The Beckyan Deli

Category: recipes

  • Mexican Rice

    You can’t have cheese enchiladas without rice and beans! So here is our favorite Mexican rice recipe, which can be made in parallel with the enchiladas. (I must admit here that we usually use canned refried beans with the enchiladas, although I promise to post our refried bean recipe in the not-too-distant future). The recipe…

  • Cheese Enchiladas

    Some time back in 2004 or 2005 Becky and I first tried to make cheese enchiladas. I’ve loved cheese enchiladas since I was a kid, and this is a fantastic and fun vegetarian meal. We first tried the recipe from the Sundays at Moosewood cookbook, and it was awful. Bland, unsatisfying, strange, and dry. So…

  • Pumpkin Pie

    The first pie that I learned to make is one of my favorite: good old pumpkin pie. I don’t make it as much as I would enjoy, since a certain unnamed person for whom I do most of my cooking doesn’t like pumpkin. But come Thanksgiving, Pumpkin Pie is a Rykoff family tradition, and sorry…

  • Ultimate Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

    A couple of weeks ago, Becky said “I’d like some oatmeal raisin cookies”. And seeing as I can’t feed Sam directly, I do my best to oblige her requests. Of course, I looked for a Cook’s Illustrated recipe first. And I found this online, which purported to be the Cook’s Illustrated recipe from 1997. (I’m…

  • Apple Muffins

    While she was pregnant, Becky needed lots of continuous food input. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down now that she’s breastfeeding Sam. So I made lots of quick snack foods, including dozens and dozens of muffins. I adapted this apple muffin recipe from Alton Brown’s basic muffin technique. They’re apple-y and tasty and…

  • Chocolate Chip Cookies

    I’ve always been one for the good ol’ Toll House Cookie recipe. It certainly has withstood the test of time since its invention in the 1930’s. But there is always room for improvement. I like my cookies mounded and chewy in the middle, but I’ve never figured out how to do this consistently. One option…

  • Mac & Cheese

    At long last, here is my Mac & Cheese recipe. It’s not fancy, but it certainly gets the job done. Unless, of course, you are lactose intolerant. Sorry Becky! This can be made with any firm cheese. I usually use sharp cheddar, but I’ve found a mix of garden-variety cheddar and smoky English farmhouse cheddar…

  • Saag Paneer

    We’ve made saag paneer (or palaak paneer, as they call it in Southern India) many times, using a combination of two recipes. Both recipes are from Madhur Jaffrey: one in World Vegetarian and the other in World of the East Vegetarian Cooking. We don’t like either one by itself, so now that we’ve finally adjusted…

  • Spicy Corn

    As the summer grilling season begins (but in Santa Barbara it never ends!) corn on the cob starts to appear at the market. And there’s nothing we love more than Indian-style spicy grilled corn. I learned this recipe and technique from my neighbors on Tappan St. in Ann Arbor, some time in the last millennium.…

  • Tandoori or don’t we?

    Tonight Becky and I made Mark Bittman’s Twice Cooked Mock Tandoori Chicken. We’ve previously tried Madhur Jaffrey’s Tandoori Chicken from An Invitation to Indian Cooking (a classic from 1973 with the world’s longest subtitle). What’s new and interesting about Bittman’s version is the cooking method: baking the chicken in the sauce first, and then grilling…