First of all, yes, the Chicken Rice with Buttered Onions that Deb recently posted to the Smitten Kitchen blog is delicious. And there is no caramelizing onions involved.

Like the Chicken with Rice, Chorizo, and Tomatoes, you sear the chicken on either side and remove it from the pan. Then you cook the onions for a while, basically until they look delicious. After that you deglaze the pan (we were out of white cooking wine, so I used some dry vermouth) and add the rice. The chicken goes back in and then you pour some broth around.

I had about 1.5 pound of chicken this time, and (learning my lesson from the chorizo version) I made half as much rice, which was the perfect amount. For me the rice was done in about 20 minutes, so I’d recommend checking, especially if you also scale the recipe back. Or if you know the type of rice you’re using typically cooks up a little quicker than Deb calls for here.

I tried making this in my heavy-bottom stainless steel skillet, and it worked out beautifully. The chicken released more easily than it did from my enabled cast iron dutch oven (likely because the finish on that is worn down). And while there was some stuff stuck to the bottom, I left the pan to soak overnight and most of it came up right away.

One of the things I liked about this recipe is that you cut the onions into a large dice, rather than slicing into half moons. This slows down how fast they cook, so you’re less likely to end up with burnt onions (or need to keep a close eye on the pot).

This is another savory, cozy meal. The salt levels were perfect (though I do think I might have missed a seasoning step somewhere along the way) and the chicken came out pretty well. One piece was a little overcooked, but they weren’t uniform in size and with a gas stove you do get hot spots, even on pans that are good at conducting heat.

I recommend serving this with a salad or a green vegetable to contrast the flavor a bit. We had it with sauteed sprouting broccoli.

I was looking for a fall-themed cake to bring to a party, and the Spiced Applesauce Cake from the Smitten Kitchen blog looked tasty. The date of the party change and we didn’t end up going, so I made it for my book club a couple of weeks later. My original plan had been to scale up the recipe 1.5 times and do it in my bundt pan, and then try to thin out the frosting a little bit. But making it for book club simplified things a big as it meant I could just make it as written in my 9×9 pan.

This took a little longer to come together than I thought it would, but it wasn’t hard at all. I did consider making my own applesauce for this but in the end I did not. Instead, I bought applesauce from the orchard that comes to our farmer’s market, which is where I would have bought the apples anyway.

I wanted to take this out of the pan to serve it and I was worried about getting it out in one piece. I made a sling with parchment paper that was maybe 4-5 inches wide. After I buttered the pan, I patted the sling in place and then buttered the parchment.

I made the cake the day before we met, so it would have time to cool. The sling worked well to quickly lift it out of the pan. I left it on the counter overnight, on the serving dish with a layer of plastic wrap over the top. I thought some of the top would stick to the wrap and come off, but it did not!

The volume of frosting was pretty perfect. I let the cream cheese and butter soften for probably 90 minutes, and the frosting came together nicely. It was very soft and fluffy, and I swooshed it around on top of the cake until it looked good.

The cake was lovely. Moist and flavorful, and it got rave reviews from book club. I don’t know that the frosting would have worked well on a bundt cake, so if I wanted to make this for a party in the future I’d probably increase it by 1.5 and make it in a 9×13 pan. I think the only change I’d make is to add more walnuts.

I’m not sure how the Roast Chicken with Dijon Sauce from the Smitten Kitchen Blog came across my radar, as it’s one of Deb’s older recipes, but I’m glad it did. It wasn’t hard to make at all and the results included the crispiest chicken skin I’ve produced in a while.

This is one of those roasted chicken recipes that you start on the stove, which I normally avoid because why add extra steps to roasted chicken? But really it’s not hard at all, the trick is waiting until the chicken is ready to release from the pan before you flip it. For me that was exactly the 5 minutes given.

This recipe calls for 3 pounds of chicken but it’s easy enough to scale it down to whatever you have. The measurements for the sauce will get a little wonky but you can round them up or down and then adjust as needed. I made 2 pounds of chicken thighs and was able to brown them all in one batch rather than having to do two. If you do a full batch and you have a second pan that would work for this, you can do them all at once and then shift them into one pan before they go into the oven.

I made about a 2/3 recipe of the sauce, and we had quite a bit more than we needed, so next time I might make a smaller batch of that. But if you tend to have a lot of leftovers around it could be nice to have on hand. It’s punchy and salty but doesn’t have that HELLO THIS IS MUSTARD vibe that some mustard sauces can have. Now that I think of it I might actually try freezing the extra, I think it’ll hold up OK.

This is a great, basic roast chicken recipe so you can really serve it alongside anything you want. With the oven being involved anyway, might I recommend some roasted veggies? If you get them going before you start the chicken the timing should work out pretty well.

This was not the first time I’ve made the Simplest Spaghetti al Limone, from the Smitten Kitchen Blog. It’s very easy to make and comes together in a flash, so it’s a great easy dish for a solo meal. I imagine it would also be a great side for seafood.

Deb has you make the sauce in the bowl you’ll serve the pasta in, and then garnish with some basil. I was making one serving for myself, so I decided to have it in a soup bowl instead of a pasta bowl. That gave me room to make the sauce and saved me from dirtying a mixing bowl. (Or, uh, eating dinner out of a mixing bowl.)

I picked some tiny basil leaves off of the plant on my deck and didn’t bother to cut them down. If you don’t have basil but you do have chives or parsley I think either would be a fine substitute garnish.

Dinner prep did not have my full attention while it was happening, which led to this being a little more lemony than I would have liked. So if you adjust the amount of pasta you’re making, make sure to keep the proportion of lemon the same. Also, don’t skip adding the pasta water. I just realized I did, and that would have helped as well.

The Perfect Blueberry Muffins from the Smitten Kitchen blog are truly perfect. I’ve made them several times and they never disappoint. The recipe makes 9 muffins, which is ideal for a two-person household. It feels abundant but not like I should freeze half of them.

I do recommend following Deb’s instructions and making the 9 muffins, otherwise they will not be as tall and craggy. And you should definitely seek out the turbinado sugar, that is really what sends these over the edge into perfection: it gives them that bakery vibe. (I would not recommend substituting regular sugar for this, it won’t give you the crunch.)

This time around I made these with a friend who came over. This is a one-bowl recipe so there wasn’t immediately a clear way to split up the work, but she handled the mixing while I flitted around the kitchen gathering ingredients and tools, prepping the pan, etc. It worked out really well.

This time around the blueberries turned the batter blue, but that doesn’t really bother me. If you want to avoid that, leave them in the freezer until the last minute and try to shake off any ice crystals that have formed inside the bag.