How and where Josh got his inspiration for this pumpkin soup is beyond me. But it tastes fabulous. Surprisingly spicy, warm and filling, I had to drill Josh for this recipe at his Halloween/welcome back dinner party. He says that he just came up with the recipe himself, and I would have never guessed it, [...]

Everything was going fine and dandy, taking the sweet potato option from the pumpkin pie recipe in Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything.” Until pre-baking the pie crust. I’ve made my pie crust recipe (seen in Weeknight Apple Maple Walnut Pie) numerous times and never once encountered the dough sinking into the bottom of the [...]

Or 4:00 p.m. Or 5:00. And you’re stuck, and want to run outside and grab some chips. My solutions?
I know this sounds incredibly kindergarten-ish, but I often have carrots with me. On my person. In my fridge. I even stopped getting the peeled baby carrot kind because I found that they get [...]

Castellane con spinaci e fagioli is what I would have called this recipe if a)I were a real Italian person (I somehow don’t feel I have the right to name this dish in Italian since I’m not), and b) I were actually using spinach, which I would have preferred. But even though the spinach scare [...]

The lovely Ganda of Eat Drink One Woman was kind enough to sit down with me for an interview and a good cup of green tea before taking off for a tour.  You can check out the interview on Chief Magazine, or better yet, try to catch her on tour with Miho Hatori.  Today’s the [...]

Entrees Reach $40, and, Sorry, the Sides Are Extra
Need I say more?

I ate out. But it was in Providence, RI, and I’m quite certain there’s no way I’ll ever be able to make my own array of bite-size dumplings and other tasty traditional dim sum dishes just for lunch (ever). So I made good use of a family trip to visit my brother in Providence, where [...]

For a twist on roast chicken when I didn’t feel like waiting too long, I was going to braise some chicken with wine and parsley. When I came home I found the parsley bunch I had bought about a week ago was so decrepit and limp that I had to toss it. Then I came [...]

I was looking through some old notes I’d scribbled down several months ago, and almost laughed out loud when I read this:
“Today’s gripe is about how some take-out places add filler to your dishes in the form of peeled, chopped broccoli stems. Now I love including broccoli stems in dishes with broccoli crowns already in [...]

Thanks, Cube-Side, for naming Not Eating Out In New York “Blog of the Week”! And for this nifty crest, which I get to keep on here for a week. Or forever.

Thanks DJ, for sharing your mom’s recipe for squash rolls. DJ writes in an email that his mom makes these every Thanksgiving: “Oh and they don’t really end up tasting like squash, which is a major plus because they’re made from freezer squash, which is a cheap replacement for syrup of ipecac if you don’t [...]

Only until recently, during a trip to California, did I become aware that French Dip wasn’t something you dunk potato chips and veggies in, or that it wasn’t invented in France. There, it was a sandwich. Here, I decide to make one. The recipe that Ben’s mom provided for this was so tasty that I [...]

A co-worker of mine went apple picking and left me with a bag of crisp, juicy tart ones that seemed just right for baking. If there’s any dessert a (American) person should know how to make, it’s apple pie, and that’s something I’ve picked up in my days.

For my first Here’s Lookin’ at You Cook profile I had the lucky opportunity of dining with the multi-talented actor, writer, and home chef Bob McClure. You might recognize him from the critically acclaimed online TV show, The Burg, but you might be even more interested in his critically acclaimed family-owned pickle line, McClure’s Pickles.
The [...]

Not only do I not know how to make desserts, but tonight I’m faced with the task of making dessert for a vegan friend of mine, who’s having me over for dinner with her boyfriend. I did some brief scouring of vegan dessert recipes online and decided pretty early on that instead of all that [...]

This stir fry is just a really light, simple dish that you can make with any combination of ingredients.  I would normally use chopped scallions instead of a sliced yellow onion, but I didn’t have any left.  The sweetness of the regular onion, though, made up for a dash of sugar in the seasoning I may [...]

I meant to mention this cute article that was in the NY Times a week or so ago called “In Search of Grocery Gems.”  In it, the author Julia Moskin discourses on a full cart-sized selection of packaged food products, finding most of them to be unsatisfactory, unhealthy, but a few of them, “gems.” 
Moskin does an admirable job of filtering [...]

My friends Richard and Sam are my only local friends whose apartment has an actual yard with grass, a pretty spacious one, too. So naturally, they host barbecues all summer long. The last one I went to I was so busy preparing not one but two trays of homemade dumplings–veggie ones and pork–that I ended [...]

The name of the dish implies a little heat, so it might be a fun experiment to add some chopped, jarred jalepenos in the stuffing. But for now, here’s the recipe that I stick to wholeheartedly, one that never fails.