Category Lunch ideas

It started one late summer evening, when the house smelled of cut grass and the sun refused to set on time. My kids were darting in and out of the kitchen barefoot, leaving tracks of laughter on the tile floor,…

I remember the first time I made steak kabobs like it was yesterday, even though it’s been years now. It was one of those warm summer evenings when the sun barely wanted to set, and I had a bunch of…

It was one of those long days. The kind where everything ran late, and by the time I got home, the last thing I wanted was to stand at the stove for an hour. I opened the fridge, hoping dinner…

The first time I had a chopped cheese sandwich, it wasn’t in a trendy food truck or a spotlighted corner of a glossy magazine feature. It was in the back kitchen of my cousin Danny’s bodega in the Bronx. I…

I first started making chicken shawarma bowls by accident. It was one of those long days where I’d misjudged the fridge situation—I had chicken thighs, half a lemon, and a drawer full of stubborn vegetables that had seen better days.…

It was a Tuesday night—the kind of ordinary, in-between day that doesn’t come with any expectations. My youngest had just finished a mountain of homework, the laundry was finally folded (well, halfway), and I found myself staring at the fridge…

I first started making this dish out of necessity. It was late summer, the kind of hot that makes you rethink every plan that involves turning on the oven. I had a pile of zucchini from my neighbor’s garden—more than…

There’s something about a fridge full of odds and ends that often brings out the best in my cooking. That’s exactly how this Asian Chicken Salad came to be. I remember one summer afternoon years ago—hot, sticky, and the kind…

I remember the first time I made bruschetta chicken—not because it was perfect, but because it wasn’t. My youngest had just started soccer, and our evenings were suddenly louder, messier, and a bit more frantic than they’d been in years.…

Some recipes come into your life by necessity and stay out of pure love. I remember the exact day this avocado tuna salad entered my kitchen—it was one of those “I-have-nothing-in-the-fridge” kind of afternoons. I’d just come home from a…