Category Lunch ideas

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…

I’ll never forget the first time I tried to cook salmon for my family. It was a snowy Tuesday in February—one of those long, grey days that begged for something nourishing and warm but not too heavy. I had a…