Brown Sugar

Dense chocolaty brownies topped with an eggnog cheesecake.

I had planned on making a Korean fried rice, but got lazy and put everything into a baking dish instead. It came out great!

Clamato, Pickled Green Beans, and Bacon Salt, for delicious bloody Caesars.

This ice cream has caramelized bananas mixed right in with oreo cookies and a creamy dense ice cream base.

Ingredients2 Large Onions (diced) 1 Habanero (minced) 1/4 Cup Dried Cranberries (minced) 1/3 Cup Pecans (chopped) 2 Tablespoon Butter1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar1 Wheel BrieBagel Chips Preparation: 10 minCooking: 1 h 15 minReady in: 1 h 25 min InstructionsCook the onions with 1 tablespoon of butter on medium low until browned, about 45 minutes.Add in the…

Ingredients1/4 Cup Sesame Oil1/4 Cup Rice Vinegar2 Cloves Garlic (Smashed) Chile FlakeBrown SugarFish SauceSalt1.25 Pounds Pork Belly (boneless skinless) Rice NoodlesMayoSrirachaRice VinegarFish SauceLettuceTomato For: 4 PeoplePreparation: 20 minCooking: 3 minReady in: 23 min InstructionsThe pork was tossed in a mixture of sesame oil, rice vinegar, garlic, chile flake, brown sugar, salt, and fish sauce. I…

I had some leftover pesto but it was only basil hazelnut and garlic, there was no cheese in it. I was brainstorming on how to repurpose the pesto, and because of the lack of cheese I was thinking of going Asian with it. Basil with a nut made me think that a vaguely Thai dish would work. I was thinking of mixing the pesto with some rice noodles at first and maybe popping some pork I had in the freezer on top, but when I was at the store, I was persuaded by the fresh summer corn and zucchini, and some really tasty looking potatoes. I ended up mixing the pesto in with mashed potato, and topping it with a mixture of the pork, corn, and zucchini dressed with some sriracha and fish sauce. It all came out fantastic, summery, and bright, and somehow light yet hearty and filling.

I thought it was pretty convenient when Pepcid wanted to do a sponsored post with me. I don’t know if you guys have seen this here blog of mine, but if you have you probably can believe that I get heartburn from time to time. My plan was to make an aggressively spicy feast for my friends and see if Pepcid was strong enough to prevent everyone from getting heartburn! We started with this appetizer of Polenta Stuffed Mushrooms that I posted on Tuesday, and then we moved on to the main event, these crazy hot chile basil tofu tacos.

If you told me 5 years ago that my coffee table would not only host my own cookbook, but also a cookbook written by a friend of mine, it wouldn’t even be something that my brain could grasp and I would probably just laugh it off. But here we are, and that sentence is a reality.

Nick from Macheesmo was a once rival, turned friend and also powerful ally in the world of food blogging, and his book Love your Leftovers, comes out in a few days! Love your Leftovers is an epic tome of meal planning that teaches you how to cook in large batches and then repurpose the leftovers into dinners later in the week. Nick is modest on the cover when he says there are “over 100” recipes in the book, because many of the recipes feature variations and twists with full ingredient lists. I asked him what the true recipe count was, and he said it comes to 187!!!

As I flipped through the book wondering what to cook the other night, the Vietnamese Noodle Salad that uses leftover grilled flank steak caught my eye (because I could eat vietnamese noodle salads every day of my life) and it did not disappoint.

Everyone loves super tender ribs that come right off the bone, and I bet you think that they are really hard to make. Well guess what? You take the ribs out of the packaging, dump some liquid onto it, put it in the oven, go play some video games, and boom, ribs. The one tricky part is getting that liquid just right. I wouldn’t use just any liquid floating around your dorm room, like whey protein shakes or bong water, you need to make a really flavorful concoction with a balance of sweet, sour, salty, and spicy. I’ve found that Korean Bulgogi marinade fits the bill just perfectly.

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.

When I was frying some tofu one day, I noticed that it sticks together really easily. As the tofu cooks, it basically binds to any other tofu cooking nearby. This gave me the idea to one day stuff cubes of tofu, considering that whatever the stuffing may be, the tofu would hold it in nicely. When “one day” finally came, I made a vaguely Asian turkey meatball mixture to stuff into the little cubes.