Rhubarb and Cod

Chicken Marbella Orzo Skillet

March 24, 2025 No Comments

Today’s Chicken Marbella Orzo Skillet features juicy chicken thighs marinated in red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, and oregano. The chicken is cooked snuggled up with olives, prunes, and capers cooked on a bed of tender orzo. This recipe borrows heavily from the original Chicken Marbella from the book The Silver Palate. The Silver Palate is a 1980s cookbook that broke records by selling 250,000 copies in its first year. The book is by Sheila Lukens and Julee Rosso. At the time of Lukens’s death in 2009, The Silver Palate remained in the top 10 best-selling cookbooks of all time – selling more than 2.5 million copies.

Brunch, Fish & Seafood

Salmon and Spinach Fishcakes

March 7, 2025 No Comments

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Today’s Salmon and Spinach Fishcakes may not look like a clean-out-the-fridge meal, but I promise you they were born out of necessity. An excess of food is a frequent occupational hazard in my work. Brands are often overly generous with their products, which is good when you’re doing rounds of recipe testing. But now and then, you nail the recipe in the first few attempts, and you’re left with more food than you can reasonably handle. This happened to me the other week, and the food in question was an almost complete side of beautiful Atlantic salmon. I know – what a hardship! This scenario would be far from a tragedy in a salmon-lovers home. I am a salmon-lover, but my partner, well, there are few things he dislikes more.

Soups & Stews, Vegetarian

Carrot Kimchi Soup with Black Sesame Biscuits

February 18, 2025 No Comments

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Today’s post is a twofer. That’s right, two recipes in one post. While you can certainly make one independent of the other, they do play very well together. I am of course talking about the radiant burnt orange soup you see in the photo above. Today’s Carrot Kimchi Soup is a velvety vegetable soup heavy on carrots and loaded with a tub of kimchi. The flavor is rounded out by a dollop of gochujang, soy sauce, and a whole lot of garlic. The texture is enhanced by the addition of starchy root vegetables. In this particular incarnation, I used a mix of sweet potatoes and regular potatoes because that is what my crisper had for me. But I’ve made this soup with squash and rutabaga before with no adverse effects – just a slightly nuttier flavor profile.

Noodles, Vegetarian

Brown Butter Garlic Noodles with Oven-Roasted Mushrooms

February 10, 2025 No Comments

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Cooking is kind of unfair. We all have to do some degree of it daily to stay alive whether we like it or not. What other hobby can claim that? Althought I love cooking, I don’t always hit the kitchen with a spring in my step and a song in my heart. But I also never view the activity with disdain. This is all to say that sometimes I’m bone tired, sometimes I have a mere 30 minutes to feed my household, sometimes my brain is at max capacity and anything complicated will trigger a meltdown. And when I’m in any one of those states, these Brown Butter Garlic Noodles are my go-to. Not because of some hack or shortcut. It’s because these noodles take a very short time to become delicious. There is no compromise – this is just how long this recipe takes.