brown butter cornbread

Last year I read Melissa Clark's cookbook cover to cover and marked with red tabs all the recipes I wanted to try. Among them was this cornbread. Not just any cornbread, but nutty, brown butter cornbread flecked with tender corn kernels. It sounded irresistible, and it only took me a year to finally make it.

We had a friend over for dinner recently and I made a vegetarian version of this beef chili. Since chili isn't complete without cornbread, I finally had an opportunity to try this recipe, and I might be done looking, actually. When you combine our internet searches, cookbooks, magazine subscriptions and food blog browsing, you sometimes don't know where to start when it comes to deciding what to cook, or which recipe to use for a particular dish. It's very easy to become overwhelmed with the amount of recipes there are in the universe.

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buckwheat waffles

The color of buckwheat flour has tinges of gray, so when you're mixing the flours with the wet ingredients, your bowl appears to be filled with asphalt instead of batter. It's sort of beautiful in that way and made me think of all those initials and dates you see etched into the sidewalk where people waited patiently for the asphalt to dry just enough before they could carve their name into the road with a stick.

These waffles make an exceptional breakfast. With little sugar (only a tablespoon of honey) and only whole wheat flours, you're in for a healthy morning. One of the problems with traditional pancakes and waffles made with white flour is they are don't sustain me and less than an hour after finishing my meal, I'm usually hungry. And when I'm hungry, I'm cranky, so you can see how this is just a downward spiral, but these waffles have enough fiber and other goodies to keep me full for several hours.

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stuffed peppers with couscous + pesto

Very early in our marriage, Andrew was working late one night so I made myself stuffed peppers for dinner. No big deal, right? At the time, he was disappointed he was to have missed out on something that sounded so scrumptious. It was completely adorable, actually. We've shared plenty of memorable meals in the six years that have followed, but I always have a little chuckle thinking about it so many years later. Of course, the memory surfaces whenever I consider adding stuffed peppers to our weekly menu, and I thought about it while making the pesto and sauteeing the zucchini this time around, too.

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farro and tomato soup

I like cooking again. Thank goodness. It took a couple of months to adjust to having Emma around, but I think we're starting to understand each other. I've discussed this before, but after bringing her home in September, dinner lost a bit of its lustre. Sandwiches, breadcrumb pasta, ramen. Whatever took the least amount of time and didn't have to be eaten at any particular temperature. I'm still not preparing anything lavish, but we're working our way back.

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roasted brussels sprout and black rice salad

I recently undertook the enormous challenge of cleaning out my pantry. I found dried cranberries from 2009, hazelnuts likely from the same year and a box of Sprinkles red velvet cupcake mix someone had given me. I also discovered exactly 1/2 cup of black rice stashed away in a plastic bag hiding underneath said hazelnuts.

If I hadn't cleaned out my pantry this past weekend, I wouldn't have made this lovely salad. It's everything a fall salad should be: warm, crunchy, bright and hearty. I couldn't stop eating it, and I'm sure I'll make it many more times this season. I've been really inspired by all the beautiful Thanksgiving side dishes in magazines and on my favorite blogs this year. There's a lot to be said for well prepared, thoughtful ingredients that bring just the right amount of cozy to a winter afternoon.

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