I Am Loving Smitten Kitchen for Can't Fail Recipes That I File As Keepers

My husband liked the Smitten Kitchen sour cream bran muffins so much that he ate five of them!

I just like her!  I like Deb Perelman's taste in food, her personality, her approach to cooking with fewer bowls, her obsessiveness with the recipes she posts on SmittenKitchen.com and in her cookbook, and that she has vegetarian recipes with substance.  I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm really interested in cooking with less meat (and not being hungry an hour later).  Oddly, I only discovered her after her cookbook came out last fall.

A crisp for breakfast??  What a great idea!

The only other cooking person I've ever liked as much is Mark Bittman and I just discovered Yotam Ottolenghi two weeks ago, and I feel an obsession coming on with him, too.  I definitely connect with these cooks' personalities and philosophies.  For instance, Ottolenghi is about simple, flavorful and real ingredients.  I made a caramelized fennel with goat cheese dish of his and it was spectacular.  There were so few ingredients, but everything came together in a magical way.  I am very into that kind of cooking.

Made SmittenKitchen's Shakshuka and Hummus for a Middle Eastern-themed Brunch

So far, I've tried about 20 recipes from Smitten Kitchen (the site and the book) and only one dish has not been great for me (the meatballs stuck to the pan like crazy and I learned later in the comments that you're supposed to not move them until they move easily, but I sort of feel like they would have been just as good baked).

The meatballs didn't work out for me, but it was probably my fault

I checked out the Smitten Kitchen cookbook from the library at first because I can't stand having cookbooks where I have only used two of the recipes.  Plus, Rob and I really downsized our book collection to only have books that we really love love (you do that when you move three times in a year and a half), so books have to pass an adoration test now.  Anyway, I loved the cookbook and had to return it three weeks later (couldn't renew it since it is on hold by someone else), so I bought one on Amazon.  I'm so happy to have ownership of the book!

Library borrower converted me into cookbook purchaser

I peeled the chickpeas because I trust Smitten Kitchen