An easy recipe for shortcut Chicken Pad Thai using a prepared sauce.

More than a few people have asked me to post the recipe secrets for my sushi. My maki rolls have been known on many occasions to make sushi lovers out of both fearful sushi virgins and those who’ve had bad sushi experiences, but for the most part my secret is “practice” and a couple [...]

I never would have thought of using tunafish in tacos. But when Rick Bayless made some on his show, I knew I had to try it. I had some Sweet & Spicy tuna packets (Aldi’s generic competitor to the StarKist brand) that, to be honest, I was kind of terrified of, and they’d been living [...]

When I discovered Pastoral Artisan Cheese, Bread and Wine, a wonderful cheese shop / sandwich shop near where I was working recently in Chicago’s Loop, I was ecstatic! I’d been searching for a great source for my favorite serrano ham and manchego cheese for awhile to make a really special treat. We enjoyed it today [...]

Thanks to a super hectic schedule and working lots of weekends, today was our first trip to the Oak Park Farmer’s Market this year. Soon after we arrived, however, we remembered why we love it so. We often settle on a theme — tiny food, abnormally large food, speckled food, things we haven’t tried [...]

Ikea is awesome. But it’s not just awesome because of the inexpensive homegoods. The café, where you can get mounds of Swedish meatballs, complete with plenty of lingonberry sauce for just a couple bucks, now that’s where it’s at. It’s a favorite comfort food of mine, and lucky for me and my family, the folks [...]

There are some products that come along that are kind of like magic. I really and truly feel that way about Nasoya’s Cubed Super Firm Tofu. I love tofu in restaurants but I could never get the texture right when I made it at home. But once this came into my life, everything was instantly [...]

My husband’s favorite comfort foods seem to involve Polish favorites: sauerkraut, polish sausage, and pierogi of all sorts. File pierogi under the foods that aren’t worth making from scratch, by the way, but there’s a solution. Well, there’s two. You can make your own Shortcut Pierogi:
QUICK TIP:
For shortcut pierogi, boil some large pasta shells and [...]