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

Happy 2015!

Our New Year's celebration this year had no fancy parties, no balls dropping, no crowds, just some quiet time at home. We had so much fun with our activities last New Year's Eve that we just had to do it again.

First, party hats! Construction paper, glitter, scissors, glue sticks, tape and ribbon. I think our hat-making skills have improved since last year.

Once the hats were made, it was time to make pretzels! Or as Anders says, "prentzels". I forget how easy it is to make soft pretzels; we really should do it more often. Corinne can put as much salt on her pretzels as she likes, and I get an excuse to eat mustard.

Time to get the drinks ready! Italian sodas in champagne flutes with sugared rims.

Before we knew it, it was time for the countdown to midnight.^† 3... 2... 1...

Happy 2015 to everyone!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders

^†Per tradition, we surreptitiously set our clocks ahead by one hour, celebrating the transition to the New Year one hour early. Anders got to stay up until midnight, and everyone got an extra hour of sleep. Hooray!