miyokoskitchen | Emily N Cannon

If you were on a first date you didn’t know was a date with the person who turned out to be the love of your–GOD!!, obviously you’d cheers with mozzarella sticks that had lost a lot of shape coming from the kitchen but your waitress managed to scrape off most of the freezer burn so that’s not too bad, right?

Look, I named my pet rabbit after David Rose: of course I’m going to make my “make something for your favorite character day” about him. But dude’s tastes do not run toward the vegan, I suspect–I dare not try to make a pizza for him, say. But I suspect my actual homemade mozzarella sticks, no matter how imperfect (and how vegan the cheese–don’t tell him), might beat the ones from Cafe Tropical.

Above: OK, maybe not, since mine are served only with homemade marinara and not true love.

They do sizzle and melt nicely, though. Send some home with Stevie.

It’s been a while since I felt like I was really in a cooking groove, but I’m getting back to it.

Breakfast was a now-standby chickpea scramble from Isa Does It, with a side of braised chard and toast with Miyoko’s Double Cream Chive and sliced tomatoes. Reliably good. I woud’ve gladly made avocado toast, but our last avocado was too far gone. Alas.

For lunch, I quickly cobbled together these collard wraps stuffed with spicy red beans and rice and topped with leftover carrot ginger dressing. I used canned kidney beans and a little bit of yesterday’s brown rice and just sauteed it with chopped tomatoes, minced onion, a dollop of hot sauce, cumin, coriander, and a handful of chopped fresh cilantro. The collard leaves are just steamed until tender. It’s pretty damn tasty for something I threw together in 20 minutes.