These Are The Recipes We Tried And Loved Lately

Julia Turshen's Small Victories is probably my favorite cookbook. I've written about it several times on this site, and here I am doing it again because I tried yet another amazing recipe that I need to share with the world.

This one is the cryptically named "Afternoon Cake." It's an orange, ground nuts, and olive oil cake — and I see now why they chose to give it such a vague name. As Turshen puts it, this cake is "perfect for that 'it’s four o’clock and I need a little something with a cup of coffee' moment."

The recipe is simple and highly customizable. The ground nuts can be any nut you want. I was feeling kinda fancy, so I went for pistachios and it tasted amazing. And feel free to swap the orange for another citrus (I used a mix of orange and blood orange). It's soft, not too sweet (but sweet enough), super satisfying, and the kind of cake you can't stop eating but also don't feel bad about devouring. —Marie Telling

Get the recipe here.

After seeing this recipe makes its rounds among my friends on Instagram, I decided to finally try it. It was a cold winter day and I had recently become obsessed with all things Italian after watching Call Me by Your Name, so it seemed like the perfect meal for me. And perfect it was.

I swear I'm not being dramatic when I say that this recipe is magical. It's so easy and low-effort, a child could probably put it together. There is barely any chopping involved, and all you have to do is pretty much throw everything in a pot and stir from time to time. The only other step is heating up some olive oil with a bit of garlic and rosemary in a pan to make a super flavorful finishing oil that'll top your pasta.

The final dish is delicious, comforting, and surprisingly rich in flavor for something that requires so little effort. Don't skip the finishing oil though, it really takes the pasta to a whole other level. —Marie Telling

Get the recipe here.

Every now and then a new recipe comes along that blows up Instagram, and TBH, they usually don't live up to the hype. However, one ultra-hyped recipe I recently made that actually lived up to the buzz was Sarah Kieffer's pan-banging chocolate chip cookies. I mean, a quick search on Instagram for #panbanging comes up with over 200 posts, and a Google search shows several articles written about the technique — including one from the New York Times — which told me that these cookies were definitely worth a try.

The technique itself is pretty simple, but it will cause a ruckus. What you do is bake chocolate chip cookie dough from semi-frozen — as the cookies begin to melt, you bang the sheet tray every few minutes to deflate them and form wrinkles. These wrinkles turn into chewy-yet-crisp edges that border the gooey center. The technique is fun, unusual, and delicious. Your neighbors won't be too happy with you, but your stomach will. —Jesse Szewczyk

Get the recipe here.

I looove gnocchi, but it always seemed to me like a food that's very intimidating to make at home. So when I stumbled upon a recipe for two-ingredient sweet potato gnocchi (the recipe says three, but one ingredient is just salt), I couldn't help but try it out.

This recipe was really so simple. All you have to do is bake a sweet potato, grate it over a mound of flour, knead it into a ball of dough, and then cut the dough into 1-inch pieces, and boil them for a few minutes.

Voilà: delicious homemade gnocchi that's even better for you than the traditional regular potato version. I topped mine with some thyme butter, salt, pepper, and Parmesan cheese as a savory contrast to the slightly sweet gnocchi, and it tasted like something I'd get at a restaurant (which, trust me, has nothing to do with my cooking skills). I'll be making this recipe time and time again. —Hannah Loewentheil

Get the recipe here and learn about more pasta hacks here.

Oh boy, these cookies. These cookies are so delicious I ended up eating 12 of them in a row, which is good for no one. But I regret nothing.

The recipe comes from Sweet, Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh's excellent baking cookbook. I had been eyeing these cookies since I first got the book, and finally decided to make them one Sunday night.

The process is very easy, but you have to chill the dough twice for a total of three hours. So make sure you plan ahead so you don't end up stuffing your face with chocolate cookies at 1 a.m., like someone I know. Or maybe that's exactly what you want, in which case: enjoy! —Marie Telling

Get the recipe here.

You know how this goes. It's the end of a long day and you're finally finished with your midterms, your kids, your latest Netflix binge — whatever! And you're craving something sweet, but SUPER low-effort. Cue this cookie: It's a single-serving, five-ingredient, ready-in-10-minutes ~miracle~. You probably have everything you need to make it in your kitchen already: peanut butter, instant oats, confectioners' sugar, vanilla, and chocolate chips. (And flaky sea salt, but only if ya want.) You mix it. Freeze it. ❄ Drizzle on the chocolate. And enjoy. —Natalie Brown

Get the recipe here.

Last year, I bought Audrey At Home, a cookbook/family album written by Audrey Hepburn's son, Luca Dotti. It's a lovely book, filled with the star's family pictures, personal recipes, and handwritten notes. For some reason, I hadn't tried any of the recipes until recently, when I decided to make Audrey's pasta alla puttanesca.

What makes pasta alla puttanesca, a Neapolitan specialty, so delicious and unique is its sauce: tomato-based with olives, anchovies, capers, and garlic. It gives the dish an amazing depth of flavor, especially for a recipe that's so low-effort.

The only change I made to the ingredient list is that I skipped the green olives and only used black cured olives instead. The recipe itself was extremely straightforward and easy and it didn't take me more than 30 minutes to put the perfect weeknight meal together. —Marie Telling

Get the recipe here.

If you feel like you're barely keeping it together these days (most of us, TBH), may I recommend a nice cup of Cozy Tea? Pretty much all tea is perfectly nice, especially at this time of year, but the tea drink I've been obsessed with for the past several months combines David's Tea Alpine Punch (a caffeine-free rooibos tea), a little vanilla syrup, and a splash of cream or half-and-half. It has a cherry/almond flavor with light floral vibes and is basically liquid hygge. It's so delicious and soothing, and having it every night before bed has become such a pleasant and comforting ritual. —Rachel Wilkerson Miller

Get the recipe here.