Medicine Ball Tea

Medicine Ball Tea was a customer-created Starbucks “secret menu” item that developed such a cult following they eventually put it on the regular menu as Honey Citrus Mint Tea. Lots of people swear by its medicinal properties for alleviating cold and flu symptoms. My boyfriend had talked repeatedly about how delicious and healing the tea…

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…

Hummus Honey Salad Dressing

I was at a friend’s for dinner and she made a salad with a really tasty dressing. When I asked her about the dressing, she said it was mostly hummus with a little honey, apple cider vinegar, and some other seasonings. I kept thinking about that dressing for weeks after the dinner, so decided I…

Candied Kumquat Cremeux

I occasionally get a load of kumquats from a neighbor and enjoy just popping them whole into my mouth as a snack. But one day shortly after receiving a bag of kumquats, I needed to make a dessert for a dinner party. Hunting around in the fridge, I came upon the kumquats and some heavy…

Lettuce Wraps

I find myself drawn to lettuce wraps when I see them on a restaurant menu. But they’re also pretty easy to make at home, and people are so excited when I serve lettuce wraps. You can pre-assemble them, or just put out all the elements and let people build their own. Interactive dishes are always…

Honeyed Persimmon Cake Topping

Whenever cake comes with the typical sugary frosting on top, I do my best to scrape off as much of the frosting as I can. It’s just too sweet for me and doesn’t have any other flavor. But did you know that you can use a simple mixture of Greek yogurt and honey to make…

Preserved Lemon Chicken and Leeks

I was feeling pretty good about cooking with preserved lemon after successfully making a Moroccan Lemon Chicken. That seems to be the predominant way that people use preserved lemons, but I still had a lot of preserved lemons left and wanted to find other ways to cook with them. My mom mentioned that she’d had…

Japchae

Japchae is a Korean dish that uses noodles made from sweet potato starch. I love the flavor and texture so much that I eat it at AYCE Korean BBQ, even though I should be getting my money’s worth with the meats instead of filling up on noodles! It usually has beef in it, but I…

Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit

For years I had been hearing about the Chick-fil-A Chicken Biscuit, and had been meaning to go try one. I just don’t eat fast food very often, and for some reason on the rare occasions when it seems like a good idea, it’s Sunday… which is a no-go for Chick-fil-A. A couple years ago, they…

Soy-Ginger Dinner Scramble

Cookbook Club – Virtual Potluck Well, COVID-19 happened, and that made dinner parties impossible… almost. But we can’t let anything stand in the way of Cookbook Club, so we figured out how to do a virtual potluck. We provided some recipe options from Bon Appetit for “when there’s nothing in the fridge”, and then we…

Lemon Chicken Sauce

Grocery store shelves continue to be pretty bare as this COVID-19 craziness continues. But I did get a load of lemons from a friend. She threw them in my trunk as we waved at each other through the window of my car, which was a surreal social interaction I never thought I’d have, but thanks…

Honey Butter

Here’s another guessipe I’ve come to think of as “COVID-19 approved”… which means it contains only ingredients you probably already have in your pantry – honey and butter. Despite that, the savory sweet creaminess of honey butter will elevate your meal and give you that feeling like it’s something you’d have in a restaurant. So…