Melanie Hunter

Extremely tasty, fast to make and easy enough to spice it to your liking: a hit in our family—or, at least, with my husband, our toddler and me. Our 19-year-old housemate/student/my sister-in-law was a little less enthusiastic as she has issues looking at shrimp on her plate. If shrimp are submerged in soup, mind you, she can easily gobble them up and ask for another helping (like with the Restaurant-style ginger-scented shrimp and mushroom soup), but there is something about seeing shrimp curled up on her plate that turns her off. For the record, she doesn’t do well with having a whole fish, head and all, on her plate, either.

I am now a new fan of the Caesar salad! I don’t know about you, but I shied away from ordering Caesar salad at restaurants years ago. There were just too many sub-standard Caesars out there that I figured my palate and my wallet would be better served trying something completely different from the menu. Then I wouldn’t be disappointed expecting a mouthful of garlicky, cheesy Caesar salad goodness but being met with soggy, wilted leaves drenched in poorly disguised mayonnaise. So I was very excited to try out this recipe for Classic Caesar salad.

In order to celebrate the results of my gestational diabetes test (negative!) I thought it would be fitting to attempt the Ultimate chocolate-chip cookies recipe. My mother pointed out that I have made very few dessert recipes and she was right: I shy away from baking as I fear disappointing my family with either raw or overcooked baked goods. I thought that the cookie recipe would be a good one to boost my ego.

The challenge: bring over a side dish to a our friends’ house for dinner; keep it simple to not distract from the main course; have it be aesthetically pleasing and, preferably, green; make sure it can be easily heated and/or assembled so as not to burden our hosts in the kitchen when we arrive; and make it toddler friendly? A tall order, I know, but I thought that the Lemony snow peas and mixed mushrooms recipe would be able to stand up to the test.

Ah, side dishes: the under-appreciated sidekick to every show-stopping main attraction. Friends that I had wanted to catch up with were dropping by with their 12-week-old baby for dinner. I needed something that could be prepared with little concentration and a low margin of error, and that wouldn't lead to interruptions from an oven timer, smoke alarm or visits from the local fire department. The Greek herb-roasted potatoes recipe sounded like a safe bet.