Category Lunch ideas

I recall the first time I made an Italian pasta salad that turned out well. Not the soggy, over-dressed versions I’d brought to church picnics in my twenties, or the ones that sat untouched on buffet tables, limp and lost…

I first stumbled across a version of this recipe on a Wednesday night when everything felt like too much. I had a clingy toddler on my hip, laundry piled on the kitchen table, and exactly half an hour to turn…

The first time I made zucchini lasagna, I’ll be honest—I didn’t expect to love it. It was during one of those summers when my garden zucchinis were growing faster than I could pick them, and I’d already exhausted the usual…

There’s a certain kind of summer heat that doesn’t ask permission—it just shows up and plants itself in your kitchen, daring you to turn on the stove. That was the kind of day I had the first time I made…

I still remember the first time I marinated something—not just a splash of vinegar and garlic, but actually letting the meat sit and soak, giving it time to take on flavor. I was twenty-six, newly married, and trying to make…

I still remember the first time I grilled shrimp—not in some fancy outdoor kitchen or with any kind of culinary training behind me, but in the backyard of our first little house, using a hand-me-down charcoal grill that only half…

There are a few recipes in my life that feel like old, soft sweaters—always comforting, never out of place, and worn lovingly through the years. Garlic Parmesan Chicken is one of them. I can’t remember the first time I made…

I still remember the first time I threw together a hot dog bar. It was one of those sticky summer afternoons where the kids had taken over the backyard with sprinklers, mismatched towels, and half-melted popsicles, and I found myself…

It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon—one of those gray, drizzly days that feels longer than it should. My daughter came home from school dragging her backpack, soaked at the corners, and looking like the day had worn her down. Without…

There was a quiet evening last spring—one of those early-April dusks when the light outside lingers a little longer than you expect, and you suddenly realize you haven’t made dinner. I remember standing in the kitchen, still in my gardening…