Herbal Rice Noodle Salad With Broccoli Rabe

It's finally spring! With the snowstorm that came through last week, it doesn't quite feel like it yet but I'm hoping today's recipe will help usher us into the season of renewal. This rice noodle salad is all about bright, fresh flavors that will make you feel energized and ready to come out of winter hibernation and into the sun again.

We start off with a base of cool rice noodles, then add broccoli rabe that has been quickly blanched to mellow the spiciness but keep a slight crunch. Mix that with some garlic and dried shrimp which has been pan fried in oil, a few other veggies, and a medley of fresh herbs. And finally top it off with a salty, slightly sweet, brightly acidic dressing made from coconut milk, fish sauce, lime juice, and lemongrass. You can serve it as a side or add your favorite protein and make it a main meal, it's no less delicious either way.

Hope you guys enjoy this refreshing recipe. Do you have any fun spring plans? Phillip and I are jetting off to Tokyo for a week and a half at the end of march, so if y'all have any good recommendations please send them along. Our main goal is to eat as much as possible so I'm hoping to come back with a lot of food inspiration and new recipe ideas to share here. See you when I get back!

Kale Caesar Salad

We're hosting our first real Thanksgiving this year, where more than two friends come over and I can finally stop being the person looking for the smallest turkey in the store. To celebrate such a big occasion, instead of gifting you with a drool worthy recipe for pie or casserole...you find a kale salad. I swear I'm not a party pooper, a good kale caesar is the cure to all of life's woes. And if you're looking to sneak some greens among all the carbs, butter, and sweets on thursday, the kale caesar is here for you, here to save the day.

This salad has been a part of our weekly repertoire for a while now, ever since we discovered the wonder that is homemade caesar dressing. But we didn't discover just how good it could be until we were dining in this tiny restaurant called El Rey on a friday night, ordered their kale salad, and reveled in how tender the leaves were. The key, we learned, was massaging olive oil into the leaves before assembling, covering every crevice and surface with a thin layer, working it in with your fingers, to turn the kale from tough and fibrous to tender and silky in just a few short minutes.

My Favorite Pasta Salad

You know in life, when things happen, they all happen at the same time. And though it's really exciting and wonderful, a little part of you wishes they were spaced out a teeny bit better. It has been over two weeks since my last post, and I promise I didn't just abandon this space right after my exciting announcement. As some of you know, the exact same day the Saveur finalists were announced, I started school. A full time 9-am-to-6-pm-plus-homework kind of school with the hopes of having a better, brighter, and more fulfilling career at the end of it. Thankfully it only lasts 12 weeks, but never have I had to actively use my brain for such an extended period of time each and every day—not in my previous jobs, not in college, not in high school. There is no such thing as "zoning out", or "free time" here (besides the hour we get for lunch), it's exhilarating, my classmates are amazing, I'm never bored, but goddamn, I am tired. I come home exhausted, and can barely muster up the strength to make dinner each day, so for the first two weekends after school started, I didn't blog. I felt awful because I had been given such a great honor of being a Saveur finalist, and I wanted so badly to give back and make more recipes, take more photos, and reach out to all of you, but I needed that time to decompress (and catch up on homework!). Now that we're starting our fourth week of school, there is finally a rhythm to the madness, and yesterday I managed to pull together a recipe I have been making and packing for lunch quite frequently as of late.

But before we move on to the recipe, if you haven't voted in the Saveur awards yet, I would really appreciate your vote in the Best New Voice category <3. Click the link here or in the sidebar, and make sure to cast a vote in the other categories as well so we can recognize all the wonderfully talented finalists.

Warm Brussels Sprout Salad with Marcona Almonds

An ode to the elegance of simplicity. To not laboring over a stove for hours on end. To enjoying the day and basking in the sunlight.

This past Saturday, the last day before March, was a beautiful day. The sun was shining like it rarely does during this time of year. A preview of things to come. It brought back memories of all the activities we used to do when the weather was nicer. Biking to the beach. Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge to get soup dumplings and not feeling bad about binge eating because we just walked 2 hour for lunch. Spending entire afternoons at the farmers market. Berry picking in the fields of Long Island.

Life has been busy to the point of insanity lately. There's been such a deluge of things to get done that I have neglected the most important of them: enjoying my surroundings with the people I love. So let's forget about all of that for one moment. Forget about work, forget about made up expectations, and enjoy the very life that we seem to so often forget to actually live. To celebrate the simple pleasures in life, a simple brussels sprout salad for those days when we all have better things to do than stay in the kitchen.