New recipe, October 29, 2025

Egg Muffins from NYT Cooking. These are loaded with tasty ingredients—cheese, bacon, peppers, scallions, spinach. They make a very tasty morning bite. We give these a 4.

New recipe, October 28, 2025

Eggplant Chickpea Salad with Olive Dressing from NYT Cooking. This has layers of flavor and texture, with silky eggplant, crunchy chickpeas, feta, and a delicious bright dressing. We love it. It gets a 5.

New recipe, October 27, 2025

Scallop Grenobloise from Food and Wine. It is hard to go wrong with scallops! This is a very enjoyable dish, and gets a 4.

New recipe, October 26, 2025

Smoky Bean and Sweet Potato Burritos from NYT Cooking. Sound improbable? The beans and vegetables are cooked in a smoky Chipotle tinga and the flavors are awesome. Definitely use a little Crema. Thus gets a 5.

New recipe, October 25, 2025

Delicata Squash Soup from Food and Wine. It is delicious. The recipe suggests shaving some black truffle over it. In the absence of whole truffles we used a touch of black truffle salt and it was an excellent addition. This gets a 5.

New recipe, October 24, 2025

Baked Chard Salad with Cranberries from NYT Cooking. This seemed like a bit of an odd concept, but it came together really nicely and is an excellent salad. The goat cheese is a delightful and critical element. It gets a 4.

New recipe, October 23, 2025

Olive Oil and Chile Fried Eggs from NYT Cooking. These are tasty fried eggs, enjoyable but not unique. We give them a 3.

New recipe, October 22, 2025

Everyday Dal from NYT Cooking. Very quick, very simple, and fantastic flavors. This gets a 5!

New recipe, October 21, 3025

Missed the photo. We made (from ChatGPT). Pleasant, but a bit sweet. We give it a 3.

Desert Bloom

Style: Modern floral whiskey cocktail

Ingredients:

    •    2 oz bourbon

    •    ½ oz Araceli Marigold Liqueur

    •    ¼ oz apricot liqueur or peach liqueur (optional)

    •    2 dashes orange bitters

Instructions: Stir with ice, strain into a rocks glass over a large cube, and garnish with an orange peel.

New recipe, October 20, 2025

Silky Chestnut Soup from Food and Wine. We haven't had much experience with chestnuts, but this is an argument for using them a lot more! Delicious, this gets a 5.

New recipe, October 19, 2025

Beef Mafé (West African Peanut Stew) Food and Wine. Such a lovely mix of beef, onion, garlic, ginger and celery, then with peanut butter added to the broth and vegetables including yam, carrot and eggplant. The flavors are excellent. I would have liked the eggplant to take on more of the stew flavor, and for the beef to be more tender. In future, I would extend the simmer another 45-60 minutes, and would add the eggplant sooner. Still gets a 4.

New recipe, October 18, 2025

Sautéed Shrimp with Lemon Caper Dressing ftom NYT Cooking. Just fabulous! It has you sauté the shrimp over medium heat, which really let me hit it perfectly, not overdone. I will bring lower heat to sautéing shrimp in the future! This gets a 5.

New recipe, October 17, 2025

Carne en Su Jugo from The Bean Book by Steve Sando. this is very flavorful, and we enjoyed it. I think a longer slow simmer would allow the meat to become more tender. It gets a 4.

New recipe, October 16, 2025

The Gold Apple cocktail from ChatGPT. It describes it as being like spiced Apple pie. I think that is accurate but if is far too sweet for us. I give this a 2.

New recipe, October 15, 2025

Lablabi (Tunisian Chickpea Stew) from The Bean Book by Steve Sando. This is a very tasty stew. It is all about the spices and extras like chopped olives, and they complement the chickpeas nicely. This gets a 4.

New recipe, October 14, 2025

Roast Squash with Crispy Chickpeas and Feta from NYT Cooking. A lot of flavors to complement the squash, which is beautifully roasted. This gets a 4.

New recipe, October 13, 2025

Chicken and Egg Stir Fry from Food and Wine. This is a pleasant dish, with ginger and nutmeg in the sauce. It didn't strike us as extraordinary so we give it a 3.

New recipe, October 12, 2025

Curry Shrimp and Sweet Potato from NYT Cooking. This has great flavors, and the curry powder in particular seems to keep the sweet potato from being too dominating. Very nice, we give this a 5.

New recipe, October 11, 2025

The Pamplemousse Martini from ChatGPT.  We liked this a lot. We give it a 5. Chat GPT describes it very nicely!

Pamplemousse Martini

Bright and tart — like a grapefruit twist on a Cosmopolitan.

Ingredients:

    •    1½ oz vodka

    •    ¾ oz Giffard Pamplemousse

    •    ¾ oz fresh lemon or lime juice

    •    ¼ oz simple syrup (optional)

Instructions:

Shake with ice, strain into a chilled coupe, and garnish with a grapefruit peel.

New recipe, October 10, 2025

Japanese Garden from ChatGPT. We enjoyed this cocktail.  It gets a 4.

🍸 Japanese Garden

A refined, aromatic gin-based cocktail.

Ingredients:

    •    2 oz gin

    •    ½ oz Midori

    •    ½ oz lemon juice

    •    Dash of elderflower liqueur (optional but beautiful)

Instructions:

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled coupe.

Garnish: Cucumber slice or basil leaf.

🌿 Floral, crisp, and sophisticated.

New recipe, October 9, 2025

Thyme and Dijon Seared Pork Tenderloin with Cider Pan Sauce from Food and Wine. This is quite nice, especially with the butter finished sauce. A tad more salt than seemed ideal. We give this a 4.

New recipe, October 8, 2025

Creamy Butternut Squash and Coconut Noodle Soup from NYT Cooking. This has a curry paste base and coconut milk, squash , onion, cilantro. It is fabulous! This gets a 5!

New recipe, October 7, 2025

Smashed Chicken Meatballs with Suya and Charred Corn. Suya is a new spice mix for us, and we liked it. The flavors of this dish are really nice, great combination. We give it a 4

New recipe, October 6, 2025

Butter Cauliflower and Chickpeas from NYT Cooking. The delicious flavors you would get in butter chicken, and vegan. This is a 5!

New recipe, October 5, 2025

Italian Mushroom and Celery Salad from NYT Cooking. Made with pink celery, since we grew some. It has a somewhat more astringent flavor than standard celery and was excellent. This salad was better the second day, after the dressing penetrated the mushrooms. We give it a 4.