cooking can be intimidating – especially when we see tons pictures on instagram from magazines, styled and shot by professional food photographers or influencers with fancy cameras. its really easy to look at these pictures and think, “oh, I could never make something that looks like THAT!” or cook said recipe and feel disappointed when it doesn’t look like the picture.

WELL. i’m here to tell you that its a-ok that the andy baraghani pasta dish you made doesn’t look as pretty as the Test Kitchen photograph compared to the weird lighting of your D.C. basement apartment (oh – is that just me?). anyways. all that is important is that your food tastes good and makes you feel proud of yourself for accomplishing a task!

just to prove it to y’all – here are some examples of Bon Appetit recipes I have tried during quarantine and how they look IRL! full disclosure – these are not fair critiques of the recipes themselves because I often make substitutions (again, who has fresh herbs all the time in the house? not this gal!!) but hope this is fun to look at regardless. and yes, these are all shot on my iPhone camera. #approachable

basically’s carrot loaf cake

I really wish I liked this recipe…but I didn’t. mostly because I messed it up – I added too much flour when i misread the recipe, so it turned out quite dry. I also dont think carrot cake should be in a loaf, should be a layered cake to retain maximum moisture!

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BA’s best banana bread

um. most amazing banana bread recipe. favorite quarantine bake so far. absolutely no complaints here.

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carla lalli music’s seared scallops in butter pan sauce

scallops! are! so! easy to cook! I really liked this recipe. normally I don’t buy meat because i’m scared to cook it, but it was easy to tell when these were cooked and safe to eat.

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vegan pantry pasta with creamy sauce

really great recipe. I actually made this twice, the second time I actually followed the recipe and measured things (highly recommend!) and the sauce, made of beans, turned out really creamy!

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red potato and shishito pepper hash

crunchy, creamy, spicy, very into it.

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molly baz’s added-value grilled cheese

you can’t see it but there are mushrooms and fun veggies in here! good rec from Molly to serve with mustard!

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carrot pancakes with salted yogurt

probably my favorite bon appetit recipe so far! crunchy and satisfies a craving for fries but also tricks you into thinking it’s healthy! the Malcom salt topping really is the cherry on top. the flaky salt on top. 💃🏽

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sohla el-wayly’s zucchini lentil fritters

they are so messy but it’s all my fault! I used the wrong lentils so nothing ended up sticking together – but it was fried batter so yeah, still tasty.

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molly baz’s sour cream and onion biscuits

did the substitute-whole-wheat-flour-for all-purpose-and-be-surprised-at-my-slight-disappointment-in-texture thing again but not bad, just a little crumblier than anticipated.

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smashed chickpea salad

um – what a great lunch! basically chickpeas + tinned fish + greek yogurt (and a lil mayo) + capers – very filling and tasty. would be really easy to bring into the office.

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scallion pancakes

yes yes, I clearly did not use enough onion in them. my attempted substitutions of whole wheat flour for all-purpose is clearly not something i should continue – these were tasty – just tasted a little too healthy!

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fin. 😀