“Soup tastes like dirty water. (So does tea.)”

For some, soup is a paltry imitation of a real dish. Much like how chicken and turkey are a lesser form of protein than beef, pork, lamb, and fish in my eyes. To be fair, those who think soup is simply a waste of a bowl of food, a few vegetables and scraps of meat in a broth that is a few too many steps away from a meal probably are eating the wrong kind of soups, as I had been unfortunately eating the wrong kind of poultry.

The wrong kind of soup. You are all familiar with this sad, clear, liquid broth. The description of ‘dirty water’ is not far off, unfortunately. But here’s the thing, for all the wrong-kinds-of-soup out there in the world, there are four or eight or sixteen right-kinds-of-soup. Most of which are just as healthy, if not healthier than their watered-down counterparts. And on days like today, when Chicago decides to entertain the thought of winter, a hot bowl of thick soup is really the perfect complement to sub-freezing temperatures.

Start with a vegetable puree, and go on from there. Vegetables, once sautéed with a bit of onion, carrot, celery, and spice, simmered down with a bit of broth, turn velvety and luscious when pureed. It’s the flavorful and less-artery-clogging alternative to lapping up a bowl of cream. (The casual bowl of cream.) In the case of this Spicy Cauliflower Soup, it’s the hot, wonderful balance of cumin, coriander, and the savoriness of cauliflower, blended to a creamy finish that make it a meal. Finished off with a drizzle of olive oil and there it is, the absolutely perfect bowl of soup. No dirty water to be found.

Recipe on the following page.

Wake yourself up with Irish Coffee. Whiskey, coffee, sugar, and cream.

Click here for the recipe, and to read more.

“Coffee and toffee is my favorite ice cream combination.” That’s all a birthday girl needs to say and POOF. Coffee Toffee Ice Cream.

Yes, another’s birthday is really just an excuse to make ice cream. You caught me.

But look, can you blame me?

It’s a tale/flavor combination as old as time—coffee and toffee. Coffee has a complex flavor profile, and history. What complements a multi-faceted flavor assault of a magnitude to the order of coffee, that extreme nectar, better than the lightening power of cream? What better to highlight the caramel tones of a coffee liquor than a piece of brickly caramel itself, toffee? Coffee itself is such a rich and deep experience (go ahead and commit, it is a profound experience), that it begs to be immortalized in…ice cream.

Yup, this is a food blog (surprise). Instead of painting a picture, or whipping out my carving tools and a casual chunk of marble, I churn some ice cream in moments of inspiration. Which tastes better, a sculpture, or Coffee Toffee Ice Cream?

(Rhetorical question. You know the answer. Now if only there were as many birthdays to celebrate with ice cream as there were moments when I want to make ice cream…)

Recipe on the following page.

Think of the last taco you consumed. Even if it was a relatively low-end taco, (looking at you Flash Taco), the kind of tacos that come piled up high with everything vaguely Latin in flavor, it was a damn good taco. And it probably only cost $2. (If it cost more, you did something wrong.

Tacos have an air of immediacy about them; they demand to be eaten where ever (whenever!) you may be. Standing up, outside on the sidewalk, sitting down on whatever at the moment constitutes a chair, tacos cannot wait. There is really no point in taking a taco to go as it takes less than three minutes to devour. Take the time, and eat it a couple feet from whence it was given to you. Let the overflowing taco drip down your forearms and coat the sides of your mouth with a slick of taco-grease.

Maybe go back and get another.

In addition to being absolutely irresistible, tacos have the added bonus of being able to contain anything. Carnitas, carne asada, grilled pollo, poached pollo, fried fish, grilled fish, lenuga, or a simple veggie filling like papas. They work with any protein, and can sustain any number of salsas, cremas, cheeses, and condiments. As it turns out, condiments in terms of tacos are more often than not the star of tortilla-enclosed world.

Blasphemy. Not for the above statement, but for this salsa rosa. A creamy (without cream), thick salsa of roasted red peppers and Serrano chilies, salsa rosa is a substantial and spicy sauce that goes perfect with any an all tacos. Breakfast tacos, huevos rancheros (taco-adjacent), chorizo tacos, fish tacos, the list goes on. As a bonus, this salsa is easy to make. Roast, cleans, puree, done. And there you have it, three to four cups of the perfect taco condiment. (To be fair, this would be great on almost anything like sandwiches, pastas, salads, or crostinis…) The thing is, this salsa rosa is from Italian-American Michael Chiarello, not a descendent of the taco-ancestry. Oops.

Never fear. This salsa just speaks to the taco’s versatility. Tacos play well with others (and should be eaten immediately.) What a wonderful food.

Recipe on the following page.

Hummus, the dip that has taken over the world. And the best part is, it can be made out of anything, any-bean, any-spice.

Click here for the recipe, and to read more.

There is always a moment of guilt when, standing in the kitchen, you’re faced with the option of adding bacon. Bacon to breakfast, bacon to that turkey club, bacon to the mashed potatoes, bacon to the salad…bacon, in its salty crispness, plays extremely well with others. Which means, sometimes the only thing keeping bacon off the plate is self-restraint.

Self-restraint in the face of bacon? Almost nonexistent. Why even bother, when the result is a guaranteed success. (Always.)

In making Alice Waters’ Cream Biscuits, there was however, a moment of doubt. Are the bacon and cheddar additions really necessary? After all, these biscuits aren’t called cream biscuits because they’re lacking in lipid goodness. But then something strange happened. The cookbook rationalized the addition of not only bacon, but cheddar too. In its own magic way, the cookbook spoke to me. Or rather, Alice Waters spoke to me, through her Brussels Sprouts gratin.

On page 295, Alice had left a map, a guide, just for these kinds of ‘should I add bacon to this’ situation. There, in the vegetable section, Alice had left clear directions to add bacon where it may otherwise have been thought inappropriate. (Obviously clear directions, my bacon-addicted brain rationalized.) It was as if she was speaking to me, guiding me to continue down the bacon-laden path. If bacon does wonders she said, to one of the most infamous of vegetables, Brussels Sprouts, if it’s acceptable to add bacon and ‘thin shavings of butter’ to vegetables, just imagine what a little bacon and cheese could do to the already lovely Cream Biscuits.

And Alice was right. So right.

Recipe on the following page.

Cucumber kimchi…good enough to get paid in.

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Like these CinnaBunBombs, the Ho-Ho-Ho is a recipe that’s been a long time coming. It’s a Christmas tradition in our house, at our aunt’s house, at our other aunt’s house…wherever there’s Christmas dinner, there is a Ho-Ho-Ho waiting patiently in the fridge a la Santa up on the roofs. Waiting for dinner to end, and for everything sweet to come to the table.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the Ho-Ho-Ho is yet another punny dessert. Get it? Christmas? A giant Ho-Ho that large enough it needs another ‘Ho’ added to the title? Santa Claus’ more iconic saying? It’s a dessert that’s made for the holidays, both in name and in taste.

Like the infamous Hostess treat, the Ho-Ho-Ho is a dessert that brings smiles to one and all. Except instead of that wonderful (and it is wonderful) packaged chocolate cake, thick saccharine cream, and odd chocolate ‘coating,’ the Ho-Ho-Ho is a homemade cake. A chocolate soufflé roll, vanilla whipped cream, and rich chocolate ganache. The white chocolate ganache twizzle is simply the wink on top of the cake. (True Hostess aficionados will note that the twizzle is not traditionally of the Ho-Ho treat. It’s snack cake blasphemy, I know. But it tastes good, real good. And I like to think that if all Hostesses desserts could get together and combine in joyful union, the Ho-Ho-Ho would be the result. Tasty, taste results.)

The real beauty of the Ho-Ho-Ho is neither taste-based nor aesthetic. The secret is: the Ho-Ho-Ho is a soufflé roll that’s ridiculously easy to make. It’s practically foolproof as long as you take the requisite cooling steps with damp paper towels, and don’t over beat the eggs. Though I’ll tell you another secret. Even if the cake breaks during rolling, it’s still delicious. Just pretend you made a layer cake, the abstract interpretation of a Ho-Ho. Pastry is a great medium for abstract expression after all.

Recipe on the following page.

I apologize, that was inappropriate. But these are a baked good made for punning. Sometimes, the pun just can’t stop. Won’t stop. Shouldn’t stop.

These cinnamon buns, or rather pecan cinnamon sticky buns, have been a long time coming. Six years in fact. The first tray of cinnamon buns I made were adapted from America’s Test Kitchen, of these magical muffins, and of course, everything else tested and approved that tastes good in the kitchen. At 15, I knew these buns were special, yet imperfect. They were the novice buns. A dozen or so trays and a half dozen years later, after the wholesome addition of more goo, the removal of that cream cheese white icing which is at once unnecessary and a reminder of those delectable and entirely easier Pillsbury buns, this recipe has risen from the remains. The gooey, sticky, sweet remains of the buns of holidays past.

Since these are the perfected Frankenstein of cinnamon buns, over time they’ve accrued a mish-mash of the cinnamon bun name—CinnaBunBombs. Cinna is obvious. Bun is a reference to the bun itself (duh, for the slow in the crowd) as well as a nod to the chain that brings the buns to the masses. (A worthy task if there ever was one.) Bombs is in there for a healthy dose of alliteration, but also to signify the Magnitude of the Bun. These are not buns to be taken lightly. They are so incredibly rich, so over-the-top, that only on holiday mornings does it really feel right to consume such decadence. Hence, the Bombs.

That being said, my brother ate five. So perhaps deliciousness can overcome any fear of the sugary and buttery.

Recipe on the following page.

The kitchen is a weird place. Sometimes, things get a little crazy. For example, when the parents flee for a couple days, and only the children remain, the kitchen can turn from a place of spotless surfaces and a well-stocked fridge into a cityscape built out of dirty dishes and empty cracker and cookie boxes. Stacked high around the sink, eventually the dishes move out and colonize the other countertops, making their way from wall to wall to island until eventually, there are no dishes left to be used. Talk about a limiting resource.

In the absence of parental supervision, the food that’s been turned out of our kitchen has been a little off kilter too. No vegetable dinners. Solely vegetable dinners. Sandwich meals, of five different sandwiches. Pie meals. All have been odd, it’s true, but they’ve been glorious as well. After all, it’s pie for dinner.

The one substantial meal-that-most-resembled-a-meal included sweet potato cakes a la Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty cookbook, an early holiday gift. (A gift that doubled as an ‘eat less baked goods, for Pete’s sake’ message from my mother. But since the book is so pretty, and offers up so many delectable options, I’ve forgiven it for the lack of pastry.) Coupled with a bit of kielbasa, onions, and peppers, the sweet potato cakes rounded out a full meal. Remarkable, considering we had no clean dishes to start cooking with. The experience was somewhat of a MacGyver cooking endevour.

These cakes take what you love about sweet potatoes—the color, the taste, the natural sugars, the starchy goodness—and add in a few simple seasonings—hints of smoke and chipotle peppers, a blast of fresh green onions. Then, of course, it’s all fried in butter. Voila,  sweet potato cakes. If you follow the recipe and use tablespoon portions of the potato mixture—as I did after creating massive potato cake anomalies with handfuls of the stuff—the result is something wonderfully crispy, starchy, and heartening. The perfect appetizer or accompaniment to any variety of sauces and dips. Warmed up the next day, it’s practically a potato party for lunch. At that point, since they’re leftovers, if you eat with you’re hands, there are no dirty dishes accrued. Win.

 Recipe on the following page.