World Cup of Yum

Whipped Ricotta Fettunta

I got another ricotta bounty from my cheese supplier (AKA friend who works for the best Italian cheese company ever). There is an Italian restaurant nearby that I used to go to specifically for their Whipped Ricotta Fettunta… until it occurred to me that with the incredible ricotta from my friend I could probably make…

Peperonata

One day I was looking for something to do with some spare bell peppers, and I remembered having peperonata when I was in Italy. It’s a stewed bell pepper dish which often also includes onion, garlic, and tomatoes. All I happened to have on hand was bell peppers and red onion, but it still came…

Pizza Sauce

My boyfriend is obsessed with pizza. I got him a pizza stone for Christmas one year, and he has been steadily honing his pizza-making skills by throwing regular pizza parties. My role is to make the pizza sauce. This recipe was one from a friend which I have tweaked to give it a bit more…

Quick Stewed Eggplant with Coconut

Cookbook Club – Holiday Year in Review 2021 Our December Cookbook Club is traditionally a year in review event where we pick recipes from any of the cookbooks we’ve used that year. But because of COVID we were only able to gather for about half the year. That meant we had fewer cookbooks to choose…

Spicy Italian Sausage with Kale and Tomato

This dish uses just a handful of ingredients and a single pan, but the flavors of the sausage, kale, and tomato go so well together that you don’t need anything else. My boyfriend says it’s like a really delicious pasta, only without any pasta – that’s a glowing endorsement from someone who would live on…

Apple-Cinnamon Cereal Snickerdoodles

Cookbook Club – Holiday Cookie Swap As a bonus Cookbook Club event, we did a holiday cookie swap where each person chose a recipe from either BraveTart, The Cookie Collection, or Dorie’s Cookies. Then we all got together and swapped cookies, so you went with one batch of cookies and came home with a variety…

Persimmon Crisp

Our Cookbook Club tradition is to do a Friendsgiving event in November, where instead of using a cookbook everyone makes a dish that’s either a Thanksgiving tradition for them or something new they want to try this year. It’s persimmon season, and my friend recently gave me a bag full from her tree. I make…

Chocolate Pomegranate Clusters

I got a load of pomegranates from a friend’s tree, and after eating a ton on salad still had so much left and was looking for something to do with them. These chocolate pomegranate clusters are an easy 3-ingredient guessipe, but they look super festive and are a great combo of salty-sweet-tangy. Perfect for holiday…

Quince Custard

A friend of mine gave me some quince, which are in the pear and apple family but aren’t eaten raw. I baked them into a custard which my boyfriend liked so much he said it was the best dessert I’ve ever made (though I should make the disclaimer that he has a really short memory…

Salted Egg Yolk Pumpkin

I ate a fried pumpkin dish in a family-owned Chinese restaurant like 10 years ago and have been dreaming about it ever since. The pumpkin had a salted egg yolk coating that I couldn’t get enough of. So when I saw a package of salted egg yolks at the Asian market, I had to buy…

Sweet Pea Soup with Coconut and Ginger

Cookbook Club – In Bibi’s Kitchen In October we used Hawa Hassan’s cookbook In Bibi’s Kitchen for Cookbook Club. Hassan gathered the stories and recipes of bibis (grandmothers) from eight African nations: Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Madagascar, and Comoros. To get a taste of the foods we tried from these bibis’ kitchens,…

Passion Fruit Panna Cotta

In my opinion passion fruit is an under-utilized fruit. I love passion fruit’s tropical sweet-tanginess. So I’m ecstatic that I’ve recently come across a local source for purple passion fruit. I’m using some of the seeds to try to grow my own! Until that gets going though, I used some of what I got to…