was one of those weekends where all of your meals are either delivered or eaten straight from the cereal box. It was one…
Granola Formula
I have very few rules about granola, but in them, I am unwavering. First of all, it should be roughly 25% clusters. That’s easy enough to understand – clusters are one handheld bite of everything your granola has to offer. Secondly, it should include coconut. I don’t have much reasoning for this – that’s just…
Roast Chicken with Croutons
Even though I’m an adult (easy to dispute, I know) my timeline still seems to revolve around that pesky school schedule that ruled the first few decades of my life. I get a little giddy mid-May. My brain seems to think I’m about to get a three-month break and a family vacation. I still think…
Fresh Summer Tomato Pasta
Like every other sane person in the world, I spend all summer waiting for cooler weather to roll in. September is special to me, for more reasons than that. I never really enjoyed school – especially college. It was the unwarranted start of my relationship with depression and anxiety. Up until I graduated from college,…