I have recently rediscovered the taco as a homemade dinner option. Jury’s still out on how this discovery will affect my overall health, but on all other fronts – flavor, ease, cost, deliciousness – I’m pretty happy with it. It’s no wonder tacos were a staple of our childhood dinners. They’re so easy! While even your basic taco-kit Tex-Mex taco can be delicious, gourmet tacos are next level. You know, the kind that successful food trucks all over the US are dedicated to – with soft flour tortillas wrapped around spicy barbacoa and pickled onions and freshly made salsa. The kind that makes you feel like you’re standing on a street corner in Mexico, watching life go by and soaking up the sun.

These tacos are more of the grown-up, gourmet variety (although with a couple throwbacks to the childhood Tex-Mex version). Instead of ground beef and “taco spice” I make them with fresh Mexican-style chorizo sausage. The mixture of the mildly-spiced chorizo, sweet onion, and corn makes up the bulk of the filling. They come together in no-time, maybe 20 minutes from “I want tacos!” to biting into your first one. So if you’re going for a 30-minute dinner, you’ll still have 10 minutes left to shake up a margarita.

What takes these chorizo tacos over the top for me is griddling the tortillas in the leftover chorizo fat. They turn golden brown and a little crispy, and if you melt a bit of cheddar cheese in the center at the same time you are ready for taco heaven. Quality toppings also up the ante here. A generous amount of sliced avocado, fancy salsa, and sour cream all come together to give you the perfect amount of savory-spicy-rich-sweetness in each bite. I’ve been making these with the chorizo that comes in our Walden Local Meat Company subscription, and I’m pretty sure they’ll be on our table at least once a month. From now until… forever.

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Corn and Chorizo Tacos

Easy and delicious Corn and Chorizo Tacos, on your table in 30 minutes. Fry the corn tortillas until crispy and golden brown for an extra decadent meal.

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door
• Yield: 4

Ingredients

• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1 medium onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1 lb. fresh, Mexican-style chorizo sausage
• 1 1/2 cup frozen corn
• 8 small corn tortillas
• 6 oz. cheddar cheese, thinly sliced
• 1 or 2 ripe avocados, peeled and thinly sliced, for topping
• salsa, for topping
• sour cream, for topping

Instructions

1. In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and saute until translucent, about 3-4 minutes. Remove the sausage from its casing and crumble into the pan. Use the back of a wooden spoon to chop it into small pieces. Saute, stirring frequently, until fully cooked and crispy on the outside, about 8-10 minutes. Add the frozen corn and cook for another 2-3 minutes, then transfer the stuffing mixture to a bowl, leaving most of the oil/drippings in the pan.
2. Working with one or two tortillas at a time, add the tortillas to the hot grease and cook until golden brown on the first side, about 60-90 seconds, then flip the tortilla over to cook the second side. While the second side is cooking, place a few pieces of cheddar cheese on top of the tortilla so that it melts into the tortilla. Remove from the heat when cheese is melted and both sides of tortilla are golden brown. Repeat with the remaining tortillas.
3. Fill the cheesy tortillas with the chorizo and corn mixture, then top each taco with sliced avocado, salsa, and sour cream. Serve immediately.

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The weekend before last, Trevor and I got sick. I might be kind of a wimp when it comes to being sick, but I was sicker than I have any memory of ever being before, although Trevor says he was sicker in Ecuador. We think it was some sort of norovirus we picked up, probably compounded by the fact that we’re in Portugal and we don’t have as much resistance to the viruses here. (I could be making that up though; feel free to correct me if you know about these sorts of things). I was totally miserable but at the same time a little fascinated: since I was wearing my fitness tracker, I could tell that I had been “active” for 75 minutes even though I was lying in bed, asleep. That visualization of how hard your body has to work to fight illness was really interesting for me.

It was a good reminder that health is one of the most important things in life. The Herophilus quote in my passion planner is fitting: “When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.”

Health is one of my major focuses for this year. Not just weight loss, or exercise, although those are important pieces. Health. Being well. As a day-to-day reminder, I’ve set a little mantra: eat smarter, move more. Simple, to the point. If I tell myself this when evaluating options – what to have for lunch, whether I need that chocolate after lunch, if I should walk home or take the bus – it serves as a gentle reminder of my goals. It’s not a rule, or a restriction. It’s just a little push towards better choices.

The food we put into our bodies plays such a huge role in our overall health. I feel worlds better when I keep my meals light and bright – the trick is coming up with meals that make me crave eating this way. Generally, I find that lunch is the easiest time to get a lot of vegetables in, and when I’m home, I frequent b.good, a Boston-based chain. I think they started out as a burger place, but they also offer great grain bowls and salads. I love their butternut squash and apple salad (and when I’m really hungry, I add a burger to the top – all the flavor and none of the guilt of the bun, french fries, and cheese).

This salad was easy to recreate at home, and so good that I ate it 3 times in one week. In the spirit of #EatSmarterMoveMore, I forwent the burger and replaced it with farro to make the salad filling enough for dinner. In addition to the farro, the salad has roasted butternut squash, diced apple, tamari almonds, cheddar cheese, pomegranate, and spinach. All kinds of good flavors going on. I can’t take any credit for the combination, but I can vouch for its deliciousness. Also, I’d love to see how you’re choosing to #EatSmarterMoveMore, so follow along (and contribute!) to the hashtag on Instagram. I’ll be using it all year to track my healthiest recipes and active adventures.

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Butternut Squash and Apple Buddha Bowl

Inspired by b.good. Serves 2.

• 2 cups peeled butternut squash cubes (1/2 inch pieces)
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 1/2 cups cooked farro, warm (reheated if  not prepared fresh)
• 3 cups baby spinach
• 2 small apples, cut into bite-sized cubes
• 2 oz. cheddar cheese, cut or shaved into thin pieces
• 1/2 cup fresh pomegranate seeds
• 1/3 cup tamari almonds
• Your favorite tangy salad dressing, or a simple mix of lemon juice and olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Toss the butternut squash cubes with olive oil and sea salt and spread in a single layer on a baking sheet. Roast until tender when pricked with a fork, about 30-40 minutes, stirring once halfway through. Remove from the oven and set aside.
2. Divide the farro and spinach between the bowls, mixing together gently to combine. Top each bowl with some of the butternut squash, apple cubes, shaved cheddar, pomegranate seeds, and tamari almonds. Drizzle with your favorite dressing. Salad is best when the farro and butternut squash are warm.

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People ask me all the time if I like to travel. I think the answer is supposed to be, “yes, I love it!” but honestly it’s a hard question for me to answer. There are parts I love – meeting and working with people from all over the world, spending hours wandering through a city that’s hundreds of years old, the food, experiencing more climates and geographies than I ever thought I would, and there’s even a small part of me that loves the glamour of “jetsetting,” of being handed a glass of champagne when I sit down and watching my passport fill up with stamps. Importantly, I also love my actual job, the reason I travel so much.

But there are also parts of travel that I hate – packing and unpacking, something that even with hours of practice still stresses me out. Airports, and canceled flights, and planes that catch on fire while you sit on the tarmac. The unavoidable low-level anxiety that accrues before any trip. Being perpetually tired, because days on the road start early with breakfast with our team and end late with long work dinners. The up and down, here and there frenzy of visiting two or more countries each month. Being always on. The constant tension between taking the weekend to explore whatever country I am in and going home to decompress and spend time with Trevor. The chaos of packing everything else I need to get done at home into the few days I have between trips. Mostly, I hate being gone, away, not at home. For me, this is less about the physical aspect of being in my house, although that’s important too, and more about being away from Trevor, my family, and my friends.

This weekend, though, I am home, and I am loving it. I am home and it is thrillingly sunny, the birds are chirping, and we slept with the windows open just a crack. I puttered about in the garden, planting flowers of every shade in our increasingly whimsical border garden, a grand experiment in color. I sat on the porch and drank pink lemonade and sunburned my legs because it’s shorts weather! And I made these biscuits, with ramps, because ramps are available now (and only now) and I am home now. These biscuits made the house smell incredible, and they are flaky and buttery and just cheesy enough. I had two of them, spread thickly with ramp butter, for dinner, along with half a bottle of rosé. It’s nice to be home.

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Ramp, Bacon, and Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits

Recipe adapted from Serious Eats. Makes 10-12 biscuits.

• 3 pieces bacon
• 4-6 fresh ramps, thoroughly washed. roots trimmed and discarded, and white and green parts of ramp thinly sliced
• 2 c. all-purpose flour
•  1 TBS baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 stick butter, frozen, plus 2 TBS melted butter for brushing biscuits
• 1 c. buttermilk, cold
• 4 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside
2. Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until crispy and brown, about 3-4 minutes per side. Remove the bacon to a paper-towel lined plate and lower the heat to low. Add the sliced ramp whites and greens to the bacon grease and saute for 60 seconds, then use tongs or a slotted spoon to transfer the ramps to the plate with the bacon. Set plate aside; remove the pan from the heat and let cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt until evenly combined. Use a box grater to grate the frozen butter into the flour mixture, then use your hands to quickly toss the grated butter with the flour so that the flour fully coats the butter. Use your fingers to break up any large chunks of butter so that the entire mixture is coarse. Pour the cold buttermilk into the flour-butter mixture, and use a fork to gently mix the dough until it is shaggy and damp.
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and use a rolling pin to roll it into a 12 inch by 12 inch square, about 1 inch thick. Sprinkle the grated cheddar cheese and ramps over the top of the dough. Finely chop or crumble the cooked bacon and sprinkle over the top of the dough, pressing the bacon bits in slightly. Fold the dough like you would fold a letter – fold the left third of the dough over the middle then fold the right third of the dough over the first two thirds, making a stack of three layers. Repeat this motion from top to bottom, so you have a small square. Gently roll the dough back out into a 12 inch by 12 inch square. Use a biscuit cutter or glass to cut 3-inch rounds out of the dough, re-rolling or hand-forming any scraps into additional biscuits. Place the biscuits on the baking sheet and brush with the melted butter. Bake until golden brown, about 15-17 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly. Best served warm. Store any leftovers in the fridge.

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I think we all have breakfast phases. Personally, I tend to go through a cycle – yogurt and berries; peanut butter and banana oatmeal; kale and mango smoothie; egg, ham and cheese breakfast sandwich; bran muffin and a latte. Repeat. Which phase I’m in (and for how long) is a little bit weather dependent (green smoothies for the summer, oatmeal for the fall) and a little bit schedule dependent (bran muffin and a latte from the cafe downstairs tends to come up a lot when I’m totally slammed at work and need to be in the office early) Because breakfast is part of a morning routine that, for many of us, is executed on auto-pilot, it’s easy to fall into a breakfast rut. But breakfast has such wonderful possibilities as a meal, that I think it’s worth thinking outside the box a little to avoid breakfast boredom.

Cobblestone Bread Co. recently asked us to try out their newest line of English muffins and bagels, which I took as a welcome invitation to come up with a few new ideas for our breakfast routine. English muffins aren’t on my normal grocery list, but perhaps they should be. They’re incredibly convenient, and are a bit of a blank canvas as far as preparing interesting breakfasts goes. The first CBC muffin I sampled I prepared simply, reminding myself of the pleasure of a good, soft, English muffin, faintly toasted with a pat of salted butter and some homemade strawberry jam.

As Trevor and I continued sampling buttered CBC English muffins (for “research purposes,” of course), we chatted about what recipe we might be able to contribute to the already rich collection of breakfast sandwich recipes out there. We wanted something new and a little different to shake up our breakfast routine, but that was still quick to make and filling on a busy weekday morning. I was toying with the idea of a Mexican-inspired breakfast sandwich, when Trevor pointed out that it is, after all, an English muffin… why not make an English sandwich? The most typical (or at least the most famed) English breakfast is a “full English breakfast” or a “fry up” – a plate consisting of eggs, bacon, sausage, black pudding, fried tomato, fried mushrooms, and baked beans. To convert this classic meal into a sandwich easy enough for a weekday, portable enough to take on the go, and that was less likely to give you a heart attack if eaten more than once a week, we opted for just one form of meat, and to keep the tomato raw for just a little freshness. Our sandwich, which was a huge success in our eyes, is prepared with one toasted Cobblestone Bread Co. English muffin, a handful of sautéed mushrooms, a fried egg, a few slices of fried black pudding, a slice of Cheddar cheese, and a juicy slice of fresh tomato to top it off. Not exactly light, but certainly filling for a busy day, and definitely not boring.

A quick note about blood sausage: it might sound a little off-putting (which is perhaps why they call it black pudding), but it’s really mild and delicious – and it totally makes this sandwich. Soft and slightly crumbly, with a hint of allspice flavor faintly reminiscent of Christmas festivities, it’s far less salty than other breakfast sausages, and much more tender. I’m lucky enough to have a good butcher around the corner from my house, but if you can’t find it near you, feel free to replace it with a smaller amount of another sausage or a slice of bacon.

Check out more ways to make breakfast exciting again here!

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Compensation for this post was provided by Cobblestone Bread Co. via AOL Media.  The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Cobblestone Bread Co. or AOL.

Full English Breakfast Sandwich

Makes 1 sandwich.

• 2 TBS salted butter
• 1 Cobblestone Bread Co. English muffin, sliced in half lengthwise
• 4 button mushrooms, thickly sliced
• sea salt and pepper
• 2 inch piece of black pudding, sliced into 4 pieces, skin removed
• 1 large egg
• 1 slice of cheddar cheese
• 1 slice of fresh tomato

1. Melt 1 TBS of the butter in a small frying pan over medium heat. Place the CBC English muffin halves sliced side down in the melted butter and toast until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.
2. Add the sliced mushrooms to the pan and saute until golden brown all over, about 5 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper and place the cooked mushrooms on top of the bottom half of the English muffin.
3. Add the sliced black pudding to the pan and cook until dark black all the way through, about 2 minutes on each side. Place the slices on top of the mushrooms.
4. Melt the remaining 1 TBS of butter in the pan and crack the egg into it. Fry the egg to your liking, season with salt and pepper, and then place on top of the black pudding. Top with the cheddar cheese, the tomato slice, and the top of the English muffin. Compress slightly and eat immediately.

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I’ve been tinkering around with mac’n’cheese recipes lately, which I’ll admit, is a dangerous thing to be tinkering with, waistline-wise. But we’ve entered that season where a bowl of extremely cheesy, creamy macaroni covered with crunchy golden-brown breadcrumbs is more perfect than just about any other kind of food, and I’m willing to run a few extra miles each week in the name of finding a great recipe to get us all through the colder months.

I’m not going to go so far as to claim that this is the perfect mac’n’cheese recipe, because I know that’s just going to open up all kinds of room for debate. What I will say, is that this is a really, really good mac’n’cheese recipe, and one that I would be happy to devour any day of the week. I’ve added just enough sweet Italian sausage and sauteed apple and onion to add a bit of textural interest and flavor contrast, but not enough to detract from the main event, which is of course, cheesy noodles. This recipe really lets the cheddar cheese shine – it’s the only cheese in the sauce, and is enhanced by a smidge of nutmeg and a spoonful of mustard, both flavors that go well with cheddar, apple, and sausage independently. And please, go the extra mile and make your own buttery, toasted breadcrumbs from scratch – it’s really easy and completely worth the extra 5 minutes it will take you. Now go add these ingredients to your grocery list – it’s officially comfort food season!

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Sausage, Apple, and Cheddar Mac’N’Cheese

A Katie at the Kitchen Door original recipe. Serves 6.

• 3/4 lb. sweet Italian sausage
• 1 large onion, peeled and finely diced
• 2 apples, cored and cubed into 1/2 inch pieces
• 3/4 lb. medium pasta shells
• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 4 TBS flour
• 6 TBS butter, divided
• 10 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, grated
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2 tsp mustard
• 1/2 medium baguette
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Heat a large saute pan over medium heat. Squeeze the sausage meat out of its casings, and use the back of a wooden spoon to break up into bite-sized pieces. Cook the sausage until browned all over and fully cooked through, stirring frequently. Use a slotted spoon to remove the sausage from the pan, and place it in a 9×13 inch glass casserole dish.
2. Drain all but 3 TBS of the sausage grease from the pan. Add the diced onion and the cubed apples to the saute pan with the remaining sausage grease, and saute over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the onions and apples are soft, about 8-10 minutes. Scrape the apples and onions into the casserole dish with the sausage, and season the apples, sausage, and onions to taste with salt and pepper. Remove the saute pan from the heat, carefully wipe clean, and set aside.
3. Cook the pasta shells according to package directions, then drain and set aside.
4. Warm the milk in the microwave or in a saucepan over low heat until it is just steaming but not yet simmering. Place 4 TBS of the butter in the saute pan and melt over medium-low heat. Once melted, add the flour and stir to fully coat with the butter. Cook the flour-butter roux until just beginning to turn golden brown, about 2 minutes. Do not let it burn. Once the roux is golden brown, slowly drizzle the warm milk into the pan, stirring as you do so. When all the milk is added, cook the sauce until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, then remove from the heat. Add the grated cheese to the sauce a handful at a time, stirring until it is melted (do not add the cheese while the sauce is still on the heat, as this will cause the sauce to break!). Once all the cheese is incorporated, stir in the nutmeg and the mustard, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the cheese sauce to the pasta shells and stir to coat, then add the pasta to the casserole dish with the other ingredients. Stir to evenly mix the ingredients in the pan.
5. Break the baguette into large chunks and quickly process in a food processor or blender to form medium-size bread crumbs. Add the remaining 2 TBS of butter to the saute pan and melt over medium heat, then add the bread crumbs to the melted butter. Saute, stirring frequently, just until the bread crumbs are golden brown, about 3-4 minutes, then remove from the heat and season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the bread crumbs evenly over the top of the casserole dish. Place the casserole dish on a baking sheet (to catch any drips), then place in the oven and bake until the top is golden brown and the sauce is bubbling, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve warm.

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I have one more treat from The Southern Vegetarian that I’d like to share with you – savory cheddar pecan cookies, served with a spicy sriracha pepper jelly. The first time I flipped through the book, these were the thing that most caught my eye. The combination is quite Southern, and also so crave-ably moreish that I couldn’t resist making a batch with all the bits and bobs of cheddar that had built up in my fridge. The cookies taste a lot like cheese straws, and they would be the perfect little appetizer for a cocktail party.

If you don’t have any cocktail parties on the horizon (aka, you’re me), I also happen to think that these are the perfect thing to nibble on with a glass of wine while curled up and watching TV. Which brings me to the reason I’m posting these today: tonight is quite possibly the most important TV event all year, the Game of Thrones finale. Brace yourself for full dorking out: last week’s episode was nuts!! I legitimately have been thinking about it all week long (and I know the internet in general has been having a grand old time with it). I’m actually anxious about tonight’s episode (although I did get this Game of Thrones themed beer to make me feel better), which makes me feel a bit foolish, but HBO/George R.R. Martin are really killing it. And even worse, after tonight’s episode, I have to wait an entire 10 months for the next season. At least this year we’ll have three seasons to re-watch instead of just two. And no, I don’t read the books: honestly, I’m afraid it would ruin the show for me. Please don’t judge me for just writing that.

And since I’ve already gone down the path of admitting embarrassing facts about myself, you might also find me eating a plate of these during The Bachelorette tomorrow. No shame.

Savory Cheddar-Pecan Cookies

Adapted slightly from The Southern Vegetarian. Makes about 16 cookies.

• 1 c. whole pecans, toasted
• 1 c. flour
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 c. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 2 TBS butter, cut into 4 pieces
• 6 TBS water, chilled

1. Place the toasted pecans, flour, salt, and pepper in a food processor and run until finely ground. Empty into a bowl.
2. Add the cheddar cheese and the butter to the bowl. Use a pastry cutter or a fork to blend the ingredients until the cheese is broken up and the dough is slightly crumbly. Add the cold water 1 TBS at a time, pulling the dough in from the edges with a fork between additions, until the dough just comes together when squeezed.
3. Gather the dough into a ball and roll into a log about 7 inches long. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 30 minutes (to harden it before slicing). If you’re freezing the dough for longer than this, you will need to thaw it slightly before slicing.
4. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Slice the chilled dough into 1/4 inch slices, placing on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned, then transfer to a rack to cool. Store in an airtight container.

Sriracha Pepper Jelly

Adapted from The Southern Vegetarian. Makes 1/2 pint.

Note: The original recipe says that the natural pectin in the lemon helps the jelly gel without any added pectin, but made this way, my jelly was definitely more of a sauce. If you’d like a thicker jelly, add 2 tsp pectin to the other ingredients before bringing to a boil.

• 1 c. turbinado sugar
• 1/4 c. rice vinegar
• 1 red bell pepper, de-stemmed, seeded, and minced
• 1 TBS sriracha
• peel of 1 lemon (use a vegetable peeler)
• 2 tsp pectin (optional, see headnote)

1. In a small saucepan, whisk together sugar, vinegar, red pepper, sriracha, lemon peel, and pectin. Place over low heat. Stir constantly as you gradually increase the heat to bring the mixture to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling, boil for 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Pour the jelly into a clean, pre-warmed half-pint jar. Let cool, stirring occasionally to re-distribute the chopped pepper. Keep refrigerated for up to a month.

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Happy April, everyone! I’m so glad we’re done with all that January-February-March-extended winter business. I spent the weekend celebrating the warm weather (and Easter!) with some serious gardening and some playing with my new camera and some scalloped potatoes and ham. It was a much-needed break from being indoors stuck in front of a computer screen.

I’ve got another recipe from The Chef’s Collaborative Cookbook today (check out my full review – and a recipe for Thai Pork Sliders – here). Hushpuppies are a treat that I haven’t had in a while, so I was stoked to see a recipe for them in The Chef’s Collaborative. I’d never really heard of them before moving to North Carolina, but while I lived there they were a staple side order with my pulled pork sandwiches. The greasy BBQ-joint version of hushpuppies (like the ones from Bullock’s that my roommate always drove home to her dad in NJ over vacations) are super satisfying, but my all time favorites were the ones at the upscale Watt’s Grocery – farmer’s cheese hushpuppies served with basil mayo. Those things were seriously addictive.

This recipe, which utilizes often discarded broccoli stems, as well as a healthy handful of grated cheddar cheese, is not quite as good as the Watt’s version, but it’s certainly easier to make these than to hop on a plane to Durham every time I want a little taste of the South. I served them with leftover sriracha aioli and relished every hot crunchy bite. I saved a little bit of the batter (this recipe definitely serves a crowd!) and learned Saturday morning that this recipe is maybe even better when it’s made into pancakes and topped with a fried egg and roasted red peppers. Just an idea. However you serve them, this recipe is quick, easy, and tasty – well worth the time it takes to mix up the batter!

Broccoli-Cheddar Hushpuppies

Recipe from The Chef’s Collaborative Cookbook, contributed by John and Julie Stehling of Early Girl Eatery in Asheville, NC. Makes 48 hushpuppies. (To cut in half, use 3 eggs).

• 3 c. cornmeal
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 5 large eggs
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 2 c. grated broccoli stems (from about 5-6 medium heads broccoli)
• 1 c. grated cheddar cheese
• 1/2 small yellow onion, peeled and grated (about 1/4 c.)
• 1/4 c. finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• vegetable oil, for frying
• sriracha aioli, for serving

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, baking powder, salt, sugar, baking soda, cayenne pepper, and black pepper until combined.
2. In a separate, medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and buttermilk until evenly combined. Stir in the grated broccoli stems, the grated cheddar cheese, the grated onion, and the parsley. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until evenly mixed.
3. Heat 3 inches of vegetable oil over medium heat in a high-sided frying pan or saucepan until the oil reaches 325°F. If you don’t have a thermometer, test the oil’s temperature by adding a bit of batter to the oil – when it sizzles gently on contact, the oil is ready. If it pops too much or burns quickly, the oil is too hot.
4. Carefully spoon rounded tablespoons of batter into the oil, adding only enough hushpuppies so that they don’t touch one another (i.e. don’t crowd them). Fry until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes, flipping over once if necessary. Remove with a slotted spoon or Asian noodle strainer, and let drain on a paper-towel lined plate. Serve hot (leftovers are no good, so only fry as many as you can serve/eat in one sitting).

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