At the Table

Wow! I kind of took a break from sharing new recipes I've tried during this stay-home time, didn't I? Admittedly, I did slow down a bit in the kitchen too, but there have definitely been some worth sharing, so let me catch up a bit.

New York Times Cooking has been a source of many good meals these past months. For one thing, we found that orzo, while not being a new ingredient to us, was definitely a good pasta shape for quick one-pot meals.

• One-Pan Orzo with Spinach and Feta

• Cheesy Baked Orzo with Marinara
• Skillet Chicken Thighs with Broccoli and Orzo

Sweet Potato and Gruyere Gratin was one we made for our mini-Thanksgiving dinner, and it was delish.

Colu Henry, who is a NYT Cooking contributor and author of  Back Pocket Pasta: Inspired Dinners to Cook on the Fly (which I still cook from regularly by the way) offered up the recipe for Roasted Tomato and White Bean Stew, which we really enjoyed too. It also landed on the NYT Cooking's 20 Most Popular Recipes of 2020. [I'm a NYT Cooking subscriber, but I'm hoping you can access those links too.]

Not sure how we happened across Fine Cooking's Slow-Cooker Beef Chili with Beer and Lime Sour Cream, but it's a keeper. That Lime Sour Cream is a revelation.

I continue to follow Smitten Kitchen and we tried Sour Cream and Chive Fantails for Thanksgiving. They were really fun to make and I'll definitely keep these on the list of successes.

On Christmas, I also made up Small-Batch Eggnog just for fun and oh my it was good. We used dark rum in ours, but the recipe suggests several options, and there are lots of variations in the comments on Deb's post.

After ooh-ing and aah-ing over Amanda Jean's homemade pizza, she clued me in to the Thin-Crust Pizza Dough from Allrecipes. Oh yum. My pizza may not look too appealing, but it definitely was; and I really liked making pizza in a cast-iron skillet.

Finely, one of my very favorite new-to-me recipes is Half-Baked Harvest's One Pot Spicy Alla Vodka Pizza Pasta. SUCH good flavors! 'Pizza Pasta' describes it perfectly. It IS pasta, but it tastes like pizza. I don't know, but the combo is a winner.

So that's it for now. Feel free to check the Tuesday at the Table tab if you want to see what else I've been cooking. And leave any suggestions in the comments as always!