Herbed Roasted Potatoes-- Learned a lot of tricks for getting them super crispy and was thrilled with how well it came out.

Molasses stack cake-- This didn't turn out well at all, very soggy and mushy. I'm not sure whether I screwed up the recipe or if the recipe itself wasn't right. Might try a different version and some tweaks later this fall.

Sweet and spicy grilled corn-- I loved this sauce for roasting/grilling corn, and managed to make a less spicy version for the rest of my family too.

Homemade dutch baby-- My girlfriend and I learned how to make these for a kitchen date, and I couldn't believe how easy it is. Definitely a weekend staple now.

Sparkling blueberry ginger iced tea-- This one wound up being less of a recipe and more of just tinkering, but I was very happy with how it came out.

Sheet pan garlic butter shrimp-- I never attempted doing shrimp on the stovetop bc I didn't want them underdone or overdone, so it was great to find a sheet pan recipe that seems to work every time.

Greek yogurt blueberry muffins-- Needed to use up a huge tub of Greek yogurt and this was a really good way to do it. I'm definitely keeping greek yogurt in my muffin recipes from here on out, and this recipe had some super helpful tips on muffin basics.

Sunshine salad dressing-- Loved this easy honey mustard dressing, I've been using it as a marinade as well as on salads.

Sheet pan shake & bake pork chops-- This turned out to be a really simple copycat and I loved being able to do veggie sides on the same pan. First time learning how to cook pork chops!

Cappuccino cookies-- I actually ended up tinkering a few recipes together for this one, something I'm getting more comfortable doing, to get the right amount of coffee taste and not just a bland chocolate-ish cookie.

Stuffed Acorn Squash-- This one was more labor intensive, but totally worth it-- warm and comforting with a sausage and apple stuffing I'm also stealing for other dishes.

Cabbage, sausage, and potato soup-- A big change from the kind of food I usually make, but I loved it. Very easy dump everything in the slow cooker recipe.

Apple crisp-- This is another one of those classics that I just never learned because I didn't grow up with it. I loved how easy this is to do, and looking forward to fall so I can warm my kitchen up with them all the time.

Rice cooker pancake-- I almost never post my own food pics because they rarely turn out nice, but I am this time because I was soooo amazed that this worked. Making these all the time now.

Lemon & dill orzo with spring vegetables-- Loved this one, super easy and bright and flavorful. Made this one a new staple.

Honey-poached oranges-- Not a bad recipe, but not my taste at all.

Chamomile Lemon Shortbread-- I'm stoked to finally be getting the hang of shortbread. This one taught me how to do the fancy cutout squares, and also how to blend tea into the recipe, which should be fun to experiment with.

Butternut squash risotto-- Risotto is one of the dishes I really wanted to conquer for feeling like a "real" cook and I got it right this time! Not as difficult as I thought it would be, just time consuming.

Rainbow grapes-- This was fun to try and a good snack alternative to candy. Kind of like if jolly ranchers were an arctic fruit.

Welsh cakes-- These were a complete whim after I saw a picture of them on Tumblr, but they came out surprisingly well. A fun little random recipe.

Creamy roasted mushroom soup-- A new fall fave. The perfect cozy autumn recipe for weekends with lots of time to stir and simmer.

Glazed apple crumb muffins-- I didn't care for these at all. Del ate the entire batch in two days. Guess that's a draw.

Thai peanut chicken-- This was a really easy slow cooker dump recipe, although it needed a few tweaks. Been looking for something like this for a bit.

Grasshopper pie-- This was out of my mom's recipe box. It came out fine but the taste was super retro, in a way-- lots of sweetened condensed milk and heavy liqueurs.

Mediterranean pasta salad-- This went right into our summer rotation, and the red wine/lemon vinaigrette turned out great on a lot of things.

Slow-cooker corn chowder-- This came out amazing, not too complicated but hearty and rich and perfect for that end of summer, beginning of fall period. My girlfriend says I am not allowed to refer to bacon as "meat bay leaves" even if that is how they are used.

Chilled cucumber soup-- Really easy, super light and refreshing. More filling than I expected what's basically a veggie smoothie to be.

Shrimp scampi-- Way simpler than I expected. I'm really glad I took this summer to get over my paranoia about cooking shrimp.

Banana split icebox cake-- Perfect for my summer sweet tooth, although it took up a lot of room in the fridge. This held up surprisingly well over a few days, too.

Honey garlic shrimp-- This marinade was simple and s o o good, just as good on the veggies as the shrimp. I'm gonna try it on chicken next/

Hawaiian pineapple coconut cookies-- My July cookie. These were okay, but I want to play with adding more juice or crushed fruit to really give it a tropical flavor. They mainly just tasted like coconut macaroons.

Coconut lime popsicles-- Super easy, but all my zest wound up at the bottoms. Not sure how to fix that.

Watermelon salad with feta and cucumber-- Simple and super refreshing, with a quick homemade lime dressing. I love how the creamy/salty/sweet combo.

Nutella S'mores fudge-- This was very simple and not bad, but missing something to keep it from just tasting like pure chocolate. I'm thinking some vanilla or something next time. Still great to know I can make a homemade dessert this summer without going anywhere near my oven.

Creamy pasta salad-- This was very simple and tasted just like childhood church potlucks, which is what I was going for.

White chocolate strawberry cookies-- These were incredible and so sweet and summery, and a lot less difficult than I was worried about.

Tropical pineapple coconut rice-- I loved this recipe, but I made a lot of changes to the seasonings so it was less savory and more sweet, almost edging into dessert territory. The texture with the crushed pineapple was kind of hard to get right, too.

Parmesan Zucchini & Corn Salad-- I need to tinker with this one, the seasoning blend wasn't super my thing. But I'm definitely doing more summer salads like this one basically.

Strawberry coconut breakfast casserole-- I loved how easy this was to make ahead and pop in the oven in the morning. It was good, but not quite what I expected-- it looked like it would be a sweet pastry type deal and it was more like french toast, which makes sense. I just dumped powdered sugar on my serving.

Two-ingredient ice cream bread-- Mixed results. It was definitely the easiest thing I've ever baked, but I thought it was bland and tasted a lot like raw flour. My brother ate the entire loaf in an evening and asked me to try more flavors. Mixed results.

Chocolate butterscotch cookies-- My absolute favorite, and they came out perfect. Finally, a bake that went my way and also a cookie for May (although sadly not a lemon one).

Homemade ramen-- This was a lot easier than I expected and didn't require a ton of new bottles and cans in my cupboard. It took some tinkering to combine different recipes, but I got it tasting just right.

Lemon high tea cookies-- This was my second stab at a nice batch of lemon cookies for spring, and I'm not sure what went wrong. They went great for Smeg and terribly for me. Tasted like pure cornstarch.

Lemon arugula pasta with burrata-- Absolutely loved this one. The perfect amount of lemon, complex but not too heavy, the burrata just melted in there like a dream.

Avocado pasta salad-- This was easy to throw together, including a homemade dressing that's just a few ingredients in a blender. Gonna be a summer staple.

For my April cookies, I found a recipe for lemon blueberry cream cheese cookies. My girlfriend and I followed the same recipe together. We got nearly identical batches of lemon blueberry cream cheese scones. They are moist and soft and delicious. But they are definitely scones. Unexpected but tasty.

Slow-cooker split pea soup-- I pretty much read a dozen recipes for this one, figured out what they all had in common, then made it up myself based on that. I'm getting a lot more confident in my ability to do that and it feels great.

Homemade soft pretzels-- This was a bakealong date with Smeg, and I was very skeptical due to how bad I did at bread last time. But it was very simple and a lot easier-- only 3 minutes kneading and 10 minutes rise time. They came out great and taste almost like mall or movie theater pretzels.

Honey butter roast carrots-- These were extremely simple and extremely delicious. Tasted like Thanksgiving sweet potatoes. This is also the first time a glaze for carrots hasn't wound up burnt for me.

Spinach and ricotta puff-- This one was disappointing, kind of bland and soggy. But it was good practice with puff pastry and I'm excited to try doing a similar kind of puff with a different filling sometime.

Lemon asparagus pasta salad-- A super super spring-y recipe. This was very simple to make and I liked it a lot, but it doesn't keep well-- the sauce loses a lot of the lemon flavor by the second day. I'm keeping it in the rotation, but next time I'll be doubling the asparagus and halving the recipe overall so it doesn't go bland in the fridge.

Basic white bread-- I'm still working hard on this one, but baking just doesn't come easily to me. I'm hoping another batch or two will get me better at it.

Blackberry infused earl grey iced tea-- This one was super easy. Just muddling half a pint of berries in some sugar, pouring some strong tea over it to steep, and straining it over ice. The blackberry and the bergamot are lovely together, and when you pour in a little cream it makes beautiful swirls. I'm hoping to try this again soon with some other combos, probably raspberries and mint tea.

Earl grey tea cookies-- I had to tinker with this a lot to get a dough that wasn't too crumbly to roll, and even then they came out on the dry side. But I think it'll be a good cookie for dunking, and I can keep figuring it out. I really want it to work (or a similar recipe) so I can try other flavors of tea.

Turkey meatloaf with zucchini and feta-- I wasn't sure what to expect from this recipe, but with some tinkering with the spices it came out actually tasting exactly like store-bought turkey meatballs and way healthier. I'm not sure about the feta, but it should be fine without it next time.

Irish apple cake with custard sauce-- I was a little nervous about doing this one, mainly because I know custards are easy to get wrong and curdle, but it went very smoothly. It's a very traditional style cake recipe, almost more of a quickbread and not as sweet, but I liked it a lot.

Korean beef bowls-- I cobbled this together from a couple different recipes and was surprised at how easy it was, and how many of the ingredients I already had in my pantry. The only thing I really had to buy was gochujang, which wasn't $ and I'm likely to use in a lot of stuff.

Cherry tea cake cookies-- This was such a frustrating recipe. The dough was super crumbly, to the point where I was quadrupling the cherry juice just to hold it together. The cherry flavor also wasn't very strong even after that. But I added cherry juice to the glaze as well, and that helped some, and the cookies came out pretty tasty-- just not a strong cherry flavor. Not sure whether I'll make these again or not. Maybe with some tweaks.

Mocha oatmeal cookies-- These came out pretty good, but I actually enjoyed the dough more than the baked cookies. Which means it's still going in my recipe box with one less step.

White Hot Chocolate-- This was extremely easy to make, just milk and cream and a bar of good quality baking chocolate whisked together in a pot. I added a very small splash of peppermint extract. It was way too sweet for me, but that should be easy to adjust with less chocolate.

Homemade Sloppy Joes-- This was one of the recipes for my "random page of a cookbook" goal and it. Was. So. Bland. SO bland. I made it, ate half a sandwich, then promptly headed back into the kitchen to begin doctoring up the sauce. Damn you, 1950s!

Ginger-Lemon Cookies-- These were fun to make, but I didn't care for them. My brother ate the entire batch, though, so I guess that still works out. I did love the sugar they're topped with, which has lots of lemon zest and candied ginger, so I think I can adapt one of my other cookie recipes for the same flavor using that sugar.

Moroccan Roasted Beets with Pomegranate & Pistachios-- This is my first time using pomegranate, my first time using fennel, and I believe only my second or third time using beets and definitely not BEETS like this, so it was a lot of new elements. It was still a pretty easy sheet pan roast, though, and I like the flavors a lot. Next time I would definitely halve the amount of pomegranate seeds.