Sunday lunch: January 2010 issue of Martha Stewart Living edition.

1. Paprika Rubbed Chicken with Roasted Garlic
A super simple recipe in which you rub chicken with loads of paprika, some salt, and oregano. The original recipe is for two chickens, for some reason, but it’s not hard to halve.

2. Home-Fried Potatoes with Smoked Paprika
Almost like breakfast potatoes. Use a very large skillet for these, or cook in batches.

3. Caesar Salad with Baby Romaine
I didn’t make the dressing because it included anchovy and raw egg yolk—yuck! The croutons turned out absolutely amazing though. Just rub some day old baguette slices with a cut garlic clove, brush with a little olive oil on both sides, and toast. A neat trick to get shavings of Parmesan: use a vegetable peeler.

4. Margarita Cheesecake
Heaven on a platter. Tastes exactly like the combination of a margarita and a cheesecake. One of these days, I hope I will manage to avoid soggy crust; it wasn’t as bad as last time, but I can’t figure out how else I’m supposed to wrap the pan in foil, since water seems to get in no matter what I do.

Maple Cheesecake with Roasted Pears

Recipe from the November 2010 issue of Everyday Food magazine.

Apricot Cheesecake Bars from the July/August 2010 issue of Everyday Food.

This recipe was a bit of a failure. The crust needed probably around 1/2 stick more butter to stay together; it just crumbled away when I cut it. Although, considering how awfully thick it turned out, I’m blaming the recipe for specifying “18 Graham crackers” instead of a cup measure for the crumbs. I was obviously expected to use some kind of Lilliputian crackers.

The baking time didn’t seem nearly enough, resulting in a center that looked and felt raw. Of course, I discovered this after chilling and cutting it. Baking it for a further half hour didn’t seem to help much; I guess these are meant to turn out mushy? Since I’m not a fan of mushy cheesecake—I’m looking at you, Cheesecake Factory—I won’t be making it using this recipe again, though I’ll save the directions for the apricot puree.