finding time for cooking | for the time-starved or curious culinary adventurer

Farro Salad with Butternut Squash, Goat Cheese, & Pepitas

April 14, 2019

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a simple healthy dinner recipe…probably because it’s been a while since I’ve *made* one that doesn’t require just throwing chicken and veggies on the grill. But this yummy and super easy farro salad is such a perfect way to transition from winter’s cozy comfort food to lighter summer fare that I had to share.

This is another Smitten Kitchen gem that I’ve adapted in several different iterations depending on what I have in the fridge (like that delish goat cheese with thyme and apricots you can kind of see in the pic below). This is the simplest version, but feel free to add to or switch up ingredients. The best part of this dish is the combination of different textures and flavors—creamy, chewy, salty, crunchy, sweet. So as you swap things in and out, try and maintain those elements for maximum awesomeness. You can also try it with different grains (barley is a particular favorite of mine).

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Norwegian Skillingsboller (Cinnamon Bun Pastries)

March 31, 2019

I’ve been lucky enough to visit Norway a couple of times over the past year, and have quickly fallen in love with the country’s mind-blowing landscapes and delicious baked goods. Yes, scenery and pastries—that’s basically what I’m here for.

Most recently, I spent a few days in charming Bergen over the holidays, and made it a point to visit as many coffeeshops and try as many different pastries as possible (all in the name of research, of course). And as soon as I got home, I knew I had to try out some of the recipes myself. So behold, skillingsbolle!

Skillingsboller (skillingsbolle is plural) are basically Norway’s take on cinnamon buns, and technically these are really specific to Bergen. It translates to “penny bun” (kanelboller would be “cinnamon bun”, and you’ll see that all over Norway as well), and they are truly everywhere in Bergen.

Want to see all about my Norwegian adventures? Here you go!

I tweaked the original recipe a bit and added the cardamom, letting it steep in the milk and butter mixture to give extra flavor. That cardamom is a flavor I fully associate with Scandinavian pastries, so I felt it was necessary (but too much will overpower the buns). These are actually WAY easier than they look, and the end result is less sweet than regular American cinnamon rolls. It’s just lightly sweet and much more subtle (and also lower calorie, as a result), perfect for having as an afternoon snack with your coffee.

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Simple Rosemary Unleavened Bread

March 24, 2019

When it comes to the Days of Unleavened Bread, it’s hard not to just go back to my old favorite recipes, rather than branching out a bit. But every year I try to make myself try at least one new unleavened recipe, to see if I can find a new tradition to add to my annual recipe repertoire. And this super simple rosemary unleavened bread recipe is one of the best I’ve tried in years!

Disclaimer: I keep the Days of Unleavened Bread (the week following Passover) as laid out in the bible, so I avoid leavening (sometimes called a rising agent). This can be things like yeast, baking powder, etc. (definition here). My understanding is that some Jewish people (particularly Orthodox Jews) may keep these days differently and also avoid flour and certain grains. I can’t speak to that in any way, and only you know how you keep the Days of Unleavened Bread. So please don’t send me angry comments, you have been warned 🙂

This recipe comes courtesy of my bestie (a.k.a. my Cheese) out in California. I love a handwritten recipe! The main change I’ve made is using white whole wheat flour, as I like the taste better and is healthier. It’s also a little more true to how the Israelites would have made their unleavened bread. I’ve done it basically half and half, using a cup of white flour and a cup of the white whole wheat, and that still tastes great too.

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Blood Orange Elderflower Gin Cocktail

March 17, 2019

I just recently realized that I’ve never purchased blood oranges, despite being kind of obsessed with the idea of them (along with Meyer lemons). They feel like…fancy citrus? Citrus fruit for wealthy folks??

Regardless, I literally never see them at my grocery store, but magically stumbled upon a few recently and so snatched them up with absolutely zero idea of what I was going to make. After poring through tons of recipes, I ended up coming back to the idea of a kind of souped-up gin & tonic. A refreshing blood orange cocktail for spring!

This recipe feels like an adaptation of the French gimlet, which I *also* love. But while the original version of this recipe calls for ginger ale, I’ve substituted tonic water as I am firmly NOT a ginger fan. UGH. And the tonic water lengthens the drink (makes it less potent) so you can enjoy it for longer.

One of the keys here is to make sure you’re using fresh lime juice. Trust me when I say that the bottled lime juice you keep in your fridge will not work in this drink. I’ve tried. It’s terrible. If you don’t have fresh limes then either omit it or save this recipe for another day. *shudders*

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Chai Spice Banana Bread

March 3, 2019

In a true signal of adulthood, I buy bananas about every other week solely to let them get overripe and bake with them. But here’s the thing—I don’t actually like banana bread. It doesn’t appeal to me at all. So what I’ve ended up doing as a non-banana bread lover is accidentally starting a tradition of finding souped-up banana bread recipes to bring you.

Chai spices have been a favorite flavor combination of mine since I was in college and discovered Starbucks’ chai lattes (grande nonfat no-water chai, please!). So when I saw this recipe I knew I had to give it a try…the fragrant combination of the traditional cinnamon and ginger, with the warmth of cardamom and kick of black pepper and cloves is just divine.

So here’s another amazing OTT (over the top) banana bread recipe for you, and it’s definitely going in my regular rotation. I’ve linked to a few of my favorite other banana bread recipes at the bottom of this post if you’d like to give them a try as well!

One thing I’ll tell you up front—don’t be intimidated by the number of ingredients in the recipe. The lazy person in me kept me from trying this recipe for quite a while after I’d bookmarked it, but everything comes together very quickly and simply.

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Addictive Dark Chocolate, Peanut Butter, & Tahini Bark

February 20, 2019

I haven’t been quite this obsessed with something in quite some time.

And of all things it’s a *bark* recipe, which I am historically just “meh” on. But this delicious blend of rich, bittersweet chocolate and punchy peanut butter chips, lifted up slightly by nutty tahini and a crunch of sea salt, is like amazing not-actually-that-bad-for-you crack.

The most critical thing in making this amazing is to use a high-quality dark chocolate. Since the chocolate is the base and the entire carrier of this recipe, using a cheaper and lower quality kind will definitely result in a mediocre product. That doesn’t mean you need something insanely expensive, just more along the lines of Ghiradelli vs. Hershey’s. Trust me, it’s worth it!

I love this so much that I’d love to find a way to make it just as yummy, but using a healthier alternative to peanut butter chips. The actual chemistry of how bark sets isn’t really my area of expertise, so I’m going to do some fiddling and researching to see if this is feasible…as much as I love peanut butter chips, they’re not super great for me and this would be quite a really nice healthy indulgence.

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Feta & Sweet Potato Hash With Greens

February 10, 2019

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted something healthy, which feels like a pretty good indication of what my life choices have been like lately :p #allcarbsallthetime

Between work, travel, and this disgustingly cold polar vortex weather, I’ve been indulging a bit too much, and right now I feel the need to get my eating back on track. But it’s still gross cold and so these healthy options have to be delicious as well. Behold—soft, sweet, salty, healthy feta & sweet potato hash!

The flavors of the mellow sweet potato, the bitterness of the greens, and the saltiness of the feta play really well together, and the dried herbs add depth to the overall flavor profile. It’s a really comforting dish, something easy to throw together and really healthy, but feels like you’ve done something special. Here’s to good choices 🙂

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Sailing & Snacking In Sweden’s Gothenburg Archipelago

February 5, 2019

Wow, I hadn’t realized how long it’s been since I’ve talked about my two true loves together—food and travel!

Today I want to show you a little bit about my trip to Sweden, which was completely impromptu and ended up being completely epic. What started as snagging a cheap flight ($286 from Newark to Gothenburg) led us to stumbling on renting a sailboat on Airbnb and spending a long weekend on the beautiful waters of the Gothenburg Archipelago in the North Sea. This was my first time visiting a Scandinavian country, but I’ve since been to Norway a couple times so expect more on delicious Scandinavian pastries to come!

We landed in Gothenburg and our sailboat captain, Patrik, picked us up at the airport. While our ultimate goal was getting out on the water as soon as possible, Patrik wanted us to get a little glimpse of the city—plus we needed to stock up on provisions. We were starving, so first we sat at a lovely outdoor cafe and tried AMAZING fish cakes in a brown butter sauce, with mashed potatoes and peas. We had their salad bar as well, with a refreshing local beer to wash everything down with. I was really excited about the fish cakes, because they were made with salmon and white fish and no shellfish, which is crazy hard to find.

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Swedish Vanilla Cardamom Bread

February 3, 2019

Ever since spending a few days in Sweden sailing the Gothenburg archipelago and devouring fresh smoked herring and cardamom-laced pastries the entire time, I’ve been meaning to try my hand at Swedish baking myself. This recipe initially came to me as a simple Swedish vanilla bread, but to me that was leaving out the most iconic flavor of Swedish baking, ground cardamom.

So I did us all a favor and made it Swedish vanilla cardamom bread 🙂

So I’ve been playing around with this recipe for a while, both in tweaking the flavors, but also in getting the texture to turn out correctly. The original recipe had way too much flour, which resulted in a much drier dough than I liked, and overall it’s taken some trial and error to perfect. But the time was worth it, and this recipe results in a lovely simple subtly-spiced bread. It’s not really sweet at all, just a nice snack at any point in the day.

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Fizzy Rosemary Gimlet

January 26, 2019

About a year ago—after over a decade as a die-hard wine drinker—I fell in love with gin.

I KNOW. But hear me out. I’ve noticed that gin is a very polarizing subject. I’ve met tons of people who absolutely love it, and a similar amount of people who tell me I’m insane and gin is the grossest thing ever. I haven’t really found anyone who’s like, “yeah, it’s cool sometimes”. Apparently gin is an all-or-nothing 🙂 But I kind of think that’s because people maybe haven’t had a great gin cocktail. In my experience over the last year, gin mixes so well with so many different flavors, and so that’s what led to today’s adventure.

I was first introduced to the idea of a gimlet via my Cheese, my bff in Los Angeles…and actually before I became a gin drinker. We capped off an awesome girls’ weekend with homemade pizza (courtesy of her now-hubby) and French gimlets. A French gimlet basically adds elderflower liqueur like St. Germain to a regular gimlet, which is gin and lime juice. I fell in love…and three drinks later she told me I’d have to Uber to LAX because there was no way she was taking me now 🙂

Ahhh, girls’ night…

You might also like: Blood Orange Elderflower Gin Cocktail

So today I bring you a lovely twist on a regular gimlet, where we take the bright botanical gin and fresh lime juice combo, and add to it a delicious herby rosemary simple syrup. It takes like 5 minutes to make the simple syrup yourself and you’ll feel pretty badass. Then top it off with some tonic water to lighten it up and provide fun fizz. Behold—the fizzy rosemary gimlet!

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