One of my favorite things about living in New York is that you can get brunch on both Saturday and Sunday — but sometimes that’s just not enough for me, and when the brunch craving hits on a weekday, it can only mean one thing for dinner: Croque Monsieur and Oven Home Fries.

There are a few ways to make this fancy ham & cheese sandwich — including a lively debate over whether or not it includes a Béchamel sauce, but for me, unless it’s a special occasion I tend to leave the “mother sauces” to the professionals.

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Bushwick Caprese salad

The other day Jessica asked me a very serious question: what do you do when friends are coming over and you want to serve them a little snack, but only have time to run to the Associated around the corner for supplies? She likes to buy frozen shrimp, defrost it and serve it up with cocktail sauce. My favorite thing to make is the always satisfying Caprese salad. This week, I’m offering that up as my best solution, along with a quick home-made onion dip for veggies, and a very simple avocado toast. I’d love to hear what you serve when entertaining in a pinch.

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A few weeks ago I went to Mr. BBQ on Wyckoff with my friend, Andrew. We got some sort of mixed grill, fried plantains, and at last minute Andrew ordered a bowl of vegetable soup. While the mixed grill was good, the vegetable soup was incredible. You could tell it spent hours simmering on a stove, and the slow, home cooked taste absolutely blew me away. From that day on, all I could think about was soup; I think I’ve had more soup in the last three weeks than I ate all winter. So this week, I decided to make some myself.

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Considering it’s been sweltering in Bushwick for the last week or so, I’ve had little desire to stand over a hot stove and actually cook. The prospect of someone else slaving away in a hot kitchen and being able to eat in nice cool air conditioning has led me out to restaurants every night, and completely decimated my bank account. So this week it’s back to basics and budget-friendly meals; I decided Penne All’Arrabbiata would be the perfect dish — it’s cheap, simple, spicy, and the ingredients can be found in ANY supermarket. Since it seemed selfish for me to keep all of this deliciousness to myself, I invited over AB, my favorite person to feed. At first, we weren’t convinced that the sauce was spicy enough, but after a few forkfuls the heat really caught up with us.

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If you read the introductory post about my culinary adventures, then you know that Quiche figures heavily in my journey. I figured for the first post, I’d make my signature dish and then move on to other endeavors.

In honor of the summer in Bushwick, I decided to use green and yellow summer squash, onion, and cotija cheese for the filling. All the ingredients are available locally. The recipe for two quiche, and some tips are as follows:

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