This week when one of my best friends received her masters degree (woohoo!), I decided that I would be a great excuse to throw an impromptu dinner party. If you know anything about me (besides my undying love of cheese) it’s that I love a good dinner party. Realistically, I even love a sorta okay dinner party. Basically if there is food involved, I’m there and happy as a clam….
Mains
Linguine + Clams with Chickpea Sauce
I’ve been having some serious pasta cravings this week and haven’t had the opportunity to feed the beast until this past Friday night. I finally broke out my super duper special durum flour and made some of my homemade pasta with it. It was life changing. I’m never using the all purpose stuff again… except when I run out of this fancy business of course. Until then, I’m a durum flour addict now. I most certainly need to go into recovery after eating all these leftovers.
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The Most Magical Baby Back Ribs Ever
Before this past Labor Day, I had never attempted to master the baby back ribs for fear that I would somehow screw them up horrendously. I’ve eaten plenty of ribs in my day, some good and some not so great, but my favorites have always been the ribs that are fall-off-the-bone tender and have a crusty bark on the outside.
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Baked Orange Chicken
Back when I was in college, I had a pretty unhealthy obsession with Panda Express, namely their Orange Chicken. My office was right by the UCLA Panda location and when I was killing time by getting work done in between classes, that was my go to meal to tide me over until dinner time. Horrible, I know. Having looked more into what’s actually in their orange chicken, let’s just say that I no longer crave it nearly as much.
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Homemade Chickpea Pasta [GF]
In my never-ending hunt for carbohydrates, I came upon the idea of using atypical flours to make my favorite homemade pasta dishes. I had no idea where to find garbanzo flour at my local supermarket, so I wandered onto the interwebs over to Amazon to search for it there. It turns out it wasn’t really that hard to find after all! Also it qualified for Prime shipping, so I was quite the happy camper. Two days later my garbanzo flour was patiently waiting at my door when I got home from work, ready to be made into some delicious, albeit somewhat difficult pasta.
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Chicken Zoodles + Creamy Sundried Tomato Sauce
Zoodles. What a weird word. It’s really fun to say but unless you’re hip to the Pinterest universe, it can sound like complete gibberish. Apparently it’s a mix of the words zucchini and noodles, though why they didn’t go with noochini is beyond me. I think I’m going to start calling it noochini from now on.. we’ll see how long that lasts.
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One Pot Cod with Blistered Tomatoes
This is probably the most easy and incredibly satisfying recipe I’ve made in a while, which was quite the nice surprise as I made it up on the fly last night. I picked up the fish on the way home from work and figured I would be able to create something edible with the remaining ingredients in my fridge from my last shopping trip. I scoured around and came up with grape tomatoes, some herbs, capers, a sad little lemon, and the last of a bottle of white wine hiding in the door of the fridge. I had my light bulb moment and started my prep.
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Summer Squash + Goat Cheese Frittata
I have decided that Memorial Day Weekend is the perfect excuse to host a brunch. I had about a 6 hour warning that my friend wanted me to host brunch at my place for 4 people for her 25th birthday so I wanted to make something that would be delicious but wouldn’t take up my entire morning….
Spaghetti + Eggplant “Meat”balls
What can I say, I’ve finally jumped on the Meatless Mondays train. After doing a bit of research about it last night, I found that there are a large number of countries around the globe that support Meatless Mondays in the name of sustainability and an even bigger number of restaurants that subscribe to the movement. Not only does it help promote environmental sustainability and your general health, it also requires you to be creative when putting together your shopping list every week, which is always something that I love doing.
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Citrus Glazed Black Cod with Wild Rice
Sundays have always been family dinner night since I was growing up, and even in my adult years I have refused to give up the tradition. Nowadays this means I take over my Dad’s kitchen on Sundays to whip up something tasty for as many people as he’ll let me have over (hehe). Watching highlights from the Olympics, I set to work figuring how I could make dinner without forcing my super lazy bum to go to the grocery store. I was not about to enter that insanity on this hot Sunday….