• Flank Steak Hummus Roll Ups

    Hummus and beef may sound like a weird combination to us westerners who mainly use hummus as a dip for pita, but it’s actually a fairly common combination in middle eastern food. In this flank steak recipe, the hummus is used not only as a seasoning for the meat but also as a glue to help bind the steak together. It’s national hummus day on the 15th, and Sabra is really going all out for the day, I will give you some of the details on their fun giveaways at the end of the post.

  • Rice Bun Burgers

    This burger uses two rice patties as the buns. For toppings, cucumber, mint, peanut, and sriracha.

  • Veggie Loaded Meatloaf

    I was craving meatloaf. This is a sentence I have said as many as never times in my life, but it was the case the other night. If you are following along, you probably noticed the trend of healthy, mostly meatless, and pretty inexpensive dishes recently, because that is how I try to cook this time of year. Plus I keep having to make mac and cheese stuffed burgers for the cookbook publicity so I am trying to counteract some of that. That all being said, I wanted to make a vegetarian or mostly vegetarian “loaf”. I did some research, but most veggie loafs were loaded with grains and tofu, and not actual veggies like I wanted. I decided to just wing it and do mostly veg with a little beef and some cheese, sort of like a veggie heavy lightened version of a regular meatloaf.

  • Italian Chili

    A chili recipe that uses Italian ingredients and flavors, and is topped with grilled polenta

  • Arepa Burger

    A double smash burger served on an arepa with guacamole and cilantro

  • Thai Inspired Sloppy Subs

    Some of you guys might remember “Bro Week” from a few years back, where I made an effort to cook really simple recipes for a whole week, while maintaining my unique style and still using mostly homemade and fresh ingredients. Well my sister is a junior in college this year and has a kitchen in her apartment for the first time, so I decided to do another week of easy recipes geared towards her and other college students who want a break from the caf and aren’t in the mood for takeout. I know in reality, Jello shots is probably the only recipe of mine that will be happening in that kitchen, but I’d like to think that maybe Joanna, or other college students might benefit from this week of recipes.

    For the first college week recipe, I have a sloppy sub that is influenced by a Thai dish that features ground meat in a light chile-basil sauce. The slow cooker was perfect for this dish, as I was able to let it do it’s thing for 4 hours only stirring it twice through the process. I may be wrong, but I think tastes have changed a little in the 10 years since I was in college, and more and more students are into a little more adventurous cuisines like Thai, but still maybe can’t get any near campus, so I thought that this would be a fun and easy way to satisfy that craving.

  • Vietnamese Bun Vermicelli Burgers

    Last week I went to an awesome burger event in Boston called Battle of the Burger. It was lots of fun and sponsored by Amstel, so as you can imagine I had a few. I tried as hard as I could to taste all 20 burgers there, but alas, I only made it to about 15. I almost had to crawl out of the event I was so full! I even had to pass on the make your own sundae booth, and throw away a few bites of a shake shack burger which might have been a low point of my life. I was really impressed with many of the burgers, especially the lamb and tzatziki burger from Cafeteria, but overall, I wished some of the restaurants lightened things up a bit. Every burger was an overindulgent savory bomb which was awesome at first, but after trying 10 or so, they all started to meld together. If I was there, I would have served these Vietnamese vermicelli topped burgers as a bit of a reprieve from the bacon-truffle-mushroom-aioli-cheese madness.

  • Hummus Pizza

    Did you guys know that hummus makes an awesome alternative to pizza sauce? I used it on pizza at a recent pizza party, and a few people even called it the best pizza there! I decided not to get weird with the flavors like I did yesterday, instead I just topped the pizza with some of hummus’s best friends. Friends like feta, olives, kofta, and tzatziki.

  • 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…