So I’m calling this a red pasta sauce because it is most similar to marinara sauce, but I’ve spiced it up and made it my own. Please feel free to experiment with this; I don’t think the sauce ever comes out the same twice in my household. I always like to add new things, but this is the basic version.
This is one of those amazingly easy side dishes I love to make so much. Why, you ask? Because it takes me 5 minutes to prep, it cooks in the oven while I make the entree, it’s healthy, and it’s oh so delicious. Tasty, easy noms are the best! You can do this with all kinds of vegetables, but brussel sprouts are probably my favorite.
This is another one of those nostalgic recipes from my Oma. Peach Cobbler is one of the few desserts that I only ever liked made by Oma. Most cobblers are overly sweet and the peach flavor drowns in the sugar. To further enhance her recipe, I also added ginger, just like she does with jam, and the resulting pie was positively to die for (I’m not bragging here; my fiance and I both licked our plates clean).
German potato salad is extraordinarily nostalgic for me. Growing up, my Oma and Opa would always have german potato salad at Christmas Eve dinner, along with German weiners, bratwurst, and herring salad. When I moved away to DC, I, of course, needed to take the recipe with me. This salad is sweet, vinegary, and finger-licking good. NomNomNom
Kabocha nimono is a staple for any Japanese diet. It’s one of those dishes that goes well with everything and is just as good when reheated. Usually when I make this dish, I just Google it. This particular time I used the recipe from Kanako’s Kitchen, which came out really well. Although to be honest, recipes don’t really vary much.
Gnocchi has been a favorite dish of mine since I first had the gnocchi in vodka sauce at Maggiano’s, the Italian restaurant chain. The texture, the subtle flavor, it all entangled me in a love affair that has spanned nearly a decade. The only problem with gnocchi, is most gnocchi is made with cheese mixed in. As a result, I had to learn to make it myself.
Garlic Bread is one of those things that just baffle me. As a young girl, I, as every other average American, enjoyed Texas Toast and the garlic bread loaves you can buy relatively cheaply in any grocery store. Tasty, buttery, garlicky goodness that all u have to do is throw it in the oven. I thought this was genius and the best I could get short of going to a really good Italian restaurant.
So this particular recipe is really more like half recipe, half review. I do not, and unfortunately never have, made Japanese Curry from scratch. It’s just far too easy to use the curry starter you can purchase in any grocery, and I put a lot of trust into Japanese products (their food regulations are VERY strict). There are many curry brands to choose from, but my favorite has always been Golden Curry. I rarely use anything other than this brand, and I recommend you use it for this recipe too.
I don’t always make fresh pasta dough, but there is a difference. Homemade pasta is nuttier in flavor and has the most delightful, doughy texture to it. If it didn’t take an hour for me to make and didn’t make me fat, I would home make pasta dough 3-4 times a week.
Unlike many of my dishes, this one really doesn’t have much of a story. One day, I was craving Chinese food, but I had recently moved and didn’t know the local restaurants. So what is a poor college student to do? Dig through the fridge and find a recipe that suited both the contents of the kitchen and the craving. The original recipe can be found here.
MY UMAI 