Everyday Yumminess: Pineapple-Ginger Chicken with Coconut Rice

When I was in college and came to visit Portland, there was a Caribbean restaurant called Sweetwater's Jam House that Stanley would sometimes take me to. One of the dishes that we loved there was the Pineapple-Ginger Chicken. When I got back to Boston after the first time I had it, I started working on replicating the dish... which turned out to be necessary since the restaurant closed not long after I came up with the perfect version of Pineapple-Ginger Chicken.

Everyday Yumminess: Pan-Seared Tuna with Ginger-Shiitake Cream Sauce

I made this dish for the first time probably 10 years ago. I remember being in my parents' kitchen. We melted the butter, added the ginger, garlic, scallions, and cilantro, and were blown away by how amazing the kitchen suddenly smelled. We knew at that moment that making this dish was a brilliant idea. For reasons I can't fathom, I haven't made this in 5 or 6 years. After tasting it again last night, it definitely won't be that long before I make it again. You can find the original recipe here so you can make this at home. It's literally 10 minutes of prep and 10 minutes of cooking before you're sitting down to an amazing meal. Things start out with fresh, delicious tuna...

Dinner at Daniel

I'm down in Pennsylvania visiting my friend Lisa this weekend, and we trekked into NYC Saturday night for what turned out to be one of the best and most enjoyable meals of my life.

SomSmack! (aka The Event Formerly Known as Sommelier Smackdown!)

Another month, another Smackdown...

Sunday Cookbook Adventures: Ridiculously Awesome Lobster Burgers

A new cookbook has entered my life, and keeps putting a smile on my face. Whether I'm reading through recipes, discovering a cool new technique, or enjoying the amazing finished product, this book is downright... fun. My first real foray into the world of Michel Richard was making these mind-blowing Lobster Burgers.

Sunday Cookbook Adventures: Wafer-Thin Potato Crisps

I got an amazing new cookbook a couple weeks ago, sent to my by a fantastic aunt who loves cooking, but not in the way where dinner requires 13 hours in the kitchen. (Am I the only one who loves that kind of cooking?) Anyway, she sent it to the right person because this book is totally rocking my world. The first dish I completed from the book (which I prepared as a component of some kick-ass Lobster Burgers) is one of the very first that caught my eye when I first opened the book: The Wafer-Thin Potato Crisps.

Everyday Yumminess: My Mom's Eggs Baked in Zucchini

I suppose this isn't technically my mom's recipe, since she got it from The Vegetarian Epicure many moons ago, but I will always associate it with my mom nonetheless, since she introduced it to me when I was at an age where I thought my mom just magically knew how to make good food.

Sunday Cookbook Adventures: Perfect Carnitas with Mexican Rice and Beans

The hardest thing about living for a couple years in Melbourne and now in Boston is having to go months without access to a good version of what I refer to as "trashy Mexican food" (which is available only on trips to the west coast). The word "trashy" is not meant to imply anything negative about the quality. Rather, "trashy" means (for me) that tacos are a couple bucks and you won't be seeing any $15 entrees unless they feed a family. No tablecloths. Sometimes not even any indoor seating. Just good, trashy food. When I lived in Santa Barbara, I got my fix with the Carnitas Super Plate at Super Cucas, my all-time favorite place for trashy Mexican food. After this past weekend, though, I can honestly say that my new favorite place for trashy Mexican food is in my own kitchen...

Everyday Yumminess: Homemade Sushi

When you're an undergrad at MIT, January is Independent Activities Period (IAP), which means that you can either hang out on campus and take assorted fun classes or you can just take the time as a vacation. That is, of course, unless you're a physics major... in which case one required class takes place during IAP. Being forced to stick around campus for this stupid class many years ago, I decided to take a couple fun classes as well. Glass-blowing was all full, but I did manage to snag spots in both Sushi-Making and Bonsai. As will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever met me, Bonsai is not for me. I don't even have 1/100 of the patience that proper maintenance of my tree would have required... and then the bass from the music I was playing in my dorm room knocked a 30-pound book of class notes off of their shelf down onto my tree not once but twice... (The fact that it happened a second time probably indicates that I had some subconscious desire to kill that damn tree.) Needless to say, the tree did not survive and I will never attempt such things again. Sushi-making, though? That was awesome.

Sunday Cookbook Adventures: Michael Psilakis's Amazing Gyros

I picked up a kick-ass new cookbook a little over a week ago, and it didn’t take long flipping through the pages before I knew exactly what I wanted for dinner this weekend. The book is Michael Psilakis’s awesome How to Roast a Lamb, and the recipe that was calling to me was for Kefi Lamb Gyros. The finished product may not look like much, but trust me when I tell you that it will rock your world...

Everyday Yumminess: Garlic Confit

This is actually a recipe from my awesome new Greek cookbook, How to Roast a Lamb, but I'm listing it under "Everyday Yumminess" instead of "Cookbook Adventures" since it's one of those simple, awesome things that you'll find yourself making all the time without having to even reach for the book. Behold the beauty of Garlic Confit: