New recipe, July 30, 2025

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Chile Oil and Ricotta from NYT Cooking. This is a perfect example of using a few very flavorful ingredients to create a memorable dish. The ingredient that creates something new is the chile oil made with olive oil and Aleppo pepper. It combines with balsamic beautiful to show off the tomatoes and ricotta. This gets a 5!

New recipe, July 29, 2025

Stir Fried Cabbage and Pork in Fish Sauce Butter from NYT Cooking. This is very easy to make, but the combination of lime juice, fish sauce and butter make a dreamy sauce. This gets a 5!

New recipe, July 28, 2025

Grilled Chile Cheese Toasts from Food and Wine. These have a playful chile nip and are easy to make. They get a 4.

New recipe, July 27, 2025

Forgot to get a photo. Corn Salad with Tomatoes Feta and Mint from NYT Cooking. This is interesting, as it has olive oil but no acid. We enjoyed it but felt a splash of champagne vinegar added to it, particularly bringing out the mint. With the vinegar, it gets a 4.

New recipe, July 26, 2025

Zucchini Sheet Pan pizza from Food and Wine. Uses an outrageous amount of olive oil with the crust, but the result is a delicious crunchy crust. The flavors are quite nice—we give this a 4.

New recipe, July 24, 2025

Rosé Royale from NYT Cooking. This is refreshing and tasty. We give it a 4.

New recipe, July 23, 2023

The Stinger from Food and Wine. This combines cognac and creme de menthe. We find the creme de me the domineering. This gets a 3.

New recipe, July 22, 2025

Caesar Potato Salad from Food and Wine. This blends potato salad and Caesar nicely, and adds a delightful crunch from crushed potato chips. We enjoyed this, and give it a 4.

New recipe, July 21, 2025

Shawarma Spiced Grilled Chicken with Tahini Yogurt Sauce from NYT Cooking. This is a winner! It gets a 5!

New recipe, July 30, 2024

Chłodnik litewski (chilled beet soup) from NYT Cooking. Beets, cucumber, radish, potatoes, dill, chives in a buttermilk and sour cream base. Perfect for a hot day, and delicious! We give this a 5.

New recipe, July 19, 2025

Spaghetti Napolitan from NYT Cooking. Basically some sautéed vegetables with noodles and a ketchup/worcestershire sauce stirred together. We thought this was fine, but not outstanding. It gets a 3.

New recipes, July 19, 2025

Today we have Cucumber Gazpacho from Food and Wine, and Chickpea Chicken Salad with Green Harissa Dressing from NYT Cooking, which I failed to photograph. The gazpacho is nice for a hot hot day, but was not very sophisticated in flavors. It gets a 3. The salad, on the other hand, is spectacular and gets a 5!

New recipe, July 18, 2025

Spiced Pea Stew with Yogurt from NYT Cooking. Since he loves peas and potatoes, we made this to help celebrate Dwight Peterson's birthday. It is nicely spiced and quite tasty. We give this a 4.

New recipe, June 25, 2025

Tempe Penyet (Smashed Tempeh with Sambal) from NYT Cooking. This was fun, with some flavors we are not accustomed to, like Kecap Manis. We had a hard time believing 10 Serrano peppers would not overwhelm so we used less, but in fact having 10 would have been fine. We give this a 4.

New recipe, June 24, 2025

Szechuan Shrimp from Food and Wine. This is a pleasant dish, but we think it would benefit from more spice. It gets a 3.

New recipe, June 23, 2025

Crispy Gnocchi with Tomato and Red Onion from NYT Cooking. This is a very simple recipe, and quite tasty. Tomatoes aren't at peak here yet, this would be spectacular with peak summer tomatoes, but it still gets a 4.

New recipe, June 22, 2025

Sheet Pan Bibimbap from NYT Cooking. This is a clever way to prepare all the different elements of the Bibimbap on one pan, and the flavors are quite good. We give this a 5.

New recipe, June 21, 2025

Carla Hall's Succotash, from Food and Wine. This has a lot of dressing, which I liked a lot, including lemon juice, Dijon, garlic, cider vinegar and butter. I liked the flavors, but I agree with Carl that it is probably overdressed. We ended up giving this a 3, but I think with a little less dressing it would be at least a 4.

New recipe, June 20, 2025

Michelada Chicken from NYT Cooking. This puts the flavors of the classic Mexican beverage on the chicken, with beer, Worcestershire, lime and hot sauce. It works pretty well. We give it a 4.

New recipe, June 19, 2025

Gnocchi with Hot and Sweet Peppers from NYT Cooking. The peppers are lots of bell peppers and some chipotle in adobo—a nice combination! We enjoyed this, and give it a 4.

New recipe, June 18, 2025

Horseshoe Margarita from Herradura.com. It is a basic margarita but made with their reposado. Nice drink! It gets a 4.

New recipe, June 17, 2025

Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Fish Sauce Viaigrette from Food and Wine. This has all the wonderful complex flavors of many Vietnamese dishes, we enjoyed it a lot. It gets a 4.

New recipe, June 16, 2025

Pea and Ricotta Frittata from NYT Cooking. This is a little puffier and creamier than many frittatas, but the peas and mint are really nice. This gets a 4.

New recipe, June 15, 2025

Garlicky Chicken Thighs with Scallion and Lime from NYT Cooking. The chicken is another rescue from the freezer meltdown. The garlic, scallion and limes dress this up nicely—we give it a 4.

New recipe, June 14, 2025

Smashed Beef Kebab with Cucumber Yogurt from NYT Cooking. The recipe calls for beef or lamb, so we used lamb. We love the way the cooling yogurt, cucumber and mint complement the kebab. This gets a 5.

New recipe, June 13, 2025

We had Wagyu hotdogs in the freezer, so we made this Banh Mi American Wagyu Dog from Imperial Wagyu Beef, where the pate is also made from a hotdog. Very tasty! It gets a 4.

New recipe, June 12, 2025

Returning from our backpacking in Rocky Mountain National Park, we discovered that our freezer failed. By the time we got home, everything had thawed but was still at refrigerator temperature. So time to eat a bunch of thawed food! This Ground Elk Stroganoff from Primal Pioneer is a classic stroganoff, and reminded us that there is a reason stroganoff is a classic. We give this a 5.

New recipe, June 11, 2025

Crispy Chicken Thighs with Lemony White Beans from Food and White. We have had a lot of recipes with veggies and beans complementing a meat of some kind, and they are really good! The lemon and oregano are a nice touch in this one. It gets a 4.

June 8-10, 2025

As we were backpacking, we didn't target any new dishes for these days. But Rocky Mountain National Park was beautiful!

New recipe, June 7, 2025

Crispy Tofu Tacos from NYT Cooking. It takes awhile to roast the tofu til is is crispy, but the result is a great texture, and the flavors are very good. This gets a 4.

New recipe, June 6, 2025

Carrot Ribbon Salad from Food and Wine. Lots of fresh veggies, mint, fish sauce for a nice Vietnamese style dish. We give this a 4.

New recipe, June 5, 2025

Chickpea Fatteh (Crispy pita, chickpeas, and yogurt) from NYT Cooking. Lots of separate but easy steps to create this dish, and well worth the effort. Layers and layers of flavor! We give this a 4.

New recipe, June 4, 2025

Atol de Grano (SavoryCorn Porridge with Chicken) from NYT Cooking. This was pleasant, not life changing. We give it a 3.