I just returned from a dreamy week in Lebanon. It was exactly what I needed, but now I am madly catching up on work, school and sleep. Much more about the trip and all the adventures I had coming soon.

I am a fiend for stovetop popcorn. That was how my mom made popcorn every Friday, popped in a heavy pot, poured into a big mixing bowl and covered with lots of melted margarine and salt, to be eaten with greasy hands while watching Full House and Just the Ten of Us. It was perfection.

I rebooted the stovetop popcorn tradition several years ago, after one too many bags of disgustingly salty microwave popcorn and its lingering stink in the office microwave. Stovetop popcorn is so easy and so good and it won’t give you popcorn lung. Win-win.

When it comes to flavoring popcorn, I have two opinions: 1) you need it and 2) the sky’s the limit. I usually go for a simple combo of finely grated Parmesan and black pepper, or just really good olive oil and sea salt, but for a special film screening with friends on Saturday night, I decided to mix it up with smoked paprika, onion powder and a little walnut oil.

This combination, it turns out, tastes a little like BBQ potato chips.

In other words, it’s a keeper.

Smoked Paprika Popcorn

Yield: 4 servings

{ Ingredients }

2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon grapeseed or canola oil
1/3 cup popcorn kernels
2 teaspoons walnut oil or olive oil

{ Directions }

Mix the smoked paprika, salt and onion in a small bowl and set aside.

In a medium pot, heat the oil and popcorn, covered, over medium heat. As the popcorn pops, shake pan occasionally and immediately remove from heat once the popping slows to 2-3 seconds between pops. Pour popcorn into a large bowl, removing any unpopped or partially popped kernels you see. Drizzle with walnut or olive oil and toss with your hands to coat evenly. Scatter smoked paprika mixture over popcorn and mix with your hands until kernels are evenly coated.

Keeps for up to 2 days in an airtight container.

• I use two types of oil because I like the subtle flavor the walnut (or olive) oil adds to the mixture, but feel free to use grapeseed or canola for both cooking and coating the popcorn.

• Instead of cooking the popcorn on the stove, you can start with unflavored, unsalted air-popped or microwave popcorn. I won't be mad.

I am a master of bringing my lunch from home. My habit was born out of post-college poverty and nurtured by a series of jobs in offices without many restaurants nearby. Now it’s deeply entrenched, which is good because the food options at my school are really gross. (Think about a 15-year-old boy’s list of favorite restaurants and you get the idea.)

So yes. Bringing lunch is good, for both your health and your wallet*. But we live in the actual world where the start of Daylight Savings Time means we snoozed for an extra 30 minutes and now there is no time to even make a PB&J before leaving the house, so what now, Lunch Master?

Here are the 5 rules I live by when it comes to bringing lunch from home:

1. Always double (or triple) what you cook. Good dinner leftovers are also known as the Best Lunch Ever because they require no additional work and taste so much better than a plain old sandwich. If you don’t want to eat the same thing in a row for several days, freeze the leftovers in individual containers for lunches next week or next month.

This rule also applies to lunch components like grains, beans, meat, roasted vegetables, dressings and hard-boiled eggs. Always make more than you need and store the rest for future meals.

2. Portion it up immediately. Some mornings you will not have the extra five minutes it takes to transfer that square of cold lasagne from the big container in the fridge to the small container you want to take to work. On those mornings you will be so grateful with Past You for cutting up the lasagne into individual portions and packing it in small containers last night after dinner. Sometimes Past You really sucks, but not this time.

3. Get to know your freezer. Some nights you’re too busy or exhausted or better-not-give-me-a-knife-right-now cranky to cook dinner, but that doesn’t mean you’ve screwed up the next day’s lunch too — not if you’ve occasionally stashed a portioned meal or two in your freezer. You don’t have to get all crazy and apocalyptic about. There’s no need for 50 pounds of stew. Just fill a jar or two with soup whenever you make a big batch, or an extra helping of lentils and rice, and pop them in the freezer. You will be so happy on that frantic morning when you’re running late and you unearth it from under the frozen blueberries. Angels will sing, I swear.

4. Keep it fun. If you don’t like your lunch, you won’t eat it, or you’ll eat it while sadly watching your co-workers enjoy their panini from the place next door. Lunch isn’t supposed to be pathetic. Instead, try new recipes that you’ve bookmarked, make things you know you love, treat yourself with a special piece of chocolate or those super-expensive berries you usually can’t justify buying. A happy lunchtime is worth it.

5. Don’t forget it. I love this list of The Kitchn readers’ best tips for remembering to take your lunch. The most helpful? Put your keys in the fridge or in your lunch bag!

So that’s my list. What are your best tips for bringing your lunch to school or work?

* For the super finance nerds out there, you can even use this calculator to figure out how much money you’ll save by bringing your lunch.

This is the kind of book you find around the apartment when you’re married to a nerd. (Follow me on Instagram: anjaliruth.)

What I’ve been reading:

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food – New York Times *

“This,” Witherly said, “is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure.” He ticked off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say more. But the one he focused on most was the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly said. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it . . . you can just keep eating it forever.”

Doctors who cook say they give better nutrition advice – Chicago Tribune

“The conceptual mode for this program was influenced by the observation that for healthcare professionals, practicing a healthful behavior oneself (eg, exercise, wearing a seat belt) is a powerful predictor of counseling patients about these same behaviors,” researchers wrote in a letter in the Monday issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn. Internal Medicine.

Fish Get Stoned, Too – Mother Jones

The scientists found that perch exposed to wastewater tainted with low and high concentrations of the drug—amounts mimicking both initial exposure and potential accumulation in fish tissue over time—showed significant changes in behavior: The fish became less social, more active, bolder, and scarfed down zooplankton faster and earlier than the control group. In other words, the fish got stoned.

Why Four Workouts a Week May Be Better Than Six – New York Times

But the women who had been assigned to exercise six times per week were now expending considerably less daily energy than they had been at the experiment’s start, the equivalent of almost 200 fewer calories each day, even though they were exercising so assiduously.

What I’ve been cooking (at The Kitchn):

Salted Dark Chocolate Popcorn**

Creamy Butternut Squash Orzotto (Barley Risotto) with Toasted Pecans

…and thinking about cooking:

 Roasted Cauliflower and Onion Soup – The First Mess

Crispy Cornmeal Sweet Potato Fries with Chermoula Yogurt – My New Roots

* If you read one thing this weekend, make it this.

** If you cook one thing this weekend, make it this.

One thing I learned about while living in Japan was relentless repetition in pursuit of perfection. You do something again and again and again and again, until it is imprinted in every fiber of your being, and then you do it some more. Perfection can never be reached, but it’s possible to get pretty damn close if you do something every day for decades. (Watch Jiro Dreams of Sushi and you’ll get the idea.)

I started pursuing hard-boiled egg perfection in Japan. And while I’ll never be able to say I’ve reached it, I think I’ve gotten pretty damn close.

If you want to make the perfect hard-boiled egg, buy the best large eggs you can afford. Keep them in the refrigerator for at least a week. (Older eggs are much easier to peel.) Place however many eggs you want to boil in a pot and cover them with at least an inch of cold water. Bring the water to a boil, turn off the heat, cover the pot and let the eggs sit for 7 to 10 minutes. I like the slightly-soft-in-the-middle yolk of the 7-minute egg; if you like your yolk firmly cooked, let your egg sit for the full 10. Pour out the hot water and run the eggs under cold water until cooled.

Repeat each morning for breakfast and every day you will be a little closer to perfection.

You also might be a little sick of plain hard-boiled eggs. So I present shoyu tamago, or soy sauce eggs, which are dressed up with a mixture of soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar. They’re a little salty, a little sour and a little sweet — not nearly as intense as a pickled egg, but with some of the same charms.

Shoyu tamago are a staple of Japanese lunchboxes, but they also make a great snack, or accompaniment to a beer or white wine spritzer. Or maybe two spritzers, if you’re pursuing white wine spritzer perfection. Not that I’d know anything about that.

Shoyu Tamago (Soy Sauce Eggs)

Yield: 3 eggs

{ Ingredients }

3 hard-boiled eggs
3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce or tamari
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

{ Directions }

Carefully peel the hard-boiled eggs. In a small pot, combine the soy sauce, vinegar and sugar and bring to a simmer over medium heat, swirling the pot occasionally to make sure the sugar is dissolved. Add the eggs and use a spoon to roll them around in the mixture, until the eggs are a uniform cappuccino-brown color.

Remove the egg from the pot and let cool slightly before eating.

• Use tamari for a gluten-free tamari tamago.

• Once made, the eggs will keep in the refrigerator for 1-2 days.

• This recipe makes 3 eggs, but you can make more than that; just add 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar and 1 teaspoon sugar for every additional egg.

Since I started working from home, I’ve developed a minor obsession with lunches that can be pulled together in 15 minutes or less. We don’t usually keep cold cuts on hand, so that usually means some sort of canned fish salad (better than it sounds) or a mishmash of whatever odds and ends I have in the fridge.

Sometimes the mishmash is legit. This was one of those times.

Mix one aging package of Trader Joe’s kimchi — it’s pretty good! — with a container of leftover cooked quinoa, a handful of chopped kale and a swirl of Korean red pepper paste, and cover it all with some water. That’s it: a spicy, sour, warming stew perfect for a rainy day lunch.

A poached egg or some cubes of tofu would make this a more filling option for dinner. Whatever you choose, you’re better off eating this particular stew in the privacy of your own home. Kimchi has the power to make enemies in work kitchens. Of course, if you and your co-workers are already enemies, by all means — fire the next shot with this kimchi-based soup. Or bring a canned fish salad. People love that.

Hot and Sour Kimchi and Quinoa Stew

Yield: 2 servings

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

{ Ingredients }

3 cups water
1 cup cabbage kimchi, roughly chopped
1 cup greens (such as kale, chard or spinach), chopped
2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce or tamari
2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger
1-2 teaspoons gochujang (Korean red pepper paste), depending on spice preference
2 cups cooked quinoa

{ Directions }

In a medium pot, combine the water, kimchi, greens, soy sauce, ginger and gochujang and bring to a boil. Add the quinoa and bring back to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.

• If you are using softer greens like baby spinach, add them during the last minute of cooking instead of at the beginning.

• Not all brands of kimchi are vegan/vegetarian, but the Trader Joe's brand is.

• Use tamari to make this recipe gluten-free.

What I’ve been reading:

Getting Into Your Exercise Groove - The New York Times

But a series of recent studies involving runners, walkers, metronomes and virtual reality curtains suggests that while the tug of physiological laziness is strong, it can be controlled, or at least tweaked, with some conscious effort — and perhaps your iPhone playlist.

The Lovely Hill: Where People Live Longer and Happier - The Atlantic

People who eat foods associated with a Mediterranean diet also experienced less negative emotions like being afraid, nervous, upset, irritable, scared, hostile, and distressed. The more people ate those foods that are more typically American — specifically, red meat, sweets, and fast food — the less of these positive emotions they felt.

Stone Age Stew? Soup Making May Be Older Than We’d Thought - NPR

Neanderthals, ancient human relatives that lived from around 200,000 to 28,000 years ago, would have needed boiling technology to render fat from animal bones to supplement their diet of lean meat, so that they could have avoided death by protein poisoning.

Betty on The Today Show! – Meet the Shannons
My friends Annie and Dan Shannon just came out with a book! Betty Goes Vegan is full of recipes for vegan comfort food and includes lots of fun stories from one of my favorite couples. And they were on The Today Show this week!

What I’ve been cooking (at The Kitchn):

Shaved Fennel, Roasted Tomato & Pistachio Salad with Creamy Yogurt Dressing 

Korean Chicken Sliders with Braised Kale & Kimchi

Roasted Feta Cheese with Fig-Thyme Compote

Creamy Dairy-Free Fish Chowder

…and thinking about cooking:

Mini Vegetarian Pot Pies – Flourishing Foodie

Lemon Curd Tart With Raw Coconut Crust – Whole Family Fare

I love January. I love that feeling of fresh starts, anything-is-possible and refocusing on what really matters. And of course I love that everyone spends the month talking about eating better and healthier, holiday regrets be damned.

It doesn’t bother me if everything I strive for in January isn’t done by December. What matters is the striving.

Last semester was really hard. Between school and writing, I filled myself to the brim, with no real day off during the week. The first thing to go when time was short was exercise. Rob and I had to cancel our membership at our beloved CrossFit gym when I started grad school and although my school has an incredible gym, I’ve come to the unfortunate realization that I’m not very good at motivating myself when it comes to fitness. I’m just a sedentary, introverted bookworm at heart. Movement and gym machines and leaving the house just don’t come naturally.

But I like running. I like running, but I’ve never stuck with running. In 2013, I want to change that. The first step: signing up for a 5k in March with my friend Meg. It’s small, it’s just a “fun run,” it’s nothing compared to what the triathloners at the same event have to do. But it’s still something.

And if these high school girls circa 1899 can get in shape while wearing long, woolen black dresses, I can suck it up and run 3 miles.

(Images: Library of Congress)

Give me a big bunch of vegetables, some softened onions, a good broth, maybe a few beans and baby, I got a stew going. Or more likely, a creamy soup. (I love my immersion blender, what can I say?)

This time it’s a pumpkin-y take on black bean soup, inspired by a ridiculously enormous kabocha pumpkin and a couple jars of slow-cooker black beans I made last week. The pumpkin and half the beans are simmered together and pureed until smooth before the other half of the beans are added, whole, for texture. I wanted to do something different from the usual cumin-chipotle-chili-powder black bean soup, so I incorporated some of the Thai garnishes I had lying around from Friday’s dinner of khao soi.

Lime juice and cilantro aren’t crazy-weird in the context of black bean soup, but it was the roasted, chopped peanuts sprinkled on top that turned out to be key — they add a texture and flavor that makes this soup a little different from the one you used to eat at Souplantation. (Hey, we’ve all done it.)

And since I’m back in school this week, I’ve packed up the leftovers in jars, to be frozen for future dinners. Because as you may know, the only thing I like better than getting my soup on is getting my soup on when I’m too busy to actually make a soup.

Black Bean & Pumpkin Soup with Peanuts & Lime

Yield: About 2 quarts

{ Ingredients }

1 tablespoon grapeseed or olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6 cups kabocha pumpkin (about 1.5 pounds), peeled, seeded and cut in ½-inch cubes (see Notes)
2 15-ounce cans black beans (or 2 pints cooked black beans), drained, divided
3-4 cups vegetable stock, divided
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon light yellow miso

For serving
Lime wedges
Cilantro leaves
Roasted and salted peanuts, chopped

{ Directions }

Warm the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until onion is soft and translucent. Add the pumpkin, half of the black beans, 3 cups stock and smoked paprika. Bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer, covered, for 15-20 minutes, until pumpkin is very soft. Remove from heat and blend until smooth with an immersion blender, or in batches with a countertop blender.

Place pot over medium-high heat. Add reserved beans, chopped cilantro and additional water, if needed, until soup is desired consistency. Simmer uncovered for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat.

In a small bowl, whisk together miso paste and a ladleful of soup until very smooth. Add miso mixture and lime juice to the soup. Stir and taste, adding salt or additional lime juice as needed. Serve garnished with cilantro and chopped, with extra lime wedges on the side.

• If you make your beans from scratch, save the cooking liquid to use in place of some of the stock.

• I used about half of my giant pumpkin for this soup. I weighed the pumpkin after it was peeled and seeded, so I think a 2-pound whole pumpkin would be about the right size for this recipe.

• You can use other types of hard, orange-fleshed winter squash in place of the kabocha pumpkin, such as red kuri, butternut or calabaza.

Happy New Year! I took a much-needed two-week break for the holidays, spending a week in Seattle with my family, followed by Christmas week in Massachusetts with Rob’s family. I’ve returned home inspired to make the most of my remaining holiday break and excited for a fresh start in the kitchen.

The first semester of graduate school was a busy one, especially with my weekly recipe column for The Kitchn. When I was initially offered the slot, I thought, There’s no way I can come up with a totally original recipe every single week! But you know what? I did it — and there’s no way I would have done it unless I had said yes to a challenge that scared me a little.

So in celebration of fruitful challenges and saying yes to what scares you, here are 16 of my favorite recipes for The Kitchn from this year. (A link to each recipe can be found by clicking on its photo.) Enjoy!

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