Happy belated...

So two things to belatedly celebrate - my friend Kathleen's birthday, and my first blogaversary! (Okay, I promise to never use that word again.) For me, a year of blogging is an accomplishment - so let's pretend the pictures below are for both occasions :)


For Kathleen's birthday, I hosted a 'comfort' theme party...meaning, I made some of my favorite comfort foods and encouraged everyone to wear comfy clothes so we could just relax and enjoy some games and each other's company. On the menu? Chicken casserole, homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese, butternut squash gratin with pesto, and apple tarts for dessert.

Eating our comforting dinner

This chicken casserole is something my mom has made for as long as I can remember; I even requested it as my birthday dinner growing up. It's totally unsophisticated - heck, it's only 6 ingredients! - and yet totally comforting and delicious. Think of it like chicken pot pie in casserole form - yum!


Mom's Chicken Casserole
(super-stuffed 13x9 serves 12, regular 13x9 serves 8)


1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 bag regular-seasoning stuffing mix
1 8-oz container sour cream
1 14.5-oz can of low sodium chicken broth
1 14.5-oz can of cream of chicken soup
2 rotisserie chickens, meat taken off the bones and shredded (sure, you can cook some chicken yourself, but why complicate an otherwise no-fuss dish?)
1/2 bag of frozen peas/carrots mix (optional - my mom doesn't do this, but I felt a little guilty serving all that comfort food so I threw in some veggies!)


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, add the bag of stuffing mix and the stick of melted butter (hey, I never said this was healthy) and mix it all together to distribute the butter. Spread 2/3 of the stuffing mixture onto the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish. In another bowl, whisk together the sour cream, the cream of chicken soup and 3/4 of the can of chicken broth until it's combined and smooth. Add the cooked, shredded chicken evenly around the baking dish on top of the stuffing, then pour the sour cream/soup mixture over the chicken and spread out so all the nooks and crannies get covered. Top it all off with the other 1/3 of the stuffing mix, then drizzle the remaining 1/4 can of broth over the top of the whole thing. Bake for 40 minutes, or until it's bubbly and golden brown and crispy on top.

Kathleen blowing out her scented, non-birthday-candle candle

Everyone does birthday cake, right? I had to go for individual apple tarts!

Keen on quinoa

Have you heard about keenwah quinoa? It's another one of those foods that is actually ancient, but has lately been re-discovered and touted for its health benefits. Similar in size and texture to cous cous, it's cultivated in South America and is one of only a few plant-based sources that provides complete protein. I've had a box in my pantry for a while, and seeing recipe after recipe on the interwebs inspired me to cook up a few cups last week to keep in the fridge for breakfast (with oatmeal and milk) and any other great ideas that came along...like this one.


Paired with almost any fresh fruits/veggies and a little dose of dressing, quinoa becomes the perfect backdrop for a healthy and filling salad. I especially love this combination because the crunch from the radicchio and apples and the heartiness from the croutons make for a really nice texture!

Radicchio, Apple and Crouton Quinoa Salad


1 cup cooked quinoa
1/2 pink lady apple, chopped
1/2 head of radicchio, shredded
handful of celery leaves, chopped
1/4 cup homemade multigrain croutons (cube bread, toast in oven with olive oil, salt and pepper till crunchy ~ 5 min)
1 T homemade vinaigrette (lemon juice, dijon mustard, pinch oregano, salt and pepper, extra virgin olive oil)


Cook your quinoa according to package directions, and add the cooked quinoa to a medium bowl. While the croutons are baking in the oven, chop up the apple and celery leaves and thinly slice the radicchio, then add to the quinoa bowl. Pull the croutons from the oven and add to the bowl, then toss everything together with 1 T of vinaigrette - or alternatively, dress simply with lemon juice/vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Because there's only 1 T of dressing in the whole salad, everything will stay nice and crisp (and not get limp and soggy) in the fridge, even for a few days - if you don't eat it first!

The pursuit of the perfect pie crust

It’s very rare that I follow a recipe exactly as it’s written. I love reading recipes and cookbooks, but I typically use them as inspiration – then do it my way. However, baking is a different story. When I picked up a couple pounds of local apples at the farmers’ market last weekend, I knew that the pie I was plotting would need a killer crust recipe to match.

At this point, a lot of women (or at least my roommate J and any woman in her family) would just whip out their tried and true heirloom pie crust recipe.

I am not one of those women. I did not grow up in a house of homemade pie crusts, and I did not receive a delicate 3x5 index card with the recipe lovingly handwritten by my mother the day I moved out. My mom is a great cook – but in my house, crust is just a vehicle, and therefore, storebought.

So, wanting to do greater justice to these naturally beautiful apples than a throwaway crust, I decided to consult the best. In my one previous homemade crust attempt I used Martha Stewart’s recipe, and the process had instilled such anxiety and stress with its strict warnings that I’d taken no joy in the nice, flaky finished product. This time, I wanted something easier, faster, and less…scary.

With Martha out of the picture, I turned to the greatest culinary authority I know – America’s Test Kitchen. After some quick browsing, I found the recipe for which I was looking (yup, even on a blog I hate ending a sentence with a preposition!).

Like Washington crossing the Delaware^*, I decided to boldly put my faith in the unknown and go for it.

Including prep time to assemble my ingredients and equipment, two thick disks of plastic-wrapped pie dough were chilling out in my fridge in less than fifteen minutes.

After they chilled out and rolled out, forty-five minutes and a few peeks through the oven door later I pulled a bubbling, golden pie out of the oven and breathed in the glorious, buttery scent.

The crust gets two thumbs up – it was easy to make, and turned out perfectly flaky and reaaally buttery. Gone are its days as a second-class citizen in my house! Even my mom, the crust critic, was surprised by how much she liked it.

Note: I didn’t have any shortening on hand, and pretty much never bake with it anyway – so I used all butter and it turned out fine. The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup of shortening (if you want to use it, just replace some of the butter).

Foolproof Pie Dough – my way

(adapted from Cook’s Illustrated)

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon table salt

2 tablespoons sugar

2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch slices

1/4 cup cold vodka (I used citrus-flavored, which is what I had on hand)

1/4 cup cold water

Add 1 1/2 cups flour, salt and sugar to your food processor bowl with blade attachment, and process until combined, about 2 one-second pulses.

Add all the butter and process until homogeneous dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds (dough will resemble cottage cheese curds and there should be no uncoated flour).

Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade. Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses.

Empty mixture into medium bowl. Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together.

Divide dough into two even balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.

*Planned in partial secrecy, Washington led a column of Continental Army troops across the icy Delaware River in a logistically challenging and potentially dangerous operation.