soba noodle salad with ginger peanut dressing

Yuuuuuum!   Simple.  Healthy.  Delicious.  What more can you ask from a recipe?  The most brilliant part of this recipe is the sauce, which is without a doubt the best peanut sauce I have ever made.  Peanut, ginger, lime, cilantro, garlic, in perfect balance.  At first glance, it might look a little high-fat because of all the peanut butter, but it takes a bit of water to get it pourable.  And a little of this sauce goes a long way.  Once the sauce is made, you just cook up soba noodles and chop up some veggies.
Summary: Best Sauce Ever.
Recipe from the September 2009 issue.

double chocolate waffles

Well, how could I not make these?  They were really good, and not as unhealthy as you might think.  Waffles are already not that healthy anyway.  The waffle itself was delicious, not very sweet at all, and very moist. 
The sauce was amazing, but it kept clumping.  I think using regular milk instead of soy milk might help.  The instructions say to keep it warm, which is a good tip.  The sauce was was a perfect mix of chocolate and maple flavor, but I used real grade-B syrup, not corn-syrup-based. 
This is a really dramatic and rich-looking dish, and it would be perfect for a brunch for friends.  But the truth is, I didn't really want to eat more than half of one in one sitting, so unless you're making it for a crowd, it might not be worth all the work.  I didn't try freezing them, but I bet that would work really well.  September 2010.

cauliflower mash with miso and sage

This is really healthy.  And it's not unbelievably delicious, but it is good.  It has a nice nutty flavor.  The browned onions and carrots make the dish look kind of muddy.  It's really not very pretty.  It would be a great dish to make to get kids to eat their veggies or if someone were on a special diet.  The other comment I would make is that it does not reheat well, as it gets thick and pasty the next day, so only make what you're going to eat in one sitting.

ricotta-basil stuffed tomatoes

So here's the deal.  I can't stand food that is stuffed into vegetables.  I just don't want to eat a whole zucchini, or bell pepper, or whatever.  But in this case, the actual reason was that tomatoes are just too darn expensive, and 2/3 of the people in this house would not eat them anyway.  So I made the filling and baked it in a casserole, which ended up being super easy.  Oooooohh, and it was so delicious!  I bought fresh corn (sweetest ever) and cut it off the ears.  I didn't have any parmesan, but I didn't even miss it.  If I were making it for other people, I would definitely put parmesan or bread crumbs on top to make it a little brown.  It was warm and hearty while still being light and fresh and summery.  A perfect dish!!  From July/August 2010, recipe here.

sweet potato wedges with cider reduction

OK, everybody knows how to make sweet potato wedges, and you know whether or not you like them.  I would, however, love a tip on how to get them as crunchy as oven fries, if anyone knows.  But what I really wanted to make here was the cider reduction....and I guess I didn't really like it.  It tasted too much like apple goo, or apple jelly that sat out for a long time.  I tried adding a little cider vinegar to it, but it was just not good.  I think maybe it was too sweet.  Next time I will make a balsamic reduction, which I already know I love.  No picture, what a lame blog.
September 2010 issue.