I’m not a good baker, but since I’ve been home for a few days (perks of surgery!), my mom’s giant kitchen has got me thinking that all my past transgressions weren’t really true and I’m actually a fabulous cook. So the other day when I got a craving for pumpkin pie, I decided I would totally make one.

Then of course I looked in the pantry and saw we had nothing in terms of pie crust ingredients. Could I make a crust-less pumpkin pie? I asked myself. Yes you can, the Internet answered, and in fact many people prefer crust-less pies because there’s way less carbs.

Part of the reason I’m not the best baker is because I don’t measure things real well and if I don’t have the right ingredients I substitute. This recipe is no different. I didn’t measure things perfectly and I made random substitutions. But guess what? It freaking tasted like pumpkin pie. Without the crust. Nice.

What You Need: Read More »

Hit up any Chinese or Indian buffet and you’ll notice that a fixture of the line is fried rice — the kind that you can pile on your plate time after time and still enjoy with each new helping. It’s both delicious and addictive.

So wouldn’t it be great if you could make that rice in your own kitchen and avoid shelling out $8 for an all-you-can-eat meal of regret?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Here’s the good news: you can, and it’s easy. In fact, if you ever have stray vegetables or leftovers lying around (like I do almost… oh, let’s see, EVERY DAY), it’s even easier. Fried rice is incredibly forgiving—you can toss whatever you want in there, and it will still taste great.

So here’s a basic recipe, but feel free to play around with it! Read More »

Hi, my name is Lauren and I’m a cupcake-aholic.

My addiction has taken over my life. Sometimes, when I am driving home from anywhere, I suddenly find myself at the local bakery or grocery store, frosting all over my chin, and have no idea how I got there. There was even that one drunken night when I woke up with half a cupcake in my bed.

And I finished it.

I cannot walk past a cupcake shop without stopping in and trying a few, and I have been known to spend Saturday nights at home with a box of Dunkin Hines cupcake mix, my oven and a jar of icing.

I have been battling this addiction for years and it is tearing my life (and pants) apart. I am working to kick the habit, but I am not strong enough to do it cold turkey. I now consciously avoid streets that house any sort of mini cake delight and have in turn turned to the internet to feed (or not so much) my urges.

Yes, I am now a subscriber to cupcake porn. Read More »

I like to have some kind of baked good in the morning along with my cup of coffee, and honestly, there is nothing better than a scone to serve that purpose. Muffins are nice, but they’re too sweet (and often they are also the size of a man’s head). Biscotti go fabulously with coffee, but inevitably disintegrate into crumbs whenever I attempt to eat them.

But scones… aahhh. They’re just so close to perfect. Also, you can freeze them and just pop one out whenever you want to eat it—beautiful!

So I was rooting around for a great scone recipe this weekend, and I unearthed this monster on the mother of all recipe sites, the (aptly named) All Recipes. I will announce this publicly: I will never search for another scone recipe again. These are SO AMAZING!

To make a flawless recipe even better, they are also customizable. Yeah, that’s right. The recipe lists raisins as an optional ingredient, so if you don’t want raisin scones, you can basically throw whatever you do want right in the batter and mix it up.

I made cranberry-walnut scones, but the possibilities are endless. Chocolate-chip scones? Okay! Orange-lemon scones? Yes! Irish coffee scones? Well… I’m not quite that ambitious, but go for it and let me know how it turns out. Read More »

I’m sure I am not the only one who knows how frustrating it is to find the perfect recipe, start making it, and then realize that I am out of a crucial ingredient. (What’s that? You don’t make recipes without double-checking that you have all the ingredients on hand? Well, aren’t you special.)

Because there is nothing more annoying than having to run to the grocery store and leave your raw cookie batter sitting on the counter, I took the liberty of putting together a handy-dandy substitution cheat sheet of things you can use when you find yourself without the genuine article.

For self-rising flour, substitute flour with baking powder and salt. Self-rising flour is really just a fancy name for flour that already has baking powder and salt added, so you can cheat the system by adding those things yourself. For each cup of flour, just throw in 1 ½ tsp baking powder and about ½ tsp salt.

For cream/half-and-half, substitute milk. Keep in mind that this will only work sometimes. Milk is a lot thinner than cream and has a lot less fat (added health bonus), but that also means that it doesn’t behave the same way. For a recipe in which you’re mixing everything together anyway (quiche), it will work fine, but it’s not going to get you anywhere if you pour it in a bowl and try to whip it into real fluffy cream. If you don’t have regular milk, try using buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream. Read More »

Oh man, do I love pie. It’s kind of impossible to explain just how much I love it…but I mean, when somebody made me peach and blueberry pie for my birthday last week, I ate it for almost every meal for two days. I did not get sick. It was glorious.

My fellow editor in crime knows how much I love crust and fruit, so she recently sent me this recipe with the words “True story: this pie will make you drool” in the subject line of the email. Even though I’m a pretty stupid cook, I decided to try to make the thing the night I got the email — and you know what? It really wasn’t that hard. The whole presentation wasn’t Martha Stewart pretty or anything, but it tasted like heaven and Martha Stewart has 700 people helping her on a daily basis.

What You Need

9-inch frozen pie crust
3/4 c. plus 5 T. all-purpose flour
2/3 c. firmly packed golden brown sugar
1/3 c. granulated sugar plus 1 T. for the filling
2 t. ground cinnamon
1/8 t. salt
1/2 c. cold unsalted butter, cut into 3/4 in. pieces
5 c. blueberries Read More »

I don’t admit this to just anybody, but my favorite junk food is Mary Kitchen corned beef hash.

Yes, I know it is disgusting. Yes, I know it has 50% of your daily value of saturated fat in it per serving. Yes, I know it looks like dog food. But I still love it, even if I feel pretty nasty after eating it.

That is why I was so excited this week when I discovered a recipe that is even better-tasting than Mary Kitchen hash—not to mention worlds healthier. As if that wasn’t awesome enough, it has four ingredients only, making it the easiest thing ever to prepare. All you need is:

• cabbage
• potato
• ground beef
• onion

Salt and pepper work well for flavoring it, and I like to serve mine with ketchup. But those aren’t technically ingredients. Anyway, here is the recipe. Cook it for a good long time—probably 5-10 minutes longer than the recipe recommends, because you want all the ingredients to be nice and browned at the end.

You can thank me later.

[Image courtesy of ApartmentTherapy.com.]

My dad makes the best homemade pizza on Earth. He is not really an everyday-supper kind of guy as far as his cooking goes, but a few of the things he can whip up are absolutely out of this world. When you taste this pizza, there is simply no comparison to any pizza you have ever had in a restaurant, ever. It’s just impossible to look back.

I have never quite been able to match the final product, but I do have the recipe, and I am more than willing to share it with you. I believe it’s one of those recipes that gives good results every time but takes a lifetime to perfect… so check back with me in 30 years or so to see how I’m doing.

In the meantime, get the following things together:

FOR THE DOUGH
• 1 package (about 1 ½ teaspoons) rapid-rise yeast
• 1 cup warm water (but not so hot that it hurts your fingers)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 ½ cups flour
• 1 ½ tsp dry basil
• 1 ½ tsp dry oregano Read More »

Okay, here’s how you cook up a five course fish dish that’s cheap and easy and good for you and worthy of being drooled over by the royals of France: In. Your. Dreams.

However! Lucky for you, I have a simple, delicious and relatively healthy and inexpensive fish dish that’s perfect for summer entertaining. Add on your favorite side (asparagus? broccoli? mashed potatoes?) and an awesome dessert (chocolate covered strawberries for two? just sayin’) and you’re good to go.

Here ’tis! (Serves 2.)

Garlicky Lemon Tilapia

*Ingredientos*
2 fillets of tilapia
1 1/2 tsps of melted butter
1/2 a clove of minced garlic Read More »

Most normal fajitas or any similar Mexican-like foods will set your number of daily calories over the edge with gobs of refried beans, sour cream, or crazy cheese sauces. Not this fajita—it has all the taste but serious health benefits as well. If you are craving something Mexican that isn’t quite authentic but that tastes fresh and delicious, this is what you want!

It can easily be a 15-minute dinner if you’re rushing, and it’s pretty versatile (any kind of bell pepper will work, the corn is optional, etc.). Here are the ingredients for one fajita:

• canola oil, olive oil, or vegetable oil (or any other oil, really)
• 1 thin-sliced chicken breast, cut into strips
• ¼ tsp taco seasoning
• ½ red bell pepper, sliced into very thin strips
• ½ medium onion, sliced into thin rings
• 2 tablespoons corn, fresh or frozen (optional)
• ½ to ¾ cup fresh spinach, rinsed and stemmed
• 2 tablespoons reduced-fat cheddar cheese
• 1 whole-wheat tortilla wrap

To begin, put the oil in a shallow pan. Let it heat up, and add the thin rings of onion and strips of bell pepper. Sauté them over low-medium or medium heat for 8-10 minutes, until they are browned, much reduced, and beginning to caramelize. Read More »