Ever made homemade tortillas? If you haven’t, you should. Like, now. Can you just got and buy store bought? Of course. Same thing with dried pasta. But if you really like Mexican food and preparing it at home, nothing beats homemade tortillas. I don’t have the tools for the traditional corn tortillas, but flour is a great second options. Very basic ingredients, just takes a little TLC, especially if you do not have a tortilla press, which I don’t. Not much else to say about tortillas except how freaking amazing they are when you make them at home. Let’s get started. Cookbook – Nopalito – A Mexican Kitchen Ingredients –…

Burma Superstar has been an SF establishment since 1992, holy crap. The modest restaurant in the Inner Richmond is one of those SF spots that people go crazy for and are willing to wait in crazy lines. The food here is just so unique, it really exposes you to whole different culture and a type of food that you just don’t see very often. I probably chose the easiest recipe in this book to get going, but I mean I have never made a single curry from scratch so I figured this would be a good starting point! Anyways, let’s get this rolling… Cookbook – Burma Superstar – Addictive Recipes…

Probably my girlfriends favorite meal that I have made. Even better that asparagus are in season right now and ultra fresh. We love Flour + Water and can’t wait to be doing more recipes in this book, but this was a classic as we made it a long time ago when we first started dating. For this time around, we made an abbreviated caramelle so that it is much easier to roll and handle, but still have a candy like shape that looks amazing. Also, with the sauce, you almost fry the pasta so it will give them a nice chewy texture that goes along with it. Give this one…

Flour + Water is definitely one of our favorite, if not our favorite, pasta place in the city. Have never had close to a mediocre experience there, always exceptional and when you can spring for it, do the pasta tasting menu with the wine pairing. This in turn, is probably my favorite ravioli dough that I have used. It’s very dry and firm, so you really gotta put some muscle into kneading it. Something unique with the Flour + Water doughs is that they incorporate a little water into the pasta making process with a spritzer. When you are making this and feel the dough starting to dry out, spritz…

Y’all every worked with fava beans? Yeah me neither. It’s a much bigger bean than I expected, has a furry inside, and you get 4-5 small beans per huge bean. It’s a bit of work to shuck them. This is my first from the French Laundry cookbook, so I figured we could ease into it with a pasta recipe. I feel fairly confident in my pasta making skills but have never made Agnolotti we’ll see how this goes. We could probably talk all day about The French Laundry and how iconic of a restaurant it is, but for a few highlights: Run by famous chef Thomas Keller – most Michelin…

This is a great cookbook if you don’t have it already. It feels old based on the type of paper, barely any fancy marketing photos, and fairly straight forward recipes for the masses to enjoy. The writer and Chef at Zuni, Judy Rodgers, even explains that the recipes are not overly complicated, and that arguably the most important quality in a chef is picking out fresh ingredients. This Citrus Risotto dish is definitely one that highlights some of the local produce from the SF Ferry Building famous farmers market (yes it is still open on Saturdays!). Risotto actually sums up the blog pretty well. It tastes freaking amazing, but a…

French Fries are something most people don’t think about making at home unless it’s from the frozen aisle or maybe baked, but it can take those at home meals to another level with a small amount of extra clean up. If you aren’t familiar, Shake Shack is a dominant burger joint that has spread throughout the country with 249 locations at the time of this posting! Ridiculous burgers, amazing buns (which they don’t make in house, fun fact! Otherwise I would have done a post on it), and awesome fries. I think something that makes Shake Shack iconic besides the burger is their crinkle cut fries. Ever thought how they…

If there is one recipe I would recommend to my readers, this is the one. In the Ad-Hoc book, it’s the first recipe off the bat, and Mr. Keller even says, “If there is a better fried chicken, I have not had it”. Ad-Hoc is an amazing restaurant in Yountville (Napa) that differentiates itself from Keller’s other restaurants by focusing on family style dishes and making it a more casual affair compared to Bouchon or French Laundry. Monday’s is fried chicken night, so either head on up there or give this recipe a try so that you can compare it to the real thing. Cookbook – Ad-Hoc at Home Ingredients…