It's a new year, and while most people are making their Best of (fill in the blank) 2013, I thought I'd share a to-do list I have for myself for 2014. And of course it involves food. Here are the 14 recipes I just HAVE to make this year. See the links for the recipes!

Not just any hush puppies. Sausage Jalapeno Hush Puppies, from one of my favorite food blogs, Shutterbean. Two very important things happened in 2013 that made me put this recipe at the top of the list. One, I had my first hush puppy and it was magical. And two, I learned how to fry things without burning down the house.

One day when my gluten-free friend, Tess, comes over I will make her a pizza on a cauliflower crust. There are tons of recipes online, but I think I'll go with this one from Eat, Drink, Smile. Its doesn't have any crazy ingredients, and it looks like it could hold up some serious toppings.

And while we're on the topic of pizza, if you haven't made yogurt pizza crust yet, you don't know what you're missing. It's a simple pizza crust that is made with Greek yogurt and self-rising flour. It's so fast and so tasty that you will want to make a big batch and stick it in the freezer for a quick weeknight dinner, or for last minute entertainment. I made these a couple times in 2013, but I added it to this list because I will be making more. Also, quick note, if you don't have self-rising flour on hand, you can make it.

Pickles are great. I want to make them. I will make them! Check out this recipe from A Couple Cooks.

There aren't many foods that I don't like, but on that very short list, olives were at the top of it. Until like, 3 weeks ago, when I ate one and realized that olives are delicious and I want them all the time. So this fancy looking, easy sounding recipe peaked my interest. Cheddar? Olives? Cheddar olives!

I host Easter for my family, and I am seriously thinking of adding these to my menu. Potatoes and eggs? Delicious. And they look so pretty. My favorite food blogger and food network star, The Pioneer Woman, has a great looking recipe.

I've never been a big baker. Why? Probably because my family doesn't bake much. Probably because I didn't have the right tools to make baking enjoyable. My few experiences with baking have been overwhelming and messy and time consuming. The addition of a few new kitchen tools recently (thanks Santa) has made the the world of baking seem a little less daunting, and I've found myself saving more and more recipes. I can't wait to try these beautiful Heartbreak Raspberry Cream Scones from Sophisticated Gourmet. I have to wait until I have guests over though, because it's suggested they are eaten the same day, and I don't know if even I can handle eating nine of them on my own.

As you can see from the picture at the top of this post, I can check this one off the list! Here is the recipe I used from the professionals at King Arthur's Flour.

You can do some amazing things with those little wonton wrappers. We have our fair share of parties over the course of the year and I'm always looking for quick and delicious appetizer/party foods to make. Tacos, pizza, salad, and even ravioli!

We had these crunchy chickpeas on a salad at a restaurant this year. Here's a recipe from Steamy Kitchen! They are great on salad and plain as a snack.

I haven't had a chicken croquette since I was a kid. We ate the frozen kind, but they were one of my favorite meals. I had forgotten all about them until I stumbled this chicken croquette recipe. I don't know how they'll turn out, but I imagine if I do my job, they will transport me to my childhood like a little teardrop-shaped time machine.

I did a post on my purchase of a spiralizer earlier this year, and I've made a couple of recipes from the food blog, Inspiralized. But the one I really want to try this year, out of nothing more than pure fascination, is the Sweet Potato Spiralized Sandwich Bun.

This variation on the classic whoopie pie from Cookies and Cups looks fresh and sweet and light. Just look at them.

Now, I can't only have ONE Pioneer Woman recipe on this list, can I? I might have to wait until next Thanksgiving to make these (or substitute chicken) but they look like a crisp, fresh bundle of goodness.

POSTED BY: Stefanie LaSalle

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Holidays are always all about family. Rob and I are so thankful that we live close to both our families so we get to see everyone for the holidays. Christmas is pretty convenient because Rob's family has traditionally celebrated on Christmas Eve, while my family is all about the Day. Thanksgiving on the other hand, can get a little crazy.

Deliciously crazy.

Two full turkey dinners. Two heaping piles of mashed potatoes. Two baskets of rolls. Two bowls of stuffing. Hell, there's even a ham in there somewhere. Needless to say, we were the stuffed turkeys by the end of the day.

Our first stop was at Rob's mom's house for lunch. She made a sprawling feast, featuring three different meats, and a variety sides. AND APPLE PIE. And ice cream. And then we died.

Even though Rob has a humongous family (wait until Christmas Eve), Thanksgiving is pretty low key. The past two years, it's just been four of us - Rob, his mom, his brother and me - but this year we were honored to be joined by his Uncle Al. 

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Mrs. Brodeur because she was flying around before lunch getting everything prepared and I didn't get any good shots of her. Then we were all in a food coma following lunch and I missed my chance. 

But thank you Mrs. B! 

Still recovering from lunch, we arrived at my parents house to find THIS resting on the stove. HOLY TURKEY.

We were excited to welcome my Aunt and Uncle who just moved back up to RI after living down south for many, many years. While the Turkey is usually the star at Thanksgiving, I have to say, my dad's mashed potatoes usually get everyone's attention. The only other time he makes them is Easter (which is at my place) and I definitely exercise my host privileges and keep a few extra leftovers for myself.

My mom never returns a dish empty. As soon as I can breath again, I'm digging in!

Thanksgiving dinner went off without a hitch. Well, almost without a hitch. SOMEONE wasn't paying attention and we ended up losing a baster. RIP Baster. You've kept many turkeys moist over the years. 

After everything was clean, and the guests left, we went to bed. Stores weren't going to shop themselves on Black Friday! My mom and I have gone shopping every years since I was in college. It's not really any extra deal for us, but more an excuse for us to have a girl's day every year.

Enjoy the rest of your long holiday weekend and don't eat too many leftovers!

POSTED BY: Stefanie LaSalle


We had two Cornish hens in our freezer. Why? Because I saw them, and they were cute and I had to have them. 

And this weekend I cooked 'em up in a little pre-Thanksgiving dinner. 

To go along with our tiny bird feast, I also wanted to try some new recipes from my favorite food sites. I don't get a chance to cook any other time during Thanksgiving, since we have two full dinners prepared for us (Tale of Two Turkeys) so this was a good excuse to try out some classic Thanksgiving favorites in case I need them one day.

Green Bean Casserole, from The Novice Chef

Sausage & Cornbread Stuffing, adapted from The Pioneer Woman

A few summers ago we went to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico and one night I ordered, "A baby chicken, cooked in it's own juices" from the menu. I don't know if it was for real a baby chicken, or exactly what those "juices" were, or if something just got lost in the translation. But either way, it was delicious and ever since then I've wanted to cook up a tiny bird of my own.

Here's the Mexican baby chicken. So tiny.

Considering this picture of me was taken at the end of a week in Mexico, I am surprisingly NOT tan. That's probably because I'm terrified of burning and I spent the entire trip slathered in sunscreen, under a hat and a towel and an umbrella and a canopy and a palm tree. You know, just to be safe.

Here are my two Cornish hens, defrosted. Naked.

I poured melted butter, and dusted with salt and pepper at this point. Then I covered with tinfoil and baked at 350 degrees for 45 mins.

There were too many steps and I was too hungry to correctly document every step, so I only have pictures of the final products. I've been researching food photography a lot recently, and the number one tip from all my sources was USE NATURAL LIGHT. I started cooking a bit late, but I did manage to get some shots of the green bean casserole in the light from the window in my kitchen. I think it really did make big difference and I will TRY to cook during the daylight hours as often as I can. This recipe can be found at the Novice Chef

Here is the cornbread and sausage stuffing, adapted from Pioneer Woman. I cut the recipe since it was just the two of us. It still made quite a bit of stuffing and we have a bunch of leftovers. I also don't really like apples in my food (other than sweet, dessert type foods) so I left those out. It came out SO good. 

The sausage that I used in this was from Moody Street Delicatessen and Provisions in Waltham. It's a brand new place on food row (a.k.a. Moody St). We visited for the first time on Saturday and I bought a lot of meat and cheese. Hopefully around the holidays I'll have a day off and can get in there during lunchtime to snap some pics so you can see the beautiful shop. The prices are higher than you would pay in the supermarket, but that's because all the meats are handmade on the premises.

The final feast!

After the hens cooked for the first 45 mins. I took them out. I smothered the left hen in Pioneer Woman's turkey butter found in her holiday cookbook, which consists of butter, fresh chopped rosemary and the zest of an orange. The bird on the right has a mixture of sriracha, honey, soy sauce, lime juice and melted butter. It was adapted from The Comfort of Cooking's recipe. It would have been EXACTLY like their recipe, except when I tried it my "sauce" came out all crazy.

I don't know exactly what happened, but I think it had to do with the honey and the heat. SO I used the same ingredients without heating them it it came our very tasty.

HAPPY (mini) THANKSGIVING!

I'm not a cook. I like to cook. I obsess over countless cooking blogs daily and dream of cooking all those delicious beautiful meals. SoI think it's fitting that this blogs first post chronicles us making a meal.

We don't usually make meals that are so...meatless.

Recipe: Seen on Joanne Eats Well With Others, Eggplant meatballs adapted from My Calabria via Big Flavors From a Tiny Kitchen

First step, cube one large unpeeled eggplant...annnnd I've already neglected to follow directions.

Eggplant peeled. Oops. I don't know if keeping the peel on would have made any difference. In fact, with all the squishing we have to do to get the water out in the next steps, I think the peel might have gotten in the way. I thought the final product turned out fine without the peel.

Next, you want to squish as much water out of the eggplant as you can. If you have a potato ricer or other contraption to help you do this, then go ahead and use it. I used this slotted spoon and pushed it up against the side of the strainer. I switched over to a wooden spoon after a while to get a little more leverage. Then, I dumped out the eggplant onto a paper towel and pushed down with a few more paper towels until I felt that I had gotten enough water out. 

Then you're left with a small pile of squished eggplant pieces. Not very appetizing, but I promise you, the final form will be worth it.

Next, you want to chop, chop, chop that pile of eggplant until you have smaller little pieces. That'll make it easier to mix in with the other ingredients and form the "meat"balls.

When the consistency is sort of like ground beef, throw it in a bowl with the breadcrumbs, seasoning, cheese and egg. The original recipe called for manchego.. I didn't have that on hand, so I finely grated some Monterrey jack, a.k.a. the most delicious cheese ever. While the final flavors of the cheese went well with everything else, this recipe definitely counts on the creamy consistency of the manchego to help the balls stay together. So, I added TWO eggs instead of one. Two seemed to be exactly what it needed.

After giving the ingredients a mix with my hands, I start forming it into 1" balls and put them aside until I was ready to fry 'em up. 

At this point, I was very surprised with how meaty they seemed. They looked like meatballs. And now that they were mixed with breadcrumbs and seasoning, they smelled like meatballs. 

Here they all are, waiting to be thrown into some hot oil.

This recipe made exactly nine balls. They were a good size, and they could probably feed 3 or 4 people when served with rice. Since there were only two of us, and they were delicious, we ate them all.  ALL OF THEM.

Fill the bottom of a skillet with about 1/2" oil. The recipe says olive oil, but I didn't have a lot of that in my pantry at the moment so I used canola oil. It worked very well. You want to make sure the oil is really hot before you put the eggplant meatballs in or else you'll end up with some soggy meat-a-balls!

Use one to test it - the oil should start sizzling immediately when the meatball hits it. Then get em' all in there! If you are using a smaller skillet, or making more meatballs, it's better to do the frying in batches.

LOOK AT ALL OF THEM. They smell so good.

They fry up pretty quick, even on medium heat. You definitely want to keep moving them around so they get some nice color on all sides. 

Here I think they were looking meatier than ever! My fiance, Rob, came in at this point, and he wasn't understanding that what he was looking at was meatless.

The recipe from Joanna Eats Well uses a premade sesame, garlic, ginger sauce. I didn't have any of that sauce but I did have a very infrequently used bottle of sesame oil that I've been looking to get rid of, along with minced garlic, ginger powder, low sodium soy sauce, and a lil' sriracha sauce because, what the hell.

I also added in the dark part of some green onions finely chopped. 

NOTE: a little of this stuff goes a long way. All the ingredients have powerful flavors. The amount shown was plenty to go over the meatball, snap peas and even a little left over for the rice that I served with it. So be gentle.

When they are all cooked up, remove them from the skillet with a slotted spatula, or very carefully with some tongs, and put them on a paper towel. They seemed to hold together pretty well.

Trying to minimize the amount of dishes we'd have to clean, I poured the excess oil out of the skillet, poured in the sesame/garlic/ginger sauce I threw together, and let that heat for a few seconds.

I had a bag of frozen snap peas in the freezer, so I just poured them into the sauce, still frozen and let the heat warm them through. Toss them around a bit to get them coated in the sauce.

Once the snap peas are warmed through, put the eggplant balls in with them and toss them around a bit to get a little sauce on them too.

I made some basmati rice on the side. Went well with the meatballs and peas. 

Next time I make these, I'm planning on going the italian route instead of asian. Serve these with red sauce and parmesan and mozzarella and it's a nice alternative to eggplant Parm. Or as my mom says, 'eggplant Pahm."

Oh Rhode Island.

So to sum up, this recipe is definitely not a quick fix on a busy weeknight. There's many steps and it can be a little physical pushing the water out of the eggplant and chopping it up. However, if you're looking to try something new with ingredients that are easy to find and create a delicious meal, this would be fun weekend dinner project for you.

Enjoy!

-Stefanie