Some weeks ago I saw a Tasting Table video on Facebook I couldn’t resist. Jumbo shells, stuffed with roasted butternut squash and ricotta, topped with burrata and baked. It was undeniably appealing, instantly evocative of the frozen, cheese-stuffed jumbo shells my bestie Whitney and I used to heat up for summer lunches back when Costco was Price Club and we still owned more cassette tapes than CD’s. Looking in my fridge, I was heartbroken to remember using the last of our ricotta on that morning’s toast (with sliced pears and honey — never a bad idea) — but was blasted with hope in the … Read More
Slow-Cooker Pumpkin Curry Beef Stew
If you have any penchant for food blogs at all, you know Cynthia. She’s the quiet, quasi-anonymous beauty behind Two Red Bowls. The kind of writer who uses just enough big words to make you feel a little shy about your own prose while keeping everything warm and casual and best-friendy. A food-styling sensation. And creator of such culinary masterpieces as these beautifully storied umami-bombed noodles; these temptingly grabbable (steamed) buns; and this nostalgic Korean stew that is topped with not one but three of my favorite post-war convenience foods: spam, hotdogs and American cheese. (I die.) If you’ve been reading along in … Read More
#Totoroweek Katsudon with Furikake + “No Recipe” Fried Rice
Oh haiiiii twice in one week mah peebles! (Sorry.) Just checking in quickly today to bring you the (quasi-non) recipe for these little dudes. Typically, katsudon entails a breaded and fried pork cutlet simmered with sautéed onions, soft-set eggs and a simple little sweet-salty sauce over hot rice — and that’s basically what’s going on here, sub baked tonkatsu for fried and garlicky fried rice for plain steamed. I didn’t do it to be confusing, guys. It just turned out that way. OH. And in honor of Steph’s #totoroweek, the katsu cutlets have been stylized into (some admittedly pretty abstract, because #lazy) … Read More
Savory Pumpkin Cannelloni with Candied Walnuts + Crispy Sage (Dairy-Free)
As I write this, Lana is on the baby cam arranging her bed buddies around the perimeter of her crib, and her baby doll just won’t sit up the way she wants. It’s fascinating to me the way she’ll prop her up, watch her slouch forward, frown, prop her up again, etc., without so much as peep — when I know that, if I were in the room with her, she’d be whining almost instantly for my help. It’s moments like this — little, stalkery episodes where I stand back and admire her persistence or strength (she deadlifted a compost … Read More
Overnight Miso-Braised Sausage + Chard Lasagne
When I was 12 years old, I had a fever-induced dream that I was walking through a canyon of lasagne, towers of noodles and jarred red sauce closing in on me from all sides while I scrambled to pick up brittle twigs of dry angel hair pasta before they crumbled between my fingers. I knew that, somehow, collecting up the angel hair was my way out, but it was an impossible task, multiplying before my eyes. I awoke in a cold sweat, crying, and tugged on my (then) step-sister’s arm. “Tiffany, I had a bad dream. About lasagne.” She took it … Read More