Birthday Special 2025 & Chinese New Year

Greetings, happy new year, and welcome back to No Free Lunch. Yes, it's certainly been a while. As we celebrate Ariel's birthday, Chinese New Year, and the thirteenth anniversary of the blog, it is clear this has been a pretty busy year full of changes. 

The biggest adjustment has been my starting a new job at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and making the move across the country from South Dakota. The work has been fulfilling, but it has kept me very busy and left little time for culinary innovation. I've mostly focused on getting something on the table quickly. Simple dishes consisting of some kind of vegetable, sausage, and pasta (similar to last year's zucchini pasta) have become staples. Of course, moving to a big city has also greatly expanded our options for eating out and getting takeout. The move also resulted in us dumping all the ancient herbs and spices that we had accumulated over the years and donating some old cookware we don't use anymore. I would encourage everyone to do the same. Shayna is growing rapidly and overall has been a good eater. Sausage, chicken, pasta, and eggs are among her favorites. Recently, she has been developing her ability to use utensils to eat.

For Ariel's birthday, we went out for Ethiopian food and ended up getting buying a cake. I hope to have the energy to get back to making a cake next year. We celebrated Chinese New Year with char siu chow mein, made almost to the specifications of the recipe, plus some garlic. Shayna loved trying her hand at using chopsticks. 

Sadly, with all the things going on this year, the thirteenth year of No Free Lunch was pretty thin. I only posted one recipe, but it was a good one - Alabama white sauce. By July, we were able to fully reintroduce dairy and Shayna has become a great lover of cheese. With that, ranch dressing has returned to our house, but I developed a real taste for the white sauce and still make it often. I increase the garlic and onion powder from the recipe I posted and usually use apple cider vinegar now, but the recipe is fundamentally the same. I sometimes still make my own mayo, but have also experimented with Duke's, the southern favorite. 

Although I haven't been able to write as much lately, I am very thankful to still have this blog going after all these years. I use my own recipes all the time, particularly the Chinese ones. Just recently, we had a nice simple meal consisting of rice, steamed egg, and pea tips. I do have some ideas for new posts swirling around in my head. I'm hoping to write more this year as things at work stabilize. 

Birthday Special 2024

No Free Lunch is back to celebrate Ariel's birthday and look back on completing year 12 of the blog's existence. It's hard to believe we were both just 23 when I started this thing. It continues to be a great creative outlet and a source for inspiration when I can't think of anything to make. I recently even surprised myself with a tip I wrote a decade ago to throw some eggs in the already hot water from boiling potatoes. I have no recollection of writing that, but I'm pleased to report it worked like a charm.

On Ariel's request, we went for a classic Japanese meal for the birthday dinner. The menu consisted of chicken katsu, rice, and Japanese potato salad. The no-soy rule eliminated our usual Kikkoman katsu sauce, so we made our own using the recipe from Just One Cookbook. I increased both the Worcestershire and oyster sauce content to suit our taste. Shayna was able to gnaw on a strip of katsu and loved the potato salad. 

This year's cake sadly broke my 10 year streak of homemade birthday cakes. Unable to use dairy, we determined a box cake with a tub of frosting was the right call this year. It did take a lot of stress of my shoulders and gave me the energy to produce a great dinner. 

Unfortunately, 2023 was the leanest year to date for the blog, but having Shayna in our lives has been a truly worthy tradeoff. Of course, the dairy and soy issue has done a number on my cooking options, while at the same time I'm cooking more because we can't go out very much. As such, I have explored some new flavor profiles, and one that really clicked was my braised spare ribs with pasta. I've made variations of that dish several times this year. I was also very happy to have finally published an update to chicken cassoulet, better known as "beans" in our house). It's also easy to make it dairy free by omitting the butter I used to toss in at the end. It's a dish that's near and dear to my heart and has never left our dinner rotation in the last ten years. So, while I haven't been able to blog too often, I'm still quite happy with what I did manage to post. While I don't know if I'll end up posting more this year, I'm sure it will still be an exciting time as Shayna explores food for herself. 

Birthday Special 2023

Before we knew it, another year has come and gone. Happy birthday to both Ariel and No Free Lunch. Scrolling back through the birthday posts is a real trip through time to see how our lives have evolved. This year's cake was the same as the last one: Stella Parks' almond cake. It's quite a complex recipe but worth the effort. If I make it again I might increase the almond extract a bit. The frosting was the old stalwart, Mark Bittman's chocolate buttercream, which I have made quite consistently since 2015. I used sliced almonds to decorate again, this time with a simple but undeniably classic design. Unfortunately, little has changed with my stress level when baking.

This year's birthday dinner was a pan-fried ribeye steak topped with compound butter I had leftover from escargots. This turned out to be an excellent application. We accompanied that with mashed potatoes and roasted mushrooms. 

As it finishes its tenth year, the blog has settled into a comfortable rhythm. For the second year in a row, I hit my goal of at least one post per month, with a nice mix of recipes. I recreated some long-overdue nostalgic comfort foods like curry turnovers and Buffalo chicken quesadillas. I've continued to put out original cocktails like the rum nectarine smash, which will for sure feature next summer. I was also pleased to codify two all-time family favorites: fish-fragrant eggplant and parmesan garlic wings. The upgrade series continued with the eggplant and Portuguese chicken, which was for many years the most visited post on the blog. Finally, the highlight of the year may well have been fløtegrøt, not only an addition to the rather thin dessert category but also a tribute to my Norwegian ancestors. 

In other news, 2022 represented something of a return to "normal," such as it is. As big changes in our house come down the road, I'm sure it will be an eventful 2023.

Birthday Special 2022

This year's birthday special was delayed a bit by illness, but I got there in the end. Ariel requested an Stella Parks' almond cake with her chocolate buttercream, both from Serious Eats. It turned out to be an absolutely delicious cake, probably one of my best yet. Like a lot of recipes from Serious Eats (Kenji's included), this one is written with exacting precision, down to specific temperatures for each ingredient. As someone who usually cooks in a fast-and-loose style and is still inexperienced in baking, this can be quite intimidating. The way things come together in the stand mixer sometimes feels like alchemy!

For the decoration, I found some sliced almonds in the fridge and impressed myself with the legibility I managed to achieve. As can be seen in the photo below, I still struggle a bit with getting the frosting even between the layers. This cake recipe, which includes a good amount of almond flour, baked nearly flat, and I didn't even have to cut off anything from the tops. The requested birthday dinner (also delayed, though not by as much) was sweet and sour fish with gai lan, always a favorite in our house. 

No Free Lunch reached a huge milestone this year: the ten-year anniversary. Over the last ten years, I've written 248 published posts, most of which are full recipes. I plan to do a more complete retrospective of the decade soon. Back in 2015, I set the goal of writing at least one blog post per month. That year, I missed only November and never managed to hit that benchmark until 2021. While 2021 didn't come close to the prolific heights of 2020, there were some real bright spots and good variety in the posts. 

I continued the "upgrades" series (now featuring ten posts) with a mapo doufu recipe I'm really happy with, especially since it's received the all-important Ariel seal of approval. I was also proud to pay homage to my grandmother's midwestern classics with posts on meatloaf and scotcheroos. Two of this year's posts have become firm favorites in our rotation. The shrimp noodle bowl (which I happen to have made yesterday for dinner), was something I just threw together one day with what I had on hand at the time. Although I haven't made "matchos" (matzo nachos) since Passover, I use the chicken recipe to make nachos using regular chips. It makes enough for two batches, and freezes very well. I've continued to experiment with cocktails, with three rum concoctions making hitting the blog this year. I'm confident there will be more to come on that front. 

In last year's birthday post, I speculated about a brighter 2021. We did indeed get vaccines and No Time to Die was pretty great. Although the pandemic trundles on with no end in sight, good food and drink can be an important part of getting through it in one piece. 

Birthday Special 2021 and 2020 in Review

Another year means another birthday cake! For this year's cake, I made Molly Yeh's sprinkle cake, which is meant to be a homemade version of the classic "funfetti" boxed cake. For the decoration, I continued with the sprinkle theme for a simple design. Overall, the cake came out well, but cake baking continues to be stressful for me in a way regular cooking has never been. I have resolved to make more cakes throughout the year to get some more practice in. Happy birthday Ariel, and may that be an ongoing gift to you.

For dinner, I made pan-roasted lamb chops with a quick pan sauce. We had roasted butternut squash and rice on the side. Although it was a delicious meal, we look forward being able to celebrate with others next year. In last year's birthday post, I mentioned my hope that it would be the first of many big dinners around our table. Of course, 2020 had other plans and that hasn't happened yet. 

I'll take the rest of this post to look back at 2020 and take stock of what was surely one of the strangest years of my lifetime.

Birthday Special 2020 (and Chinese Year Year)

 Happy Birthday to Ariel and a happy Chinese New Year! With last year's cake being such a success, I made the same recipe again. Ariel came through with Mark Bittman's chocolate frosting as I was working on dinner. During dinner, Ariel said that 31 sounds old, but she feels young. I tried writing this on the cake, with some success, though I'm still working on my technique. 

With Ariel's birthday falling on Chinese New Year, we decided to have a few friends over for a Chinese dinner. This featured a few different dishes that have appeared on No Free Lunch. We started with chive pancakes, made with Chinese garlic chives. I rolled them out ahead of time, and stored them in a gallon bag with parchment paper between them.

The main dinner consisted of four dishes, shown in the photo above. First, eggplant Sichuan style, which is one of Ariel's favorites, and one I don't make often enough. Second, stir-fried rice cakes ("tongue depressors"), a Shanghainese classic for Chinese New Year. I made them with Chinese black mushrooms instead of pork. Third, stir-fried Shanghai bok choy with garlic, one of my favorite Chinese vegetables. Finally, we had hongshao ("red cooked") pork belly. This is a braised pork belly dish which Ariel and I both love. This particular recipe, from the Woks of Life, was supposedly Chairman Mao's favorite. I have been experimenting with different pork belly recipes recently, and I think this was my best yet. This will be a work in progress, but will surely show up on the blog eventually.

It was quite an undertaking to bring this all together, but it was a big success. While I was preparing the meal, I couldn't help but think about all the wonderful Chinese lunches and dinners we had around this table while it sat in my grandparents' house. We even used a few of their serving pieces. I hope this will be the first of many.

I usually take the birthday special as an opportunity to review the last year. In terms of the blog, I didn't post very many recipes this year, but the ones I did really reflect the way I am cooking these days amid a busy schedule. There's something to be said about simple braises that don't require actively watching the pot. Of course, 2019 was a very big year for us, with the wedding in July and our honeymoon in San Diego. I have a few more posts planned on that, which should be out soon. This year, I hope to get back to more frequent blog posts. Last night's dinner has gotten me thinking about diving back into Peimei's recipes, and getting back to the Chinese roots of No Free Lunch. Cheers to a great 2020. Gan bei!

Birthday Special 2019

Welcome back to No Free Lunch, and happy 30th birthday to Ariel! 2018 came and went with amazing speed. A lot happened last year with our engagement, move across the country, and then my first semester in my new job. Fall 2018 turned out to be the busiest semester I've ever had. The blog laid sadly dormant during that time, but I'm hoping this year will be more fruitful. I continue to enjoy cooking with gas on a daily basis!

For Ariel's birthday, I produced what I think is my best cake yet. This time, I used Stella Parks' vanilla butter cake recipe, and it turned out great. The recipe discusses letting the milk, butter, and eggs come to room temperature before making the batter in order to improve the texture of the cake. Instead of two 8-inch layers, I made two 9-inch layers. I again made Mark Bittman's buttercream frosting with chocolate. I also improved the cake construction by trimming off the dome on the bottom layer. I do think this is worth doing to get the cake to fit together nicely. 

For dinner, our plan was to have our traditional birthday lamb kebabs with roasted mushrooms, but it turns out you can't buy lamb in Vermillion. We had chicken kebabs instead, and they were excellent, as always. 

Here's to a great 2019 -- there's a lot of excitement yet to come, and I hope to share some of it here. 

Birthday Special 2018

Happy birthday, Ariel! For the cake this year, I decided I had to step it up a little. I returned to the same recipes I used for 2015's cake. This was Mark Bittman's golden layer cake and chocolate buttermilk frosting. In that cake, I just poured the entire batter into a 9x13 pan. This time, I did what was actually prescribed by Bittman -- two 9-inch round cake pans. The actual layer cake construction was not as difficult as I was expecting. Bittman recommends placing the bottom layer upside-down so that the flat bottoms go in the middle of cake. There was still a gap around the edge, but I managed to fix this by adding more frosting and pressing down on the cake. Overall, I do think the improvement in presentation is worth the extra effort over a sheet cake. Since the cake becomes taller, frosting the sides is actually easier with the layer cake. 

For the decoration, we have the triumphant return of the ship cake! I was inspired by the 15th-16th century carrack, the ship that built the Portuguese empire. As always, I used the Betty Crocker cake decorating tubes, but I remain dissatisfied with them. I may have to investigate other options for next year.

The birthday feast included eggplant Sichuan style, potstickers, and Kenji's crab rangoons. If you've never made crab rangoons before, it's quite easy, and I highly recommend Kenji's recipe, which is heavier on the crab. I used imitation crab, which I maintain is one of the world's most underrated ingredients. 

Birthday Special 2017

Well, dear readers, it's that time of year again -- Ariel's birthday. I managed to pull off another cake for the third year running. I researched a great many cake recipes, but ended up falling back on the same one as last year, and I think it turned out even better this time. However, I went with a vanilla buttercream frosting on this one. I'm getting a bit more comfortable with the whole process, and it has become apparent that the most difficult step is applying frosting to the sides and edges of the cake. The wine pairing for the cake was a 2001 North Point ice wine that I've been saving for a while. 

Since I was already confident in my ability to produce vehicle-based cake designs, it was time to branch out into animals. Cats were clearly the place to start, since I do have an excellent model. It occurs to me now that the face got a bit rounder than it should have, but there are plenty of cakes to come for that. Ariel also hinted at being open to a return of my (in)famous vehicular cakes, so stay tuned for next year.

Freyja the cake model

Interestingly enough, our dinner tonight (Ariel's request) perfectly mirrored the one from last year -- lamb and mushroom kebabs. That probably means a recipe for that one will be forthcoming.

In other news, No Free Lunch turned five years old this month. Unfortunately, this was my leanest year yet in terms of posts, but there were some great recipes in that select club. 2016 saw my return to Indian cuisine, a Chinese dim sum recipe with a weird new ingredient, as well as a true original of my own devising. I also made my take on a French classic and updated an old favorite. I ended the year on a truly special note with party salad, a real family tradition. One of my students also found the blog and made my taco recipe. Students, if you're reading this, make this one, and I'll really be impressed. 

Thank you to all of you for the continued support for this project over the last five years. I'm looking forward to at least that many more. And, of course, happy birthday, Ariel. You inspire me to make at least one delicious cake a year, but more importantly, better food every single day.

Birthday Special 2016

Ariel's birthday is here again, and a new No Free Lunch tradition is born. As with last year, I made a cake. This time, though, I made it entirely on my own. In all likelihood, I will never post a cake recipe on this blog, except maybe a Chinese sponge cake, if I ever get around to it. I like to tinker and experiment with recipes and put my own twists on a dish. Baking is often described as a precise science, and I don't have the expertise or confidence to tinker with cakes. I am, however, going to continue posting pictures of Ariel's annual birthday cakes.

This year, I made a yellow cake (recipe from The Kitchn) with chocolate frosting (recipe from Kraft). I went with a mathematical theme, taking advantage of the rare perfect cube. I promised to do the same for 64.

For the main course, I made leg of lamb and mushroom kebabs on the grill. Remember, folks, winter is no deterrent to the ambitious griller!

My First Cake

In commemoration of the most important holiday in this house, I achieved a personal first: making a cake. No Free Lunch is also a celebrating its first display of my amazing art skills. Last year, I told Ariel I would make a cake for her birthday. Looking back at my old posts, it becomes obvious dessert is not my strong point. Baking, especially cakes, intimidates me, as it is difficult to experiment and fix mistakes. Sadly, last year's cake never materialized, largely for these reasons. This time, I resolved to bake a cake, and with Ariel's expert help, produced this masterpiece.

The recipes I used for the cake and frosting are both from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. Ariel said today that I treat this book as "a bible." I guess that makes me a fundamentalist Bittmanist. There are worse things to be called. The cake is Bittman's Golden Layer Cake, but made as a sheet cake in a 9x13. Because of this, the cake ended up a little thin, so next time I would make extra batter. The frosting is his chocolate buttercream. Both components were excellent. When tasked to decorate the cake, I turned to my artistic specialty: square-rigged ships. I am particularly proud of the American flag on the stern and the mermaid in the water. The cake is delicious, and definitely superior to the average "box cake." I also got a lot of experience using the rather intimidating stand mixer. 

We also spent the day making dim sum. On the menu today were potstickers, char siu bao (steamed pork buns), and nai huang bao (custard buns). As I perfect both kinds of buns, you can definitely expect them to show up on the blog eventually. Today's results were the best we've made so far, thanks to receiving the Yank Sing dim sum book from grandpa.