The Best Potato Salad

My go-to classic potato salad recipe is easy to make, perfectly zesty and creamy, and always a crowd fave! I’m returning to my Midwestern roots today to pay homage to the potluck dish that will forever be a nostalgic favorite…my classic potato salad recipe. ♡ There are of course a million different takes on how […]

My go-to classic potato salad recipe is easy to make, perfectly zesty and creamy, and always a crowd fave!

The BEST Potato Salad

I’m returning to my Midwestern roots today to pay homage to the potluck dish that will forever be a nostalgic favorite…my classic potato salad recipe. ♡

There are of course a million different takes on how to make potato salad. But if you grew up in the Midwest or South and spent any amount of time at backyard barbecues, church basement dinners, or summertime picnics, you know exactly what I’m talking about when it comes to a “classic” creamy potato salad. We start with freshly-diced potatoes, boiled until perfectly tender and then tossed with a hint of vinegar. Then to the potatoes, we add the classic building blocks of hard-boiled eggs, crisp celery and tangy red onion. A big scoop of pickle relish adds a deliciously briny kick, although some may argue it’s optional. Then everything gets tossed with a rich and creamy dressing spiked with mustard, celery salt, vinegar, and paprika to bring everything together. Potato salad perfection.

Now I know that there are strong opinions out there on the topic of Miracle Whip versus mayo, so you do you! Feel free to also add in any extras you might like, such as bacon, avocado or fresh herbs. And while I personally love leaving the potato skins on for extra texture and nutrients, you’re totally welcome to peel the potatoes here if you prefer.

Let’s make some potato salad together! (more…)

Banana Baked Oatmeal Cups

This banana baked oatmeal cups recipe is easy to make and perfect for healthy grab-and-go breakfasts. Say hello to the yummy banana baked oatmeal cups that my son and I have been loving lately. ♡ Teo has recently crossed over into that delightful stage of toddlerhood where he’s proudly vetoing most new recipes I make […]

This banana baked oatmeal cups recipe is easy to make and perfect for healthy grab-and-go breakfasts.

Banana Baked Oatmeal Cup Closeup

Say hello to the yummy banana baked oatmeal cups that my son and I have been loving lately. ♡

Teo has recently crossed over into that delightful stage of toddlerhood where he’s proudly vetoing most new recipes I make for him lately. But these baked oatmeal cups (and these very similar healthy banana muffins) continue to be a big hit…which I’m all for!

This baked oatmeal recipe is incredibly easy to mix up with a simple base of oats, bananas, egg, milk (dairy or non-dairy) and warming spices. We typically just add in a hint of maple syrup to sweeten, since those ripe bananas are already quite sweet on their own. And then while I usually go the banana nut route and add in some chopped pecans or walnuts while making these for Teo, you could totally add in some chocolate chips or dried fruit to your baked oatmeal cups if you’d like.

This recipe freezes also well if you’d like to meal prep a big batch ahead of time, and happens to be naturally gluten-free and can easily be made vegan if you’d like. And if you don’t feel like making individual baking cups, you can also also just pour the batter into a baking dish and cut it into slices too.

So many good reasons to make this recipe, but more than anything, we keep making these banana baked oatmeal cups because they’re simply delicious. Teo thinks you’re going to love them too!

Banana Baked Oatmeal Cups Ingredients

Banana Baked Oatmeal Cups Ingredients

Here are a few quick notes about the ingredients you will need to make this baked banana oatmeal cups recipe:

  • Old-fashioned oats: Be sure to use old-fashioned (aka “rolled”) oats for this recipe and not quick oats. If you are making this recipe gluten-free, be sure to also check the label to be sure that you are purchasing certified gluten-free oats.
  • Ripe bananas: Use bananas that are nice and ripe in order to give this recipe the richest, sweetest banana flavor.
  • Milk: Feel free to use whatever dairy or non-dairy plain milk that you prefer. We typically use plain oat milk with this recipe here in our house.
  • Egg: I always use an egg will help to bind all of these ingredients together, but you are welcome to use a flax egg if you would like to make this recipe vegan (see instructions below).
  • Maple syrup: This is my natural sweetener of choice for this recipe, since the flavor of maple syrup always pairs so deliciously with banana and nuts. But feel free to sub in brown sugar, coconut sugar or honey if you prefer.
  • Baking powder: This helps to give the oatmeal cups a slight rise as they bake.
  • Spices, vanilla extract and salt: I typically make these oatmeal cups with a mix of ground cinnamon, ground ginger, vanilla extract and fine sea salt. But feel free to play around with whatever warming spices (such as cardamom, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, etc) that you love best.
  • Nuts or chocolate chips: We love adding chopped pecans or walnuts to these oatmeal cups for extra protein. But you’re welcome to toss in a handful of chocolate chips instead, or use a mix of chocolate and nuts!

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10 Freeze & Reheat Meals for When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking

I don’t always want to cook—cue shock, horror, and “but you work in food media, that’s your thing”—but I don’t. Just like, I’m sure, you don’t either. When this mood strikes, sometimes egg tacos or avocado toast will suffice. Other times, you don’t wan…

I don’t always want to cook—cue shock, horror, and “but you work in food media, that’s your thing"—but I don’t. Just like, I’m sure, you don’t either. When this mood strikes, sometimes egg tacos or avocado toast will suffice. Other times, you don’t want to cook but you do want a real, home-cooked dinner. I'm here to tell you that, in fact, you can have it both ways. You just need a little help from your freezer.

These 10 meals can be made-ahead, frozen, thawed, and reheated for when you just can’t in the kitchen. Below, I’ve also suggested fresh plus ones to make along side your frozen food. However, you can totally just make the main dish and leave the sides aside (ha!).

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Salted Chocolate Brownie Bites

These salted chocolate brownie bites are quick and easy to make and are bursting with rich chocolate flavor. I’m always a bit skeptical when healthier snacks claim to taste like rich desserts. But in this case, I have to say…these little guys legit taste like brownies! ♡ Barclay and I have been making them for […]

These salted chocolate brownie bites are quick and easy to make and are bursting with rich chocolate flavor.

Salted Chocolate Brownie Bites

I’m always a bit skeptical when healthier snacks claim to taste like rich desserts. But in this case, I have to say…these little guys legit taste like brownies! ♡

Barclay and I have been making them for a few weeks now and are totally hooked. The recipe calls for a simple combination of nuts (I prefer a mix of walnuts and almonds), Medjool dates, mini chocolate chips, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and sea salt. Just blend everything up and either roll the mixture into balls or cut into bars. Then these delicious little bites will be ready for enjoying!

They’re naturally gluten-free and easy to make vegan, and perfect for breakfast, dessert, snack time, or anytime you’d like a healthier option for when those chocolate cravings hit. Let’s make a quick batch!

Salted Chocolate Brownie Bites Ingredients (more…)

Couscous Salad

This simple couscous salad is made with loads of fresh veggies, chickpeas, herbs, feta and a zesty lemon dressing. Feel free to add in some grilled meat or seafood if you’d like too. There are many virtues I could point out about this simple, fresh and flavorful couscous salad. But the most notable one for […]

This simple couscous salad is made with loads of fresh veggies, chickpeas, herbs, feta and a zesty lemon dressing. Feel free to add in some grilled meat or seafood if you’d like too.

There are many virtues I could point out about this simple, fresh and flavorful couscous salad. But the most notable one for me is this:

I genuinely get so excited to eat the leftovers the next day. ♡

As someone who rarely looks forward to working my way through tuppers full of leftovers in our fridge, I have to say that this salad is so tasty that I typically make a double batch just to be sure that we have extras for the week ahead. It’s loaded up with many of the usual Mediterranean salad suspects — tender couscous, crisp fresh veggies, chickpeas, sun-dried tomatoes, toasted pine nuts and tangy feta cheese. But I love adding in an extra helping of fresh herbs to brighten it up (highly recommend mint and parsley), and the cumin-sumac-garlic lemon dressing and that brings it all together is perfection.

Feel free to add in an extra protein (such as chicken, shrimp or salmon) if you’d like or play around with whatever other veggies, cheeses, or nuts you happen to have on hand. It’s one of those recipes that is endlessly flexible, so make it your own. And save some extras for me! ;)

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Green Bean Casserole

This easy Green Bean Casserole recipe is made 100% from scratch with lightened-up ingredients, including a delicious creamy green bean filling and crispy onion topping. It’s also easy to make ahead and always a crowd fave. Move over, canned creamy soup, frozen green beans, and packaged fried onions. This modern homemade green bean casserole recipe […]

This easy Green Bean Casserole recipe is made 100% from scratch with lightened-up ingredients, including a delicious creamy green bean filling and crispy onion topping. It’s also easy to make ahead and always a crowd fave.

Green Bean Casserole Recipe

Move over, canned creamy soup, frozen green beans, and packaged fried onions.

This modern homemade green bean casserole recipe is made entirely from scratch and tastes a million times better than the retro casserole full of processed ingredients. And it is my hands-down fave. ♡♡♡

For too many years, I always passed on the green bean casserole at Thanksgiving because it was so mushy, bland and boring. But as it turns out, when homemade green bean casserole is well-seasoned and made with better ingredients, it comes to life and tastes SO fresh and flavorful. And it’s still quite simple to make!

Instead of soggy frozen green beans, fresh green beans are the star of the show here, which are ever-so-briefly cooked in order to preserve their crisp texture and bright flavor. Instead of canned cream of mushroom soup, fresh mushrooms are sautéed and folded into a lightened-up creamy Alfredo sauce. And instead of dry, packaged, palm-oil-fried onions, fresh red onion is sautéed with crispy panko breadcrumbs, which toast to golden perfection as the casserole bakes.

Together, all of these ingredients combine to make a casserole that is legit delicious and anything but boring. I make it every Thanksgiving, and friends and family all agree that it’s the best!

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10 Cold, Quick Noodle Salads for the Hungry, Hurried & Hot

If I could, I’d eat a bowl of cold noodle salad every noon and night till the fall winds cometh.

Noodles are the softest, squiggliest landing pads for a variety of summer vegetables (not to mention all sorts of cubed cheeses and salty fridge accessori…

If I could, I'd eat a bowl of cold noodle salad every noon and night till the fall winds cometh.

Noodles are the softest, squiggliest landing pads for a variety of summer vegetables (not to mention all sorts of cubed cheeses and salty fridge accessories, like capers, olives, and anchovies). Add a heap of noodles to July tomatoes slicked with olive oil and suddenly, you've got a meal, not a snack. (Add a spoonful of chili paste and suddenly, you're a little chef.)

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15 Make-Ahead Breakfasts for Busy Mornings & Full Bellies

Whether you’re a morning person or battle the snooze button every day, breakfast can throw us all for a loop. Maybe there’s an early morning trip to the grocery store or you do an extra-long online yoga class, then you’re halfway through feeding the ca…

Whether you’re a morning person or battle the snooze button every day, breakfast can throw us all for a loop. Maybe there’s an early morning trip to the grocery store or you do an extra-long online yoga class, then you’re halfway through feeding the cat and before realizing it’s time for work, school, or some other activity that seems more pressing than a meal. Still, running late shouldn’t mean you have to skip breakfast: There are in fact plenty of make-ahead breakfasts that are easy to assemble a couple days ahead, or even just the night before.

That’s right, I’m talking about those handy, make-ahead meals that take just minutes to heat up or scarf down. Here, I’ve gathered 15 of our best ready-before-you-are breakfasts. Oh, and snoozers: You’re welcome for those few extra minutes of sleep.

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Nut Roast

This Nut Roast recipe is packed with a deliciously sweet and savory blend of nuts, veggies, lentils, dried fruit and fresh herbs.  Easy to prep in advance, and delicious served with cranberry sauce and/or gravy! Friends, have you ever tried making a nut roast before? I was admittedly unfamiliar with this traditional vegetarian dish until […]

This Nut Roast recipe is packed with a deliciously sweet and savory blend of nuts, veggies, lentils, dried fruit and fresh herbs.  Easy to prep in advance, and delicious served with cranberry sauce and/or gravy!

Nut Roast

Friends, have you ever tried making a nut roast before?

I was admittedly unfamiliar with this traditional vegetarian dish until my British friend, Catherine, served us her famous nut roast for dinner a few months ago…and everyone around the table could not stop raving about how delicious it was!  We seriously could not get enough of this sweet, savory, hearty, and flavor-packed vegetarian “roast”! ♡

My first question to Catherine, of course, was what sorts of delicious ingredients were hiding in her beautiful confetti-ed loaf.  As she explained, there are about a million ways to make British-style nut roasts, but they are traditionally made with a base of chopped nuts, veggies and lots of herbs, plus sort of hearty ingredient added in to give the loaf some texture (such as lentils, rice, grains, oats, torn bread, or various types of flour blends), as well as whatever extra dried fruits or fun seasonings the cook feels like adding in.  The best nut roasts seem to strike the perfect balance between sweet and savory.  And when served with cranberry sauce (a must, according to Catherine) and/or some savory vegetarian gravy, I’m telling you, this dish will be a showstopper with vegetarians and meat-eaters alike!

The brilliance of nut roasts is that they are also easy to make ahead of time and require very little oven space.  So since they happen to be a traditional holiday food in the UK, and so many of us were already planning to cook smaller holiday meals this year, I thought that this would be the perfect week to share this recipe.

Catherine’s favorite nut roast is based off of a recipe from Deliciously Ella, made with lots of fresh sage, rosemary, mushrooms and dried apricots, which my husband and I absolutely loved.  We’ve since tinkered around with the recipe a bit and added in some lentils for extra protein, as well as a generous hint of orange juice and zest, which pairs deliciously with the other ingredients and tastes extra-festive this time of year.  I’ve also kept this recipe gluten-free, and given the option to use either traditional eggs or flax eggs as a binder, if you would like to make the recipe vegan.  As I explain below, the types of nuts/seeds, veggies and legumes here are also quite flexible, so please feel free to tinker around with the ingredients and make this nut roast recipe your own.

Bottom line, my husband and I can’t believe that it took us this long to be introduced to nut roasts.  But we are now full-on fans, and look forward to making them a tradition in our house for the occasional “Sunday roasts” and the holiday dinners.  Big thanks to Catherine and some of our other British friends here in Barcelona for all of the great tips and inspiration for this recipe.  I really think you all are going to love it!

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Maple Cranberry Sauce

This delicious Maple Cranberry Sauce recipe is quick and easy to make in about 15 minutes, it’s naturally sweetened with maple syrup, and easy to customize with any of your favorite add-ins. Anyone else trying to cut down on refined sugar for Thanksgiving this year? Give this simple maple cranberry sauce recipe a try! ♡ It’s […]

This delicious Maple Cranberry Sauce recipe is quick and easy to make in about 15 minutes, it’s naturally sweetened with maple syrup, and easy to customize with any of your favorite add-ins.

Maple Cranberry Sauce Recipe

Anyone else trying to cut down on refined sugar for Thanksgiving this year?

Give this simple maple cranberry sauce recipe a try!

It’s naturally sweetened with real maple syrup (or you’re welcome to sub in honey, coconut sugar, or any other favorite natural sweeteners).  It super quick and easy to make in just 15 minutes.  And it’s also a great recipe to make ahead of time and reheat on Thanksgiving, if you’d like to prep it days (or weeks) in advance.

I like to keep my cranberry sauce pretty simple and typically just add in the zest and juice of a fresh orange to complement those tart cranberry flavors.  But I’ve included ideas below for lots of other fun ingredients that you can add in.  So please feel free to get creative and customize your own cranberry sauce recipe however you might like!

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