I saw this recipe for copycat Levain bakery chocolate chip walnut cookies and could not stop craving them. This picture was not from the freshly baked cookies because ... it was late at night and I had to eat, not photograph. The walnuts take these giant cookies to another level. I may have told myself to eat only a quarter of a cookie, which is probably bigger than a normal-sized cookie anyway, and ended up eating a whole giant cookie ... multiple times. Note that I did not have cake flour so I substituted 2 tablespoons with cornstarch.

We devoured this butter pecan ice cream. The only changes I made to this deliciously simple recipe were to reduce to 2/3 cup brown sugar and use a generous 1/2 cup of pecans. This will definitely be a staple ice cream in our household.

When we came back from vacation to shelter-in-place, I decided we should get canned sardines, because they're full of umami meatiness and versatile as a snack or centerpiece. I came across a refreshing way to use sardines in a salad, and immediately jumped to my own version with what I have: with celery, green papaya, smashed potatoes with dill, and drizzled with lemon and the olive oil from the can, topped with peanuts, sesame seeds, and a pinch of salt.

With shelter-in-place, you'd think I've had a lot of time lately to finally catch up on my posts... but I seem to always be busy. Or it's really just prioritization, so here it is! Oxtail is so tender and flavorful, and makes for an easy hearty stew. I used this recipe and served over their coconut rice (we used canned coconut milk instead of real coconut; it's easier). I wanted to use several pantry items, so added carrots, potatoes, red bell pepper, and kale chips (a snack seasoned with some healthy stuff), which gave it beautiful colors. This photo is from a few days after I first made it, so the broth has thickened a bit and the flavor is even richer.

There's a really good veggie curry at work that inspired me. I stir-fried tofu, boiled green beans, roasted carrots, potatoes, and beets. I mixed Mae Ploy red curry paste and coconut milk over the stovetop (as instructed by Mae Ploy), and added the cooked tofu and veggies. The cool thing is as leftovers, the beet bled over time and created this deep rich red!

I heard about milk & cardamom and got this craving for a cardamom cake. I also wanted carrot cake. So I searched and found this carrot cardamom cake. I didn't have self-rising flour (why more stuff to store?), but found I can use flour + baking powder + salt. I added cardamom and brown sugar to the cream cheese frosting. I actually felt I should have doubled the frosting, because it was delicious! And, next time, I'd omit or add less orange zest; my orange was giant.

Fall fruits have come, and with three different types of pears and three different types of apples, I decided to use the variety in an easy galette. I rolled out the pie dough, placed the sliced fruits inside, sprinkled with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and brown sugar, rolled up the edges, and baked!

Though I'm not as inclined to make breads (or more specifically, things that involve a rise and/or preparing well ahead of time), this is a bread that I would make again. The focaccia recipe was part of the Bakealong challenge I did with my friend Jenny. I substituted green onions for the topping. The freshly baked bread was crispy outside and soft inside, delicious dipped in some extra virgin olive oil with salt!

When asked what to make with all our meyer lemons, Brendan said he wanted lemon ice cream, and specifically, lemon ice cream that was creamy, not sorbet. So I found this recipe that was basically frozen lemon custard. It is a little bit on the sweet side, even after I cut down the sugar to about 1/2 cup. But it was yum!

First post of the year...and in a few months! I'm still loving the fall fruits and vegetables that are hanging on. I roasted acorn squash to pair with this gnocchi and sage brown butter sauce. I added sautéed kale to add a bit of freshness.

I just got a bunch of apples from my neighbor's tree, so this month's bakealong challenge was perfect: cinnamon apple twist bread. I used brown sugar instead of white for the filling and mixed in chopped pecans, and then I added cinnamon to the glaze for extra flavor. This came out like cakey bread with layers of delicious cinnamon pecan and apple bits.

I made these simple and beautiful lotus root chips from this fun dumpling book. You just slice the lotus root, soak in water, dry, coat in sesame and olive oil, then sprinkle salt, pepper, and chili powder before baking.

I was a little late to this July recipe for hand pies, but it was better than never! For the filling, I added raspberries to blueberries, used brown sugar instead, and substituted sweet potato starch for corn starch (because that's what I had). For the crust, I did 1 cup wheat flour and 1 cup all-purpose flour and added cinnamon. The crust turned out delicious...I may start making crust from scratch!

Some of the best food in Taiwan can be found in Hakka restaurants. One amazing dish is this fried salted egg tofu. It took some hunting to find a recipe, and none really existed in English, so I found this recipe (use Google translate if you can't read Chinese). Instead of using just the yolk of the salted eggs (can be found at Asian grocery stores), I used the whole eggs and added a little water so that the batter wasn't too thick.

Every once in a while, I have a craving for shrimp scampi. Well, I had a bag of the frozen mini shrimp from Costco, so I made this modified version of shrimp scampi. I used caramelized onions and cherry tomatoes for the veggies.

I don't make bread because it's too much work—all the waiting and kneading. But my friend Jenny has motivated me to bake this baguette with a recipe for the group of us to try every month. I liked Jenny's idea to add herbs, so I added oregano in one and chives in another of the three baguettes. For others making this, it would be good to add the herbs during the kneading process, as I added it in later and only folded it in, so the distribution wasn't very even.

There's this amazing Ben & Jerry's oatmeal cookie chunk ice cream... but I've only seen it sold in a grocery store once, and I nearly always check every time I go grocery shopping. So, with a handy ice cream maker now, I made an ice cream inspired by theirs. I used this vanilla ice cream recipe, substituting brown sugar for white sugar, and just adding cinnamon, oatmeal, and chocolate chips. The best.

I'm totally in love with peanut sauces. And this one is amazing. It's very similar to the tahini sauce for cold noodles, but there's an extra kick with ginger, garlic, and chili paste. I was pleasantly surprised at the crispy browned bits when I added the sauce to the tofu. Unlike in the recipe, I did briefly stir fry the zoodles to soften a bit. Next time, I would marinate the tofu in soy sauce while frying, before adding the peanut sauce in, for more added flavor.

As soon as we moved, I re-signed up for the CSA box so that I could get fresh, in-season ingredients and inspire my creativity with produce I don't usually get. And that comes with surprise ingredients that I have to look up (green garlic) as well as finding ways to use up as much of the vegetable as possible (beet stems). I actually thought the green garlic was scallions until I read the list, took a guess by smelling, and that immediately confirmed my guess. The green garlic added a nice savory, umami flavor and the beet stems added a beautiful red color to the simple stir fry: beet stems, green garlic, scallions, and rice with sesame oil and salt.

I love dishes with such wholesome ingredients. This is a wonderful recipe that brings out some fall (yes, it's spring, but pumpkin is welcome year-round), with no added sugar.

With so many types of beans, it's easy to do variations on hummus (thanks to Trader Joe's introducing that idea to me). I made a white bean hummus by food processing white beans (I bought them dry and soaked and cooked in a slow cooker) with tahini, garlic, olive oil, and lemon to taste. I served with olive oil and paprika drizzled over it. It's a great dip for veggies, chips, or crackers.

This is what Brendan's mom makes him for his birthday every year. For the cake: ~1 cup sugar, 1 cup oil, 3 eggs, 2 cups flour, 1 tbsp cinnamon, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 2 cups shredded zucchini, 1 tbsp vanilla. Beat oil, sugar, and eggs, and fold in zucchini. Mix dry ingredients separately, then fold in the wet mix with vanilla. Bake at 350 until golden. Beat 6 oz softened cream cheese with 5 tbsp butter and 1 tsp lemon extract, adding in powdered sugar to taste (~2 cups). Dee-lish-us! And for fun, I've included Zucchini with her namesake.

Despite swearing that I would first make black sesame ice cream when I got an ice cream maker, I ended up making strawberry ice cream for Brendan (black sesame seeds require a trip to a specialty store). And I did not regret it! Fresh strawberry ice cream is amazing! I used this recipe included with the ice cream maker.

I love poppy seeds (and poppies are one of my favorite flowers). So I always take advantage of opportunities to squeeze in poppy seeds. I also like to make a big batch of waffles and freeze to eat later by popping them in the toaster. I used the batter in this recipe, adding almond extract, and made it into waffles in my handy waffle maker.

This is another Chinese New Year-ish dish (it's round). Originally I wanted to make soup balls, but I had pumpkin I needed to use up and thought I could try making something similar to the famous Taiwanese Jiufen taro balls. I roughly based on this recipe, ultimately using 500 g of pumpkin, 333 g of sweet potato flour, and 6 tbsp brown sugar. The dough was sticky and I didn't have cornflour, so I used sweet potato flour to roll out and slice. I boiled them in brown sugar water for a nice dessert soup and was impressed out how QQ the balls were!

For Chinese New Year, I went a little crazy buying Chinese foods at 99 Ranch (I rarely make it out there). I had gone through a list of Chinese New Year foods, and decided one thing I wanted to try was luo buo gao, or daikon cake. I added Chinese chives to the mixture befores steaming. Our white friends actually liked these savory fried slices dipped in oyster sauce!

Simple soup is the best! I made a cream of broccoli soup using this "best" recipe, and topped with cheddar cheese chips and bacon.

This dessert highlights the vitality of fresh and whole ingredients. I made a chia seed pudding mixing honey, almond milk, and chia seeds and letting soak for a few hours. I used this recipe for chocolate avocado mousse, mixing honey, avocado, and cocoa powder. I layered these two for a sweet and simple dessert.

Last year for Secret Santa, I got ninjabread cookie cutters. I finally put them to use this year making these shortbread cookies topped with cinnamon sugar that my childhood best friend Dana and I used to make: mix 1 c softened butter, 1 c confectioner's sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 1/2 c all purpose flour, and 1/4 tsp salt. Roll and cut, and then top with cinnamon sugar, baking at 350F for 8-10 minutes. I love that our neighbor thought the cookies were doing the mannequin challenge.

This was an impromptu dessert that came about because my dad and I impulsively bought a pecan pie from Costco, since I was not planning on making one for Thanksgiving. However, the pie was way too sweet for us. With nearly an entire Costco-sized pecan pie that no one would eat, I attempted to make pecan pie cookies by mashing up the pie and mixing with 5 cups of flour (half wheat, half white), 4 eggs, and 2 teaspoons baking soda. That first batched turned out as rock cakes (American scones). I mixed in 1 stick of butter into the second batch, which, after shaped, turned a little more cookie-like — I'd probably use less flour and more butter next time. They had a nice buttery, caramelized, candied tone.

We are in the middle of moving, but I couldn't wait to share this bomb-ass meal. I originally wanted to make this macaroni and brie with crab, but I didn't have enough brie. So, I substituted with all the cheese/dairy in my fridge (whole milk, cream cheese, Pecorino Romano, cheddar) and dumped it in the caramelized onion, flour, salt, and pepper sauce mixture. I felt it needed a bit of kick from the flavor grid, so I added Sriracha to taste. I topped with panko (lighter and crispier than normal breadcrumbs) and parmesan, baked, then sprinkled green onions on top to serve.

I dug up these photos just in time for the holidays! Every year, holiday stuff goes up earlier and earlier, and given my knack for being behind, I figured I'd get ahead this time. I made these flourless chocolate cookies, and I actually made some substitutes that didn't work so well so I won't mention them here. But I replaced the almonds with peppermint chunks from extra candy canes, then made ice cream sandwiches with chocolate peppermint ice cream.

Here is a simple dessert! I made these brownies without the frosting to help satiate a chocolate craving.

Strawberry and rhubarb make the most killer combination. This was inspired by a crumble at work. I used this recipe for the pie and replaced the top with the oatmeal crumble topping from the blueberry muffin recipe.

My friend Shannon had shared with me this healthy alternative for making pizza crust with cauliflower. It is nice to have these creative alternatives, though the ease and deliciousness of Trader Joe's pizza dough is hard to beat.

Ever since eating peanut butter made only from peanuts and salt, it's impossible to go back. So when we got 'normal' peanut butter, we just couldn't eat it and I decided to make cookies with it. I used coconut oil in place of butter in this recipe.

This was an easy bake for another pumpkin variation. I mixed pumpkin, sour cream, cream cheese, egg, and pumpkin spices for the filling, then wrapped in puff pastry.

On our drive back up from Southern California, we stopped at a farm produce stand in Gilroy and I stocked up on fruits and vegetables, including 8/$1 grapefruits (how could I not?). So I had a little fun making grapefruit juice, candied grapefruit peels, and grapefruit gelatin. And of course, I also ate delicious pure grapefruit. For the gelatin, I used the leftover sugar water from boiling the peels (which had to be boiled with fresh water three times then boiled in sugar water, dried, and coated in sugar), mixing with gelatin powder. No part of the grapefruit went to waste!

This dish was inspired by our trip to Iceland and a wonderful restaurant called Tjoruhusid (a must if you're in the area, where we had quite an experience as one of two parties on its season opening and letting the chef cook way too much food for the two of us). We had what I guessed to be these amazing garlic butter fried cod cheeks, so I tried to replicate. I think they were lightly floured, so next time I will try that! And I recently got into making grilled potatoes, coated in bacon grease and parmesan.

It's been a while, and I've finally gotten my website back up! I'll be alternating between some past foods and more current foods I've made. Today is a flashback to these parmesan eggplant fries, which are light and crispy. I don't like ketchup, so I just dipped in the delicious spicy dill sauce.

And finally, I made some classic muffins. I used this recipe, which can easily be modified for various fruits. Blueberries, raspberries, and lemons make one delicious combination.

The second lemon dessert is a lemon spin on one of our greatest hits, sopapilla. I added red and green sprinkles over the top for patriotism on the lemon cream cheese bars.

This will be a triple post for 4th of July desserts. We have a ton of lemons, and what's more refreshing than summer lemon desserts? One of our favorite lemon desserts are lemon ricotta cookies — I decided to add blueberries and raspberries to make them more festive (and tasty).

Time flies! I did not realize I had not posted in three months. But I do have lots to come. This sandwich is very nostalgic to me as I ate many while I was in Spain (they were cheap!). I used a tasty Acme baguette and made a Spanish tortilla with egg, potatoes, bell peppers, and onions. Simple, easy, delicious.

I love lemon desserts, and you can never have too many lemon recipes, including these lemon glaze cookies. Buttery shortbread, refreshing cream cheese glaze, and nutty grain from my substitution with half wheat flour.

Brendan and I brewed our first beer together! He's been brewing since college with his friend Martin, but I have now replaced Martin as brewer's assistant. We made a Stone IPA clone, which smelled and tasted freshly floral from the hops.

Brendan rarely buys fruit, but actually bought some at Berkeley Bowl when persimmons were super abundant a few weeks ago. I used one chopped fuyu persimmon and 1/3 of the butter sugar filling from this apple pie recipe, perfectly filling four little ramekins of Trader Joe's pie crust.

Brussels sprouts and bacon go well together. Bacon and apples go well together. So why not combine all of them? I cooked up some bacon in the cast iron, used the bacon grease to cook brussels sprouts, then tossed in sliced apples towards the end. I added the bacon back in, tossed with some milk and cheddar cheese and put in the oven to roast a bit more.

Summer lemons call for delightful lemon desserts. It's not summer yet, but it was when I made these lemon ricotta cookies! This recipe only uses one lemon, so our California winters allow for enough lemons from our trees for a few batches of these cookies and a peek of summer.

This is a great go-to recipe, as the ingredients are simple and the stew is filling. The only change I made to the recipe was not mashing the chickpeas; I kept them whole for a chunky-style stew.

Quiche is simple and hearty, and you can throw in pretty much any vegetable. I used broccoli and bacon instead of the recipe's spinach and mushrooms with Trader Joe's delicious pie crust.

We used up the last of our pumpkin reserve for these whoopie pies with cream cheese spice frosting. (Don't worry, last weekend, we also just barely managed to get another pumpkin from the farms for more pumpkin goodies.) This recipe was easy, and we substituted 1 c of the flour with whole wheat and reduced the sugar. We used ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon for the pumpkin pie spice. We made these bite-sized, so now I can go eat one!

I'm fast forwarding a bit to some more timely posts for the fall season. Brendan had voraciously devoured some snickerdoodles I brought home, so that gave me the idea to make a pumpkin twist. I used this snickerdoodles recipe, replacing one of the two eggs with 3/4 c pumpkin, reducing the sugar to 1 c, and adding some cinnamon to the cookie dough mix. These made for some good travel snacks.