Best Recipes of 2015

I did quite a bit of cooking this past year, but for whatever reason there weren't a lot of new recipes that ended up on our repeat favorites list. Several from last year's best of list, in particular the Whole Bowl and Sweet Potato recipes, made frequent appearances this past year. I did more experimentation this year as well, "making up" things based on the veggies we received from our neighbors and what we happened to have in the fridge. On the whole, I think my experiments were mediocre to good, but none worthy of this list (yet). Here are some new favorites and old standbys from the past year.

Russian Cabbage Borscht
Source: AllRecipes.com

Borscht is like the chili of eastern Europe: there are tons of regional variations and a wide range of different kinds. We happened to get a lot of beets this summer and fall (and actually had some leftover from last fall), so I was on the hunt for good beet recipes. This was one of them. Beets seem to elicit strong responses from people, probably because most people first experienced beets from a can and rejected them out of hand after that. You don't know what you are missing! If anybody has a favorite beet recipe out there, send it our way! We always seem to have some on hand.

Sausage, Potato and Spinach Soup
Source: Damn Delicious

As the author mentions, this has sausage and heavy cream, so it probably wouldn't be classified as "healthy." But it does have dark greens and is a good, warming soup for those evenings that call for just such a thing.

Bourbon Sweet Potato and Apple Casserole with Pecan Crust
Source: Fine Cooking

This is not a new recipe for us this year, but it did make an appearance at Thanksgiving. It's one of those dishes that is just enough work that you don't want to make it very often, but it's tasty enough that you do want to pull it out for those special occasions. Put aside your marshmallows and try this casserole next holiday instead.

Bildner's 5-Alarm Chili
Source: The New England Cookbook

This is also not a new recipe for us; I think we've been making this one since we still lived in New England. But I haven't mentioned it here yet and it appears in our house several times each winter. This is just a solid, beans and beef chili with a good level of spice.

Masala Chai
Source: The Kitchn

We've been enjoying weekend lattes at home for many years now, thanks to a simple stove-top espresso maker from my aunt and uncle many years ago. (Thanks, Anita and Lew!) But recently we decided to expand our repertoire to include masala chai, or what American coffee shops call a "Chai Latte." The specific combination of spices is fungible, depending on your spice preferences. Green cardamom seems to be the important base spice that holds it all together. If you use a red tea, or Rooibos, you can even make a caffeine-free drink to warm your mornings.

You can check out the recipes from other years through the recipes tag. Happy eating!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Best Recipes of 2014

2014 was a good cooking year, and we have lots of favorites to share! You can access previous years' favorite recipes from the recipes tag.

The Whole Bowl
Source: The Whole Bowl, PDX (deconstructed by Sweet Phi)

If I had to pick the "dish of the year", this would be it. There's a food truck turned restaurant in Portland called The Whole Bowl, and all they do is a veggie bowl. It is delicious. If I lived closer, I would go there frequently. Instead, I was excited to try to reproduce it at home. Thankfully, someone had already done the hard work of recreating the magical Tali sauce for me. Feel free to add whatever other ingredients you like to this base; I have added various leftover roasted veggies (broccoli, romanesco, etc.) and it always turns out great.

Sweet Potatoes with Warm Black Bean Salad
Source: Eating Well

Just a few ingredients, no complicated instructions. Yet somehow it comes together into something incredibly delicious.

Healthier Shepherd's Pie
Source: Iowa Girl Eats

I have always liked Shepherd's Pie, despite it's "mystery meat" reputation. This one adds cauliflower to the potato, and no one is the wiser.

Authentic Chicken Tikka Masala
Source: AllRecipes

We're usually skeptical of recipes with "authentic" in the title. Thankfully, this one holds up to scrutiny. The chicken is baked in the oven (after marinating), to mimic the clay tandoor cooking method. The sauce comes together quickly and doesn't require anything but standard kitchen ingredients. (I'm assuming that your kitchen has garam masala, of course.)

Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes
Source: Eating Well

Broccoli, ground beef and cheese in a twice baked potato. Anders called this one "mashed potato salad", and he loved it.

Chopped Tandoori Chicken Salad
Source: Eating Well

This is a nice combination of chicken salad and greens, with some Indian flavors thrown in. It's mostly pantry staples and standard grocery fare, so it works any time of year.

Sesame Noodles with Chicken
Source: Food Network

This is just a nice, simple noodle in a peanut sauce.

Creamy Mexican Kale Salad
Source: iFoodReal

I was drawn in by the beautiful colors in this one. Oh, and we had a bunch of kale that I didn't know what to do with. We made it in the summer when the requisite produce was in season.

Here's to more great cooking in 2015!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Best Recipes of 2013

Here we are at the beginning of another year, so it's time for the 2013 edition of our best new recipes! You can now access all previous years' recipes through the recipes tag.

Spinach Salad with Chicken, Avocado and Goat Cheese
Source: RecipeGirl.com

This was a good year for salads for us. While salads aren't particularly difficult from a preparation perspective, for some reason we have had a difficult time making really good ones. This one is. Of course, anything with goat cheese and avocado is probably delicious.

Greek Quinoa and Avocado Salad
Source: Recipe.com

Delicious, particularly when cherry tomatoes are in season. We have made it with brown rice when we didn't have the specified quinoa on hand. The quinoa has a firmer texture, but the brown rice still works. (Oh, and see previous comment about avocado and goat cheese.)

Southwestern Salad with Black Beans
Source: EatingWell.com

This salad can be made mostly from pantry staples, with the addition of whatever tomatoes and greens are available and fresh at the time. Using fresh corn is, of course, also allowed.

Tex-Mex Summer Squash Casserole
Source: EatingWell.com

When August comes and the summer squash onslaught has begun, it helps to have as many squash recipes on hand as possible. This is a simple casserole that can be adjusted or altered as you like. We like to add some black and refried beans for more texture variation.

Chile Rellenos Casserole
Source: AllRecipes.com

Who needs to spend time stuffing individual peppers? The prep time to flavor ratio is much more reasonable in this recipe.

Italian Cream Soda
Source: AllRecipes.com

Okay, so this is barely a recipe. We had our SodaStream carbonator for about a year before we realized that we could make Italian sodas at home. It is now our go to summer refreshment. The cream is a nice addition.

Happy Eating!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Best Recipes of 2012

Here it is: our annual Favorite Recipes edition for 2012. We didn't do a great good job of keeping track of new recipes in 2012, but we're going to bend the rules a little bit to make it more interesting.

Quick-Fried Zucchini with Toasted Garlic and Lime
Source: Rick Bayless
This is a delicious vegetarian taco filling that was passed to us by our friends Simon and Lindsey. Great use of summer squash!

Sweet Potato-Peanut Bisque
Source: Eating Well
I really like the peanut and squash flavor combinations from West-Africa. This soup is easy and freezes well.

In lieu of new recipes that we discovered this year, here are some of our longtime favorites that we returned to this year.

White Chicken Chili
Source: Adapted from Trim Kids
This is a quick, weeknight-friendly and hearty soup/stew that our friends Malinda & Jean turned us on to. It's made mostly from pantry or freezer staples. If you don't have leftover chicken, poaching is quick and easy. (Or you can pick up a rotisserie chicken, if you are so inclined. I am not.)

Sauteed Green Beans with Smoked Paprika and Almonds
Source: Cook's Illustrated, November 2008
This is our favorite way to have green beans, hands down.

Spicy Sichuan Noodles (Dan Dan Mian)
Source: Cook's Illustrated, May 2001
Cook's Illustrated is not exactly known for their ethic foods, but this one is a real winner. We love udon noodles. While the recipe mentions the possibility of a substitution to a thick spaghetti, thankfully we have never been forced to make that substitution.

Stir-Fried Beef and Broccoli with Oyster Sauce
Source: Cook's Illustrated, September 2003
Oddly enough, here is another Cook's Illustrated non-American dish that has been in our regular rotation. It may not be authentic - we actually have no idea - but it is certainly reliable and delicious.

You can check out the recipes from other years through the recipes tag.

Happy Eating!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Favorite Recipes of 2011

It's time for the 2011 edition of our Best Recipes of the Year!

#1: Sweet Potato & Chile Hash with Egg
Source: Fine Cooking
This one is at the top of our year's finds. Just the right combination of spicy and sour, and vegetarian/gluten-free/dairy-free to boot! This became a frequent brunch favorite.

#2: Spicy Tuna Wraps
Source: Eating Well
Inspired by sushi, this is a different take on canned tuna. You can pretty much use whatever greens you want in this.

#3: Sweet Zucchini Relish
Source: AllRecipes.com
Who isn't on the lookout for a way to use summer squash? Well, this is a good one. Really good. Before we made this relish, we didn't really even eat relish.

#4: Blueberry Zucchini Bread
Source: AllRecipes.com
Still have some zucchini left after the recipe above? Try this variation on zucchini bread. Don't overmix or overbake!

#5: Pear and Vanilla Freezer Jam
Source: MyRecipes.com
We got some amazingly flavorful pears from a friend and experimented with a few different flavor combinations inspired by some online recipes. We used the less-sugar pectin, 3c of sugar per 5c of pear and then roughly followed this recipe. (We used limes and a friend used lemons. The lime version was the favorite.) The recipe is definitely a winner, although undoubtedly starting with really ripe and flavorful pears always helps.

#6: Spinach Basil Pesto
Source: AllRecipes.com
This one hardly needs a recipe. Basically, use your favorite pesto recipe but substitute spinach for about 2/3 of the basil. It has a bit less 'bite' than basil-only pesto, which we think makes it a bit more flexible. Spinach is also easier to come by in large volume.

#7: Beef Tacos de Lengua
Source: SimplyRecipes.com
We had a cow tongue in the freezer from a quarter share that we bought a couple years earlier, so we figured "what the heck?" There is no mistaking that it was a giant tongue. And when it came to peeling off the skin... well, I will freely admit that this was the hardest thing I've ever done in the kitchen. Thankfully, once you are done it no longer looks like a tongue.

Happy eating!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Dinner Party: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan

One of the downsides of living outside of a city - and one of the things that we miss about Boston - is the lack of ethnic diversity. While there is great Mexican food in this area, you have to go to Portland for most other types. (For example: there aren't any Middle Eastern, Indian or South Asian restaurants anywhere in The Gorge. Period.)

That has never deterred us, though; we'll just do it ourselves, at home. But rather than go it alone in the wilderness, we have cultivated a cadre of similar-minded foodies and participate in ethnic food parties. Previous ethnic-themed dinners have covered Thai, Spanish, and German. For this one, we were inspired by our favorite restaurant: The Helmand, an Afghani restaurant in Cambridge, MA. (If you are ever in the Boston area, we highly recommend it.)

For our dinner party, we expanded the scope to include a few of the surrounding countries: Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. We made two of our cookbooks available as inspiration: Afghan Food and Cookery and Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States: A Dinner Party Approach to International Relations. We invited a few dozen friends, made a few recipes ourselves, and just let the dishes roll in.

• Chalau Sof / Afghan style baked rice (Afghanistan)
  
• Koufta Chalau / Meatballs (Afghanistan)
  
• Nani Afghani / Flatbread (Afghanistan)
  
• Borrani banjan / Eggplant (Afghanistan)
  
• Sfiha / Arab pizza (Syria/Lebanon)
  
• Helawat al Jazr / Sweet Cardamon Carrots (Iran)
  
• Chelo Kebab Barg / Roasted goat (Iran)
  
• Lawang e Samaruq / Mushrooms in Yogurt (Afghanistan)
  
• Channa / Chickpea curry (Indian)
  
• Hummus / Hummus (everywhere)
  
• Chicken Jalfarezi / Chicken curry (Pakistan)
  
• Achaar Chicken / Tangy curry chicken (Pakistan)
  
• Naan Berenji / Persian Rice Cookies (Iran)

Interestingly, only a few of the dishes used meat, which made the vegetarians in the group very happy. There were probably a few more dishes as well that didn't get included in this list. (Most of the recipes that aren't linked are from one of the two cookbooks above.) Here was the resulting spread, in all its splendor:

We encouraged people to bring beverages as well, with the stipulation that "all drinks must comply with the local customs in these countries" (aka "think twice before bringing beer or wine"). The resulting beverage list included two kinds of chai; Ouzo that was homemade by a friend of one of the participants (technically it isn't from one of the countries indicated, but how do you turn away a homemade liquor?); and Johnny Walker with water. That last one is apparently what all the Indian men drink in the backrooms. Yes, technically outside of the indicated countries, but it's a great visual, isn't it?

We love these parties. They give people an opportunity/excuse to expand their cooking experiences, but more importantly, we all get to help eat the results.

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Pancake Revival

Who doesn't have fond childhood memories of having pancakes? Anders, that's who. We have never made him pancakes. When we were first married, we tried several pancake recipes but were not impressed with any of the results. For us, waffles and french toast beat out pancakes any day. So pancakes were never on our breakfast menu.

But now that Anders is around, we have started to feel guilty. Have we been depriving him of a quintessential American adolescent experience? If it weren't for daycare, Anders wouldn't even know what a pancake was. So we came up with a plan. We were sure that some of our parent friends must make pancakes for their kids, and they can't all be as dull as ours, right? Time for another themed food party: Pancake Revival!

We invited some of our friends-with-young-children to brunch and asked them to bring a pancake recipe, either one of their favorites or a new one to try. We would cook up a batch of each different recipe and let everyone enjoy the variety, including the kids.

We had pancakes of all sorts: buckwheat, whole wheat; pumpkin, strawberry, blueberry, spiced; thick, thin. And lots of them. We had griddles going simultaneously for at least an hour. All of the kids, including Anders, got their fill of pancakes that day.

It certainly wasn't a contest, so I won't declare a "winner". But we did come away with a recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes that all three of us liked. It turned out to be a recipe from the cookbook of the Wildflower Cafe, a longtime favorite restaurant in the Gorge that closed several years ago.

Since this event was really all about the kids, here are some of the participants:

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

Favorite Recipes of 2010

It's that time of year - time for the 2010 installment in the Favorite New Recipes series. In last year's installment, we had nothing to report. As a result, we vowed to do better in 2010, doing more menu planning and just generally enjoying our mealtimes again. We are happy to report that we were largely successful and have many new recipes to relate.

#1: Spaghetti Squash with Jalapeno Cream
Source: Sunset
This recipe was an easy choice for the top of our year-end list. We were inspired to find new squash recipes after buying spaghetti squash from our organic farmer neighbor, but once we found this recipe we got stuck on it and haven't tried too much else. Milk is infused with jalapeno then mashed with roasted squash and topped with pepper jack cheese. How could that possibly be anything but delicious?

#2: Greek Lamb with Spinach and Artichokes
Source: Better Homes and Gardens
Slow-cooked lamb and beans, with artichokes and spinach tossed in at the end, all topped with feta cheese. To paraphrase Jerry Maguire: "You had me at Greek Lamb." We usually make a double batch, and it barely fits in our 4.5qt slow-cooker.

#3: Skillet Gnocchi with Chard and White Beans
Source: Eating Well, January/February 2009
We discovered this one in our quest to introduce more healthy, weeknight-friendly bean dishes into our (and Anders's) diet. Pick up some chard, and everything else is a pantry staple.

#4: Fried Chickpeas with Chorizo
Source: The Minimalist (Mark Bittman)
To celebrate his birthday, our friend Rat held ethnic-themed dinner parties where everyone was instructed to bring a dish from a particular country's cuisine. We attended Spanish night, and this was our contribution. (More beans - are you sensing a theme?)

#5: Cream Cheese Coffee Cake
Source: Cook's Illustrated, December 2009
There's a delicious coffee cake recipe in Corinne's family that is legendary; it makes an appearance at virtually all family events. This isn't it. So the fact that this one makes the list says something about what we thought of it. It takes a little extra effort, so this isn't an everyday item.

And for completeness... here is the family coffee cake recipe which originally hails from Molfred Amole, a lady in Great Falls, MT. When Corinne's Mom Donna was in high school, she cleaned house and babysat for Molfred and her family.

#6: Raspberry Spoon Bread
Source: Eating Well, July/August 2009
We actually did discover a favorite recipe in 2009, but it wasn't until raspberries were back in season that we remembered. This one is a simple, cornmeal based dessert and a great way to use raspberries which are so plentiful in the summer months.

#7: Chorizo Bread Pudding
Source: The Spanish Table
This is the one recipe on this list that we didn't actually make ourselves. (I guess you could consider that a violation of the rules.) Our friend Mandy brought this dish to the aforementioned Spanish dinner party. It would be great as part of a weekend brunch.

And speaking of puddings... inspired by the McDuff children's stories, Corinne went on an exploration of puddings, including vanilla rice pudding, tapioca pudding, and a coconut milk pudding. Anders and I certainly appreciated the results!

Here's to more new recipes and continued meal enjoyment in 2011!

- Mike, Corinne and Anders

Favorite Recipes of 2009

Ummmm.... we don't have any!

It all started with work's 3 month "surge" last spring where we worked crazy hours (while caring for an infant.) Work provided dinner so we literally didn't cook. In fact our neighbor from whom we buy all of our farm fresh eggs asked if there was something wrong with her eggs (there wasn't) as we hadn't bought any in some time.

We have both taken on more management responsibilities at work and our hectic days seemed to spill over into hectic evenings. And with the added evening activities associated with having a kid, our dinner routine tended to be: "What should we have for dinner?" "Uh, grilled cheese?" "No bread." "Do we have eggs? Omelettes?"

One of our new year's "resolutions" for 2010 is to enjoy dinner again. We are taking turns planning a menu for the week and (theoretically) just going to the grocery store once a week rather than stopping several days a week to pick up the missing ingredient for a last minute boring meal. We are planning a mix of easy dinners, more involved dinners, and make-ahead meals. So far, we are just 15 days into 2010 and have tried 5 new dinners - including one involving sardines! So far we've found the new approach to be much more enjoyable than trying to rack our brains each night for something to concoct.

So, here's to all the new favorite recipes we'll discover in 2010. Meanwhile, if you are looking for inspiration, check out our favorite recipes from 2008, 2007, and 2006.

And because Corinne's mom says every post must now have a picture of Anders...

Bon Appetit!

- Corinne, Mike, and Anders Rocket

Favorite Recipes of 2008

It's time for the 2008 installment in the Favorites Recipes series. (Here are the previous years' installments: 2007, 2006.) For some reason we didn't seem to do as much experimentation with new recipes this year as in previous years, but we did manage to come up with some real winners.

#1: Pork Burros
Source: Ilvedson family recipe
We learned this first one from Corinne's Mom last January. She originally got it from a friend of hers when she was living in Los Angeles around 1970, and it was a recipe that she formulated as a recreation of a favorite local restaurant dish. Corinne was served this dish often as a kid. We made this one a lot this year, and it is a great "make lots and freeze" dish, particularly since you start with a 5lb pork shoulder. Tasty, tasty.

#2: Roasted Garlic Herb Oil
Source: Ilvedson family recipe
This one is a cheat - we've had this recipe for some time. But we did make it quite a bit this year, including making it as gifts. Have some on hand and you have a really easy way to quickly season roasted veggies.

#3: Enchiladas Lasagna
Source: Alton Brown
Alton is our hero. This is some really good stuff, and easy. I suggest making a large batch of the enchilada sauce at one time, then freezing in appropriate sizes. The original recipe didn't call for spinach in the filling, but I had some lying around the first time I made it and figured that I could bump up the nutrition. Worked great, and I've used it ever since.

#4: Quick Bean Cassoulet
Source: Sunset Magazine (by way of The Oregonian)
Our friends Jamie and Torsten introduced us to this one. Beans, chicken and sausage make this casserole a heart-warming meal. We almost never have leftover chicken, but even if you have to cook chicken it's still quick and easy. And delicious. A good comfort food for those colder days.

#5: Brown Sugar Cookies
Source: Cooks Illustrated, Mar 2007
These cookies are sort like chocolate chip cookies, but with a richer flavor (and no chips). Use "real" brown sugar with these for the best flavor; most grocery store brown sugars are simply white sugar with molasses sprayed on them.

#6: Chewy Chocolate Cookies
Source: Cook's Illustrated, Jan 2009
These are some seriously good chocolate cookies. Use good chocolate (Callebaut, Valrhona, etc.) The chocolate chunks might seem like they are too big, but they bake up perfectly, leaving nice sized chocolate goodness in each cookie. I think they taste better after a day or so - but who can wait? The recipe makes 16 large cookies, so consider forming the balls slightly smaller and/or making a double batch.

What were your favorite recipes this year? Send them to us!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders Rocket

Favorite Recipes of 2007

It's time for another installment in our Favorite New Recipes series. While most of the recipes in the 2006 edition were garden-centric, 2007 seemed to bring more warming, comfort foods for fall/winter. So here they are, in no particular order...

#1: Turkey and Sweet Potato Hash
Source: Fine Cooking

This hash was a big hit at Saturday morning brunch after Thanksgiving. We doubled (tripled?) the recipe, and the biggest challenge was finding enough cookware!

#2: Pizza Margherita
Source: Cook's Illustrated

We’ve been making pizza at home for many years, but we were never entirely happy with any of the doughs we made. Most bake up too thick, with a consistency more like bread than a thin, NY-style pizza crust. That is, until this one. Now all of our pizzas use this dough.

#3: Beef Short Ribs in Chipotle and Green Chili Sauce
Source: Bon Appetit (via Epicurious.com)

As Mark Bittman says, "When I want to make something that really shows someone that I love them, I make short ribs." If you've never cooked short ribs before, now is the time to start. Cooked "low and slow" is the way to go, and the meat will fall apart in your mouth. The spice level in these short ribs is perfect.

#4: Classic Macaroni & Cheese
Source: Cook's Illustrated

The ultimate in comfort food: homemade Macaroni and Cheese. Our friend Jamie made this for us on a recent visit, and now we can't stop. This stovetop version uses a roux for a nice, thick cheese sauce. Even if you're only cooking for 1 or 2, make the whole recipe; it reheats well (unlike the "blue box" version we all loved as kids).

#5: Hot Buttered Rum
Source: All Recipes

The surprise hit of this years holiday season, this drink is much lighter than it might seem from reading the recipe. Make up a batch of the batter for the freezer, then all you need to do is heat some water, add some dark rum and a scoop of the batter. Yum.

Despite my lament last year that I didn't take more food photos, I did even WORSE this year. I guess you'll just have to make them yourselves!

- Mike (& Corinne)

Favorite New Recipes of 2006

Finally, the long-mentioned "Favorite New Recipes of the Year" post arrives! These are all recipes which were new to us in 2006; this year's all came from other external sources (i.e. we didn't invent them), but they sure were good.

There was a definite theme to many of the new recipes we made this year: they included things we grew ourselves. Two out of the three recipes involve fresh, home-grown tomatoes. If you don't have your own tomatoes, grow some. If you can't do that, find a farmers' market in the summer and buy some from a local farmer. If you can't do that, don't bother to make these tomato recipes. They really need the full flavor and freshness of fresh, ripe tomatoes. And as everybody knows, you can't buy tomatoes from a grocery store. Sure, you can buy something that LOOKS like a tomato from the store, but that is where the similarities end.

#1: Linguine with Sweet 100 Tomatoes, Basil & Cream

Source: Gardeners' Community Cookbook

In retrospect, I wish I had taken photos of this dish. If I did, I'd be drooling while looking at them right now. Whenever we harvested our Golden Nugget tomatoes, we would make this dish. Since the tomatoes we had were of the slightly larger variety (see notes), we cut them in half before cooking. This dish is so simple, yet incredibly flavorful. It is truly amazing what fresh, in-season food can taste like!

Tomatoes, garlic, heavy cream, fresh basil... how can you possibly go wrong?

#2: Tomato, Basil and Cheese Pie

Source: Gardeners' Community Cookbook

This was another frequent favorite during tomato season, and the recipe came from the same cookbook as #1. It is a bit more complicated, because you have to make a tart crust. But before you get all scared, tart crusts aren't actually that difficult. After all, you do most of the work in the food processor.

#3: Overnight Cinnamon Rolls

Source: Good Eats: House of the Rising Bun

Lest you thought we restricted ourselves to only healthy food that we grew ourselves... there's nothing quite like homemade cinnamon buns. The first time we made this recipe, we used the wrong type of yeast - we used the more common "active dry yeast" rather than "instant yeast". The buns didn't rise. But even the "failures" tasted pretty dang good.

You do have to have a bit of patience and plan ahead; after all, the word "Overnight" is right in the name. But they sure beat the heck out of anything Cinnabomb ever produced.

#4: Sake Salmon and Rice

Source: Nigella Feasts: Delicious Dinners

We don't cook fish that often, mostly because I don't have a lot of experience with it (catch-22, of course). This salmon dish, however, is easy and so delicious. It even tastes great with Atlantic farm-raised salmon, for all you still back on the East Coast!

I'm going to try to do this every year from this point on! And next year, I need to take more photos...

- Mike (& Corinne)

Alton Brown Dinner Party

Anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes with us knows that we're huge fans of Alton Brown and Good Eats. So when we discovered that there were other fellow fans lurking around at work, Corinne had the idea of an Alton Brown Dinner Party. Each person was instructed to make an Alton recipe of their choosing, either from an episode of Good Eats or from one of his several cookbooks.

We decided to have everyone's dishes be a surprise, so we did NOT coordinate what people were bringing. Whatever mix we got, we got. When everyone arrived with their creations, it was like a cooking geek's Christmas: everyone opening their packages and sharing their food, and recalling the episode from which the recipe came.

Appetizers:
Baba Ghannouj from Deep Purple [Ken & Rita]
Wheat Berry Tapenade from Ill Gotten Grains [Phil & Paul]

Main Courses:
Fried Chicken from Fry Hard 2: The Chicken [Jeff]
Braciole from Fit to be Tied with Tomato Sauce from Tomato Envy [Mike]
Potato/Portobello Gratin from This Spud's For You [Ken & Rita]
Swedish Meatballs from Great Balls Of Meat [Rat]
Mushroom Wheat Berry Pilaf from Ill Gotten Grains [Phil & Paul]

Desserts:
Berry Crisp from Cobbled Together [Anna]
Bananas Brule from Citizen Cane [Anna]
Cherry Couscous Pudding from Ill Gotten Grains [Phil & Paul]
Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheel Cookies from The Cookie Clause [Corinne]
Coffee from True Brew [Jeff]

Considering that it wasn't coordinated, I think we got a pretty good mix. Not enough greens (actually, nothing was green...), but we half expected that.

Everything was great and we all had lots of fun! We even had some informal "judging" from Phil's 6 year-old son, Paul. As he ate each dish, he ranked it and gave some very astute reviews, particularly for a 6-year-old. See, watching Good Eats makes you smart!

We're hoping to not make this a once in a lifetime event!

- Mike (& Corinne)