It’s been a while since I’ve written a post for a recipe. But it’s also been a tough year for everyone. With the same routine everyday and nothing to really break up the monotony, it got pretty hard to do some recipe testing, especially posting a few new recipes a week. I guess it’s called burnout. Creativity really does need inspiration from other places to manifest. And I wasn’t getting much of that just sitting at home all day eating the same food everyday.

Even if we don’t do this as often as before, it’s still one of my hobbies. No, we don’t make money from having a food blog, but that’s just the way I want it. Less pressure. And it’s that much more enjoyable when we do get back to it and take fun pictures and post a really delicious recipe. But that’s just us, everyone’s different.

Anyway, this is one of my recent soup favorites. It’s great for getting rid of old vegetables, since this soup takes it all: carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, zucchini, and kale. Those are pretty much the only vegetables I buy most weeks anyway. And not only does this soup use accessible ingredients, it’s super easy to make, and it tastes amazing. The bright flavors from the diced tomatoes, herbs, and parmesan really bring it all together.

You can use fresh herbs instead of dried, but you may have to adjust the ratios a little bit, depending on your preference. And if you’re vegan, you could take out the cheese, but you know I won’t be doing that!

If you’re looking for a tasty new soup to try, give this a go! I know just exactly how hard it is to find the motivation to cook something these days, so hopefully this makes it easy for you.

I just love cinnamon buns or rolls of any kind really. Jam rolls are freaking delicious too. So when Hebel & Co, a Los Angeles based “halvatier” offered to send us some of their delicious halva to try it in a new recipe, we couldn’t resist! And moreso, I knew we were going to have to incorporate it into a baked bread or bun of some kind! And what better pairing than chocolate and tahini.

If you’ve never heard of halva before, it is a sweet Middle Eastern dessert, usually made from tahini or pressed sesame seeds. It can be plain or sometimes it has chocolate or pistachios or some sort of other flavoring added to it. Either way it is delicious! I have eaten halva a lot growing up and still do, but the kind I remember most is a sunflower seed halva, which is pretty common in Russian households. I have never seen it sold in stores except for Russian stores, but you’ll almost always be able to find a sesame seed halva.

But I’ve always eaten halva just plain, sliced out of the container, and sometimes with tea. Then I started seeing people top desserts with it or even bake with it! That was crazy to me. But then again, I was only limiting myself. So we wanted to try out something new. I’ve been wanting to make chocolate buns for a while, but crumbling some halva into the buns before rolling them up proved to be amazing! Not to mention the tahini icing all over the top!

You can use any type of sesame seed halva for this recipe, but we used Hebel & Co’s chocolate chunk halva, which was absolutely delicious and went nicely with our chocolate filling. Plain or vanilla halva will also taste amazing.

We’re also big fans of baking in smaller portion sizes. This recipe makes about 7 chocolate buns in a 9” cake pan. So if you need more than that, you might want to double the recipe. But for the two of us, it’s the perfect amount!

So if you’re looking for something a little different than your regular cinnamon bun, give these a shot, they don’t disappoint. Especially if you eat them when they’re all nice and warm ☺

I absolutely love pineapple fried rice! It’s definitely my favorite kind of fried rice and it doesn’t matter if it has chicken or shrimp or is vegetarian, the pineapple is the best part.

We eat a ton of fried rice at home. We call it “trash fried rice” because it usually ends up being the kind of dinner where we throw all the old veggies in that need to be used up because they’re getting old. Who doesn’t do that?? We typically add some frozen chicken sausage to our fried rice to get some extra protein, but there’s nothing wrong with vegetarian fried rice too.

So fried rice is pretty easy to make, you just sauté the protein you want and remove it from the wok. Then you sauté your desired veggies, and add the protein back in with cooked rice and some sauces. That’s it! Sometimes we get lazy and scramble the egg in at the very end, but in order to get the fluffiest scrambled egg pieces, we recommend scrambling separately and setting them aside to be mixed in later.

I should probably also mention that you should definitely use cooked rice that’s already been sitting in the fridge for a couple days. It just doesn’t make much sense to make fried rice from freshly cooked rice, since fried rice is a “fridge cleanout” kind of meal. You should use that freshly cooked rice for something else where the taste of fresh rice actually matters! Plus this is also what makes this meal so quick and easy -- ideally, you already have some cooked rice in the fridge.

It was so fun using the hollowed-out pineapple halves as bowls too! Makes it feel so much more festive. Definitely more than just a “trash fried rice”.

Just thinking about cornbread makes me hungry. It’s such a perfect blend of salty + sweet, and has a gritty texture from the cornmeal, but also is super moist and crispy around the edges. And topped with whipped honey butter. Damn. I’m hungry again just writing about it.

When I was younger, I didn't like cornbread at all! But granted, that’s because I never had tried good cornbread until a friend of mine made it from scratch. I vaguely remember eating box mix cornbread somewhere, but I don’t remember where. I just didn’t think it was anything special. And probably because I wasn’t too fond of BBQ at the time either. The whole meal just didn’t do it for me.

I also never ate cornbread at home or when going out to eat with my family. I guess I just wasn’t introduced to cornbread when I was young so I didn’t understand it. And pretty sure my family wasn’t too fond of it either. But that’s about to change ☺

Now I love BBQ and I love cornbread. We recently had the best BBQ at a place in Austin, Texas, called Black’s Barbecue and I am still dreaming about it. Lots of smoked sausage, pork, and soft melty brisket with coleslaw, mac ‘n cheese, and of course, cornbread!

This recipe is an inspiration of all my favorite things about cornbread. It uses honey instead of granulated sugar to give it that natural, honey sweetness without processed sugar. I also love chunks in my cornbread, so I had to add corn kernels.

And cornbread is a great candidate to be baked in a cast iron skillet, because a hot buttered skillet helps crisp up the edges and give it a nice crunchy shell while still keeping the inside moist and fluffy.

We find that preheating the cast iron skillet and buttering the hot skillet before pouring in the batter really helps create the crunchy cornbread exterior. Just be careful not to touch the hot skillet with your hands! I’ve already made that mistake, ouch!

This cornbread also freezes really well, so just make a ton and store in the freezer for later when you have that cornbread madness craving!

Apparently chicken pot pie is said to have originated in Greece and early American settlers took such a liking to this dish that they brought it with them when they settled America in the 19th century. Not really sure how future American settlers interacted with the Greek… but oh well. Regardless whether this is fact or fiction, many cultures today all have a type of meat pie as part of their cuisine and culture.

And speaking of culture, we’re going through such a momentous time in our nation’s history that it would be wrong not to write about it. We have been spending all week learning and standing with the black movement in support of the #blacklivesmatter movement that’s taking the entire world by storm. It is such a powerful thing to have the entire world stand up in support of equality and justice for the black community. I just hope that everyone who listens realizes the importance of this and that we can all make some serious changes around here.

So even though we are starting to publish recipes again, it doesn’t diminish the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement and our support of it. In fact, we are still learning and supporting and doing anything we can. But in the meantime, feel free to indulge in this delicious and easy chicken pot pie to nourish yourselves so that you can also get back out there and show support!

It’s going to rain all week (surprise surprise, Portland) and this is the perfect thing to eat when it’s slightly chilly outside. It’s June, but sometimes we just get these really weird weeks where it dips back down to the 50s and I’m just cold all the time. So I’ll be eating a ton of warm foods, like this comforting chicken pot pie.

So it may appear that there’s a lot going on here; we’ve got fish tacos and mango avocado salsa and a tangy lime cilantro crema to top it off. However, this recipe is not complicated and all these elements work together really nicely to create the ultimate fish taco.

Mango avo salsa has quickly become one of my favorite salsas and the tropical flavors really pair nicely with cod, or any other type of white fish. The lime crema just adds a little bit of sourness to bring the whole enchilada (or taco ☺) together. And not to mention the really healthy and wholesome ingredients at play here.

These flavors remind me of a pleasant, sunny summer day and I imagine that I would invite friends and family over and share with them. And normally that would make me so happy, but then I’m reminded that with the covid-19 craze going on right now, it makes it so difficult to enjoy the little things like this. But I am looking forward to the day when sharing food will be possible again!

We hope you enjoy making and eating these delicious and easy fish tacos. We’re definitely looking forward to summer and more summer flavors!