Naptime Everyday: Recipes for Everyday Cooking and Baking

This is a good one from my mother. She wrapped it up and sent it back to Connecticut with me that last time I was in Cooperstown. So many of my good recipes come from her! This isn’t a long post but I absolutely have to share this with you. It the best kind of loaf cake: soft and crumbly with a strong Meyer lemon flavor and a slightly crunchy, slightly sweet coconut topping. It is perfect with a cup of tea, sent to school in the lunchbox, or topped with whipped cream and eaten as dessert!

Casual desserts that can please both adults and children, and are easy to make, are harder to come by then you think. Ice cream sandwiches are great when it’s warm out, and most adults, and some children, love a good apple tart in the fall. But, really, when it comes one thing that please everyone year round the list is pretty short. One of my go-to’s in the this situation is a pan of brownies. Made from scratch with a generous dose of sea salt, and a hint of bourbon extract, they are perfect for just about everyone.

Spring has sprung and I am still chugging away at cleaning out the pantry. It is has been slow going, yet effective. My shelves are less crowded and I’ve definitely saved money drawing on the dry goods instead of purchasing more. My friend Phoebe has been up to the same thing, cleaning out the pantry in light of a recent move, and today I am joining her in her Pantry Purge. A bunch of use are showing what we are making from our pantry wares in order to inspire others and encourage the spring cleaning mood!

I’d intended to get this up in time for Easter, but whatever. With the new puppy in the house and a three-day weekend it was next to impossible to do much writing at all last week. So! Here we are today with some amazingly delicious homemade candy that will knock your socks off and is just the antidote for all the store bought stale sugary stuff the bunny might have dropped off over the weekend.

Potatoes are on weekly rotation in our house. It took me a long time to get to love them again after spending a semester at St. Andrews in Scotland (potatoes for every meal!), but now we’ve made peace. My favorite way to prepare them is by roasting them until the skins are crispy and the insides are nice and soft. Sometimes I even smash them, like I did here, so they turn into delicious crispy circles with creamy interiors.

Earlier this winter I took these cookies to a friend who is gluten-free. I was in charge of dessert and wanted to bring something light and easy, something to nibble on that wouldn’t weigh us down. I did a lot of research in all my favorite cookbooks and online and this recipe popped up in many iterations. The jist: it is a chocolate meringue-style cookie filled with spices and chocolate chips. They are delicious! In fact, they are so good I made them again recently to take to a friend.

Taking a week off from cooking while we were in Costa Rica was good for me. I could see myself heading into a dinner rut and I needed to step out of the kitchen for a little bit. When I returned I was reenergized to get cooking again and went through my old Evernote list of tried-and-trues. (Do you use Evernote for organizing recipes? OMG, amazing!) This shrimp soup I’d had a couple of years ago at my fried Lauren’s house popped up and I knew it was the right time to make it again.

I am a big egg-for-breakfast girl. It started a few years ago when I had kids and realized I had to eat a solid chunk of protein each morning in order to get me going and sustain me until lunch. The only catch is that our morning routine is very hectic, so over time I’ve devised a few easy ways to cook up simple, tasty egg dishes on the fly.

Last year I made a mushroom barley soup which has quickly become a staple in our house. I make it a few times each winter and often freeze a container for later. This week I decided to riff on it a little bit since I had some wheatberries to use up as part of my winter pantry experiment. Instead of soup I made a warm salad and topped it with a simple baked chicken breast for an easy weeknight dinner. It was full of umami mushroom flavors and was perfect for staying warm on a frigid winter evening.

Over the past month I’ve basically become obsessed with Panera Bread’s Garden Vegetable Pesto soup. I’ve eaten it several times in our town, and ate it every day for lunch last week when I was taking the WSET Level 2 course in New York. It is a riot of fresh flavor packed into a single bowl, it manages to be hearty, yet refreshing because of all the sharp sweet basil and tomato flavors. This is easily my new favorite soup for winter, but in the interest of my wallet I decided it was time I learned how to make my own version home.

I am excited to finally be in Christmas baking mode. As I’ve said in years past, Christmas baking is my favorite thing in the whole world! Okay, maybe not most favorite thing, but it is definitely my favorite baking season. This year I am starting off with a new twist on our classic Pecan Snowballs and making almond crescent cookies. These are an almond flavored crescent shaped shortbread cookie rolled in powdered sugar and they are perfect for the season.

There is no time like the present to break out the quick and delicious recipes. If you guys are like me then you are definitely in “go-time” mode, running around like mad and wondering if you are ever going to pull off the holidays. I don’t mind the quick pace of this season so long as I am able to get dinner on the table quickly and easily. I like to eat home cooked meals instead of take-out and today I am here to share a great recipe that fits the bill.