These aren’t too much work and will produce muffins with pretty good nooks and crannies for a great side dish with breakfast or a nice base for a sandwich. The only downside is that the batter needs to be made at least 3 hours ahead of time but that also means you can make the dough the night before and simply bake them in the morning. I baked mine on the stove in a cast iron pan but you can bake them only in the oven if you do not have a good heavy bottomed pan.
Continue readingCategory: make ahead
Recipe: Makaronia Me Kima
This recipe is basically a Greek staple but I had never heard of it. Saltsa Kima is basically Greek style of Bolognese. It has cinnamon, cloves, and allspice making it sweet and spicy. It is also the basis for Cincinnati Chili which my husband particularly loves. It’s a pretty unique flavor and like Bolognese it’s extremely easy to make as it just takes time not work to come together, so it’s good for a weekend or a slow day.
Continue readingRecipe: Sweet and Sour Tofu
I was finally able to find reasonably priced firm tofu in the store so I’ve been trying out more tofu recipes lately and this is the winner by a large mile. It’s super easy to make, you can customize the sauce in a lot of ways, and it comes together with only one bowl and one pan. You can use fresh vegetables if you prefer but I love recipes where you don’t have to chop anything because some days you just don’t have the energy. I don’t love tofu but in this recipe it’s pretty tasty and it’s a nice change of pace every now and then.
Continue readingRecipe: Cake Salé
This is a great breakfast recipe or even a lazy hot summer afternoon. It’s basically a savory cake (as the name implies) that you can customize any way you want. I put cheese and vegetables in mine but you could easily add any type of meat or nuts or anything else your imagination wants as long as it is chopped thinly and not watery. It rises but not much so if you want bread-like slices you’ll need a narrow pan not a loaf pan. This is good plain or with a bit of butter or cream cheese and would be really nice at a tea party too.
Continue readingRecipe: Tikka Masala Meatballs
Can you go too far with a mash up? Probably but this one I actually really liked. It’s basically the standard procedure for making meatballs with red sauce except you build the sauce and meatballs up with a different spice profile making them spicy with a sweet, spicy, and creamy sauce. I used coconut milk because its shelf stable and I always have some around but heavy cream in the sauce is probably the way to go. You can serve these with rice, in pitas, or go absolutely mash up wild and serve them on spaghetti or maybe on top of hummus the possibilities are endless.
Continue readingRecipe: Chicken Tinga
This is a fairly simple recipe which is basically just spicy chicken in a tomato and onion and chili sauce and there isn’t anything wrong with that. This can be made in a slow cooker really easily also and gets most of its spices and flavors from the can of chilies in adobo. This is great on rice or in a burrito and can be topped with fresh vegetable or served with a salad to round out the meal.
Continue readingRecipe: Shepherd’s Pie
If you time this right by putting your potatoes up to boil right away you can have this in the oven in 30 minutes or less and on a table in under an hour making it a pretty good weekend meal. There isn’t anything particularly difficult about this and it makes an extremely rustic food that is homey and comforting and can be tweaked to your tastes. You can use almost any vegetables on the inside (or go for just onions and meat if that’s your jam) but whatever you use make sure it is very finely diced which you can accomplish by grating them on the fine side of a box grater or pulsing the vegetables in a blender for a few seconds, you want everything but the peas to basically melt away while cooking down to give you a very uniform texture.
Continue readingRecipe: Spicy Tomato Dal
This is one of those absolutely great recipes for when you have a bit of time but no time energy. You probably have everything you need on hand to make a tasty, healthy, filling, cheap, vegan, and exceptionally low effort food. The only thing you have to do is chop an onion and then sometimes check on the pot and stir it a little. This can be eaten on its own or with naan or pretty much any other bread product or even over rice. You can add in whatever you like to finish the dish: cream, nuts, cilantro, even fried onions. Also I like my dal thick but feel free to make it any consistency you like.
Continue readingRecipe: Country Loaf
This is my go-to bread recipe. It’s not exactly no knead (I cannot understand the Internet’s obsession with no knead bread though) but it’s a very low effort bread. The original is made of a combination of bread flour and wheat flour but I actually ended up (after 10 different loaves) using white flour and rye instead because I like the denser, chewier texture you get. You can adjust the percentages to your liking this is just my personal taste. This is really good toasted with some butter or jam and makes a very hearty sandwich bread.
Continue readingRecipe: Kartoffelknödel
I’m a fan of potato recipes and I find these Kartoffelknödel (literally “potato balls”) to be both really fun to eat and extremely easy to make. They’re kind of bland on their own but they go exceptionally well with any type of cream sauce (in the picture it is a mushroom cream sauce) or alongside a very gravy-laden meat meal and they might even be fun to put in a thick cheese soup for some texture and chew.
Continue reading