When you have a craving, you just have to sate it. That was what happened to us one Saturday. Something was screaming, "Chicken tortilla soup!" to me and apparently it reverberated inside my head, across our shared wavelength, and into Duc's thoughts as well because he started asking when I was going to make it. Luckily, we were stocked already in the kitchen with just about all of the ingredients so it wasn't long before a nice pot of bubbling soup was going. I think one of the soup's appealing traits is all of the texture. You have smooth creaminess from the avocado, the right bite per shredded chicken breast piece, soft beans, and crunchiness from the chips. Not to mention the fresh-feeling flavors! Surprisingly, it wasn't too difficult to throw together either so give it a try yourself.

This is actually a guest post by Duc himself who very rarely participates in actively cooking or making food and even more rarely in writing. Photographing the food is more his style. However, he somehow fell into an obsession over making the "perfect" beef jerky for our taste preferences and wanted to contribute. I was all for that, and hey, anything that gets him cooking is good enough for me. I love that he's getting into this all AND has some thoughts to share below so read on!

I'm an impulsive snacker, and I'll grab whatever is nearby that seems like it would satisfy my random cravings. With all the health craze going on, I figure I should have more control of the quality of snacks I have available. Beef jerky sounded like the best option: it's manly, simple, and doesn't require hard-to-find ingredients. Perfect for a beginner like me!

Thanks to the Google gods, I have combined and adapted my own recipe for beef jerky. Credit goes to Food Wishes for inspiring the base of this recipe. It has a short heat kick to it and is beefy enough to satisfy that meaty, salty craving. And it's great for gifting! It also is much more cost effective to make your own than to buy. Grocery stores have jerky for nearly $2 per ounce (Costco has the best pricing at $1/oz)!

So let's get started, I'll break this post into commentary from my point of view.

My father has a tendency to do to my mother like to what Duc does to me - he finds random objects at the grocery store and buys it just to see what can be done with it. One Saturday afternoon, my mother asked me what to do with "pig potatoes." I was confused. What the heck was a pig potato? When she dropped the three pound bag of them on the dining table, I immediately recognized them as sunchokes. I pointed that out but she shook her head vehemently and said the receipt called them pig potatoes. Once that paper strip was whipped out, I realized she was right - the Korean supermarket had labeled them as such. But why?

Turns out that these tubers are called so because they are often used in pig feed. While they are quite nutritious (there was a placard at the store that was a selling point for my dad on these) and generally tasty, they do have a reputation for causing much flatulence due to an abundance of inulin. That being said, they are not common in restaurants for that reason. Digestive upset surely would deter guests! However, if you're going to eat these crisp and slightly sweet sunchokes, you can do so happily at home and perhaps in this pureed soup form! Also known as Jerusalem artichokes, these bad boys look like ginger and taste like a mesh of apple, artichoke, and celery. I like them but beware! Some people may be a bit more...unintentionally "vocal" after eating some.

When I need comfort food, I usually turn to Thai food for some reason. I think curry dishes lull me into a savory warmth that invoke good feelings but funnily enough, I was only exposed to the cuisine a few years ago. I have tried to make Thai green curry from scratch in the past and realized that it takes a while. No wonder a lot of people use the paste one can buy in stores. There is another option too though and that is a powder form that becomes a paste when mixed. With some red Thai curry powder on hand from Savory Spice Shop, I put together a soup made rich with duck broth but which can easily be made vegetarian with a stock adjustment. It is hearty, full of healthful vegetables, and easy enough to make with help from the powder. I hope you give this recipe a shot!

It doesn't get all that cold during the fall and winter seasons in southern California but based on the average temperature in this area, it gets relatively cold. It's a good excuse to indulge in soup...and I am a soup fiend, it feels like. I guess it stems from how we used to have some kind of soup or broth with every dinner when I was growing up. It could have been just as simple as a broth made from daikon but without fail, a small bowl to sup from would be the "first" course before we dug into the meal family-style. Soup is comforting but hearty, hefty ones even more so. Combining the trinity of vegetables with some lean ground turkey yields this beautifully savory soup with a medley of components. I hope you'll give it a try and enjoy!

The latest Test Kitchen ingredient was fresh dill, and several of you chimed in over on Facebook. Thank you for that! It gives me inspiration but also allows me to know what kinds of foods I ought to be posting to meet your own needs. Circumstances made it difficult to make some of the dishes you suggested but with the cooler nights, a soup seemed most appropriate. The prominent flavors of this carry dill soup are the herbaceous nature of dill and the inherent sweetness of carrots. They work very well together, and I hope you will give this simple and swell recipe that I put together a try!

I made these little egg bites one day just to try out an idea I had in mind...and to finally boil some eggs. I had to admit that I've only really boiled eggs once or twice before because I don't normally eat them like that. For this particular appetizer combination I thought of making, it was necessary. This gave me time to also try to perfect the method. I think it turned out just about right! The bites look beautiful in small dishes/bowls but could also work in spoons. After all, they really are just one bite bites!

It may not look like anything special but marinated mushrooms and artichoke hearts are usually an instant hit at gatherings. They are tangy, herb-y, and a good fit for other plates you've got going on, especially an antipasto spread. I somehow managed to put this together as one of the first things I made when I started cooking and keep coming back to it [original post here - this is a revamp of the first version of this dish that I've made.]. It's an appetizer you can start the day before and should, to allow the flavors to meld with each other better. Served cold, the plate of mushrooms and artichoke hearts will definitely fancy up any party, AND the recipe is easy too!

I have always loved grits in just about any way that I've had them. They usually cannot be messed up other than being blander than preferred. When it became a Test Kitchen ingredient for us to experiment with, I thought of the different applications I have seen it in. Shrimp and grits is a very popular dish but felt overdone...however, what if you combined them into a snackable piece? Chopped up finely, the shrimp would be able to mix in with the grits well enough to make a shrimp and grits cake. What a thought! To prevent it from being too bland, I seasoned both the grits and the shrimp pieces too. The recipe requires several ingredients because everything is made from scratch but this savory, Southern treat is well worth the effort. Give it a try yourself. I got the thumbs up from even my parents who rarely eat non-Asian food!

Easy pea-sy recipe right here! Looking for something outside of the typical hummus you see made with garbanzo beans? You can make it with peas which have a sweeter flavor as well as an interesting color that can be good for themed parties or just to change things up a bit. The recipe is simple, as is any base hummus, so you can prep this quickly for a snack or gathering.

We recently had some guests over that I really wanted to make small bites for because they hadn't had my cooking yet. When one indicated that she was vegetarian, that got me thinking about how I could put out a few appetizers that would all be tasty but still cater to her lifestyle. I had a large jar of capers still in the refrigerator so wanted to hinge a recipe on that but still keep it fulfilling. After all, who wants to eat a bunch of bites but not get full in the least bit? Beans were next on my mind so a little mixing put these two lovelies together on top of some citrus-flecked toast. Voila - a savory but light vegetarian delight (in just five ingredients)!

I didn't know what pâté chaud (bánh patê sô) was called when I was growing up; I always just called it the "hat pie" because the ones my mom purchased looked like little hats. There was the mound which is where the fatty meatball resided and then the flared outer crust. I liked the taste of it but never ate too many because they were unwavering in their greasiness. These Vietnamese snacks can be found in plenty of the bakeries and banh mi shops as flaky pastries full of savory meat. Once I finally learned the real name for them, I decided that I'd have to make some one day. It appeared difficult until I learned what working with puff pastry was like - easy! Bánh patê sô just so happens to also be one of Duc's favorite things to eat growing up (and even now!) so he was very much encouraging me to venture in this direction. From memory of what the filling was like, I put together my own interpretation of the snack and though they don't look like hats, they sure are tasty!

We had a lot of tomatoes and a lot of milk. This is how ideas for dishes usually begin - there is a surplus of ingredients and I brainstorm a place for them all. Tomato bisque jumped to mind almost instantaneously though. A common but always welcomed soup, this creamy starter is actually not too difficult to make. It's actually a great go-to for when you want a comforting dish that isn't complicated. My recipe incorporates two ways to tackle tomatoes whether you use canned or fresh; go for the fresh if you've got enough time to!

Peruano beans, also known as Peruvian beans, have been described as being pleasantly creamy but I didn't know exactly how creamy until I had some myself. Yum. Luckily, since I had read up on how creamy they were, I decided that it only made sense to use them in a fashion other than soup or on the side. I made them the main feature in quesadillas! These vegetarian pockets of cheesy, beany goodness need some salsa to spice them up and keep your tongue from sticking to the roof of your mouth from all of the tasty stickiness. I also added mushrooms to the mix for extra nutrients but you don't have to if you prefer to skip the fungi!

Some days, you just need a bodywarming soup that is rich and creamy - this recipe for a roasted cauliflower shiitake soup is just that. It is creamy without the fat of adding cream to it; pureeing the soup creates a similar texture. I roasted cauliflower to get some smokiness into the bowl and also to bring out a more savory flavor in the vegetable. This is one of those recipes that could really cheer up a sad day because it is comforting and chock-full of that umami only strong mushrooms can bring on...and Shiitake are one of the most potent in flavor!

When we presented Poblano peppers as the Test Kitchen ingredient, several suggestions came our way about stuffing the peppers somehow. Even looking through the initial search results of Poblano pepper recipes showed them stuffed either to be baked or be used as chile relleno. Given that the days lately have been a strange mix of unbearably hot and uncomfortably chilly, I felt that a soup was in order actually. It had been a while since we had a nice, rich soup to sup on so after some thinking, I pureed together this creamy and spicy soup that is sure to warm you up. It gives a great deal of credit to the roasted flavor of the Poblano too. Try it out yourself.

It's a bit funny how I had never heard of lettuce wraps being an Asian dish until I first stepped foot into a fast-casual Asian-inspired restaurant many years back. Then I seemed to see it everywhere, this dish of saucy cubed stir-fry that made a mess when wrapped in the hand by a mere vegetable "paper" but was quite tasty. It's a salad without the chopping of the greens in a sense! So I made a tofu and mushroom version one night using some tasty ingredients we had procured at a farmers' market. This vegetarian (and I guess also vegan if you use vegetarian "oyster" sauce!) recipe brought a lot of bright colors to the table from all of the produce. It's a bit simple to make too but packed with a lot of flavor. If you don't feel like eating this wrapped in lettuce, you could also just have this over a healthful bowl of brown rice.

The picture of the fried tofu with such a sweet and spicy glaze makes me want to jump back in time to when I had this dish freshly done, hot and ready. The Test Kitchen ingredient was some local eucalyptus wildflower honey from Bee Ladies which is herbaceous with slight hints of savoriness. You are obviously completely welcome to use other types of honey with this recipe though. I also didn't list it sriracha with a capital S because I ended up using an artisan variety from New York called Jojo's Sriracha (which is awesome by the way!) but feel free to use the signature green topped bottle. The glaze (or is it a sauce?) is quite easy to remember as it is a 2-2-2-2 mix. I can imagine this also being great with shrimp or chicken but fried tofu is also very, very satisfactory. It is a sweet and spicy touch to any dish.

When we chose spelt as the Test Kitchen ingredient, it was because I had given in to the ease of ordering from Amazon (as I always do) and bought several pounds of the stuff. I was on a health kick to find whole grains. My intent was only to purchase farro but the wretched "Customers Also Bought" scrolling bar made me curious about the spelt; a quick click and Amazon Prime produced a box of the stuff in two days' time. I gave a bag to my mother to try out too but she didn't read the instructions one day and ended up with hard-to-chew grains (she didn't soak it overnight). That experience delayed my exploration of this ancient grain but I finally decided it was time to try it out. In a soup, it expands and makes itself well known as an ingredient, lending a nutty flavor and texture to the dish. I quite liked this soup which turned out like a vegetarian beef stew. Try out the recipe yourself and enjoy.