Tart cranberries and spicy peppers mingle in this sweet and spicy Cranberry Pepper Jam. When I realized I had been buying Cranberry Pepper Jam almost every time I was at the grocery store, I knew it was time to make my own version of this jam. I first tasted the jam with brie and fancy wafer crackers. Then I poured the jam over a simple block of cream cheese and served it with Ritz crackers. My kids went nuts over that. Next, I spread the...
This Balsamic Vinaigrette recipe is perfect. You heard me correctly. Perfect. And I don’t use that word lightly. The recipe I’m sharing with you today is truly worthy of that descriptor. You don’t think I’d call something the “best” if I didn’t mean it, do you? I’ve tried numerous recipes for balsamic vinaigrette over the past few years and while they have been decent, they were not quite what I was searching for. Some...
Warm Berry Sauce poured over cold ice cream is truly one of my favorite desserts. I make this sauce year-round and every time I serve it, it gets raves. This simple sauce might be the simplest recipe I keep in my dessert recipe notebook. I scribbled it out on a scrap of paper about 15 years ago while I was visiting a friend. We were dishing up bowls of ice cream and her husband told us to wait a minute. He combined some frozen fruit...
Garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper make up the All-Purpose Seasoning that I reach for the most often. Loaded with my most frequently used spices, this seasoning blend is always worthy of space in my spice cabinet – although, if I’m honest, it’s on the counter more often than in the cabinet most days. House Seasoning Recipe Traditional recipes for house seasoning call for a simple blend of...
This Cafe Rio copycat recipe for Creamy Tomatillo Salad Dressing is creamy, tangy, and just the teeniest bit spicy. It’s perfect for drizzling over salads or tacos, or for dipping fresh vegetables. Cafe Rio Salad Dressing Do you love Cafe Rio? The obsession people have with this Mexican restaurant and their fresh food options is real and my family has really missed Cafe Rio since we moved to Ohio. While many of...
Homemade Taco Seasoning is easy to make and tastes so much better than store-bought. Loaded with an abundance of flavor and a tiny bit of heat, taco seasoning gets used more than anything else in my spice cupboard. It is beyond simple to stir together this Mexican spice mix and it will save you time when you are cooking later. My family eats a lot of Mexican food and for years I have used taco seasoning regularly in countless recipes. Taco...
Two ingredients—smoked salt and smoked paprika—can make a big flavor change in this smoky vegan lentil stew. Serve with crusty bread and a green salad. When it comes to vegetarian and vegan cooking, lentils are a favorite ingredient of mine. Lentils are fairly inexpensive, and they're a total workhorse in recipes. I’ve been known to use them as a vegan sloppy joe base, make them into meatball-like bites, and put them to work in about...
Butternut squash, radicchio and onion roasted in the oven and tossed with olive oil, toasted pine nuts and grated cheese. Here's a wintery, festive side dish for your holiday table—cubes of butternut squash, along with wedges of radicchio and onion, tossed with salt and olive oil, and roasted in a hot oven until caramelized, then tossed again with toasted pine nuts, balsamic vinegar, parsley, and shredded Parmesan cheese. Wow! My tummy does a...
This hearty Three Sisters Casserole is made with corn, beans, and squash, and topped with cornbread biscuits. It makes a great meatless main dish or vegetarian side! I first heard of Three Sisters Casserole almost twenty years ago, back in the dining hall in my college dorm in Boulder, Colorado. This hearty casserole always made an appearance in the fall: a mélange of seemingly canned veggies with a cornbread topping. It wasn’t always the...
Baked scalloped turnips! Sliced turnips and onions baked in milk and cream with salt and pepper. Okay, so not everyone loves turnips as much as we do. But even if you aren't the biggest fan of that radishy root, this recipe might just turn you around! Not surprisingly, cream, butter and onions bring out the savory best in turnips. Recipe is adapted from one of my favorite veggie cookbooks - The Victory Garden Cookbook. This is a very...
