I’m late on this, but with no end in sight to the flood repairs on our house, plus a daunting end in sight to being pregnant, I’m late on everything lately. Dave and I are getting by the best we can right now, but looking at last year’s recipes is a nice reminder of simpler times. Here are some of my favorites:

Beef Satay with Spicy Mango Dip

This was so good, I made it again for the tiki-inspired meal my brother and I served on our family’s annual beach trip. It stood out even among a spread of crab rangoons, coconut shrimp, kalua pork, and a pitcher of tonga punch (plus a virgin version for me and the kids).

Poblanos Stuffed with Black Beans and Cheese
My standards for weeknight dinners are so high – delicious, healthy, easy, vegetarian or seafood-based – that it’s rare to add a new meal to our rotation. This one fits all of the requirements, and as an added bonus, it can be made ahead. I often make enough for two dinners and have it early in the week and then the night before we leave for a trip.

Confetti Cookies

These cookies scream ‘birthday’ to me, but they’re also just a fun cookie – colorful enough to grab the attention of kids, and they taste just as good as they look.

Goat Cheese and Braised Lamb Shank RavioliI wish I had infinite amounts of time to make this every week. It’s one of the best things I ate last year.

Cheesecake Squares with Sour Cream Topping
I love a grand and celebratory cheesecake, but this one can’t be beat for simple good flavor. It’s a childhood favorite that’s become an adulthood favorite.

Mai TaisDave and I have had so much fun making tiki a hobby, trying new drinks every week and sharing notes with my brother across the country. We struggled to find the perfect mai tai recipe and nailed it right around when I got pregnant. I’m looking forward to enjoying one of these next month.

Berry Jam and Chocolate Mousse Tart

I love chocolate, but I don’t think I’m one of those chocolate people. I always want something to brighten it up, and a thick layer of berry jam is the perfect tart balance to lots of chocolate mousse.

Stovetop Macaroni and Cheese
I started making this last year as a pregnancy craving, but in this rough beginning to 2016, it’s become a comfort food favorite.

Slow-Ferment Pizza Dough
Definitely the recipe I made more than any other this year. A quick mix on Monday night makes bubbly, crisp pizza Friday after work.

Lemon Cheesecake
Macaroni and cheese and cereal have been my primary pregnancy cravings, yet somehow, I seem to have made cheesecake at every opportunity as well. That might not have anything to do with pregnancy and everything to do with how delicious and creamy cheesecake is. This one is one of my favorites; that lemon curd on top goes so well with the rich cake.

Honorable Mention: Transportation Cake
The coconut cake recipe I shared here is a light, moist, and coconutty, but what really makes this worth talking about is the decorating, which was so much fun that I’ve taken advantage of every opportunity to make layered cakes since then – including my own baby shower.

Frankly, it’s been a rough start to this year, but soon enough, we’ll have a baby and hopefully a house to put her in, and we can start finding our new normal. I can’t wait to see what that looks like.

I’m late to the game, as always, but I was having too much fun enjoying the holidays. I have no regrets, but I do always love to review the previous year. Here are some of my favorites.

Corn Tortillas

As if tacos weren’t delicious enough, fresh corn tortillas come along. I’ve got it to where I can make a batch for me and Dave in about fifteen minutes, so it’s definitely worth it just for the perfect foldability, not to mention how great they taste.

Strawberry Daiquiris

Dave and I have tried dozens of recipes for tiki drinks over the last few months, and I love so many of them. Still, these strawberry daiquiris are safe in their position as my favorite cocktail.

Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes

Of the many desserts I made last year, I think this one was my favorite. It’s so perfect for spring.

Braised Artichokes

I’m eagerly waiting for artichokes to come back into season so I can start making this every week, just like last year.

Crab Towers with Gazpacho and Avocado Salsas

Not only are crab, avocado, and tomatoes some of my favorite foods, but they make a great match, especially in these beautiful towers.

Halibut in White Wine Sauce with Green Beans and Tomato-Scallion Relish

Now that Dave cooks fish for dinner once a week, I don’t cook it myself much, but this is one I made over and over this year.

Cocoa Nib Peanut Butter Bites

We’ve already got our annual family beach trip planned, which gives me an excuse to make these healthier treats in my annual pre-beach trip diet.

Quinoa Puttanesca
Dave did a bunch of traveling last year for work, so I probably made this more than any other meal. While I much prefer him to be home, this is a nice consolation prize for when he’s away.

Peach Raspberry Galette

My coworkers are always appreciative when I bring snacks in to share, but they went crazy for this.

Sweet Potato Mezzalune with Sausage Ricotta Filling

Everyone knows that filled dumplings are the best foods, whether ravioli, potstickers, or empanadas, and that’s especially true when it’s sausage and cheese wrapped in crisped and browned sweet potato gnocchi dough.

Let’s see what 2015 brings, shall we?

I was wishy-washy on whether to do a favorites list this year, but seeing everyone else’s lists convinced me to look back over my posts, and I was reminded of some great recipes that deserved to be highlighted. I didn’t get as many posts up this year as I have in the past, even though I was cooking as much as ever. What that means is that only the recipes that really impressed me made it here. These ten are the best of the best:

Chipotle Shrimp

This is a standout for its simplicity, which makes it a perfect weeknight meal. I also like that the shrimp gives it some variety from my usual rice and beans routine.

Mascarpone-Stuffed Strawberries

These are halfway between a healthy snack and a decadent dessert, which I’m finding is a nice niche to be able to fill.

Beef Barbacoa
This is the single best thing I made this year.

Kentucky Butter Cake

It seems blasé, just a basic dough in a bundt pan, but it’s tender, light, buttery, sweet cake perfection.

Shrimp and Avocado Ceviche

My new favorite way to eat chips. (It’s weird that two shrimp recipes have made this list, because as much as I love the flavor, sometimes the texture of shrimp squicks me out. I usually chop it for this salsa, which helps.)

Panko-Crusted Salmon

To be honest, I have never cooked this. But it’s become one of Dave’s fallbacks when it’s his turn to cook and he doesn’t know what else to make. I’m not complaining one bit.

Goat Cheese Almond Strawberry Cheesecake

The best dessert I baked this year (hurriedly photographed with my phone in a grassy area next to the office parking lot as I was running late to a meeting). The goat cheese really does add something special to the cheesecake, even though you wouldn’t know it was there unless someone told you.

Shiitake Mushroom and Lentil Asian Tacos

Such an interesting combination of flavors. I love food that is this fun but is still perfectly healthy.

Pasta with Zucchini Cream Sauce

I made this several times over the summer.  I love looking at vegetables in new ways, and letting the zucchini melt down into the sauce was perfect.

Salad with Pancetta, Peperoncini, and Parmesan
No one will ever complain about this salad.  It’s such a great course to serve before a rich pasta dish.

Really my only goal for 2014 is to keep at it. Happy New Year!

I didn’t post as much in 2012 as I have in previous years (only 3 posts in the entire month of November!), but I did find some great new recipes.

Rice noodle salad with peanut dressing has all of my favorite characteristics of a weeknight dinner – it’s healthy, easy, tastes great, and makes great leftovers.

I haven’t bought ricotta since I started making my own. It’s so much smoother and tastier than the stuff in the plastic container from the grocery store, not to mention that it only takes ten minutes to make and provides me a way to use up almost-expired containers of milk.

Grapefruit margaritas are back on the menu, now that it’s winter and grapefruit is back in season. So delicious! So dangerous!

I know this pasta with tiny meatball sauce looks like mushy Spaghettios, but it isn’t similar at all – it’s tomato sauce simmered for hours with three different types of meat, served over fresh pasta, topped with bite-sized meatballs. It’s amazing stuff.

It’s always a treat when I make marinated roasted tofu to snack on at work instead of my normal hard-boiled eggs.

Black bean quinoa salad with tomatillo salsa is the perfect complement to the rice noodle salad for weeknight meals. One busy week last year, I just made big batches of these two recipes so we could have tasty healthy meals all week with very little time required from me.

California roll burgers have such a great balance of bright, light sushi ingredients and rich beef. They’re my new favorite hamburger for sure.

Watermelon agua fresca – a delicious refreshing drink with no alcohol?! It’s a miracle!

Over the past six months, we’ve probably eaten more migas than any other dish. I make it, in some variation or another, just about every weekend.

Mussels fra diavolo might be outpacing salmon pesto pasta as Dave’s favorite meal. But my favorite part is that he’s always the one who cooks it.

My single New Year’s resolution is to get more use out of my cookbooks, but I’m not quantifying it or making myself accountable on the blog in any way. I just need to use the ones I have so I can justify buying more!

Happy New Year!

One year ago: 2011 favorites
Two years ago: 2010 favorites
Three years ago: 2009 favorites
Four years ago: 2008 favorites

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For as much as I like to look at pretty pictures of food – perfectly composed, artfully styled, brightly lit – I don’t like to spend much time taking them myself. I like to get in and get out, then get on with the eating. Sometimes this means my photos aren’t perfect; the white balance could be off, or there’s an ugly sauce drip in the shot, or my chosen background doesn’t quite fill the frame. I could spend another few minutes fussing with the styling, or I could eat my dinner and fix the photo later with software.

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Years ago, when I was poor and unemployed, I started out using the free post processing software GIMP. I started using Photoshop a couple years ago when I got it as a gift, but if I edit photos on my lunch hour at work, I’ll use web-based programs, either Pixlr or PicMonkey, which are also free. The free programs are more than adequate for the simple post processing that I do. Still, each has their strengths and weaknesses, which was the subject of the talk Brady and I gave at BlogHer Food in Seattle. Brady has the downlow on the various programs, and I’ll tell you what basic steps I use to edit a photo using any of those programs.  (Click on any of the photo sets to see a larger version.)

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1) The first thing I always do is save a copy of the photo. You don’t want to go making a bunch of changes to a photo only to realize later that it looks like crap, but you can’t go back and start over because you didn’t save the original.

2) Then, if the photo is a little crooked, I rotate it slightly until it’s straight. Every program has a different method for straightening, but the best ones (and all that Brady describes in her post on free photo editing software programs) let you base the rotation on what should be a straight line in the photo.

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3) You’ll always need to crop a photo after it’s been rotated, to square off the edges. Some programs do this automatically, but I prefer to choose my own crop after straightening a photo. I also often need to crop photos that are taken from above, because sometimes I don’t bother to look through the viewfinder for those; I just hold the camera above the subject and snap away until I capture everything I want in the frame. I almost always keep my photos the same dimensions as the original, although this is just a personal preference.

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4) Once you have the photo framed how you want it, resize it for your blog. Photos that are being posted online don’t need resolution as high as those that are being printed, so there’s no advantage to uploading a large photo that your blog host will automatically resize. In fact, this will slow down your site. Even worse, your hosting site doesn’t have a sophisticated method of resizing and might make your photo look dull and out of focus.

left – resized incorrectly; bottom – resized correctly (photos taken by Brady)

5) Cloning lets you stamp part of a photo over another part that you want to erase. You probably won’t use this often, but it’s a handy tool to have (especially if you realize later – much later, like after you post it on your blog and a commenter points it out – that your photo has a fly in it, not that I personally had this happen or anything…).

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6) Smudge lets you smear a portion of the photo into another part of the photo, like fingerpainting. I use this occasionally to fill in corners when my background doesn’t entirely fill the frame.

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7) Curves and levels are two ways of doing the same thing, adjusting the exposure of your photo. In both, most programs will show you a histogram, which represents how dark or light your photo is; the left edge of the histogram represents black pixels, the right edge white pixels. If you grab the top right end of the diagonal line and drag it toward the center of the histogram, the photo becomes brighter; but if you go too far, you risk blowing out light parts of the photo. You can also drag the bottom left end of the line to make the darks darker, and you can add as many points as you’d like in between the two ends of the line to drag up or down to adjust the brightness and contrast however you like.

top – unadjusted histogram; bottom – adjusted histogram

8 ) Levels is largely the same – same histogram, same method of adjusting the whites and the blacks. The difference is that, in levels, you can only adjust one mid-point instead of however many points as you want to add, like you can in curves.

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9) Color balance, or white balance, corrects slight tints in the color of the photo. Even when I set the white balance in my camera, it still tends to tint the photo just slightly blue, or cool. The final version of this poached egg with yogurt hollandaise is much closer to the true colors.

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10) I don’t adjust saturation of food photos often, but if a photo has a lot of bright colors in it, a slight increase in the saturation can bring those out. You have to be careful though, because it’s easy to go overboard. I’m actually not sure what happened with the photo of the strawberry ice cream tarts to make them look so drab, but increasing the saturation was an easy solution to make them look natural again.

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11) The last thing you should do with your photo is sharpen it up a bit. And the first thing you should know about sharpening is that it doesn’t fix unfocused photos. This photo of muffins, in which the fiber of the placemat is in focus and not the coconut garnish, cannot be fixed.

What sharpening can do is make focused photos a little more crisp. All digital photos are less sharp than film photos, because they’re based on a limited number of pixels. Sharpening corrects for this.

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Almost certainly, you won’t use all of these steps for every photo. You might find that some of these steps aren’t useful for you at all. But, surely, every photo will need to be opened in a post processing program and changed in some way, even if it’s just resizing it for your blog. If you’re looking for free photo editing software and don’t know which is the best program for you, check out Brady’s post to help you choose.

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One year ago: Bourbon Ice Cream
Two years ago: Rice and Peas
Three years ago: Pork Tenderloin with Rhubarb Sauce
Four years ago: Cappuccino Cream Puff Rings

PS – If you download the GIMP and find yourself overwhelmed, email me and I’ll send you some detailed instructions I wrote out a few years ago.

When Brady approached me about collaborating on a proposal to speak at the BlogHer Food conference in Seattle, I didn’t think twice – because I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that two small-time bloggers like us would ever be chosen to speak. When I got the much-exclamation-pointed text message from her that we’d been accepted, it became a whole new ballgame, one requiring booking flights, splitting hotel rooms, and using precious vacation time, not to mention hours spent preparing for our session. I was interested to attend the conference, but not quite as excited as I felt I should be.

What I felt instead was anxious. Even now, I can’t pinpoint why. Of course public speaking is nerve-wracking, but I’ve done it loads before and was confident in myself. Traveling alone is extra hassle but not entirely unpleasant. I think, if I had to choose one thing that was stressing me out, it would be three days of constant socializing. From rooms full of strangers to sharing a hotel room with someone I’d met in person only once before, it sounded exhausting.

And it was. It was also the most fun I’ve had in ages. It was nonstop talk about food and photography and websites, nonstop exchanging of business cards, nonstop twitter updates, nonstop sightings of people you’d previously only seen on a computer screen. It was learning and teaching and eating, and yes, constant socializing.

I solidified some friendships and began others. “Internet friends” became “IRL friends”. I met representatives from some of my favorite companies. I discovered new blogs and found people I’d like to work with in the future. I kissed a fish.

thanks, Brady, for letting me use this picture!

I picked up some food styling tricks and was reminded that I need to get a backup set up for my blog (asap!). I realized that shooting a video will take a lot more equipment than I have now. I was encouraged to think more about what I write compared to what I like to read. I discovered that Brady and I make a great team well beyond planning and delivering a session on the post processing of food photos. And most importantly, I left feeling like a socializing superstar, confident and happy and eager to apply all of the lessons of the weekend. But exhausted nonetheless.

brady on the left, me on the right being bossy – it’s what I do best

One year ago: Chicken Gyros
Two years ago: Raisin Swirl Bread
Three years ago: Strawberry Cake (comparison of two recipes)
Four years ago: Poached Eggs over Arugula with Polenta Fingers

I basked in the glory of not being required to bake anything on a schedule for about two weeks, and then I got bored. What can I say? I like to set goals.

The key is to find goals that push without demanding too much. I need enough structure to keep me accountable, but not so much that I feel resentful. I hope I’ve found that balance.

What I’ve decided to do is choose 24 dishes – 12 cooked and 12 baked – that have been marinating in the back of my brain for too long. These are recipes that I thought “YES!!! I want to make that, and as soon as possible”, when I first saw them, but then something has gotten in the way, time and again, sometimes for years. How many times am I going to think to myself that I should try making a dish at home before I just finally do it?

Not all of the recipes are difficult. Not all of them are even new to me; I’ve made versions of some of these dishes before, but haven’t found a recipe I think is The One. In some cases, I have specific recipes chosen; in others, only an ingredient or flavor.

I’ve assigned the dishes to months so I pace myself. (I’m not much of a procrastinator in projects like this; I would do the opposite and stress myself out by trying to finish them all by March.) And sometime, anytime, during that month, I’ll blog about those two recipes.

And that’s it. Two recipes per month, chosen by me, of dishes I’ve always wanted to make. How hard can this be?

Here’s the schedule:
January – asian lettuce wraps and black bean avocado brownies
February – ranch dressing and peanut butter butterscotch fudgy crisp rice sandwich bars
March – mozzarella and whole wheat chocolate chip cookies
April – dolmades and gougeres
May – mustard and focaccia
June – barbecued ribs and gelato
July – paella and honey ice cream
August – general tso’s chicken and creamsicle whoopie pies
September – tomato mozzarella tart with basil crust and pop-tarts
October – quinoa fritters and macarons
November – meatloaf and something chai-flavored
December – something with miso and gingerbread cookies

There isn’t much objectivism about the way I choose my favorite entries of the year. I try to focus on how good the food tasted, but sometimes how good the day was when we ate the food sneaks in and influences my choices. Although who knows if it was the good food that made me happy or the happiness that made the food taste good?

Fettuccine alfredo, nothing but cream, butter, cheese, and pasta, is a reminder that the occasional splurge is an absolute requirement.

Tomato soup has always been my favorite comfort food, and this recipe is so good that I can’t convince myself to try a different one.

Brown rice was the last whole grain I incorporated into my diet, and it’s all because of this method of cooking the rice like pasta, in lots of boiling water.

Baking bread with nothing but wild yeast was a decade-long goal of mine, and Tartine’s country bread came out even better than I could have imagined.

Greek yogurt dill dip makes the list not so much for the individual recipe, although I do love it, but because it was a turning point in my realization that substituting Greek yogurt for sour cream and mayonnaise was the answer to healthifying all sorts of creamy white dips and dressings.

I had to include summer berry pie because it’s one of Dave’s favorite desserts.

Chicken gyros have become a staple. Not only are they one of my favorite dinners to eat, it’s one of my favorite recipes to make.

Banh mi compete with chicken gyros for my favorite Sunday night meal. I love sandwiches!

Dulce de leche cupcakes are great, but it’s the dulce de leche buttercream that steals the show here.

Salted herbed roast turkey beats brined turkey any day – not only does it taste better, it’s easier.

Happy New Year!

The food I prepare echoes the events in my life. Last winter, after moving from Philadelphia to New Mexico, we got our first house with a yard – and soon after, our first grill. In May, I started my first full time job and became limited to quicker meals on weekdays. During the fall, I taught in the evenings after working at my day job, and – well, we ate a lot of leftovers for a few months. Now that things are settling down and I should have some more free time, I’m itching to get started on 2011’s list of favorites. But first, I want to make each of last year’s favorites a few more times…

Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese – This has all of the creaminess and richness that I love in traditional regular macaroni cheese, with the added sweetness, color, and wholesomeness of winter squash.

Jalapeno-Baked Fish with Roasted Tomatoes and Potatoes – There are very few meals I make more than once a month, and this has become one. I like to make extra sauce to store in the freezer to make this meal even easier.

Mediterranean Pepper Salad – I went through a gyro phase last summer, and this salad started out as the perfect side dish and morphed into the perfect topping. I’m impatient for the weather to warm up enough to grill so I can start another gyro phase.

Roll-Out Sugar Cookie comparison – It’s so rare when my comparisons have a clear result, and I love when it happens. But after spending the holidays at my mother-in-law’s and surviving almost entirely on her perfect sugar cookies, I think a rematch with her recipe is in order.

How to adapt any bread to be whole wheat – I use this trick – just a few minutes to mix up flour, salt, and yeast the night beforehand – nearly every time I make bread.

Vodka Gimlet – I drank a lot of these this summer. And then too many one night in October, and I haven’t had once since.

Chicken Fajitas – Chances were good that if it was a Sunday evening during the summer, if I wasn’t making some sort of gyro, Dave and I were grilling these.

Garlic Mustard Glazed Skewers – I make these when I need to be reminded that recipes don’t have to be complicated to be perfect.

Whole Wheat Bagels – Combined with a mug of strong black tea, these bagels make up the best part of my workday.

Bolognese Sauce – Despite this being one of those dreaded comparisons with no winner, it resulted in a freezer full of one of my favorite foods.