• Pastere – Pasta Squares

    When I was growing up, every time I went to my grandparents house, there would be a snack of cold congealed cubes of pasta with an eggy flavor that was sometimes flecked with pepperoni. Based on the adjectives I used to describe it, you could probably imagine that I wasn’t super fond of it. The rest of my family seemed to love it, so I always felt left out. We called it Pastere, but I can’t find any evidence of such a thing existing on the internet. This 4th of July, when I was asked to bring the Pastere to the picnic, I decided I would make sure that I made something I would like too! Armed with my grandma’s handwritten recipe I got to work.

  • Scallop Ceviche Tacos

    Last week I went to see Cayucas with some friends, and before we headed out to the show, I made this tasty ceviche as a light pre-concert meal. It was inspired by their song “Deep Sea Diver”, and it was summery, fresh, and reminiscent of the ocean, just like the band’s music!

  • Parmesan Baked Beans

    As with most families these days, I have some vegetarians in mine. Being the conscious cook, I decided to try and make a vegetarian version of baked beans that would be so delicious that no one would miss the pork or even realize something was different. I based the beans off a hearty Italian tomato sauce, and added every non-meat based version of umami I could think of. Within 5 minutes of getting to the annual 4th of July party, my vegetarian aunt reminded me that she hates beans. Oh well! These beans were worth it anyways.

  • Green Tea Lime Spritzer

    Whoa another Tuesday post? Yea… for some reason I feel like it would be a rip-off for me to post a drink recipe on the regularly scheduled days, so here we are. The thing is, this drink is so fantastic that it should never be considered a rip-off. In fact, it’s so good that it’s NON-ALCOHOLIC and I STILL put effort into it! Well sometimes I put vodka into it too.

  • Vietnamese Cous Cous Salad

    I decided while I was away that when I came back I would make sure to stick to a more regular posting schedule. Instead of sometimes posting 4 or 5 times a week, then only posting twice some weeks, I would just always post 3 times, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I am going to try and stick to this for the time being, with Wednesdays usually featuring my most recent Tablespoon post, and see how it goes. Of course, there will still be theme weeks from time to time, where I post every day so I think the frequency will be pretty much the same as in the past.

    Seems kinda weird to tell you all that info on a Tuesday post. But since I’ve been away so long, I figured I would give you guys a bonus recipe this week. It’s a good one too! I had some marinaded meat leftover from these burgers, and decided to cook it loose in a pan and serve it with a cous cous salad that was based on one of my favorite dishes, Vietnamese Bun Vermicelli. I ate this for lunch one day while getting some serious writing done and it really got me through the day! In fact I went back for more every hour or so…

  • Nacho Burgers

    I have a little confession for you guys. I suppose I could have started back up a week ago. I finished my work. Handed it in. But instead of getting the old blog-train cranked back up, I spent the past week at the beach eating dishes like this crazy Nacho Burger. Do you guys blame me? It feels really good to dust off the old cobwebs though (I almost forgot my passwords to log in and post!) I am a little worried however that some people may have moved on, since almost 2 months is like 5 internet-years, so any likes, tweets, or general passing along of this post would be greatly appreciated!!!

  • Gochujang Octopus and Gnocchi

    The premise of this dish was to to create a textural study between 3 different gummy ingredients, braised octopus, potato gnocchi, and korean rice cake. All 3 of these things can remind me of each other, so I thought it would be fun to put them all together in a korean flavored sauce. It came out pretty tasty in the end, but I don’t feel that I fully achieved what I was going for. The main issue was the size differences between the 3 main ingredients. I was aiming to make them all a similar size and shape but failed. Regardless, if you like octopus you will enjoy this dinner, but on a normal night I would make it with either gnocchi or rice cake, and not both.

  • Arrested Development Cocktails

    We needed cocktails for our arrested development party, so we devised some clever drinks inspired by our favorite moments and characters from the show. I had a lot of fun all week with these posts, and I hope you guys enjoyed reading them as much as I liked writing them! Without further ado, the drinks.

  • Chicken Fingers… with Spicy Club Sauce

    Fried Cheese… with club sauce. Popcorn shrimp… with club sauce. Chicken fingers… with spicy club sauce! I had no idea what club sauce was, but I imagined it to be like a cross between bbq sauce and cocktail sauce. The internet didn’t really help me in figuring out what it was, so I just made it how I wanted it to be. Honestly I thought the sauce was awesome, but the people I was with apparently don’t really like horseradish, so they didn’t enjoy the sauce as much as I did. I probably should have asked them before I dumped a bunch of horseradish into the sauce!

  • Bluth Family Cornballs

    If you don’t want to travel all the way to Mexico to get a cornballer on the black market, you can just make this tasty snack in any deep frying situation. I assume that the cornballs in question are similar to a hush puppy, so that was the approach I took making this recipe. They came out great and were a fun app for our little Arrested Development party. Yo soy loco por los cornballs!

  • Hot Ham Water Soup

    Finally there’s a date! The much awaited 4th season of Arrested Development will be available on Netflix in full on May 26th. To celebrate, I am dedicating a week of recipes to the greatest food moments of the first 3 seasons. Today is one of my all time favorites, Hot Ham Water. In this episode (s3-e9 “S.O.B’s”), Lindsay is trying to be more of a domesticated mother figure to the family, and her first attempt at cooking dinner is a dish she likes to call Hot Ham Water. I took inspiration from this scene to make a flavorful ham broth and load it up with some sauteed ham, collard greens, and udon noodle. Tasty stuff!