Quick Cranberry Cake

A brilliant recipe. So easy. SO good.

Braised Root Vegetables with Black Lentils and Red Wine Sauce

For special occasion dinners with my vegetarian family. This dish (linked above) takes two days to make but it's totally worth it. Serve over mashed potatoes. (Happy birthday, Mom!)

Kale Chicken Noodle Soup (aka, the best soup I've ever made)

I dropped a few mega handfuls of chopped kale and smaller amounts of diced carrots, parsley and garlic into about six cups of chicken broth and let it boil until the kale gave up; at which point, I added roughly half of the leftover sauced cauliflower alfredo curly pasta with peas and let everything come up to temperature. A dusting of grated parmesan over the top to serve. **Possibly the best soup I've ever made**

I could see adding in a couple of chicken thighs at the outset for a richer broth and adding in some of the shredded chicken at the end, but otherwise I wouldn't change a thing.

Cauliflower Alfredo

I roasted the cauliflower and garlic, and added about a cup of chicken stock, and a quarter cup of microplaned parmesan to the sauce. I tossed a few handfuls of frozen peas in with the pasta just before draining it, and more parm on top to serve. Next time, I will crisp up a little pancetta and sear some butterflied shrimp in the pancetta drippings. Nothing like pork, seafood and cheese to improve on a vegan pasta sauce...

Roasted Chicken with Potatoes and Kale

I made a few changes to this Grace Parisi recipe linked above:
I chopped the onions into big chunks, threw in a handful of peeled garlic cloves, and seasoned the vegetables liberally with salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, smoked paprika, ground sumac and the juice of one lemon. I patted the chicken (thighs, not legs) dry and seasoned them ahead of time for best flavor before adding them on top of the vegetables. I cooked everything uncovered for 50 minutes and didn't bother with all of that covering, uncovering, moving the pan and etc. Next time I'll try skinless thighs, but other than that -- a definite keeper.