Katie Cooks

Welcome back to Katie Cooks, where recipes are less “carefully developed” and more “what do I have in this kitchen and how aggressively can I substitute ingredients?” This month, I had several bananas rapidly approaching the point where they either needed to become banana bread or enter the compost bin. I found a banana bread blondie recipe, started pulling everything out, and then discovered we had no vanilla. We did, however, have chocolate chip cookie protein powder. Same

Everybody... yeah. Rock your salmon right. This month, Katie Cooks is bringing you one of the easiest dinners in our regular rotation: Bachan’s salmon. Because I Want It That Way, and apparently “that way” is covered in Japanese barbecue sauce and slightly charred under a terrifyingly hot broiler. Ingredients: 1 absolutely enormous piece of salmon from Costco Bachan’s Japanese Barbecue Sauce Salt Pepper Garlic powder Directions: Cut the salmon into literally whatever size chu

Alright, stop... grab a pot and listen. Katie Cooks is back with a brand-new invention. Well... not exactly. It's rice. Plain old rice. But this recipe turned me from a "rice cooker only" girl into someone who can confidently make a pot from scratch, and honestly, that feels like character development. When I met Stephen, I was completely dependent on a rice cooker. If that little appliance wasn't involved, I wasn't making rice. Then, during our first move together, the lid s

Every once in a while, a recipe sneaks into your life in a way you weren't expecting. On a recent trip to Orlando, I stopped at Fresh Kitchen for the first time. I wasn't expecting much from a fast-casual restaurant. I figured I'd order something healthy, enjoy lunch, and get back on the road. Then I took one bite of their Chard & Cabbage Slaw. That was it. The chicken was good. The rice was fine. But all I could think about was... cabbage. I spent the entire drive home tryin

The don of all side dishes I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I don't really care what season it is, I'll eat this recipe year-round. The Squash Father has become one of those dishes that quietly earns a permanent spot in the rotation. It's simple, tastes way better than a vegetable side dish has any right to, and somehow manages to win over people who normally wouldn't give butternut squash a second glance. Whether you're looking for something to pair with your meal