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.
This soup is a long-standing favorite of ours. This week it is part of our 5 Affordable Weeknight Dinners from Whole Foods Market. For this project I am sharing how I make five delicious, easy dinners for my family using one bag of Whole Foods Market groceries. I love shopping there because of their extra fresh ingredients and high commitment to quality.
When I buy frozen shrimp for this recipe, for example, I know it is sustainable, responsibly farmed, and verified. They take such care to vet their products before they sell them. I like to buy my grains in the bulk oil because it is cost effective and easy. With the ease of buying shrimp and grains at Whole Foods Market half the recipe is already done! Before I go I always check my Whole Foods Market app and sales flyer for coupons. They are so easy to use and offer terrific discounts for so many of my favorite every day staples, and the specialty items I love to try.
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 friend Lauren’s house popped up and I knew it was the right time to make it again.
Last month we took a family vacation to Costa Rica. Since it wasn’t a work trip I didn’t go crazy documenting it on social media. But I took a bunch of non-family photos I’d love to share today. We had never been to Costa Rica and heard nothing but amazing things about it before we went. After a week there I can now say I totally understand why people love it so much. The weather is incredible, the scenery is beyond gorgeous, and it everyone we met had a fun, relaxed vibe. Here are some of the highlights from our trip:
We stayed on Playa Hermosa near Jaco. The sand in this area is black due to ancient lava flows. The beaches are known for their incredible surf brakes. Even thought we don’t surf we still enjoyed the waves and incredibly warm water.
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.
I’m taking a little break for school vacation week. We all need to step out of our winter routine. Between snow days and viruses we’ve been a little too housebound lately! While I’m out of the office I want to share a few of the favorite things I’ve been enjoying this winter. It’s been too long since I’ve done so!
I’ve read a whole bunch of books this winter and am loving it! Here are a few I recommend:
It’s been a while since I tried a new piece of bakeware. The dishes I was given over a decade ago for my wedding are still going strong. But recently I had the opportunity to try some beautiful pieces from Revol and decided to give them a go. I didn’t need a new tart pan or chicken roaster, but their pretty designs intrigued me and I wanted to see how they’d fit into my everyday cooking and kitchen aesthetic.
The unique thing about these dishes is that they are very thoughtfully designed with just the right balance of fun and useful. A chicken roaster shaped like a chicken has, admittedly, never been on my wish list. But once I used it I was instantly taken with the adorable shape that can go straight from oven to table and is the perfect size for baking a 5 pound chicken.
Even better, it can be used as a baking dish for a casserole (hot chicken salad, anyone?), a serving bowl for salad, or even for making a giant ice cream sundae. And, when it the food is all cleaned out, it can go straight into the dishwasher and be displayed on a shelf for all to see. Needless to say, all of these features make it more desirable than my regular roasting pan which I typically scrub by hand and keep in the basement between uses.
