Instant Pot Sushi Rice

Like everyone with an Instant Pot I love mine! I’m not very good at making rice on the stove top and the instant pot makes it flawlessly with very little attention. I love to use this sushi rice in sushi bowls most of all, but it also works well in sushi rolls and nigiri.

Creamy Chicken Soup

I don’t actually like chicken noodle soup. Something about the egg noodles, they take over the whole thing. It ends up spiraling out of control, adding more and more broth as the carefully measured noodles grow and expand. So I made a chicken soup without noodles, and it was AMAZING.

Shirred Eggs

Bet you thought I was done with egg posts! Wrong, there are so many ways to cook eggs! I had never baked an egg this way, as I assumed the yoke would cook through and be gross. It doesn’t! It’s so decadent and easy, really great at home brunch treat. It can be dolled up with veggies, or meats or left as is. I added some chopped green onion and it was delicious.

Lemon Caper Tuna Salad

First of all, hope everyone had a delicious and cozy Thanksgiving! Now, how about something super quick, easy and cheap for the post holiday? When I think of tuna salad sandwiches I think of mayo and dill pickle relish. It’s a classic and I think it’s delicious*. I had no plans to “revamp” the tuna salad in my life. But I did, kind of by accident.

French Onion Soup | Revisited

My favorite category in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking is the soup section. No surprise, I love soup. The simple yet decadent soups in this book have a special place in my heart. With very few ingredients you can make something really delicious. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the “more is more” food idea, but less ingredients and more attention shown to them will (most times) give you better results than a long complex recipe.

Bourbon Spice French Toast

Did you know that you can cook and bake with bitters? I learned this by following Scrappy’s Bitters instagram account. It makes perfect sense when you think about it, they are strong infusions of flavors, why not add them to cookies or a cake. I added my clove bitters to some french toast and it turned out great!

Parmesan & Pepper Noodles

This is totally comfort food but also totally easy. I remember eating buttered noodles as a kid. I pretty much just made an adult version of that, adding lots of black pepper and parmesan. There is a fair amount of butter per serving, but nothing obscene. This is just as easy to make for one person as for four people.

Taco Seasoning

Something quick today, homemade taco seasoning! Over the super bowl I made some beef nachos that called for taco seasoning. I wrote it on my grocery list then scribbled it out. Why buy something if you already have the spices to make it!? If you also have these spices on hand I recommend making your own. You can control the salt level, and heat level. Plus this spice blend isn’t just for tacos. Add it to burrito meat or enchilada meat. Or just season some chicken or fish with it.

Cucumber Seaweed Salad

I love a good seaweed salad at a Japanese restaurant. The texture of the seaweed and the salty sesame dressing is fantastic. Unfortunately, it’s not something I have very often, but it is often on my mind! So when I picked up this little spiralizer* for making zoodles I figured it would do an equally good job at making cucumber noodles. Once I made the cucumber noodles they reminded me so much of the strings of seaweed I decided to toss them in a similar dressing. Success!!

Tomato Parmesan Soup

I have made this Tomato Parmesan soup more than any other soup in my repertoire. I’m sure you have noticed I am a soup person by now. I can’t wait for the first cold day in fall to make it, and I don’t get tired of it all winter. There are so many choices and soup is really easy to make. Easy to invent!

Brunch at Home | Eggs Benedict

Brunch! I love brunch. Probably because I love eggs and breakfast drinks (here & here). The only things I don’t love about brunch are waiting for a table and changing out of PJs into real clothes. If you simply can’t bear to get dressed (I’ve been there), let's have a restaurant worthy brunch at home!

Eggs | Three Ways

Eggs are maybe the best food ever. They are so versatile! In most households they have been relegated to breakfast only. It’s time to break out of that shell (… erg) with these three methods!

The internet is full of how to cook eggs and I’ve tested many of the cooking techniques. It turns out I’m not into super fussy prep. I like an easy and reliable way to produce a nicely cooked egg time after time and I’m here to share those methods! Heads up, if you don’t like runny yolks, these won’t be your style. A cooked through yolk (in anything but a hard boiled egg) seriously depresses me. The yolk is everything.

Baked Chicken Fingers

Happy Halloween! (and happy 200th post to me). Let's make some kid food and watch Hocus Pocus! I can't be the only 31-year-old that gets a strong craving for some chicken fingers every once in a while. These are super easy to make, not fried and really satisfy my kid food craving. The proportions listed below are a sort of middle of the road flavor intensity. Feel free to add more spices, less spices, reduce the salt, or change the spices all together!

Egg Drop Soup

I'm going to tell you a story of the last time I had the flu. The last time I had the flu was around eight years ago. I was living on my own in a new apartment, poorly furnished and barely stocked with food. You know how flu hits like a brick wall? I was sitting in a movie with a friend and bam. We left the movie to find heavy snow falling. A good October storm.

Homemade Frozen Breakfast Sandwiches

Sometimes if Nate and I have had enough of the breakfast burritos I'll switch over to breakfast sandwiches for a while. Though I really do love the breakfast burritos, too much of anything in a row can get old! These are easy to change up with different meats, cheeses and veggies. Boy oh boy though... these took some serious tweaking! I studied recipes online and I'm sorry to say I found all of them somewhat lacking. These are trickier than the burritos to make so they reheat into something delicious.

Cozy Three Cheese Macaroni: Study #2

'Cozy' is a euphemism for fattening. Kinda like how comfort food is usually fried or full of butter. Well this is 100% comfort food. Homemade macaroni and cheese is usually topped with bread crumbs and baked. While I do like that kind, sometimes I resent that part. It takes way longer than I think it should and a lot of times it dries it out. This time because of impatience and for the sake of experimenting, I just didn't do that part. I don't regret it.

Make-Ahead Breakfast Burritos

Like everyone else I try to streamline breakfast without losing out on something that is really satisfying. I can't skip breakfast and even though it's annoying to make food right out of bed, (NOT a morning person here) it's so worth it not to be starving and groggy until lunch. I also make better lunch choices when I'm not famished. Below is my recipe and technique for making frozen breakfast burritos so you don't HAVE to make food straight out of bed! It's really easy to grab and go and heat at work. These are a savory and filling way to start the day.

Grilled Kielbasa Corn Chowder

I'm not saying bacon is overrated (heck no!) but I'm not sure it adds as much to soups as it does to other dishes. When a soup calls for bacon to be cooked in -and not sprinkled on top at the end- I always find it kind of ho-hum. It seems to get lost and doesn't add a strong savory or meaty flavor like ham or sausage does. All I see on Pinterest when I look up corn chowder is bacon, bacon bacon. So it was clear I needed to invent my own.

After this soup I had an epiphany. Soup is easy. Easy to change, easy to whip up rather quickly and 100% open to customization. It's just stuff in a pot with a liquid. You can do anything you want, the world is your oyster. Just do yourself a favor and keep a pen and paper near by so you can note what you are doing in case it's so good you know you need to make it a million more times.

Vodka Sauce

I'd never had pasta with vodka sauce until my brother made it for me once. It's very good and I highly recommend it as an alternative to the usual marinara or alfredo when you are in the mood for a filling warm dish. The recipe he sent me is quite similar to the one found here with a few changes along the way.

Grilled Caesar Salad

I had this at a restaurant and it seemed easy enough to recreate at home and it was! I actually broiled my lettuce instead of grilling it (lazy) but I'm sure grilling would taste even better. I used my patented Caesar Dressing. The addition of the poached egg makes this much more meal-like and less of an appetizer salad. I have a fear of poaching eggs. It's a simple concept that seems much harder for me to execute in reality.