Mongolian Chicken


Mongolian chicken has almost nothing to do with Mongolia. The name actually traces back to Wu Zhaonan, a Beijing-born comedian who fled to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War and opened a food stall in Taipei in 1951. If it were up to Wu, his griddle-cooked dish would’ve been named “Peking barbecue” after his hometown, but Peking (or, as you might know it, Beijing) had just been named the capital of Communist China.
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Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars


A slice of classic cheesecake is one of those desserts that takes nicely to added flavors and tinkering. If you love both pumpkin pie and cheesecake, these creamy bars are the perfect hybrid. There’s a sturdy graham cracker crust on the bottom, then a layer of classic white cheesecake, and finally a delicate pumpkin cheesecake layer fragrant with cinnamon and pumpkin pie spices.
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The Canned Vegetable That Transforms Creamy Pasta into a Comfort Meal


I have seen a lot of canned vegetable upgrades lately. One person suggested adding canned mushrooms to a grilled cheese, and another said to pour canned collard greens over white rice. I thought those tricks were pretty smart, so I asked our team if anyone had any other hacks tucked up their sleeves. One canned vegetable our team reaches for a lot is creamed corn.
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Filipino Braised Beef (Beef Pares)


Comfort food looks different from one kitchen to the next, and for me it’s a big bowl of saucy chicken adobo or a platter of crispy fried lumpia. These are the dishes I grew up on, and they’re the ones I crave when I need a taste of home. Beef pares is another classic comfort food. This sweet and savory braised beef dish started as a street food sold in Quezon City, a town northeast of the city of Manila in the Philippines.
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My 3-Ingredient Mug Cake Is So Easy, I Have It Memorized (Boxed Cake Trick!)


I always have a box of cake mix tucked away in my pantry, but let’s be honest — I don’t always have the time (or the motivation) to bake a full cake. That’s where this trick comes in: With just three ingredients and a microwave, you can turn a few spoonfuls of cake mix into a warm, single-serving dessert in minutes. The best part is that it works with pretty much any boxed cake mix flavor you’ve got on hand.
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