We celebrated the 35th "birthday" of a weekly meeting on the topic of memory that my graduate advisors host. The majority of the alumni of this meeting have gone on to big research careers. I've only been a part of this meeting for a year, but it has been a great learning experience, and I wanted to do my part and bake a birthday cake. Though...

Erin has this amazing memory from Barolo back in Seattle. It was one of our first meals in the city, and she ordered this rather amazing creamy salmon pasta. Every once in awhile, I like to try and recreate it (or something inspired by it). Today's adaptation is a creamy manchego pasta with salmon. Yums. We followed this recipe to create a...

We pretty much love reuben sandwiches and are always looking for new interpretations of a reuben (see here and here). So here is our latest version...a reuben made into a pizza! It has all of the elements of your favorite reuben sandwich on top of a pizza crust with a little bit of fresh mozzarella, because let's face it, all pizza tastes better...

I know the final product was not what Dustin was expecting when I told him I was making him BLTA pasta, but in the end I think he was pleasantly surprised with how nice and gourmet-feeling this dish came out. Typically a BLT is not what you'd consider fancy, but take all of its standard ingredients and turn them into an inspired pasta dish, and...

We bought an entire case of Coors Light just so we could make this beer can chicken. The chicken itself was a fancy Jidori chicken, then we cooked it with Coors Light...I had to laugh at this disparity in the quality of ingredients. We really wanted to grill our chicken, but there was no way this chicken guy would be able to stand in our tiny...

We spent 4th of July with this delicious monstrosity of a burger in our bellies. Inspired by this chicken fajita burger, we replaced the chicken fajitas with grilled skirt steak marinated in lime, orange juice, and tequila. Queso dripping out of the sides and a little guacamole on top makes it the perfect ode to Tex-Mex. Making homemade buns...

This blueberry mint pie was inspired by my favorite lemonade flavor at a local upscale cafeteria restaurant. I've started stopping by after my barre workout, which pretty much cancels out all the hard work I've just done. It's just so refreshing to sip on during my walk home in the California sun. I started thinking how else I could incorporate...

This isn't really a new meal (see our Doritos crusted chicken fingers from before), but this time around we used Cool Ranch Doritos instead of the Nacho Cheese version. They were just as delicious as we remembered, and by far some of the best baked chicken we've ever tasted. This time we also soaked our chicken in real buttermilk for a couple...

I was originally going to make mini peanut butter cookies with a Nutella filling (once again, to clean out half-used pantry ingredients), but changed my mind immediately when I stumbled across a picture of some awesome looking peanut butter cookies with a Nutella swirl. Sold. Dustin walked into the apartment with dogs after work, and instantly...

There's a gourmet ice cream shop near us with the most amazing fresh mint chip ice cream. We've tried several of their other flavors, which are also delicious, but that fresh mint chip ice cream takes the cake. They also serve freshly made chocolate waffle cones. A couple of scoops of their fresh mint chip ice cream in a chocolate cone is the...