However, I also got a lot of recipes from other places, and I want to share those too! Two years ago, when I had just graduated college, I created a Twitter thread to share all the recipes I made, and I've kept it up to this day. It has a whole bunch of recipes on it, but not the links or sources for any of them! And I realized I shouldn't just post them all with no links! So I'm gonna collect all the links here, plus any of my own personal commentary or ideas on how to spruce up the recipe or whatever. Plus pictures of what it looked like when I made it! Plus God knows what else.
So, I'll probably link this post to my Twitter at some point for anyone who wants to make the recipes. And for those of you who can't cook but still want the food I made, you can either come to my house, give the recipes to a friend who can cook, or maybe I'll send you some nonperishables by mail someday, if I have your address.
Oh, and I'm skipping the recipes that sucked.
The recipes will be in order of the Twitter thread which is more or less in order of when I first made them:
1. Sweet potato and refried black bean quesadillas with avocado salsaThis recipe is called "baked tacos" where I found it but it's essentially a quesadilla. The link is here: https://www.shelikesfood.com/crispy-baked-black-bean-sweet-potato-tacos/
To make refried black beans, just put black beans into any refried beans recipe. Basically just pour 1 can beans, some minced garlic, a diced onion, and some cumin into a pot with some water and simmer for over an hour. (If starting with dried beans, use a pressure cooker or cook for longer). Then drain. Melt some butter in a skillet. Pour the beans over it. Fry and mash them. Ta-da!
2. Balsamic cherriesThis is one I saw on Food Network the summer before ninth grade and fell in love with. Recipe here: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/peaches-with-balsamic-cherries-recipe-1917698
The recipe suggests you pour them over peaches, but I prefer putting them on vanilla ice cream. Pictured here I put them over vanilla ice cream while still warm and adding mini M&Ms so there was melty chocolate in there as well.
Recipe here: https://pinchofyum.com/spicy-brazilian-burrito-bowls
This one was too spicy for me because I'm a baby, so if you're also a baby, just don't add chili powder to the black beans, and add extra yogurt sauce.
4. "Epic avocado sandwich"It's a pretty simple sandwich, but it is epic. Involves almost no work except stirring cherry tomatoes in a skillet, and putting things on a sandwich. Plus, potato chips in a sandwich, which is ideal.
Recipe here: https://www.easycheesyvegetarian.com/epic-avocado-sandwich/
This involves a few elements. One is pasta dough, which you can find a lot of recipes for online. I used this one: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/fresh-pasta-dough
The dough is easy enough to make, but it's the rolling that will trip you up. If you have a pasta maker, use it, but don't expect that to make it easy. It will still take ages. If you don't, then flour your counter and roll that dough until it's absurdly thin, like so thin it's ridiculous. Paper thin.
Then time for the ravioli filling: https://whitneybond.com/sweet-potato-ravioli/
The link above has instructions for forming the ravioli, which is fairly simple but annoying. Then the pesto cream sauce is essentially just making pesto and then stirring it with hot cream and parmesan and butter.
Made these for my birthday and then later for other occasions. You can get store-bought wonton wrappers which work just fine, or make your own dough. Much like with ravioli, the dough is easy to make, but obnoxious to form. You will have to make it obscenely thin and ride that line of not ripping through it with too much filling, nor holding the filling well but being too doughy and gross. I recommend taking individual blobs and smushing them with your hand until they're super thin for each dumpling you form.
The recipe is here: https://thewoksoflife.com/vegetable-dumplings/
The filling is amazing, seriously.
This recipe is a classic in my family. I found it when I was 16 and I thought that liking Nutella made me quirky. (I was quickly disabused of this notion by Internet bullies trying to prove that being quirky is stupid). The cookies are heavenly and basically everyone loves them (unless they can't have chocolate or gluten... sorry).
Recipe here: https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/nutella-stuffed-brown-butter-sea-salt-chocolate-chip-cookies-my-favorite-cookie-ever/
Tip: when you put the dough in the fridge to cool, spoon a bunch of Nutella into a bowl and put it there too, so it'll solidify and become easier to handle when you're shaping the cookies.
8. Roasted cherry tomato sauceExtremely simple recipe: https://www.shelovesbiscotti.com/cherry-tomato-sauce/
In this picture I added shaved ricotta salata and fresh basil. The sauce is not very savory on its own, so I'd recommend adding parmesan as well or something salty/acidic to spruce up the flavor.
Oof, what a long name! Very delicious though. Recipe here: https://www.cookingforkeeps.com/butternut-squash-apple-cider-and-cheddar-soup-with-roasted-garlic-cheddar-grilled-cheese-croutons/
My recommendation? Skip the cheddar in the soup. The cheddar in the "croutons" is enough. Also, make sure you use vegetable stock and not mushroom stock, like a certain idiot did this past Rosh Hashanah. Mushroom stock will not go well with this soup. (actually the recipe calls for chicken stock lol but I'm a vegetarian, so)
The recipe also calls for pumpkin or apple ale. If you don't have that, extra apple cider works just fine, plus a dash of sherry or other sweet cooking alcohol.
And, smoked (or regular) paprika always goes well with butternut squash, so toss in a bit of that.
The recipe I use is this: https://www.myfoodandfamily.com/recipe/054590/baked-ziti
It essentially boils down to "buy products and put into container" but I use this link because the proportions are good there and it doesn't add meat or any other weird shenanigans. Plus, if you're bad at making your own marinara or whatnot, you can just buy all the things and that makes the recipe simpler.
I have made marzipan a lot of times for a lot of occasions, but this Thanksgiving platter from November 2018 is the prettiest photo I have of it. The recipe is here: https://www.daringgourmet.com/how-to-make-marzipan-almond-paste/
That recipe will give you a log of dough, but to shape it is an arts and crafts project. It's like working with Play-Doh that gets increasingly stickier the longer it's out of the fridge. I recommend putting down lots of paper towels, using a toothpick to help you shape, and using a palette and paintbrush to "paint" the shapes with food coloring.
Recipe here: https://www.theendlessmeal.com/creamy-coconut-vegetarian-korma/
This is surprisingly easy to make considering the huge ingredient list. It's essentially just sauteeing onion, ginger, and garlic, then stirring in tomato paste and a whole bunch of spices, heating it more, adding more stuff, blending it, and then stirring in some boiled vegetables. Once again, because I am a baby, I make the blander version by skipping some of the chili pepper and adding lots of yogurt when I eat it.
These come out in one big sheet, and you slice them like brownies. They are sooo good. I made them for Christmas cookie boxes and then the next year for autumn cookie boxes, wherein I put purple frosting and Halloween sprinkles.
Recipe here: https://www.browneyedbaker.com/frosted-sugar-cookie-bars/
The recipe is from Brown Eyed Baker, one of my favorite baking blogs! Pretty much every cookie recipe I've made has been from there (besides the aforementioned legendary Nutella ones).
These are not really ginger "snaps" because they don't snap, they're soft. However they're very good ginger cookies. I actually used date syrup instead of molasses because that's what I had on hand, and it works. A good reminder: if you don't have ground cloves and you do have whole cloves, make sure you FULLY GRIND the cloves before adding them. No reason why I mention this.
Recipe here: https://www.browneyedbaker.com/soft-and-chewy-gingersnap-cookies/
These ones call for a simple sugar cookie dough that you cut into "O" shapes. Use a knife if you don't have a good cookie cutter for this. Then, for the hard candies (the recipe recommends Jolly Ranchers, which work well), you don't need to fully crush them. Definitely don't try to run them through the food processor. You just need to get them into smaller pieces. I hacked at them with a knife until they splintered into small pieces. You can use a more effective method if you wish. But they do not have to be powdered. They'll melt just fine in small pieces, too.
Recipe here: https://cakewhiz.com/mothers-day-stained-glass-cookie-tree/
16. Rosemary breadMy one true love... This is a copycat recipe from Romano's Macaroni Grill, and this bread is just as delicious and wonderful as the bread there. It is not very difficult and it comes out really well.
Recipe here: https://www.cookingclassy.com/rosemary-bread-macaroni-grill-copycat-recipe/
17. Pecan babiesThey look terrible in this photo, because I had not yet realized how to work with them. With this recipe, you need to use mini muffin wrappers, or else the dough will stick to the tin and you'll have to carve it out and it won't work. And it works to just place the balls of dough into each wrapper and then smush it into shape.
Recipe here: https://www.browneyedbaker.com/pecan-tassies-recipe/
18. Cucidati
This is not what cucidati generally looks like, because they usually have frosting and sprinkles, but I like them without. Also, I used vegetable oil instead of shortening, because I didn't have shortening. So that might have affected it idk.
Recipe here: https://www.browneyedbaker.com/cucidati-italian-fig-cookies/
Look to #5 on this list for some ravioli-making tips. The particular filling for this one is here: https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/mushroom-cheese-ravioli-rosemary-butter-sauce/
I wanted to make the sauce similar to the one they used to use at Olive Garden, so I used this recipe: https://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/9858037/olive-garden-sun-dried-tomato-sauce/
20. Quinoa burrito bowlThis one involves a lot of different parts, but they're pretty easy to make. It's a healthy version of a Chipotle bowl pretty much. Feel free to add whatever you want, but that combo of the caramelized chipotle sweet potatoes (which are an excellent simple recipe for adding to lots of salads and bowls) and the quick-pickled red onions is excellent.
Recipe here: https://www.howsweeteats.com/2018/02/quinoa-burrito-bowls/
These are delicious fried dumplings. Kachori can be filled with lots of different things, but I prefer this potato filling. The dough needs semolina flour (I believe it adds the Cronch), which you can find in a bunch of places including Indian grocery stores, where you can also find all the spices necessary.
Recipe: https://www.greedygourmet.com/recipes-for-diets/vegan/aloo-ki-kachori/
This picture also includes the following:
Mint-coriander chutney: https://www.thespruceeats.com/mint-coriander-chutney-1957639
Tamarind chutney (sweet, and will probably require more cooking than the recipe says to become sufficiently syrupy): https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/10/sweet-tamarind-chutney-recipe.html
Raita (yogurt sauce): https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/traditional-indian-raita-242185
22. Red lentil dalThe dal is pictured on the left, next to more kachori. It's very easy to make and delicious. Recipe here: https://thewanderlustkitchen.com/indian-red-lentil-dal/
This will require you to buy paneer (or make it, if you know how to), which is worth it for this dish. Recipe here: https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/paneer-makhani-paneer-makhanwala-recipe/
You can also see the Shabbat tablecloth here- I made a bunch of Indian recipes for one Shabbat dinner last year.
24. Turmeric-spiced naan
My second foray into bread-making was this recipe, which is SO good: https://thewanderlustkitchen.com/indian-naan-bread/
Flatbreads are different from loaves/rolls/etc because you have to bake them directly on a hot surface, often with hotter temperatures, and they have a particular shape, which means it requires a lot of maneuvering. My first time making this, I accidentally filled the house with smoke and the heat of the oven scared me, so I made my poor mom actually do the baking part after I made and shaped the breads. Once you get the hang of it, it's not too bad, though. I recommend ensuring that the metal grate of the oven has tons of space above it for your hands to maneuver in, and laying the breads carefully on the hot surface (a pizza stone if you have one, or a metal baking pan if not) as though you are setting down a blanket on a bed. If the dough folds over itself, don't worry- it'll just be extra chewy in that section. Also, spritzing it with oil is not necessary, and buttering it afterwards is also not necessary- but butter does make it delicious.
This is such a cozy drink to have on cold nights or autumn mornings or for dessert after a big dinner. Very easy- essentially you're steeping tea and a bunch of whole spices in hot water and then stirring in milk and sugar. Whole spices are very helpful for this, and you can get them either in the spice aisle or at specialty/Indian supermarkets. But you can skip one or two and replace them with similar stuff (like, fennel seeds instead of star anise, for example).
Recipe here: https://www.feastingathome.com/authentic-masala-chai-recipe/
26. Sesame-ginger glazed tofuGood topping for rice bowls and noodles. Recipe here: https://www.thespruceeats.com/sesame-ginger-baked-tofu-recipe-3378148
One tip: do not BLEND the marinade. Just mix it with a spoon. The recipe does say to mix it with a spoon, but a certain idiot thought she should blend it with a blender.
This one is a Chipotle copycat recipe. Recipe here: https://www.howsweeteats.com/2012/04/just-like-chipotles-corn-salsa/
28. Thai cabbage carrot slaw (top left)
Recipe here: https://www.food.com/recipe/thai-cabbage-slaw-347508
29. Peanut sauce (top right)
Some recipes call for peanut butter, but I prefer starting with peanuts. Add some creamy peanut butter if you want it to be creamier or sweeter. This recipe also calls for fish sauce, but you can put more soy sauce instead.
Recipe here: https://www.thespruceeats.com/real-satay-peanut-sauce-3217299
This recipe is fairly easy except for figuring out how to roll the rice paper. You can get rice paper round rolls at Asian stores if you can't find them at your supermarket. You have to dunk them in water for like 30 seconds when you make the rolls, because they start out with the consistency of a plastic box, but when you wet them, they essentially become plastic wrap. Then you have to roll them like a tight burrito after filling them.
These rolls go very well with peanut sauce or soy sauce.
Recipe here: https://www.notenoughcinnamon.com/vegan-mango-avocado-summer-rolls-peanut-sauce/
31. Modern Greek quinoa salad
Recipe here: https://www.howsweeteats.com/2019/01/mediterranean-kale-salad/
I love Panera's modern Greek quinoa salad, so I looked for a copycat recipe. I found this one, which does call for chicken, but you can just skip the chicken (that's like the one Panera salad that doesn't have chicken as a given! it's the one salad that I don't have to customize!).
32. Curried picklesPickles in general are pretty good, but curry pickles are AMAZING. This has quite a bit of sugar in it, which adds sweetness to the bite of the acidity, but it does mean that it's not the MOST healthy lol. The recipe calls just for carrots and cauliflower, which taste amazing (add them to toast or as a side for curries- so good!). However, when my grandma visited, I added celery and garlic cloves, since she likes pickled celery and garlic. I do not like celery myself, but pickled garlic is soooo good. I recommend throwing a few garlic cloves into the pot when you pickle this.
Recipe here: https://thewanderlustkitchen.com/curried-carrot-cauliflower-pickles/
A deliciously summery dish! And extremely easy. I will say that the olives and feta are kind of essential, because the salad is quite sweet/bland without that salty kick. However, I ran out of olives once and so I just ate the salad with potato chips and that was sufficiently salty haha.
Recipe here: https://cookieandkate.com/orange-orzo-salad-recipe/
34. Caramelized fennel-leek-cheese dipRecipe here: https://www.acozykitchen.com/caramelized-fennel-leek-dip/
I LOVE this dish. If it didn't require three ingredients that we don't have at my house that often (whole fennel, leeks, and brie), I would make it all the time. It's so creamy and warm and delightful. Cures depression.
Recipe here: https://bromabakery.com/apple-cider-churros-with-a-salted-caramel-dipping-sauce/
This recipe, I will admit, IS complicated. It's a big project to make, because it involves both deep-frying AND piping bags, two things that create big messes. Making the actual dough is fairly simple, but here are a few reminders:
-Set up the tips on the piping bag, then set the piping bag into a large pitcher with the edges of it hanging over the sides. That way, you don't have to awkwardly hold the piping bag while spooning in the batter, and the batter doesn't smear all over the outside and make everything 10 times messier.
-Squish the batter way down in the bag to make the squishing process easier.
-Give up on getting a good shape for the churros. They will look like baby worms. It's okay.
-Use tongs to remove them and let them drain on paper towels and cool down a little before coating them in the cinnamon sugar.
-Do not immediately pile them into a box or they'll get soggy. Let them rest on a baking sheet after sugaring them.
-This recipe CAN be used to make simple donut holes instead of churros, but if you want to shape donuts, grease two metal spoons with oil, and use those to shape the balls. Your hands will be too sticky to shape them, for sure. Eventually you'll get the hang of making pretty spheres, but until then, alien blobs taste just as good.
Extremely healthy and extremely easy. The yogurt dip recommended at the link is sort of eh. Plain yogurt works, or just having them plain.
Recipe here: https://skinnyms.com/sweet-potato-black-bean-quinoa-bites/
More Brown Eyed Baker! These are easy and delicious. Messy, though, but good with ice cream.
Recipe here: https://www.browneyedbaker.com/dutch-apple-pie-bars/
38. Pumpkin pie bars (top left)Eat these within the week, which you probably will want to do because they're delicious.
Recipe here: https://www.browneyedbaker.com/pumpkin-pie-bars/
39. Maple date bars (middle left)
Recipe here: https://www.browneyedbaker.com/maple-date-bars/
I noticed that the recipe didn't make enough crust to cover both the top and bottom, which, maybe I made it wrong, but I just replaced the top with a walnut-based streusel, which worked just as well and was delicious.
40. Apple cider caramels (center)
Recipe here: https://www.browneyedbaker.com/apple-cider-caramels/
Yes, this will require a candy thermometer and some patience/good timing. However, the actual work of it is just mixing and moving buttons on the stove. You cannot see how delicious these things look in this picture, because I wrapped it in wax paper, but they are AMAZING. I made them a second time in too-small of a batch and they came out a bit liquidy, but they tasted just as good.
41. Fudgy browniesMy old brownie recipe was always way too cakey, so I looked up fudgy brownies. Worked very well.
Recipe here: https://cafedelites.com/best-fudgy-cocoa-brownies/
42. Smoked gouda gratinThis recipe is FANTASTIC. Requires you to buy smoked gouda and have a lot of good ingredients on hand, and also takes a lot of work and fancy techniques, but worth it! My mom begs me to make this regularly haha.
Recipe here: http://www.goodcook.com/smoked-gouda-and-garlic-potatoes-au-gratin/
I like to replace one or two of the potatoes with yams- it makes the recipe way better to add that element of sweetness. I also replace the garlic with roasted garlic, and since we don't often have gruyere, I just used cheddar, which works fine.
You DO need to actually listen to the recipe re: putting the potato slices in ice water while you finish the other parts, because I didn't do that the first time and that's why you can see a little gray potato in this picture- tastes fine but looks gross.
This recipe requires making bechamel sauce, which used to scare me, but as long as you have all your ingredients prepped, measured, and ready to go next to you, and you add them SLOWLY and carefully, and you continuously whisk, it will turn out great.
43. Grillable veggie burgersThis picture makes them look not-so-appetizing, but that's just because we had terrible buns. The burgers themselves are fantastic and yes, they are easy to grill- they do not fall apart. Their key ingredients are black beans, brown rice, toasted walnuts, sauteed onions, breadcrumbs, and barbecue sauce. Add a few spices, grind and mash everything, and you have ready-to-grill burgers.
Recipe here: https://minimalistbaker.com/easy-grillable-veggie-burgers/
I used a homemade mustard-based barbecue sauce. It is possible these would be too sweet with storebought barbecue sauce, but I don't know?
44. Cheesy pasta that's not quite cacio e pepe
Proper cacio e pepe calls for pecorino romano. However, my dad sort of loses his mind at Costco, and he came home with a cheese called black pepper bellavitano, and I didn't know what to do with it, so I Googled a recipe. It essentially functions as cacio e pepe but with this cheese instead of pecorino. If you get your hands on this cheese, and some bucatini or perciatelli, oh my god is this pasta SO easy to make and SO delicious.
DO: go overboard on the cheese. Worth it.
DON'T: use linguine. I tried it last night and it sucked. Don't know why. Possibly I did something else wrong or I was just in a mind, but I think you really need that tube shape long pasta, not flat long pasta.
Recipe here: https://culturecheesemag.com/recipes/satori-black-pepper-bellavitano-pasta
Yes, I sliced off a bit before photographing it. I also didn't shape it perfectly, so it looks a bit curvy near the top. However, despite this being my first try, it came out really good!
Surprisingly not too difficult- it just takes a billion steps. Each step is fairly easy- there's just a billion of them. You also have to wait several days for it to rise, so plan ahead.
The link here comes with a video, which I recommend you watch a couple of times and maybe practice with Play-Doh or something just to get the hang of it, so you don't have to awkwardly watch the video while baking.
Recipe here: https://www.acouplecooks.com/baguette-recipe/
46. Sunshine slaw with quinoaIsn't that such a gorgeous name? This is basically coleslaw but without mayonnaise, and with a bunch of healthy stuff instead. I prefer it this way because I'm a weird picky vegetarian. The dressing for it is also usable for other salads if you wish.
Recipe here: https://cookieandkate.com/sunshine-quinoa-slaw-recipe/
WHEW! And believe it or not, that is not even close to all the recipes in the thread. I left out everything that:
-I made up
-I got from a cookbook or a magazine (or my mom)
-was just too easy to bother putting here
-I didn't like or I never made properly
-I forgot to put on the Twitter thread, so I may have forgotten about it entirely
-I didn't make within the past two years
I WILL be posting some of the others in their own posts, but yeah. I hope you all got some good recipes from here! And maybe some good cooking/baking tips as well. Obviously this is more of a reference post than anything. In future, when I find cool recipes online, I'll reference them in their own posts haha. I think I already messed up the formatting of this post sufficiently with all the images.
I also wanted to recommend some excellent sources for recipes here:
-Brown Eyed Baker, as aforementioned, is SO good. Excellent source for tons of easy/classic baking recipes, plus lots of more fun or complicated recipes, too. I get pretty much all my cookie and candy recipes there.
-Deborah Madison's cookbook Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, which you can learn about/buy here. This book taught me a LOT of cooking techniques, including much of my bread baking, and has excellent vegetarian recipes. It explains stuff very well.
-Vegetarian Times magazine: I have a whole bunch of these but their website has tons of recipes too. Mostly good for cool and innovative ideas of how to eat vegetarian but still eat fun interesting stuff.
-The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook by Diana Shaw: another excellent guide to vegetarian cooking, full of really fun and interesting recipes as well as techniques.
And any of the blogs linked above is probably full of good recipes, especially if they appear multiple times.
All right, thanks for reading this behemoth of a post! I'm gonna go rest now and post more recipes and stuff later.
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