Soft whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies

There comes an time in every otherwise health-conscious person's life when they need to contribute something sweet to a buffet. For this otherwise-health conscious person, today was that day. I very rarely bake sweets... If they're around, I'll either eat them all, which is bad, or manage to not eat them all and let them to go to waste, which is also bad. So I always look forward to occasions like barbecues and pot-lucks as opportunities to bake something marvelously fattening, eat some, then get the rest out of my house and into several other happy bellies. Win-win!

And don't let the name fool you, these are not "healthy" cookies. These suckers are absolutely packed with sugar and butter and delicious chocolate. I just happen to like the nutty flavor brought on by using whole-wheat flour, so I've used it to replace half of the regular white flour. They're based on Eric Wolitzky's recipe, adapted slightly from here.

Rock shrimp fried rice

Here's another quick and versatile weeknight recipe. Get out the prep bowls - fried rice is all about the mis en place. Additionally, prep bowls just make me happy.

I use rock shrimp in my fried rice for some reason I can't remember. Allan loves them, and that's all that really matters, so I continue to use rock shrimp in my fried rice. Needless to say, you could use regular shrimp, diced raw or cooked chicken, pork, yadda yadda.

Chicken, squash, and olive tagine over couscous

 In ridiculously exciting news, Pure Land Organic has found a home.

Fifteen acres of beautiful lush pasture in Mckinney, Texas. And the neighbor has a pet pig! It's fate. Anyway, as soon as we can figure out where to start, we're a-gonna. Squee!

Meanwhile, still gotta eat. Allan asks me to make this again and again. With good reason! It's absolutely teeming with flavor and healthfulness. It's also a great way to use up the other half of a butternut I always seem to have leftover from something and whatever sprouty potatoes are laying around, too. Pretend the new potatoes came from my garden. The tops are looking wilty, I think a harvest is nigh.

Pork schnitzel and arugula over butternut squash and potato mash

This is another favorite from Williams-Sonoma's "Food Made Fast" series. They're really great cookbooks, I can't recommend them enough.

The inspired combination of bright lemon, shallot, peppery arugula, creamy mashed potatoes and crunchy pan-fried pork is what makes this such a success, both in flavor and texture. You want to get a little of each component with every forkful.

Zucchini, sausage, and orzo stuffed peppers

Stuffed peppers make another great use-what's-in-the-fridge meal. The formula goes thusly: a meat, a pasta, a green vegetable, a little tomato sauce, a sprinkle of cheese, and of course, the eponymous pepper.

By now I've made a hundred variations, but my favorite employs sausage as the meat (this is not terribly surprising if you know me). I prefer to use sausage over ground meats because sausage has already been seasoned, so you don't have to stress much about herbs and whatnot. Tonight I used chicken and garlic sausage, but hot or sweet Italian is always a sure bet if you don't know where to start. And using chicken or turkey sausage keeps it nice and light for an everyday meal.