From A Small Kitchen

When I was a wee teenager living with my parents, I filled countless and countless high school weekends watching movies with my friends. I loved movies growing up. I made lists, I started a DVD collection, I read scripts. I was a very dedicated movie nerd. I'm fairly certain I've watched every romcom from the 90s and early 00's. That's the era I've always gravitated towards the most....

What Movies Have You Seen Lately? - from a small kitchen When I was a wee teenager living with my parents, I filled countless and countless high school weekends watching movies with my friends. I loved movies growing up. I made lists, I started a DVD collection, I read scripts. I was a very dedicated movie […]

My little secret when I want to make an easy, low-effort meal is always chicken thighs. I'm a big advocate for chicken thighs. The bone-in, skin-on kind. They don't need much to taste good, a little salt and pepper combined with all that skin fat is enough to produce a lot of flavor. A good marinade is a game changer though, and the possibilities are endless....

Lemon Sumac Chicken Thighs - from a small kitchen This Lemon Sumac Chicken Thighs is a zesty, garlicky dish, great for a late summer dinner. The chicken is crisp and the flavors are bright!

I'm spending my summer in Germany, where asparagus season is celebrated with a passion. It even has its own name: Spargelzeit (asparagus time. Germans love being literal. Look up the German word for gloves and you'll know what I'm talking about). Asparagus time is a cultural phenomenon, it's a cherished tradition, it's a fleeting delicacy. You can only get fresh them during a season that lasts about six weeks....

Lemon Asparagus Pasta - from a small kitchen This Lemon Asparagus Pasta is quick and easy to put together. It's a great, simple, easily customizable weeknight dinner!

A very simple salad, because life is complicated enough. A few months ago, my cousin handed me a notebook and demanded: write down a couple salad recipes, I need ideas. When I opened it, in very neat handwriting, she had dedicated an entire page to announcing her salad chapter. I was instantly intimidated. At a very early age, I developed carpal tunnel due to being a persistent renaissance child who overdid everything, from playing the piano to writing long-form stories in journals I collected over the years....

A very simple salad - from a small kitchen A very simple salad, because life is complicated enough. This salad is actually just an excuse to take advantage of gorgeous summer produce.

It's the cure for anything: sweat, tears or the sea. In the kitchen, when a dish falls flat, the answer is adjusting the salt. When life falls flat, the answer lays in a good cry or in sea bathing. If you live in the city, a long shower usually does the trick. When I started to learn how to cook, I never over salted my pasta water....

There's nothing a little salt can't fix - from a small kitchen There's nothing a little salt can't fix: it makes the sweet sweeter, it makes life better. It's my little secret to enhancing any food.

Sometimes when I'm feeling lazy or sad, the last thing I want to do is cook a meal. But the inconvenient part about being human is that you need feed your body in order to keep on living. Of course there are many options that don't involve cooking, but I like to inconvenience myself and in this economy I don't have a choice!...

Easy Brothy Beans - from a small kitchen This one-pot Easy Brothy Beans takes less than 30 minutes to make and it's a filling, nutritious meal full of flavors!

This Thai Shrimp Curry is delightful for so many reasons: it's unfussy and quick, and it packs as many flavors and spices as you're willing to fit into it. Spices are wonderful little anti-inflammatory warriors and they thrive in curries. I'm particularly partial to shrimp. I don't care if they're the cockroaches of the sea, as much as my friends love to remind me....

Thai Shrimp Curry - from a small kitchen This Thai Shrimp Curry is so easy but so complex! Rich and creamy, it pairs really well with rice, making it a very well-rounded dish.

This Kimchi Tuna Salad is an unconventional salad. First of all, there's a fried egg smacked in the middle of it. The egg came unexpectedly, when I decided to turn a little side dish into a whole meal. At the time it felt appropriate and I still stand behind it. To paraphrase Joey Tribbiani, "kimchi, good. Eggs, good. Cucumbers, good!"...

Kimchi Tuna Salad - from a small kitchen This unlikely Kimchi Tuna Salad that combines different proteins and is topped with a fried egg couldn't be easier to put together

Normally I wouldn't encourage anybody to use store-bought puff pastry. If you're looking for efficiency, I'm not the right person to ask for advice because I'll always be the person who will tell you to make everything from scratch. If I have to blame anyone, I'll blame my mother for raising us in an ingredient household. The consequences of growing up in that environment is that the sight of flour, butter, and eggs don't cause me panic, but a wonderful sense of possibilities....

Three Cheese Tomato Galette - from a small kitchen This three cheese tomato galette is a great summer dish: it celebrates the season's favorite fruit and its effortlessness.

If you eat eggs for breakfast every single day, it gets boring very quickly, doesn't it? I'm one of those people who has eggs for pretty much every single breakfast because I need easy protein and I'm not very creative, it seems. This Skillet Asparagus and Eggs is so easy and yet so delightful. How could it not be good, just take a look at the ingredients list: half of it is dairy, and the other half is healthy, and that's a great balance if you ask me....

Skillet Asparagus and Eggs - from a small kitchen This Skillet Asparagus and Eggs with parmesan is a wonderful breakfast. If you eat eggs everyday, this is a great way to take it up a notch!

Marry me chickpeas is an audacious name for a recipe and I respect the confidence. A friend served it at a dinner party and in fact, I almost said yes. I often neglect chickpeas in my daily diet, even though I'm always looking for ways to add more protein to my meals. Marry me chickpeas showed up in my life to remind me to seek it more often....

Marry Me Chickpeas - from a small kitchen Marry Me Chickpeas, what a name! This easy recipe can be made in about 20 minutes, it's cheap and high in protein.

My idea of summer reading might differ from most. On instagram, I see people announcing: it's officially summer and it's time for light, romantic reads! My concept of summer reading is very literal: it's whatever book I'm reading during the summer. I don't gravitate towards a specific genre and I don't seek out beach reads. Last month I read The Bell Jar and it was a depressing summer, I suppose....

Summer Reading - from a small kitchen Summer reading: let's talk books, funny essays, new favorite authors, and the old classic that consumed me for weeks.

Recipe developers are plagued with drastic circumstances: on top of brain fatigue from thinking about food constantly, they also have to deal with the occasional oh my god why didn't I think of this before! This is the story of how these fig and parmesan scones came to be. It all started when I came across this recipe. To understand the depths of this story, you have to understand my love for fig jam....

Fig and Parmesan Scones - from a small kitchen These Fig and Parmesan Scones are flaky and easy little things to make. The salty parmesan pairs wonderfully with the sweet fig filling.

Some days, when I'm struggling to write a blog post and I can't conjure up anything interesting to say, I wonder what's the point in all of this. There's millions of blogs out there and zero need for another eggs in tomato sauce recipe (but perhaps for an easy one?), but then I console myself by saying that recipe sharing is community building....

Easy Eggs in Tomato Sauce - from a small kitchen These Easy Eggs in Tomato Sauce make a very quick and filling breakfast. Think of it as a very easy shakshuka!

A wonderful thing about salads is that anything can be a salad. It's a really forgiving type of dish that encourages imagination. In its most basic form, a salad requires only a bunch of greens, some oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. That's a very purist way to make a salad, a very reliable method, and a great foundation on which elaborate versions are built....

Citrus Salad with Fennel and Radish - from a small kitchen A wonderful thing about salads is that anything can be a salad. It’s a really forgiving type of dish that encourages imagination. In its most basic form, a salad requires only a bunch of greens, some oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. That’s a very […]

Social media is full of overly complicated recipes, classics with a twist, a new recipe per every second, it's a never ending race. This constant exposure to new takes or a loop of the same recipe being reproduced by multiple different people can get overwhelming very quickly. When I feel like I'm drowning in a pool of information, I turn to inspiration at its purest form: books....

Dessert for One: Berries with Vanilla Custard - from a small kitchen This Berries with Vanilla Custard makes a wonderful little dessert for one. Quick, easy, served warm or cold. It's very unfussy like that.

This pasta alla (no) vodka is pasta alla vodka's responsible cousin. It abstains from drinking, but will indulge in carbs. And here's a tip if you want to elevate a simple pasta dish: add burrata. It's a decent amount of protein, which is always a good thing, but it adds a wow factor that's enough to impress anybody. If I could, I would add burrata to anything....

Pasta Alla (no) Vodka - from a small kitchen This pasta alla vodka minus the vodka is just a sober, yet just as cool and fun version of its drunk counterpart.

Caramelized Onion Zucchini Galette I am so lucky I've never been a picky eater. I was a vegetable-loving child who grew up to become an adult who will try any food once. As a teenager I was invited to a very fancy seafood buffet birthday party where I went around the table paving my plate with various sea creatures I encountered along the way - in a very elegant manner, obviously....

Caramelized Onion Zucchini Galette - from a small kitchen This Caramelized Onion Zucchini Galette is an excellent way to use your zucchinis this summer. Great flavors and easy to make!

Chocolate tart is to desserts what a little black dress is to fashion: simple, elegant, and timeless. We all need, and probably already have, a go-to recipe. This baked chocolate tart is a take on the classic ganache tart, with a baked custard and a little bit of caramel mixed in. Although it would be difficult to make this vegan with all the cream and eggs involved - imperative components of a custard - the good news is, this can easily become a gluten-free dessert, approved by all your celiac friends....

Baked Chocolate Tart - from a small kitchen This rich baked chocolate tart is an easy dessert that will certainly impress your guests at your next dinner party.

It's a dreadful fact of life that we must feed ourselves everyday. I love cooking and it's rarely a chore to me, but even I will occasionally find myself astonished by how a meal that took me hours to make will be devoured in less than ten minutes. Feeding ourselves and others not only require resources, time, and planning, but now we must also be very vigilant about what we eat....

My Go-To Weeknight Dinner Lately - from a small kitchen My go to weeknight dinner lately: chicken piccata, potatoes, and a salad. It sounds like a lot, but it's very low effort and it takes 30 min!

I'm not sure why it is, but I love food more than just about anything else, Esther Greenwood says in The Bell Jar. Much like Esther, I spend a great deal of time thinking about food. There are nights when I'll go to bed willing it to be morning, just so I can have breakfast. I like playing this game where I fall asleep listing all the things I could possibly make....

Bored of your usual breakfast? Here's some ideas. - from a small kitchen Bored of your usual breakfast? Here's some quick and easy breakfast ideas! From fruits to eggs to toasts, the possibilities are endless.

Date-Lemon Cucumber Feta and Melon Salad
It doesn't get easier than this. Just like a summer salad should be

Recipe: https://fromasmallkitchn.com/2024/06/06/date-lemon-cucumber-feta-and-melon-salad/

I have a tendency to overcomplicated things - in life and in the kitchen - but this Date-Lemon Cucumber, Feta and Melon Salad is quite the antithesis of that. Oftentimes salad recipes are just a list of ingredients and then you get to adjust the quantities here and there, be the captain of the ship and make all the pertinent decisions: should this dressing be tangier?...

Date-Lemon Cucumber, Feta and Melon Salad - from a small kitchen This chunky Date-Lemon Cucumber, Feta and Melon Salad can be made in less than ten minutes. It really celebrates the flavors of the season.

No-Churn Olive Oil Ice Cream With Hot Fudge

Recipe: https://fromasmallkitchn.com/2024/06/04/no-churn-olive-oil-ice-cream-with-hot-fudge/

Oh look at that, it's ice cream season. I blinked and now it's June. The older I get the truer cliches seem to get. Like a dysfunctional symbiotic relationship. These days, I'm the insufferable grownup saying things like, well the year sure is going by fast! Of course, the poets have a prettier way of phrasing it, so before summer slips away into a moment in time, before it sips away like a bottle of wine, let us churn it into ice cream....

Is there anything more intimidating? I supposed not. Eggplants seem to be quite a divisive fruit (yes, it's a fruit!) and there's not much room for nuance: you either hate it or you love it. Or maybe you're someone like me, and everything is a different shade of gray. In that case, your views on eggplants might not be so black and white....

Alone in the kitchen with an eggplant (easy roasted eggplant) - from a small kitchen Alone in the kitchen with an eggplant and don't know what to do? Well, follow me and let's roast this baby together! (easy roasted eggplant)

Grilled Salmon with Green Olive Salsa

bright, bold flavors and easily customizable. A great spring/summer dish!

recipe here: https://fromasmallkitchn.com/2024/05/28/grilled-salmon-with-green-olive-salsa/

I've been playing hooky with this blog, not that anyone bothers to read this half of the post anyway, but regardless, I think I should hold myself accountable and take responsibility for that. Phew, that makes me feel better! Don't you just love when people talk and talk but don't say anything? It's a real life skill. You know what barely takes any skill at all?...

Grilled Salmon with Green Olive Salsa - from a small kitchen A great weeknight dinner, this Grilled Salmon with Green Olive Salsa is easy, quick, and full of bold flavors.

This chicken pot pie is a real beauty.
Get the recipe here! https://fromasmallkitchn.com/2024/05/02/cafehailees-chicken-paprikash-pot-pie/

Before I start singing the praises of this chicken pot pie, I'd just like you to take a minute and notice how gorgeous this thing looks. Please, notice that flaky golden crust. Look at that lovely flaky salt. And if you scroll down a bit, you'll get to see the creamy filling. Oh! Is there any food more comforting than a hearty chicken pot pie?...

Cafehailee's Chicken Paprikash Pot Pie - from a small kitchen Is there any food more comforting than a lovely chicken pot pie? In this version, there's plenty of paprika. And it's a great move.