Mashed Potatoes with Dill

This is an easy, delicious recipe that's relatively easy to get going while making whatever your main is on a given day. I love mashed potatoes with dill, but you can easily substitute your own favorite herbs. Whatever you do, enjoy!

Dill Chicken Salad

This recipe is a quick 'n easy, light meal for two - in my family anyways! - and a great way to use up leftover rotisserie chicken. I've adapted Spend with Pennies' great recipe, so feel free to carry on to the source, especially if you like your chicken salad to have a bit of a crunch. (I do not like crunchy chicken or tuna salad, hence my modifications below.) Whatever you do, enjoy!

Easy Bread Pudding

Bread pudding is an old favorite and a great way to use up leftover or old bread. I make this particular recipe when my freezer's filling up with toast bread heels - it's so much nicer having that space taken up with bread pudding instead! This recipe is loosely based on Ellen Marie's original recipe, with tweaks to maximize my enjoyment of the end product. Feel free to give it a try or to follow the original recipe, to each their own!

Corn n' Egg Drop Soup

This is a variation on another old Cantonese favorite, in this incarnation an adaptation of Meet the Chows' straightforward recipe. It's great as part of a set of dishes, a starter, or even on its own when you're short on time and not too crazy hungry. (A scoop of rice would no doubt help in that last scenario!) It's simple yet very moreish at the same time. Enjoy!

Soy Sauce Fried Rice

This is another old staple that somehow fell off my menu during the early COVID years and kinda got forgotten. I've made other fried rices since, but I've been missing the simpler, more classic fried rice that made many a breakfast for me when I was still living in China. I've largely followed Red House Spice's recipe, with modifications to better fit my family's taste. Try hers, try mine, to each their own! Whatever you do though, enjoy!

Easy Oatmeal

This is mainly for my own reference if I go a while without making oatmeal for breakfast! I've got my two favorites here for now, but if I remember any others - or new ones arise! - I'll get them added to this post. I love old school oatmeal, but what's here is for a quick, hearty breakfast on a less than relaxing morning. The peanut butter oatmeal recipe is entirely my own, but the maple pecan one is based on Yumna Jawad's recipe.

Siga Wot

This dish - ሥጋ ወጥ in Amharic - is another old favorite from Ethiopia, and turns out beautifully tender using the pressure cooker. The core of the recipe is from Ato Daniel's classic Ethiopian cookbook, but I've tweaked it here and there to work better for me. The end result still tastes like the original to me, and is well worth a try if you already love Ethiopian food or are looking to try it out at home!

Tex-Mex Dal

This dish is one of those that was born out of need. We had forgotten to go to the grocery store and I was out of peanut butter for my usual vegan breakfast go to (peanut butter oatmeal), so I was rooting around in the cabinets for something quick 'n easy before I had to start teaching...and behold, split red lentils! I didn't quite have everything to make a normal dal (again, the grocery store situation), so when I found salsa in the fridge an idea - no, a star! - was born.

Easy Potato Salad with Sesame

Some days there's time to do a recipe...but most days there's not. This is definitely a recipe for one of those latter days! It's vaguely based on Korean Bapsang's lovely potato salad recipe, but with so many modifications that I hesitate to attribute this to her. Definitely try hers out if you want something more authentically Korean! And if you want to try a vaguely East Asian-inspired potato salad recipe, then try out mine. Either way, enjoy!

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

This is a recipe that looks daunting at first glance, but is actually quite easy and straightforward. It might require some shopping if you don't have the basics of a Chinese pantry, but most of those "unusual" ingredients get used quite a bit in other Chinese dishes. (When my husband and I got into cooking more of his food after we left China we used to joke that everything used the same four or five ingredients, just in differing amounts - it's funny 'cause it's kinda true!) I've used the wonderful recipe at the Woks of Life as a base, but adapted it somewhat to my family's tastes. Definitely go to the source if you're wanting to work with a more authentic recipe!