Homemade Chinese Five Spice Powder - one of my favorite spice blends. Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cloves, fennel, and cinnamon combine to create a wonderful and uniquely flavored seasoning.
Why should you make your own Chinese Five Spice? First, one of the cool things about making your own spice blends is that you can control the ingredients in the blend, and customize the spices to your taste.
These babka knots are filled with the sweet flavor of eggnog, perfect for the Christmas season. Serve them for breakfast, brunch, or even dessert for a tasty holiday celebration.
These mini eggnog babka twists are made from a dough that you would use for a small-sized loaf. You divide the dough into smaller pieces and cut and twist it into cute little individually-sized knots.
This pear and cherry sourdough bread is loaded with chunks of fresh Asian pear and dried cherries.
This bread is loaded with chunks of firm Asian pear along with dried cherries, and the contrast of the sweet and tart flavors is pretty tasty. This bread is wonderful warm with butter on the day that it is made. It also makes fabulous toast and sandwiches.
This pumpkin martini is like a milkshake in a cocktail glass... only much better.
These Bûche de Noël Cookies are a bite-sized take on everyone's favorite Christmas cake. They are fun to shape, decorate, and especially to eat.
These cookies start with a shortbread-style dough, which is spread with a hazelnut filling and then rolled up before slicing and baking. They are topped with a chocolate ganache with a hint of hazelnut chocolate spread and then finished with cute little holly berry and leaves sprinkles.
These marbled ube cookies start with a vanilla dough, half of which is flavored with ube, a yam with a sweet subtly vanilla flavor and a bright purple color.
These cookies are soft and chewy. They also have a bit of crunch from a generous topping of festive sprinkles!
These browned butter chocolate chunk candy cookies are a wonderful combination of flavors and are the pefect addition to your Christmas cookie recipe collection.
The name of these cookies is a bit of a tongue twister in order to capture all of the things that make these cookies so terrific, including crushed candy coated chocolate, bittersweet chocolate chunks, and browned butter.
Yangzhou Fried Rice is a simple yet flavorful dish to make. It is a classic dish served at a Chinese banquet toward the end of the meal and it's an amazingly simple dish to prepare.
There are only five ingredients (eight if you count the oil, salt, and pepper). No garlic, no ginger, and, in this case, no soy sauce.
These big bakery-style chocolate mint chip cookies are loaded with crème de menthe chocolate candies and topped with even more chocolate mints after baking.
These chocolate mint chip cookies are big, thick, and craggy, with crispy edges and chewy centers with pieces of Andes Mints in every bite.
These white chocolate dipped gingersnaps are a little softer than most gingersnaps and are quite delicious ether left plain or dressed up in white chocolate and sprinkles for the holidays.
There's something about ginger and the holidays for me lately. Of course I've been doing a lot of baking, and anything ginger has been at the top of the list. Fortunately, everyone's been pretty happy with this development.
This gingersnap cookie mousse is easy to make and a great make-ahead dessert or afternoon treat.
With just a few ingredients and a little bit of time to let the ingredients chill, you can easily make and serve this tasty gingersnap dessert with very little effort. I served these for dessert for a family dinner and everyone ate every bite.
These Thai-Flavored Pork Belly Skewers are seriously delicious..... soooo good..... happy dance good. How many ways can I say that they are pretty amazing! Serve them as an appetizer and watch them disappear.
I still can't believe I devoured a skewer full of this pork belly the minute it came off of the grill! The wonderful combination of ingredients in the marinade definitely make this dish.
These seeded rye muffins taste just like a slice of deli rye bread. The aroma while they are baking is so wonderful that you'll think you just walked into a bakery.
These rye muffins, especially with the included seeds, definitely have the flavor of rye bread but without the work. In fact, if you haven't worked with rye flour, these muffins are a great place to start.
This croissant French toast is a wonderful breakfast treat. It's the perfect special occasion breakfast. While the recipe is similar to your favorite French toast, using croissants produces such an elegant, tasty, and extra crispy result.
Croissant French toast is a wonderful special occasion breakfast. You can also make it for brunch, or even breakfast for dinner (brinner!).
This stuffed turkey breast with gravy is a great way serve a traditional-style meal for a smaller group. You get all of the flavors without too many leftovers and in a lot less time.
Sometimes you might find yourself cooking dinner for two, three, or four on Thanksgiving, and baking a giant bird might be overkill. This dish gives you an opportunity to serve an easy but special Thanksgiving meal.
These persimmon cranberry cookies with warming spices are a delicious way to take advantage of persimmon season.
Filled with a puree made with one of fall and winter's sweetest fruits, the Fuyu persimmon, these cookies are hard to resist. I may have enjoyed a few cookies for breakfast actually.
This Maple Walnut Tart is a delicious twist and change of pace from the usual holiday pecan pie.
The tart, with the combination of the toasted walnuts and pure maple syrup, just might become your new favorite holiday dessert.
Xavier Soup (or Xaver Suppe) is a simple and tasty Italian soup made of a clear chicken broth or stock and filled with dumplings made with Parmesan cheese, eggs, parsley, and flour.
Xavier soup is in honor of the feast day of St. Franis Xavier, which is December 3, early in the Advent season.
These cranberry-apple-walnut crumb bars are super easy to make and will be the superstar of your holiday dessert table.
With fresh cranberries, toasted walnuts, and apples, these tasty bars are so festive and fun, and are nice enough to take to both potlucks and holiday parties. They're fabulous for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.
This Parmesan pull-apart bread, with butter, onion flakes, dill seeds, and fresh parsley is completely irresistible.
Between each layer of soft homemade bread enjoy a buttery mix of Parmesan cheese, lots of garlic, dried onions, dill seed, and a big handful of fresh parsley, this loaf will call your name. It's really hard to resist pulling off layer after layer to enjoy while the loaf is still warm.
These cream cheese biscuits are super soft and a little bit cake-like. They're wonderful fresh from the oven and spread with melty butter.
These biscuits are pretty special because they include cream cheese, they are extra soft, and can actually be made in advance and reheated.
Membrillo is a sweet paste that can be cut into little squares and served as an appetizer on a slice of Manchego cheese. You could also serve it with the Manchego on crackers or Spanish-style chorizo.
Membrillo is made from the quince fruit. The quince is cooked down and combined with lemon juice and sugar to create a sweet fragrant paste. The mixture of the quince, sugar, lemon, and sugar thickens naturally because the quince is naturally very high in pectin. It's a popular appetizer in Spain, especially around the holidays.
If you are looking for a sweet potato side dish for the holidays (or anytime), try this sweet potato and leek gratin. It's a wonderful savory dish with unexpected savory flavors.
This casserole, with a combination of sweet potatoes, Russet/Idaho potatoes, leeks, and pancetta is a fabulous side dish for any poultry, seafood, or meat main dish. Leftovers are great for lunch as a main dish with a salad.
These chocolate mint whoopie pies, with fluffy peppermint buttercream sandwiched between two rounded layers of soft dark chocolate cake, are the perfect combination of flavors.
With the deep chocolate flavor of the cake and the cool peppermint flavor of the buttercream, there's a good chance that these whoopie pies will become one of your family's favorite desserts.
This winter squash gratin is a wonderful side dish for your holiday dinner. It is also great as a main dish, served with a salad, for a light lunch or dinner.
With a base of honeynut squash mixed with rice, Parmesan cheese, and eggs, and a topping of herby and garlicky breadcrumbs, this winter squash gratin is super savory and totally flavorful. It's a tasty break from the usual sweeter winter squash side dishes.
This beef and sweet potato stir-fry is really simple to make and easy to whip up on a week night.
If you marinate the beef in the morning, you can create this dinner in less than 20 minutes. No rice required, and it's nutritious!
These lemon pomegranate muffins take advantage of the the abundance of the bright, red, and flavorful pomegranates that are available right now.
These muffins begin with a tender, sweet, buttery, and lemony crumb filled with pomegranate arils and poppy seeds and are topped with a crumbly poppy seed streusel.
If you are a fan of The Original Tommy's World Famous Hamburgers, these Chili Cheeseburgers will definitely hit the spot.
I first got introduced to Tommy's, and the "Tommy Burger," when I was in college in Los Angeles. After late nights of studying for midterms or finals, someone would suggest making a "Tommy run," and we'd all hop in the car and head over to Beverly and Rampart, not the best part of town, even then.
These vanilla bean sablés are the French version of shortbread cookies. They are simple, with just a few ingredients, but they are a revelation.
See those tiny dots? They are vanilla seeds scraped from soft and plump vanilla beans. It's a simple ingredient, but it brings so much flavor to the cookie. You won't be able to have just one cookie.
These Mini Chocolate Bundt Cakes will totally satisfy a chocolate cake lover's cravings.
You'll love these tiny cupcake-sized individual cakes. They are super moist and rich and they are a fun way to get your daily dose of rich chocolate cake. They are made with a decadent chocolate cake and are also topped with a rich chocolate ganache.
These dark chocolate skull cakes are a scary fun dessert to serve at a Halloween party or just to have in the kitchen to celebrate the coming holiday.
With pomegranate arils for eyes and vanilla sprinkles for teeth, these little two-bite dark chocolate cakelets are a great way to have a decadent dessert without over indulging. Unless you are like me and secretly grab one every time you pass through the kitchen.
These sourdough Hawaiian-style rolls are soft and fluffy. They will remind you of the soft and tasty rolls sold in grocery stores, but with a little sourdough tang.
You can use Hawaiian-style rolls in so many ways. They are great for all kinds of sliders, sandwiches, and breakfast buns. You can also dress them up to make sticky buns, stuff them with cheese, or use leftovers for bread pudding. Of course, just warm them and toss them in your breadbasket on the table. They also make the most excellent dinner rolls.
These graveyard brownies are super fun to make and even more fun to serve. Share them for a kids' party, your book club, or even after dinner with friends.
I had so much fun shopping for and playing around with different ingredients and ideas for putting these brownies together. For once, I was happy to see that stores had their Halloween sections set up even though it was still September!
These sourdough pumpkin rolls are so soft and fluffy, yet they have just the right amount of tang that you expect from a sourdough bread.
Serve these rolls with your holiday dinner, and, if you have any leftovers, use them to make tasty leftover Thanksgiving dinner sandwiches. So good! In fact, you might want to make an extra batch for just that purpose.
These mummy meatballs are a scary good appetizer. They are perfect for serving at your Halloween party or for a fun kids' dinner.
These mummy meatballs are great to bring to a Halloween-themed potluck or party too. Pair them with my mini mummy dogs, breadstick snakes, or deviled Halloween tea eggs.
These Black and Orange Cookies are a Halloween take on the famous Black and White cookies sold in New York City bakeries.
The cookies are soft and "cake-like," and are iced on one half with chocolate icing and on the other half with vanilla icing. They are sometimes called half-and-half cookies or half moon cookies. They are traditionally black and white, but to celebrate Halloween, you can make them black and orange.
These Pork and Chinese Chive Steamed Buns represent a cross between two of my favorite hobbies, bread baking and wok cooking.
These pork-filled buns are made with a yeasted dough, the same dough that you would make bao buns, but shaped like a dumpling or pan-fried bun. This is the type of dough that might be used in array of dishes for dim sum.
Ube pandesal is a bright purple and uniquely flavored variation of the classic Filipino breakfast and snack roll, the pandesal.
This ube pandesal, a tasty roll flavored with purple yam, has a sweet, faintly nutty, vanilla-ish flavor. It is a newer twist on the popular Filipino breakfast treat. I made it three ways, plain, filled with ube jam (halaya), and filled with cheese. It is so good!
This tofu chocolate mousse is rich, creamy, and so easy to make. With only about 15 minutes of prep time you can make this decadent tasting dessert.
This tofu chocolate mousse is a no cook, no bake dessert with a rich chocolatey taste. With just a few ingredients and a food processor, you can assemble and this dessert in just a few minutes. Everyone will love it and have no idea that it is made with tofu.
Start your day with a super moist and tasty coconut bran muffin with a hint of cinnamon, vanilla, and brown sugar.
These muffins are filled with wheat bran, which is the outer layer of the wheat kernel. These muffins are loaded with fiber yet are pretty light, likely because they contain actual wheat bran instead of bran cereal, which can also include other ingredients.
This potato, cheddar, and chive torpedo bread is a "mixed method" loaf, in that it includes both a sourdough starter and instant yeast. You can enjoy the sourdough flavor without the uncertainty!
Between the cooked potatoes and the cheddar cheese, this bread is super soft and totally cheesy. Add some fresh chives and you have a bread that is completely flavorful on its own.
A michelada is a refreshing Mexican beer cocktail. It's great for brunch or hanging out on a warm day.
It's also great for celebrating National Drink a Beer Day, which is September 28. It's made with a light Mexican beer and Clamato or tomato juice, as well as salty, sour, spicy, and umami flavors.
These tangerine ricotta cookies are soft, tender, and cake-like. Finish them with a sweet glaze, tangerine zest, and your favorite sprinkles or nonpareils.
These Italian-inspired cookies are like little bites of soft cake. They are super moist from the ricotta in the dough. They also make wonderful Christmas cookies. Just change the colors of the sprinkles!
These apple cookies are super soft and full of apple flavor.
These cookies contain five versions of apple, including chopped fresh apples, dried apples, apple jelly, apple juice, and boiled apple cider. The flavor of apples truly shines in these cookies.
These roasted tricolor carrots with a coconut orange glaze are a wonderful side dish for fall and the holidays. They might just emerge as one of your favorite vegetable recipes.
Roasting carrots really brings out the flavor and sweetness in this vegetable, and using multicolored heirloom carrots adds so much to the appeal of this dish. Plus, the variety of carrots adds a more complex depth of flavor that is beyond what you expect, from earthy, to savory, to sweet. You can even roast the carrots, let them cool, and combine them in a pasta salad with kale.
This sourdough focaccia is light and airy, and loaded with flavor. You can top it simply with some olive oil, herbs, and sea salt for a delicious dipping bread to go with your meal.
You can split squares of this bread through the middle to make sandwiches like you might find in an Italian American deli and load it up with deli meats, cheeses, pesto, and veggies. You'll have the perfect sandwich for a picnic.
This sourdough seeded bread with tangzhong is loaded with whole grains and fiber. Plus, it's surprisingly soft enough for making your favorite sandwiches.
This bread may be filled with fiber and nutritious whole grains, but the flavor and the texture of the crumb appeal to any bread lover because.... after all, it's a soft and tender bread!
These brownies may look like standard chocolate chip brownies, but there's a surprise inside, peanut butter chips along with the chocolate chips.
These peanut butter chip brownies are super moist and fudgy. Pack these into a lunchbox (yours or someone else's) for a sweet treat in the middle of the day. These brownies are perfect for both kids and grown-ups alike. Who doesn't love chocolate and peanut butter?
These crispy molasses cookies, spiced with ginger and cinnnamon, will satisfy any cravings you may have for the flavors of fall and the upcoming holidays.
These cookies are so tasty. They will be calling your name to return to the cookie jar in the kitchen and have "just one more." I sure couldn't resist.
This apple oatmeal bread, with a hint of cinnamon and brown sugar, brings the flavors of fall to your favorite sandwiches. Pair it with your favorite artisan cheese for a leveled up grilled cheese sandwich.
This bread also includes the crunch of chopped walnuts for a savory and sweet bread that is amazingly versatile. Use if for making your favorite turkey or chicken sandwiches, French toast, cinnamon toast, and even PB & J.
