I grew up in a relatively small city in the South. It's big enough to have an airport, but small enough that that airport only has five gates (and one direct flight to NY that I never take because it costs approximately a billion million dollars) -- big enough that some people have heard of it, but small enough that a nod and an "Oh, right, right," ...
Recipes
banana cupcakes with nutella swirl
A few months ago, in the midst of bar exam doldrums, I came across this recipe for banana bread bars with brown butter frosting that looked mindblowing. But, given our extremely sedentary (nearly vegetative) lifestyle at the time, I omitted the frosting and ended up making only the bars, with Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. And they were ...
nutella espresso pancakes
I have a problem. It's now been a week and a day of my visit home to my parents. In that time, I've baked three dozen mini matcha shortbread cookies, a dozen almond rosemary shortbread cookies, some topsy-turvy cinnamon rolls (next time I'll roll you properly, little ones), pumpkin cupcakes, and green tea cupcakes. It's a little excessive. It's ...
matcha shortbread cookies
Hi again! This past week, I said a wistful goodbye to paradise and headed back home to visit my own parents, while Bowl #2 stayed in Honolulu for a little while longer to enjoy some alone time with his family. It was the perfect, lazy, relaxing trip (and I already miss Bowl #2's mom so much!) but it was time to go home. Honolulu, I'll be seeing ya. ...
myulchi bokkeum (stirfried anchovies with almonds and walnuts)
Coming from a Chinese family means that I ate a lot of weird things indiscriminately when I was growing up. But we never really had a lot of anchovies. Actually, up until recently, I really only knew of anchovies as that one American pizza topping that all the fictional characters hated in the books I read as a kid. (Babysitters' Club, anyone?) ...
white nectarine mini-crisp
OK, so I know what this looks like. It looks like another summer recipe. (After I already posted a fall recipe, saying that it's fall.) But it’s a really versatile summer recipe! You can sub apples and make it a fall recipe! Or sub frozen blueberries and make it an anytime recipe. Plus, some people in the world haven’t even had summer yet. And ...
japchae! (and beef bulgogi!)
All right, so I might be breaking some of my blog rules (gentle guidelines?) with this recipe. It's not technically difficult -- if I made it, it's definitely not -- but it's a bit of a hassle. And it's not super great for little households, since it's at its best when first made. But it's homemade japchae! Homemade japchae. I just couldn't ...
jalapeno sweet corn muffins
Happy Sunday! A few months ago, I was back home visiting my parents and noticed a box of sweet corn muffins sitting on the kitchen table. Oh, that's interesting, I thought, and next thing I knew there was only one left and incriminating crumbs were all over my face and fingers. (By the way, they were Publix brand -- anyone else absolutely ...
kimchi grilled cheese
Did you just gasp with horror? I realize that this is a highly polarizing statement, but I love kimchi and cheese. I can't imagine budae jjigae without cheese. I made kimchi chicken quesadillas once and thought I'd died and gone to heaven. And this kimchi grilled cheese might be my very favorite grilled cheese sandwich, ever. ...
simplest blueberry muffins
Happy Monday! It's such a foreign idea to me that summer is ending. With the bar exam just a few weeks behind us, it feels like it's barely begun. Even so, I know I should get my blueberry recipes out of the way now, so here's the second of the two I made this summer. Last week I posted the first of two blueberry recipes I made this summer, ...