Daylight savings is among us. Kevin is bummed about losing an hour of his day. I’ve been waiting anxiously for warmer weather and longer days. In preparation for spring, I’ve been cleaning our home and preparing my closet for the long-awaited warm weather. Projects at work have started picking up earlier this month. I’ve had to work some weekends to assist with the planning for a major project. Outside of work, I look forward most to the weekends. Weekends are the perfect time for testing and developing recipes and just letting my creative juices run wild in the kitchen. This weekend, I was craving some dumplings. Whenever I make dumplings, Kevin always requests my pork and cabbage dumplings. They’re Kevin’s favorite type of dumplings. I’ve made them quite a bit over the years and they’re always a hit with my family and friends. When my parents came to visit over the Thanksgiving holidays last year, I made them some pork and cabbage dumplings and they absolutely loved them. My mom did comment on the thickness of my dumpling wrappers. Kevin chimed in and commented when I think the dumpling wrappers are thin enough, I should roll them even thinner. Otherwise, all other aspects of the dumplings are always on point. When Kevin and I first started dating, dumplings were one of the first recipes we tackled together. He had a strong craving for dumplings one day and suggested we make some from scratch. We ended up making a decent batch of dumplings from scratch. We had such a good time cooking and bonding over our shared love for dumplings. Overtime, Kevin’s interest in cooking dwindled. My interest in cooking only grew as I tried to refine my dumpling recipe over the years. It took a few years before I came up with my truly phenomenal pork and cabbage dumplings recipe. Since then, it became the go-to dumpling recipe whenever either of us craved dumplings. This weekend, I set out to make dumplings again. I had some leftover baby bok choy in the fridge and ended up incorporating them into my dumpling recipe. Thus, my pork, cabbage, and bok choy dumpling recipe was born. Making dumplings from scratch always transports me back to my childhood days growing up in New York. I would wake up early on Saturdays, take the train out to Chinatown in Manhattan, and soak in all of the wonderful aromas of the restaurants sprinkled throughout the neighborhood. I loved walking up to windows of dumpling restaurants and watching cooks prepare large batches of dumplings. I was always impressed by how efficient the staff were. It seemed as if they were able to fill, wrap, and cook dozens of dumplings in only a few minutes. I was always in awe of how efficient the process was and how delicious the final product was. Even thinking back to those moments makes me hungry. When I make dumplings, I like to take my time enjoying each step of the process from kneading the dough, to preparing the filling, to frying up batches of fresh dumplings. The combination of Napa cabbage and bok choy yielded some of the juiciest pork dumplings we’ve ever had. These dumplings turned out so good, they set a new bar for dumplings in our household.

I’ve been distracting myself by cooking and baking in the kitchen as much as I can after a tooth extraction I had earlier this week. After almost a full week of soft foods only, I’m finally graduating back to solid foods. For the last week, I ate mostly mashed potatoes, yogurt, macaroni and cheese, and eggs. All I’ve been craving after the week are solid foods. One such craving is my favorite soft pretzels. My usually go-to pretzels are everything pretzels with scallion cream cheese. This time around, I decided to put a spin on my usual go-to soft pretzels and made some Asiago cheese pretzels along with a few everything pretzel bites. Asiago cheese and I go way back to my college years. My first experience eating Asiago cheese was in the form of a bagel as a college student. I was a freshman student in Ann Arbor and I was craving a bagel with cream cheese. I had moved away for college and had the most intense craving for bagel with cream cheese, a staple I grew up eating while living in New York. I walked up to the counter of a café located in the undergraduate library on campus, scanned through the selection of baked goods and packed salads, and committed to an Asiago bagel with a side of cream cheese. I had never had an Asiago cheese bagel before, but the bagel sure looked delicious. I asked for the bagel to be toasted and then waited impatiently to take a bite. One bite and I was hooked for life. The Asiago cheese added a savory nutty flavor to the bagel and paired perfectly with the cream cheese. I must have been really missing Asiago cheese bagels because this week, I suddenly had the most intense cravings for Asiago cheese. To get my fix of Asiago cheese and soft pretzels, I combined the two into an Asiago cheese pretzel and served it alongside some homemade garden vegetable cream cheese. Making garden vegetable cream cheese was my way of convincing myself I had a couple servings of vegetables along with my carbs. The dough for my pretzels is the same dough I use for my pizza. It’s the perfect foundation for shaping and forming pretzel twists and pretzel bites. Usually, I make the dough ahead of time and leave it in a cool spot to rise undisturbed overnight. I didn’t remember to start the dough the night before, so I made the dough early in the morning and left it to rise undisturbed for 2-3 hours while I worked on other recipes. This was the perfect time to whip up some vegetable cream cheese using some of my favorite vegetables I had on hand including red pepper, celery, carrots, and scallions. The vegetable cream cheese is easy to prepare and tastes best when chilled in the refrigerator for a few hours before use. By the time the dough has doubled in size, I was ready to begin prepping and shaping my pretzels. I rolled out the dough, flattened it with a rolling pin, cut up strips of the dough, and formed them into either pretzel twists or bites. The pretzel twists were topped with grated Asiago cheese and the bites were topped with an everything seasoning. There really is something magical about Asiago cheese. When melted under high heat, the heat brings out the intense savory, salty, and nuttiness of the Asiago cheese. Asiago cheese works wonders when topped on soft pretzels. Twenty to twenty-five minutes later and the pretzels are done. The only step left is to grab my vegetable cream cheese from the refrigerator and serve it alongside the pretzels and bites.

This weekend, Kevin and I celebrated Valentine’s Day together right after work with homemade cheese fondue and chocolate fondue. It’s been quite some time since we’ve enjoyed fondue together. When we first started dating almost a decade ago, Kevin took me to The Melting Pot for dinner. We enjoyed a pot of cheese fondue with a selection of meats, vegetables, and breads for the main course. Dessert course followed with a pot of chocolate fondue and a selection of fruits, and treats. We spent the entire dinner chatting and laughing late into the evening. Kevin walked me back to my college apartment before he headed back to his. Almost a decade later, I wanted to recreate the experience with had at The Melting Pot many years ago by setting up a cheese and chocolate fondue for two. It would be our own little fondue dinner prepared for just two people. I prepared the dippers for the cheese fondue by arranging cubed baguette, grape tomatoes, diced apple, pretzels, salami, pepperoni, broccoli and cauliflower onto serving plates. For the chocolate fondue, I arranged some pretzels, marshmallows, crispy rice treats, blueberries, and apples onto a platter. The chocolate fondue was a blend of melted semisweet chocolate with a splash of whole milk and served in a mini fondue mug I had purchased years ago. I’ve had the mug for such a long time, I was glad to finally put it to use this weekend. Kevin and I enjoyed our fondue dinner and reminisced on the Valentine’s Day dinners we’ve had over the last decade. I can’t believe after almost a decade later, we decided to have fondue again for Valentine’s Day dinner. Even before dinner was over, I already contemplated the next dish I would make the following day – crab cake sliders with lemon parsley mayo.

It’s almost Valentine’s Day. This year, Valentine’s Day landed on a Friday. It’s been a few years since Kevin and I celebrated Valentine’s Day on the actual day itself. Most years, when Valentine’s Day is a random weekday, we just have a simple dinner before heading to sleep. Some years, we may not even have dessert (depending on how tired we are after work). On the chance Valentine’s Day lands on a Friday or a weekend, I take the extra effort to create a home cooked meal from scratch. I’ve been brainstorming ideas for Valentine’s Day dinner all week. Kevin only had one request for the Valentine’s Day dinner menu this year – he wanted the meal to feature tons of meat. I prefer a meal filled with my favorite carbs instead. To make sure we both get what we want, why not marry the two and have pizza and Stromboli? This week, I’ve been craving pizza (yet again). Pizza is a dish I had with my family every Friday growing up. My dad or mom would pick up a large pie on their way home from work. The local pizzeria near my childhood home in Brooklyn had the best thin pies. No matter how many times we ordered pizza there, I just couldn’t get enough. Pizza was all I craved. Sometimes, I would also order a side of garlic knots with marinara sauce to supplement my meal. Occasionally, I would opt for another stuffed carb goodness – a Stromboli. Most versions of Stromboli I’ve had at pizzerias throughout New York City typically featured a ton of cheese and a variety of meat and vegetable fillings. When I say a ton of cheese, I mean mouthful of cheese and cheese pull with every bite. While I love cheese, I do prefer less cheese in my Stromboli. I love the swirls of cheese and meats within a Stromboli. I guess I love the Stromboli because it combines everything I love about a sandwich and a pizza. One of the first dates Kevin and I went on when we first started dating in college was to a Cottage Inn in Ann Arbor.  Kevin made a reservation ahead of time, waited for me after class, and walked with me over to dinner at Cottage Inn. We were broke college students back then and only ordered a salad, pizza, and breadsticks. Yet, the meal stilled turned out absolutely amazing. Kevin and I enjoyed the meal slowly while we shared stories about our childhood. Kevin grew up in Hong Kong and shared many stories about his life in the city. I grew up in New York and filled him in on the experiences I had growing up in Brooklyn. We spent the night chatting and laughing while enjoying great food. I wanted to recreate the moment we had by preparing a large heart shaped pizza topped with pepperoni, mushrooms, fresh basil, and arugula. I prepared extra pizza dough and reserved some to make a Stromboli filled with mozzarella, salami, pepperoni, and Italian seasoning (including a side of marinara sauce to serve alongside the Stromboli).