Chinese Chicken Salad

I picked up a rotisserie chicken at Costco, and as I was driving home remembered my mom’s Chinese Chicken Salad. She used to roast her own chicken, but then discovered the Costco rotisserie chicken and never went back. At $5 for a whole chicken, I don’t think it costs much more than it cost my…

Pistachio-Crusted Lemon Bars

Cookbook Club – Sababa We used Adeena Sussman’s Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen as our April cookbook. Sababa means “everything is awesome” in Hebrew, and is the spirit Sussman uses in her Israel-inspired recipes. We did indeed have a sunny afternoon meal – go to my Cookbook Club site to experience the…

Cherry Cheesecake Ice Cream

I wanted to make a cherry cheesecake flavor of ice cream, but didn’t want to have to make a whole cheesecake just to break it up as a mix-in. So I decided I could make cheesecake flavor ice cream, then mix in graham cracker pieces and swirl in store-bought cherry preserves. It worked wonderfully, and…

Passion Fruit Ricotta Cookies

After the success of the cupcakes made with gluten-free flour, I decided cookies might be another good use for that flour. My cheese buddy suggested ricotta cookies, and the local passion fruit plants are dropping ripe fruits right now… so passion fruit ricotta cookies! This guessipe made over 40 cookies, and they were all consumed…

Lemon Ricotta Cupcakes

I was gifted a bag of gluten-free flour, and had absolutely no idea what to do with it. I happened to see an article that said gluten-free flour is actually better for making cupcakes with a more even crumb, and since I’ve been wanting to figure out uses for my gluten-free flour decided – what…

Ricotta Cheesecake

What do you do when someone gives you 8 lbs of ricotta? Experiment with ricotta cheesecake! After testing out a variety of combinations, my boyfriend declared this one was the best cheesecake he’s ever had in his life, so it seemed my experimentation was complete. Using a mixture of ricotta and cream cheese gave the…

Apple Olive Oil Bundt Cake

My friend who gave me the bundt pan started asking when he’d be getting another bundt cake. I’ve had an itch in my brain about olive oil cake ever since I had an amazing one at Osteria Mozza, and that was years ago! It was finally time to try my hand at making one. I…

Lemon Buttermilk Bundt Cake

My friend gifted me a bundt pan on the condition that he would get some bundt cake desserts at future dinner parties. I think he made that stipulation because he knows I’m on Team Pie. But I’m always excited to use a new kitchen thingamabob, so I set out to figure out bundt cakes. This…

Lavender Lemon Cream Pie

It’s March, and that means my favorite holiday… Pi(e) Day! As the world is figuring out how to live with COVID and slowly opening back up, we were able to do a big Pie Day bonus event for Cookbook Club. Continuing to find fun ways to use lavender in my cooking, I made a Lavender…

Lavender Lemon Cookies

So far my adventures in cooking with lavender have been successful, so I’m gonna keep going. I recently had some lemon cookies at a party, and as I was eating them couldn’t help thinking a lavender lemon cookie could be a treat. It is! Guessipe 1 stick butter 1 cup lavender sugar 1 TBSP lemon…

Pasta with Burst Cherry Tomato Sauce and Fried Caper Crumbs

Cookbook Club – America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Illustrated For February’s Cookbook Club, people were able to choose recipes from the America’s Test Kitchen website and cookbook and the affiliated Cook’s Illustrated magazine and cookbook. To see what we selected from the thousands of recipe options, go to my cookbook club site. For now – my…

Lavender Madeleines

Now that I have lavender sugar, my first experiment in using it was these Lavender Madeleines, which I have to say turned out great. I have had this worm in the back of my mind about making madeleines ever since I watched the movie The Transporter (yes, Jason Statham is one of my guilty pleasures…