Lunch ideas

I still remember the first summer I made this creamy cucumber salad on my own. It was at the tail end of June, and the cucumbers in my little backyard garden had exploded into abundance almost overnight. I’d been giving…

I first fell in love with Greek lemon potatoes on a trip that had nothing to do with Greece at all. Years ago, I was invited to a neighbor’s dinner party where the centerpiece wasn’t lamb or roasted chicken, but…

I still remember the first time I tried to bake a potato on my own. I was twenty-one, standing in a tiny apartment kitchen that smelled more like old carpet than anything edible, and I thought, “How hard could it…

I still remember the first time I made these potatoes, though if I’m being honest, the memory starts with a failure. I had a basket of small golden potatoes from the farmers’ market, and I wanted to do something special…

I still remember the first time I made garlic butter chicken bites. It was on a Tuesday night, after one of those days when nothing seems to go smoothly—the kind of day when you forget to defrost the chicken, the…

When I think of comfort food, mashed potatoes are always the first dish that comes to mind. I still remember the very first Thanksgiving I hosted in my tiny apartment years ago. I had carefully planned the turkey, the pies,…

I first stumbled into the world of taco pie on a cold weeknight years ago, when I was staring down a nearly empty fridge and a family of hungry faces waiting for dinner. I had some ground beef, a can…

I first fell in love with sweet potato casserole at a small church potluck many years ago. I remember walking through the long line of crockpots and casserole dishes, balancing a paper plate that already had more food than it…

I first learned about potato croquettes on a chilly autumn evening in my grandmother’s kitchen. She never called them “croquettes”—to her, they were simply “fried potato patties,” made from whatever mashed potatoes were left from Sunday supper. I remember watching…

I still remember the first time I cooked salmon at home, and it wasn’t pretty. I was newly married, trying to impress my husband with what I thought would be a restaurant-worthy dinner. I bought a couple of salmon fillets—my…