chicken empanadas with chorizo

[Note: These empanadas got some fresh photos in 2020.]

Wow. I just… I mean… wow. These are so good, you’re going to kiss the cook, so be careful if her husband is in the room, okay? I don’t want to be the indirect cause of narrowed eyes or awkward silences. But first, in light of The Great Chicken Cutlet Hate-A-Thon of Aught Seven, I feel it is only right for me to add little more to this picture.

Recipe

tequila lime chicken + green onion slaw

If it’s true that the definition of stupidity is to do something over and over again and expect different results, then I am indeed guilty as charged, because I made something for dinner last night that I know I never, ever like. Somehow I believed it would be better this time, and when it wasn’t, I proceeded to take two bites and then returned to the kitchen to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Recipe

black bean confetti salad

Recipe

fish tacos

[Guest Post] In honor of Deb’s vacation in Playa Del Carmen, I wanted to share this recipe I learned from friends that live there for fish tacos. My first trip down there was with my BFF Victoria and about 10 guy friends. I highly recommend this arrangement: the boys would scuba dive and spear fish while we sun bathed and then the boys would bring up their catch of the day to the Mexicans at a beach front cabana cook-out place. They would turn the catch of the day into the best fish tacos I had ever had. So I made them teach me how.

Recipe

the tart marg

What seems like a million years ago, Alex and I had some friends over for a fajita party at our old 500-square foot Chelsea bungalow. Lacking an electric citrus juicer, we spent a good part of the afternoon hand-reaming the juice out of dozens of limes so that I could make a few pitchers of the margarita recipe that was printed on the Classic Cocktails paper place mat I’d stolen from Stingy Lulus the weekend before. If you like your margaritas so tart you might have to close one eye to swallow a single sip and your memories few and far between, I cannot recommend this old-school recipe enough.

Recipe

gnocchi with a grater

Do you ever feel like a kitchen incompetent? That despite what seems like The Entire Rest of the World being able to cook something flawlessly, even going so far as to boast, “This is so EASY to make!” each and every time you try it, you fail? Believe me, it’s not just you.

Recipe

potato rosemary bread

I killed a biga. I didn’t really want to get into it at the time, as I’m not exactly proud of my actions. It’s not like I didn’t know how not to destroy a pre-ferment, it’s not like I don’t like, no love ciabatta bread, yet I made it at the start of one of those weeks that seem easy-peasy from the outset but when the pace picked up, I let it linger, carelessly convinced it would wait patiently for me. It was my neglect that took its life. And yet in hindsight, now that I’m ready to own up to it, it may have also been some passive-aggressiveness on my part.

Recipe

arborio rice pudding

The end of a mano? Though my mother bought it for me nearly two years ago as a Bridal Shower gift, I didn’t open my white Artisan KitchenAid until last week. Could I be more ungrateful? Possibly, but in a kitchen with only one tiny counter-top, there is no room for a heavy kitchen tool of limited use, and little reason when you’re an avid devotee of the electric hand mixer.

Recipe

artichoke, cranberry bean and arugula salad

Sometimes I’m worried that I might be boring you guys. Yes, yes, being plagued by feelings of dullness and inadequacy, how very tired of me. But, let’s take some of the themes we have here; artichokes, beans, arugula, salad, bread and the most repetitive one of all: I ate something somewhere, and had to have it again ASAP so I tried to make it myself. Today, we’ve got all of them bundled into one. I try to say to myself, Deb, not everyone is infatuated by artichokes, arugula, beans and salads and every single way you can think of eating them either separately or together. I try to rationalize, although it’s not my strong suit. But then I imagine a world without people who get as excited as I do about artichokes! arugula! beans! and it makes me terrifically sad. Thus today I present to you: Artichoke, Cranberry Bean and Arugula Salad, or seriously the best thing I’ve gotten to eat twice in a week in way too long.