My Favorite cookbooks — Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes–Seaweed Salad

Recently, a friend asked me for a recommendation of a good cookbook to give her mom for her birthday. You would think, with the amount of cooking I do, that would be a fairly easy question to answer but it isn’t easy to answer at all. What makes a cookbook good is so subjective, the question is almost impossible to answer.  What makes a cookbook good for me may make it the worst cookbook ever for you.  There are so many variables in why constitutes a good cookbook I am not even going to try and recommend cookbooks for you.  Instead, I am going to share my favorite cookbooks with you and let you decide if they would qualify as a good cookbook for you. 

First up is Lucky Peach Presents 101 Easy Asian Recipes.  One thing I thinks qualifies a cookbook as good is it makes you want to get in the kitchen and cook. 101 Easy Asian Recipes does that for me in spades. Every time I look through the book, I find another recipe I want to try.  So far, I have tried 17 recipes.  The food tastes good.  The recipes are reliable.  Most of the recipes are quick and easy.

One thing I usually hate in a cookbook is when the recipes use a lot of ingredients I can’t easily find at my local grocery store.  In this cookbook, almost every ingredient is something I had to go to the Asian market for or order online.  I am lucky to have two incredible Asian markets in my hometown that I visit frequently that had the majority of the ingredients I needed for what I wanted to try.  If you aren’t as lucky, and don’t like ordering things online, you may want to skip this cookbook. 

Okay, for most of us, the idea of cooking with seaweed is a little strange but I was looking for a side dish for the dumplings I was making for my Christmas eve dinner and knew I could get the ingredients for this recipe fairly easily, so I tried and loved it. If you are wanting to step outside your comfort zone and try something new, it is definitely worth the hunt for the ingredients in this recipe and many others in the book.

• Difficulty: Easy
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From The Lucky Peach Presents

1 oz Wakame seaweed

2 TBS rice vinegar

1 TBS sesame oil

1 TBS sugar

1 TBS soy sauce

1 tsp grated ginger

2 TBS toasted sesame seeds

2 TBS minced scallion

1/2 tsp chili flakes

Soak the Wakame in cold water for 5 minutes or until tender, drain and pat dry. Slice the Wakame in 1/4-inch strips.

In a mediuml bowl, whisk together the vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, soy sauce and ginger. Add the seaweed, sesame seeds, scallion, and chili flakes and toss to coat. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Dry Chimichurri Rub

Whenever I help someone start a blog, I tell them one of the most important things to do is to pick a posting schedule and stick to it. Over the last year, I haven’t taken my own advice. I have put a lot of pressure on myself to post my 3 recipes a week and then felt horrible when I only managed to post one recipe a month. It was a vicious cycle that was robbing me of my joy in blogging which is sad because I have always said that when I don’t enjoy blogging anymore, I won’t do it anymore. Yeah, there were several times in 2021 where I thought about permanently shutting down A Solitary Feast.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, my friend told me not to make any decisions while I was grieving the loss of one of my best friends and culinary companion, Audrey. She said to give myself time and grace and come back to regular blogging when I am ready. How did I get such smart friends? She was absolutely right. I spent time missing Audrey, pursuing some interests outside of cooking and blogging and lots, and lots, of reading all the books I could get my hands on. Eventually, I found my way back to the kitchen and the peace and calm I feel when I am there which helped me find my joy in creating recipes and writing posts for the blog again.

So I won’t be shutting down A Solitary Feast. I am making some changes to my publishing schedule, though. I will no longer be publishing 3 recipes a week. I will now be publishing one recipe every week. The day of the week might vary but I will publish once every week.

• Difficulty: Easy
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Adapted From Epicurious

2 tsp oregano

2 tsp basil

1 1/2 tsp parsley flakes

1 1/2 tsp thyme

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

3/4 tsp black pepper

3/4 tsp savory

3/4 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 – 1 tsp crushed red pepper flake

In a small bowl, combine all the ingredients.  Mix well.  Store in an airtight container, in a cool, dark place.  To use:  heavily sprinkle all over chosen protein or make a marinade of 2 tablespoons rub, 1/4 cup olive oil and 1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar.  Add protein of choice and let marinade at least 30 minutes before cooking. 

Cranberry Mango Green Tea

I am starting 2022 with recipe that combines my longtime love of cranberries with my new found love of tea in all it’s forms for a delicious hot drink. If I am honest, I have been drinking this tea since I found the recipe in late August and will continue drinking it until I run out of cranberries to make it with. Which, honestly, will probably never happen because I always make sure to stock up on cranberries for the off season.

I have used plain Jasmine green tea for this recipe as well a blend called Full Body Reset from a company called Plum Deluxe. You can use loose leaf green tea or green tea bags for this recipe. Serve this recipe hot or cold.

• Difficulty: Easy
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4 cups water

1 cup chopped mango, fresh or frozen

1 cup cranberries, fresh or frozen

1 (1 inch piece) fresh ginger, sliced

4 tsp loose leaf green tea or 4 green tea bags

sweetener, to taste

in a medium saucepan, combine water, mango, cranberries and ginger. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Simmer, covered for 5minutes. Remove from heat and add tea bags. Cover and steep for 5minutes.

Remove and discard tea bags. Strain mixture through a fine mesh sieve. Discard solids. You can sweeten the tea at this point and float a lemon slice in each cup.

Homemade Hot chocolate

The older I get, the colder I get. When I was younger, I could run the to the garbage dumpster in my bare feet, in the middle of January, in a snow storm and my feet would barely be cold. Now, I wake up and my feet are cold before they hit the floor. It is so bad I was forced to do something I swore I would never do! I bought and wear fuzzy socks when I am home from work and on my days off.

Its not just my feet that are cold. My hands are cold all the time too. It is just much easier to warm up my hands with out have to resort to torturing them with fuzzy socks. I simply keep hot drink on a mug warmer on my desk. The mug is often hot tea but sometimes I am looking for a little something different, like hot chocolate. Don’t run out and buy those little packets of hot chocolate from the grocery store. You can make an awesome hot chocolate using things you probably already have in the house. With just 3 ingredients, you can skip the vanilla, if you don’t have it and 3 or 4 minutes you can have a hot drink to warm up your cold hands.

• Difficulty: Easy
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From the back of a can of Hershey’s Cocoa Powder

1 1/3 cup milk or milk alternative

1 TBS cocoa powder

1 TBS sugar or sugar alternative

1/8 tsp vanilla

In a small saucepan, add milk, cocoa powder, sugar and vanilla. Heat the milk mixture over low heat until hot. Don’t try to rush heating the milk by turning the heat up. If you do you will curdle the milk and that isn’t good. Pour the cocoa into a mug, top with whipped cream and serve.

Soft Honey Pumpkin Cookies

The first thing people ask me when they find out from North Dakota is “is it cold there?”  The answer is sometimes.  I find that the definition of cold varies widely,  In North Dakota, when the temperatures hit the 50’s, everyone puts on their shorts and t-shirts and celebrates the arrival of spring.  My friend in Alabama says when the temperatures hit the 50’s it is time for winter boots, parkas and mittens to come out.  And let’s not talk about what happens to people from Alabama when the temperatures are below 50.  I think my friend said something about the end of the world.  We both agreed that she probably shouldn’t visit North Dakota in January.  #ifyouknowyouknow

What people who don’t live in cold climates don’t know is that cooler fall weather is the perfect excuse to turn on your oven and bake. So I made these soft, cake like, pumpkin cookies. My house smelled so good while the cookies were baking and my tummy was so happy when I was eating them.

• Difficulty: Easy
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Adapted From Plum Deluxe.com

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup butter, softened

6 TBS Honey

2 TBS brown sugar

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1 tsp vanilla

3 TBS lightly beaten egg

8 TBS white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine flour, spices and baking soda.

In another medium bowl, beat the butter, honey and brown sugar until creamy, about 4 minutes. Add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla, on at a time beat well to combine.

Slowly, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just moistened. Mix in 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons white chocolate chips.

Drop by tablespoonfuls on to a baking sheet, leaving 2 inches between the cookies. Bake for 10-12 minutes. The cookies will look slightly underdone when they are taken out of the oven. Remove the cookies from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool. Once cool you can melt the remaining white chocolate chips and drizzle over the cookies for a “frosting” if you desire.