It's been a long while since we've had the pleasure of dining at Benjy's in Rice Village— home of our favorite blood orange margaritas— for happy hour. We used to frequent Benjy's our senior year at Rice and ate way too much of their delicious fried calamari. I still claim its the best fried calamari I've ever had. Perhaps I am remembering it...

In part of an attempt to clean out half used things from my pantry, I decided to make some cookie butter muffins with chocolate chips. As much as I enjoyed the cookie butter banana bread I made awhile back, these muffins were amazing. I made them to be large bakery-style muffins, and they ended up with the perfect muffin texture. Chocolate...

Now that it is cherry season, it would be a good time to try this seared chicken covered in red wine cherry sauce. Some friends cooked us dinner once and combined cherries with thyme, a flavor combination I wouldn't have thought of on my own, but it really stuck with me. We decided to experiment with cherries and thyme on our own, poured over...

We've made caprese sandwiches before, but we've never put all of that goodness together with a big juicy beef patty. It was a good decision. I'd been dreaming of    putting creamy burrata on top of a burger (it's sort of been one of my recent food obsessions), so I decided why not include all of the other things that go with burrata and add...

One of the first restaurants we tried out here in LA was Pizzeria Mozza where we stuffed our faces with rictotta-stuffed fried squash blossoms, pizza, pizza, and more pizza, and finally their butterscotch budino and a scoop of olive oil ice cream. As delicious as everything was, the olive oil ice cream was our favorite part, and I vowed to...

Neither of the bakeries that created these cupcakes is native to LA; however both East Coast-based cupcake shops have chosen this city to be one of their few expansion locations. Magnolia Bakery originated in New York and Georgetown Cupcakes originated in the D.C. area. We perhaps haven't done the best job of buying cupcakes at both of the...

Pork belly is a fun challenge. Since its so fatty you don't want to feel like you're biting into pure fat (even though you pretty much are). You want tender meat, soft and moist from the fat with perfectly crisp exteriors to compliment with a crunch. We served our asian style pork belly over a bed of basmati rice and stir fried snap peas. Add...

Dustin and I prefer margaritas on the rocks, but sometimes a frozen margarita really hits the spot on a hot day. We had some fresh berries in the fridge from the farmer's market, so we decided to make some blackberry margaritas. You can use any berry desired, but that's what we had. Just make sure you strain the blackberry mixture before...

Best use of leftover tortillas from making loads of enchiladas? Taco lasagna. Since you don't need to roll the tortillas, they can be slightly stale, which if  you tried to use in enchilada making, you'd end up with enchiladas that are falling apart (as we have experienced personally lately). The concept is pretty simple. Use corn tortillas...

We've tried making chile con queso at home before using a recipe from the Homesick Texan cookbook. It was good in flavor, but it lacked the texture and "meltyness" we've come to expect from the legit Tex-Mex queso of my homeland. Apparently the secret to that texture and "meltyness" is white American cheese in block form. We've known this for...