Alex cooked this for me during the first dinner that we ate together. Given my fear of fire (I didn’t light a match until my senior year of high school), the flames impressed me. Though his presentation sold me the dish before I even tasted it, the deep caramel flavor had me utterly floored.

I’m not a huge banana person, but I continue to love this dish every time Alex makes it, especially when I get to scrape the pan for crispy caramel pieces. And though we’re both hugely lactose-intolerant, adding a touch of ice cream turns this superb dessert into an irresistibly simple masterpiece.

Ingredients:
3 bananas, sliced
2 tbsp butter (but we used smart balance)
3 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 oz. dark rum or brandy
vanilla ice cream (optional)

Instructions:
Heat the butter in a pan. Add sugar, allow it to melt. Add bananas and cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Move the bananas entirely to one half of the pan, and move that side of the pan off of the heat (so that the heat is beneath the empty half). Add rum to the banana half of the pan, and quickly tilt the pan so that the rum flows to the hot and empty side of the pan. At this point, the rum should catch fire, so shake the pan to cook the bananas in the flames. The flames should die down after a few seconds. Remove bananas from heat, and serve over ice cream.

We’ve been experimenting with Asian-flavored chicken salads for the past few weeks, and this is the first version to make the cut. Yes, it’s difficult to believe, but sometimes we keep our meals off the internet. Though occasionally it’s because we’ve already posted the recipe (roasted chicken) or there’s no recipe to post (fudgesicles with peanut butter), generally it’s because we’ve failed.

Our success with this chicken salad from our decision to compose the chicken salad separately from the greens, and to combine them immediately before serving. The leftover sauce from the chicken became the dressing for the entire dish, so the flavors meshed together perfectly. The inspiration from our recipe comes from one of the Culinary Institute of America’s “one-dish meals,” which we always accidentally call “one-dish wonders.”

Ingredients (makes 4-6 entree-sized portions):
3 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp dried red pepper flakes
2 1/2 lb. chicken breasts, minced
6 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
4 plum tomatoes, chopped
3/4 cup scallion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 mint leaves, chopped
3 tbsp lemongrass, minced
1 cup lime juice
1 cup cashews or peanuts, chopped
1/2 head napa cabbage, chopped
1 radicchio, chopped
2 cups bean sprouts
1 cup cilantro

Instructions:
Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the red pepper flakes and cook for about 10 seconds, until aromatic. Add the chicken, fish sauce and brown sugar. Cook for 4-5 minutes until the chicken is no longer pink and cooked thoroughly. Remove from heat. Add scallion, mint leaves, lemongrass, tomatoes, cashews and lime juice. Mix until all of the ingredients are fully coated. Combine the cabbage, radicchio, bean sprouts and cilantro. Scoop the chicken salad over the greens, and use leftover liquid from the chicken as salad dressing.

So far, the most wonderful thing about being second semester seniors is that friends keep receiving wonderful news! We posted a few months ago about a celebratory dinner for a friend’s acceptance to medical school, and tonight we threw another something together to honor our friend, Lara, who received an interview for a prestigious teaching abroad program. Maybe I should rephrase: the most wonderful thing about this semester is the opportunity to celebrate non-stop.

We already had food planned when we heard the news, but we still had time to spruce up the presentation. We did sole with a mushroom and spinach stuffing, topped with pesto. With with a lemon slice and a drizzle of olive oil, they looked beautiful for a weeknight meal. It reminded me of spa food — healthy, fresh, flavorful, and slightly fancy.

Ingredients (serves 4-5):
10 fillets of sole
8 0z. button mushrooms, thinly sliced and chopped
1 package frozen spinach, drained and chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 lemons
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt, or to taste
pepper to taste
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs (ours were low-carb)
1/2 cup pesto
parmesan cheese (optional)

Instructions:
Heat the olive oil in a large pan. Add onions, and cook until slightly browned (3-4 minutes). Add mushrooms and cook for an additional 3 minutes, then add the spinach and cook for two more. Add salt, pepper and juice of 1/2 lemon, stir and remove from heat. Add the bread crumbs and mix them into the filling. Scoop about 1/4 cup of filling onto a fillet of fish, placing it about 1/3 of the way across the fish. Wrap the short side over the stuffing, and then wrap the longer side over the fish and stuffing. Top with a dollop of pesto, a thin slice of lemon and optionally parmesan. Bake for about 25 minutes on 350, or until the fish flakes. Serve with lemon wedges.

As far as college campuses go, Penn’s offers some great eating-out options. Pod, a Stephen Starr restaurant, is just 2 blocks away from Alex’s apartment, and favorite local-food haven White Dog Cafe is just a block beyond that. Plus, we have three Starbucks and an impressive range of Vietnamese, Japanese, Indian, Thai, Middle-Eastern and other ethnic restaurants. Somehow, though, we’re seriously missing decent Chinese food. That’s not to say that there aren’t Chinese restaurants, but rather that the dishes served at many of them are more greasy than flavorful, and known to induce nausea and self-loathing after consumption. So when we wanted the comfort of Chinese take-out without the aftermath of ordering locally, we decided to try making a classic egg-drop soup ourselves.

We were surprised to learn that the dish is very simple — both in flavor and production. We based our recipe on one from Cooks Illustrated that called for cilantro, which we thought added a nice complexity to an otherwise basic broth-based soup. We ended up adjusting the seasonings even more to give the soup more flavor. And because we planned it as our main course, we added yolk-less (why not?) egg noodles, which went nicely.

Ingredients:
(broth)
3 quarts low-sodium chicken broth
2-inch piece of ginger, unpeeled and sliced thinly, lightly smashed
3 medium scallions, halved lengthwise and lightly smashed

(soup)
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp water
2 medium scallions, finely chopped
3 tbsp cilantro, minced
6 large eggs, beaten
1 package egg noodles

Instructions:
Make the broth by placing all of the ingredients in a large saucepan and simmering them for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, cook the egg noodles according to package instructions (should take about 10 minutes) and place them aside. Discard the solid ingredients in the broth (you can do this by pouring the soup through a strainer). Return the soup to its pot, and bring it to a simmer. Add soy sauce to taste. Combine cornstarch in water in a small bowl and stir until smooth, then whisk this mixture into the soup until it thickens slightly, about one minute. Add scallions and cilantro. Whisk the eggs into the broth by stirring the broth gently in a circular motion and adding the eggs in a continuous stream. Then, let the soup stand until the eggs set, about one minute. Once they have set, break up egg ribbons with a fork. Divide egg noodles among bowls and pour soup over them. Serve immediately.

Once we stop cooking for a bit, it takes a little something to get back into it. A little something moist and chocolately, irresistibly peanut buttery. A little something muffin. Or, in this case, a lot of something muffin.

We turned the baking shelf upside down for this recipe. About 95 percent of unexpired ingredients made the cut, along with a few stale ones. It was inspired in the way I always dreamed that baking would be — intuitively throwing ingredients together and then immediately doubting myself and checking the oven every three seconds. We tried to include healthier versions of ingredients whenever possible because it’s a fact that using reduced fat peanut butter and skim milk justifies 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips.

These lovelies present a strong chocolate flavor that isn’t overwhelmingly sweet, and with the help of some friends, we blew through a solid portion of the batch in the 10 minutes following removal from the oven.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup skim milk
6 tbsp smart balance or butter, melted
1/2 cup reduced fat peanut butter
3/4 cups white chocolate chips
3/4 cups chocolate chips
extra flour

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400, line muffin pan with muffin tins. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, milk, butter and peanut butter. Add wet ingredients into dry ingredients, stir until just combined. Coat the chocolate chips in the extra flour to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins. Mix the chocolate chips into the batter. Spoon batter into the tins, filling them about 4/5 of the way, and bake muffins for about 20 minutes. Cool and serve.

It’s been too long! The semester started, and there are other excuses, but we’re returning for good and that’s what counts.

We’d guess that stir-fry is among the most popular dishes that college students attempt to cook, along with omlettes and grilled cheese. And though it’s pretty easy to put a decent stir-fry together, putting together a PERFECT one is a trickier task. We’ve sampled many attempts by friends, some that manage to include both raw and overcooked vegetables simultaneously. Soy sauce alone does not constitute proper seasoning. We didn’t want to mess around with experimentation; we wanted a basic stir-fry with perfect flavoring and consistency. For technique, we consulted Epicurious, and we improvised only minimally by adding more of our favorite flavorings: Chinese five spice and ginger.

Ingredients:
(marinade)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tsp Chinese five spice
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed chili powder
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon flour

1 12-ounce package extra-firm tofu (drained, cut into 3/4-inch cubes, patted dry)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps quartered
8 ounces sugar snap peas, edges cut off
1/2 onion, sliced
2 tbsp minced peeled fresh ginger

Instructions:
Wisk together the ingredients for the marinade, add tofu. Let sit to marinade for up to 30 minutes. Put 1 tbsp vegetable oil in large pan over medium-high heat. Add tofu and sauté until golden, about 2 minutes. Transfer tofu to plate. Add remaining 1 tablespoon vegetable oil to the pan, add onions and cook until they begin to soften, about 1 minute. Add mushrooms and stir-fry until tender, about 3 minutes. If you like, you can add a bit more soy sauce and sesame oil. Add sugar snap peas and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add ginger; stir-fry 30 seconds. Return tofu to pan and drizzle reserved marinade mixture over. Stir-fry until marinade thickens slightly, about 30 seconds. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl. Sprinkle with green onions and serve.