World Cup of Yum

Orange Rounds with Honey, Mint, and Salt

It’s orange season in California, and some friends gave me a bucket of oranges from their tree! I needed a dessert for a dinner party and considered doing an orange cake, but I’ve been making a lot of cakes lately and was in the mood for something different. And my mint plants are going crazy!…

Keema Matar

My friend’s mom visited her for a month and bought all the spices to cook Indian food, even though she already had all of them in her pantry. So lucky me – she gave me all the duplicates! I used them to make Keema Matar (ground meat with peas). Guessipe Sauté the onion in olive…

Asian Beef Balls

When my family goes to dim sum, we never get the steamed beef balls – they tend to be bland and a bit mushy. But I had a big package of ground beef and needed something to bring to a football party, so I decided to try making my own better beef balls. A bunch…

Key Lime Cake

I had a big container of sour cream, I had key limes, and I had a dinner party I needed to bring a dessert to. It was an intimate dinner party for 4, so I thought there would be leftovers of this Key Lime Cake, but I ended up having to make another one the…

Crispy Yangnyeom Chickpeas with Caramelized Honey

Cookbook Club – Holiday Year in Review 2023 For our last Cookbook Club of 2023, we did a Holiday Year in Review event where you could choose a recipe from any of the cookbooks we used in the past year. For the full 2023 retrospective, check out my Cookbook Club site. For now – my…

Chicken Farro Casserole

The cold weather had me craving something hot, creamy, and cheesy. As I discovered with my first farro bake, farro is a great grain for a casserole because its hardy structure holds up well in the oven. The white wine, sour cream, and cream of mushroom combination was perfect for a warming winter meal. Guessipe…

Cream Soda

Despite Cream Soda not being the most popular of soda flavors, my boyfriend and I love it. We have been on a quest for several years to find the best Cream Soda, buying it anytime we find a brand we haven’t tried yet. Then it occurred to us to try making it ourselves. Not to…

Three Sisters

Awhile ago I read an incredible book called Braiding Sweetgrass by indigenous scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer. In it, one of the things she talks about is the Three Sisters – squash, beans, and corn – which when planted together support and nourish each other, but are also very healthy and delicious to eat together. Recently…

Passion Fruit Soda

With all of the rain we’ve gotten this year, the passion fruit vines are fruiting a second abundant crop! And while processing all this incredible passion fruit, I discovered something fantastic… after straining out the seeds, if you store the passion fruit juice in a container in the fridge for a few days, the pulp…

Coconut Ice Cream with Passion Fruit Swirl

This coconut ice cream with a swirl of passion fruit butter is a tropical treat in a bowl. What more is there to say? Guessipe Spread the coconut on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F until golden (about 5 minutes), stirring halfway through. Remove from the baking sheet and set aside. Bring…

Passion Fruit Butter

In my family, close family friends are “aunts” and “uncles”, and my Aunt Chaz was as much family as any of my blood relatives. This Guessipe is in memory of her. She was Hawaiian, and one of her secret recipes was lilikoi (Hawaiian passion fruit) butter. I have never been able to find or make…

Kielbasa Cabbage Carrot Skillet

This was one of my mom’s go-to dishes when I was a kid, and as an adult I found out why… it’s easy and delicious. The seasoning she used was super basic – just garlic salt, salt, and pepper, with a touch of sugar to enhance the savory. But the kielbasa and the caramelization of…