Recipes

ENTREES

Fettuccine with Sweet Tomato Sauce, Ricotta and Asparagus

December 16, 2015

fettuccine with sweet tomato sauce and asparagus on a red and white tablecloth

I once read a Nigella Lawson cookbook (and I do actually *read* cookbooks, cover to cover, as if they were for-real books with plotlines and such; it's my favorite thing to spend Christmas Day doing) in which she described a pasta dish - I think it was carbonara, but I'm not sure - as the kind of dish you carry to your bed and eat straight from the pot, preferably with someone you think is sexy.

I don't know about you, but anything that gets described that way is a thing that I want to eat. Like yesterday. This pasta dish, which I first wrote about back in 2010 (although the recipe has evolved over time into what you see below) is my personal eat-straight-from-the-pot dish: it's rich and creamy and cheesy and a touch sweet, and is - yes - the perfect thing to eat while laying in bed next to someone you think is sexy.

Or alone, in your pajamas, while watching Love, Actually. And I think we all know that's going to happen at some point during the next week or so, god willing, so here you go:

ENTREES

Homemade Alphabet Soup (Sopa de Fideo)

December 9, 2015

mexican comfort food soup called sopa de fideo

Let me first just say, in case you're under the extremely mistaken impression that I am a food snob, that I have absolutely no problem with canned soup (or canned anything, for that matter). I think it is delicious, and have deeply-entrenched food memories that emerge when I so much as smell some Campbell's chicken noodle.

That stuff is DELICIOUS.

But! I also recognize that it's...maybe not, I don't know, the healthiest thing in the world, what with the sodium and the vaguely questionable meat cube-things that floating around in there. And soup is one of those things that is so easy to make in big batches and then throw a bunch in the freezer to eat later, so:

Recipes

Orange-Cranberry & Cream Cheese Crackers

December 7, 2015

cream cheese and cranberry-orange compote on crackers

Trader Joe's is such a joy in my life. Putting aside the wine selection for a moment (but omg the wine selection), can we please talk about those samples? They are literally what give me the ability to wander through the aisles unaccompanied by the sounds of budding sibling rivalry in the form of simultaneous desire for the exact. same. banana.

The unfortunate thing about the fact that the samples must immediately be dispensed into tiny hands if we are to maintain any semblance of peace is that I rarely get a chance to try them. I guess I could pick up a third little sample plate for myself, but I become so excited by the fact that my children are paralyzed by the sight of herb-scented quinoa mounds placed atop teeny little crackers that I just start rocketing around the store in search of the aged gouda that is my other joy in life.

But the other day I went to Trader Joe's and made my customary stop at the counter to pick up samples for Indy and Goldie, and Goldie decided that she didn't like hers (and said decision, in toddler-speak, translates to I Will Throw This Dramatically Onto The Floor If You Do Not Remove It From My Hands RIGHT NOW). So, in the grand tradition of mothers everywhere, I ate my child's partially-masticated leftovers. (If you think this is the grossest thing I did all week, you would be very, very wrong.)

Entertaining

Holiday Cocktail: The Paloma

December 3, 2015

Paloma cocktail with grapefruit juice and tequila

You know what's fun about Palomas (besides everything)? They're light and fruity - so you'd imagine they'd be a strictly-for-summer cocktail - but the deep pink color and snowy (or, to be specific, sugary-salty) rim and general fabulousness make them perfect for the holidays.

(MAN that sugar-salt rim is good. I've never tried doing this before, and for real: you have to give it a shot.)

Tequila hasn't really been my beverage of choice for...oh, maybe a decade now (due in large part to a couple of tequila-inclusive incidents during my college years that turned me off the stuff for awhile), but I've recently rediscovered it. Not the bottom-shelf swill that we used to drink straight from the bottle during our dorm room dance parties - ohhhh god, I get a headache just thinking about that - but rather the good (or at least pretty good) stuff. When it comes to tequila, it's always worth spending a little extra money, because bad tequila is a bad time. And good tequila? Whee.

Recipes

Easy Chocolate Hazelnut Crostata

November 18, 2015

In my family, "pie" means "apple pie." Especially on holidays: an apple pie (specifically my unscrewupable version, which was handed down from my mom) is just what's getting made. Except more pie is good pie, and so I always make a second pie that's...something else. Usually pumpkin, because pumpkin seems obvious. But this year, for our Friendsgiving, I wanted to make something a little more decadent and fancy-looking...except given my history with baking, I figured a test-run was in order so as not to leave our friends who braved holiday traffic sitting around our dinner table all pie-less because I effed something up.

Little confession: I didn't actually make this pie; my son (who - heart swell heart swell - has announced that the "wants to cook things" when he grows up) did. (Minus the actual reading-of-instructions part, because he is four.)

And CHECK IT OUT.

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