Cooking Adventures

Creamy lemon bars with graham cracker crust

We tried this recipe from Yummly: https://www.yummly.com/recipe/CREAMY-LEMON-SQUARES-9125801 The ingredients are simple: 1.5 cups graham cracker crumbs, 4 Tbsp melted unsalted butter plus 1 ½ tsp for buttering the casserole dish, ¼ cup sugar (we used vanilla-infused), 14 oz sweetened condensed milk, 2 egg yolks, and ½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice. We found the crust… Continue reading Creamy lemon bars with graham cracker crust

This is a recipe from my childhood: a home economics class in middle school. I tracked down the same recipe here: https://dancingthroughtherain.com/peanut-butter-and-jelly-rollups/ We used leftover slices of whole wheat bread, room temperature unsalted butter, smooth peanut butter, and homemade Concord grape jam. Because we didn’t have toothpicks, we placed the roll-ups seam-side down and slightly… Continue reading Peanut butter and jelly roll-ups

We were looking for a way to use up our leftovers - two raw sweet potatoes already peeled and cut into large, uneven chunks. We cut the potato chunks to make as uniform cubes as possible, and then we tried this recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018993-roasted-sweet-potatoes-with-smoked-paprika?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share The recipe called for 4 sweet potatoes, so we halved the ingredient… Continue reading Roasted sweet potatoes with smoked paprika

Our friend Leah gifted us kyoho grapes, a type of Concord grape commonly found in Japan and Korea. We tried this recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/09/concord-grape-jam-recipe-grape-jelly.html Our modifications: because we had 3 ½ cups grapes (not 8 cups), we roughly halved the recipe. For the sugar, we reduced to 1 cup citrus-infused granulated sugar and 1 ¼ cups… Continue reading Concord grape jam

We followed this NYT recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6609-manicotti-with-cheese-filling-and-bolognese-sauce?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share As a shortcut, we used 2 ½ cups of premade bolognese sauce (24 oz Rao’s bolognese sauce). To reduce sodium, we used 1 oz finely chopped prosciutto (down from 2 oz). We also used 12 jumbo shells, which we parboiled for 10 mins; the 12 stuffed shells filled a… Continue reading Stuffed shells with bolognese sauce

When defrosted, these will become tofu crumbles - and good vegetarian substitutes for ground pork - in recipes such as vegetarian ma po tofu or vegetarian dan dan noodles. We tried this method by Andrea Nguyen: https://www.thekitchn.com/leftover-tofu-freeze-it-for-later-167830 We used Whole Foods extra firm tofu. After handpressing the 14 oz tofu brick with paper towels, we… Continue reading Frozen tofu chunks for later use

We made this recipe: https://www.wholefoodbellies.com/garlicky-quinoa-and-spinach-brunch-bowl/ At the end of cooking, we found the quinoa-spinach mixture a little flat, so we added 1 tsp apple cider vinegar (white vinegar or white wine vinegar also would work), ¼ tsp sugar, ¼ tsp each coarsely ground Aleppo pepper and black pepper. We also accompanied each serving with a… Continue reading Quinoa spinach breakfast bowl with fried egg

We tried this NYT recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1012899-stracciatella-with-spinach?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share We left the spinach leaves whole. Prior to adding the spinach to the simmering broth, we added 1/3 cup tiny star pasta (pastina) and let it simmer for a few mins. Then we added the spinach, followed by the egg-parmesan-semolina mixture. We also added ½ tsp crushed red pepper… Continue reading Stracciatella with spinach

We followed this recipe from Faye Levy’s Feast from the Mideast, which is also available online here: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-11-fo-1350-story.html We followed the book recipe, which called for 1 1/3 cup (not 1 cup) dried lentils. We increased the cumin from 1 tsp to 2 tsp. We also set aside only 1/3 of caramelized onion as topping.… Continue reading Middle eastern lentils and basmati rice with caramelized onions (mujadara)

We tried this recipe from Faye Levy’s Feast from the Mideast, an online version can be found here: http://www.eilee.net/recipes/vegetarian/chick_spin.html Although this is a vegetarian recipe, we used 1/3 cup chicken broth instead of chickpea liquid, but we found that was insufficient liquid to help the stew boil. We found the originally quite bland, so we… Continue reading Curried chickpeas with spinach and zucchini