Fondue and Vin Chaud

Snowflakes dashing past my window, whirling and twirling and drifting and swirling. It's a cheese and wine kinda night. A hot delicious melty cheese and sweet and strong spiced wine kinda night. Pull on your favorite slippers - you know you don't want to go outside. Whip up a salad if you must - but that's strictly optional. This evening is all about being comfortable and homey and falling asleep while watching movies.

Mustard Spiced Sliders with Mint Cilantro Yogurt Sauce

What is it about making tiny versions of real food that makes it that much more delicious?

I don't know, but these little munchkin sliders definitely fit the bill.

Glazed Meatloaf

This is a dish you make when you want something satisfying and hearty and simple and delicious. This is for a night at home, when all you want to do is dinner and a Netflix movie.



And so, when FIL came for a visit and requested comfort food, this was the comfortiest of comfort foods that popped into my mind.

Paneer Curry

Some nights you look in the fridge just when you're on the edge of hunger. You know you want dinner soon, but the only thing staring back at you is some frozen chicken that was supposed to have thawed, but decided not to. Those are the nights you need to have some paneer on hand - super easy, super quick, chop up some onions, some tomatoes, toss in some spices, and dinner is served!

Cheese, onion, tomatoes - that's all you need, really.

Pork Kale and Mushroom Stir Fry

You know what's quick and easy and delicious? Stir Fry! Plus, this one has kale in it, so you can spend the rest of the evening feeling smug about your healthful cooking. Win win.

Pesto Pizza!

Y'know those days when you're craving something crunchy yet gooey, cheesy yet healthy, filling yet light? Well, for those contradiction filled evenings, here's a yummy summery pesto pizza for you.

Pesto Pizza

1 ball frozen pizza dough (some day I'll get more comfortable working with dough and make my own, but for now frozen works just perfectly)
1 cup summer pesto (see, leaving out the parmesan in the pesto makes you feel a lot better about adding some cheese in here)
1 cup grape tomatoes
1 cup dried porcini mushrooms
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto

Making that summer pesto reminded me that I've had some sun dried tomatoes sitting in the fridge that have been whispering "psssst pessssto" to me every time I spied them hiding in the back. Having the food processor out and being in a pesto-making mood, I figured the sun dried tomatoes' time had come!

For inspiration I looked at some of the usual suspects. Smitten Kitchen had a yummy looking Walnut Pesto, but that was more focused on walnuts than on the tomatoes. Ditto TheKitchn's Walnut Pesto with Sun Dried Tomatoes. A Bon Appetit recipe on Epicurious seemed a good bet, except that I'd used up all my basil with the summer pesto. Though none of these were exactly what I had in mind (or in my fridge), they gave me enough to go on to whip up a simple sun dried tomato pesto of my own!

Look at our little thyme - isn't she delightful?
This is the first time I used any of the herbs from our mini widow sill herb garden!

Summer Pesto

You know those days when you're hungry and tired and even sauteing up a few veggies for dinner sounds like the most onerous task imaginable? Living in this city means that we have a world of cuisines just at our fingertips - a few clicks on Seamless, and voila, 30 minutes later a yummy hot meal is at your door. Unfortunately, those yummy hot meals are also more often than not just a slick too greasy and just a lick too salty to be healthy. So for those nights, it's nice to have a home cooked healthy meal on hand for which all you need to do is to boil a pot of water. Enter home made pesto! Full of nutritious greens with a generous helping of mint and basil to give it a fresh zing, and a scattering of cashew nuts to add a buttery richness.