Easy Penne Pasta Salad

I had completely forgotten about the existence of pasta salads until I spent some time with my sister this past spring and she made one to have on hand for easy work lunches. Needless to say the flame of this old love was rekindled, and the recipe below is the child of that love! (Oh dear...) The keeper recipe I've finally settled on is mostly drawn from Taste of Home and A Southern Soul, but with tweaks to fit my own tastes better. It's not the most exciting dish, but when I'm craving a lot of veggies and needing something that'll fill me up it fits the bill quite nicely! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have this summer!

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!

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.

Deviled Eggs with Soy Sauce 'n Sesame

I will never not crave deviled eggs, but even I occasionally tire of the divine dill (gasp! I know!!!) deviled eggs I usually make. The other day I started pondering what a vaguely East Asian deviled egg would taste like...and then I did some googling and came across Eric Kim's awesome recipe and it just had to be! What follows is mostly his recipe, but with a couple of adaptations to make it better fit my family's tastes. If you love deviled eggs as much as I do definitely give this a try, I don't think you'll regret it!

Cheesy Grits

I've used a variety of grits recipes over the years, but what follows is my current adaptation developed in the empty spaces of the Canadian Prairies during the more isolated days of the COVID pandemic. I am not a Southerner, so I can't speak to how authentic this recipe is. I do know what I myself like, however, and this fits the bill pretty nicely!

"Mongolian" Beef 'n Rice

Voltaire once said of the Holy Roman Empire that it was "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire," and I must say that I have a similar feeling whenever I come across "Mongolian" barbecue, "Mongolian beef," et cetera, when in North America. I have never had the privilege of visiting Mongolia, but I did live next door to it for years and my favorite cousin has actually lived there for quite some time, so I do have an idea of what Mongolian food is...and this recipe isn't it!

North American-style Pancakes

Here is my preferred recipe for fluffy North American-style pancakes. Enjoy!

Fettuccine Alfredo

This is an adaptation of too many recipes to reference here. I used several as guides, but ultimately made some arbitrary changes both for my heart health's sake (for example, using a cup of butter felt excessive even with a full box of fettuccine) and for my own tastes. I so wanted to make this the authentic Italian way, but North America's love for cream (and my love for garlic!) won out. As always, do as you feel led if you give this a try!

Homemade Hamburger Helper

I think a lot of North American kids - from my generation at least! - grew up eating Hamburger Helper fairly regularly. I remember falling out of love with it by middle school, and as far as I can recall I haven't had it since. (Not voluntarily anyways!) Lately, however, we've been trying to clean out our pantry and when trying to figure out what I could do to maximize pantry and freezer-emptying I realized that we had all the ingredients for hamburger helper. I didn't expect to particularly like the results - made from an adaptation of this lovely recipe - but it was a hit and made for decent leftovers the next day as well. There are a million versions of this out there, what's below is my twist made for my family's tastes. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!