Onion Boil
A whole sweet onion with the center hollowed out, packed with seasoned butter and a crushed beef bouillon cube, wrapped tight in foil, and set on the indirect side of the grill for an hour. When you open the packet, the onion is completely tender and sitting in a pool…
Butterscotch Potato Chip Cookies
The first time I made these I was skeptical about the potato chips. Two cups of them, roughly crushed, going into a brown sugar cookie dough that's already loaded with butterscotch chips. It sounded like a dare more than a recipe. But the chips don't make the cookie taste like…
2-Ingredient Pineapple Angel Food Cake
One box of angel food cake mix. One can of crushed pineapple. Stir them together and bake. That's it — no eggs, no oil, no water, no extra steps. The pineapple juice activates the mix and does everything the liquid was going to do anyway, and you end up with…
Pickled Cauliflower
One jar, 20 minutes of work, 24 hours of patience. These pickled cauliflower florets — layered with red bell pepper, onion, garlic, mustard seeds, and peppercorns — come out tangy, lightly spiced, and crisp. I keep a jar in the fridge most of the time. They go on grain bowls,…
Coconut Cream Bars
The filling in these bars is made from cashews. Soaked raw cashews blended with coconut cream until there's no trace of graininess — just something impossibly smooth and rich that freezes into a texture somewhere between coconut ice cream and cheesecake. No dairy, no refined sugar, no baking. The crust…
Mushroom Carbonara
Carbonara without the pancetta is a legitimate weeknight dinner, not a compromise. Mushrooms browned properly — dry skillet first, no oil until they've already released their moisture and started to color — develop a savory depth that holds up against the egg and Parmesan sauce. This is the pasta I…
Vietnamese Almond Cookies (Banh Hanh Nhan)
The detail that makes these different from any other almond cookie is a quarter teaspoon of nuoc mau — Vietnamese dark caramel sauce — beaten into the egg yolk glaze. Nuoc mau is cooked well past the point where most Western recipes would call caramel done. All the way to…
Easy Strawberry and Cream Cheese Tart
I've brought this tart to three different summer gatherings and every single time someone asks which bakery it came from. The answer is a sheet of store-bought puff pastry and about 40 minutes. Strawberry cream cheese filling with fresh orange zest, macerated strawberries on top, baked until the edges puff…
