A recipe for Gruyère Gougères appetizers, tiny crisp pastry pillows made with choux dough bursting with intense Gruyère flavor. I would like to be the type of person that throws parties. Big, raucous celebrations with champagne flutes and confetti, music playing in that just-loud-enough way where you can dance to it but still talk to your neighbor without screaming until you’re hoarse. The lights would twinkle in the background in a magical way, guests unable to find the source of their... more

This coconut macaroon recipe is spiced with bourbon and nutmeg for an eggnog cookie treat just right for the holiday season. It starts just as the sun is tucking itself away, the snow falling as the light dims and turns grey. Then darkness settles in, soaking the color from the once vibrant landscape. The heavy flakes rest on sidewalks, their white contrasting against the black of night, catching in your hair and eyelashes causing you to blink heavily. By morning the grass is gone, covered in a... more

An easy recipe for 5-ingredient energy bars featuring cardamom and cranberries that are nut-free and gluten-free. The travel season is upon us. Today and tomorrow will be filled with families piling into their cars and on planes lugging suitcases and scarves behind them, arms full of casseroles and freshly baked pies. From there will come the mall shopping, elbows in your sides, standing in line with piles of to-be presents, Christmas music twinkling in the background so you might remember the... more

A recipe for a honey-roasted cauliflower dish with crispy sage, pine nuts that would be a wonderful addition to any holiday meal. Mine was a childhood of frozen vegetables. While salads, cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh garden green beans, and plenty of cut-from-the-head broccoli (always with cheese sauce) were available during summer months, the staple winter dinner vegetable for my Midwestern upbringing was a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Orange carrot cubes sat amongst the peas, anemic rubbery green... more

Velvety pumpkin butter with pumpkin pie spices is baked between layers of oats and flour and topped with toasty pecans in this quick and simple bar dessert recipe. After much hemming and hawing, I finally made pumpkin butter. I’m not sure what I was expecting to find at the end of a long simmer, but I was pleasantly surprised when then the “butter,” which contains no actual butter, turned out rich and velvety and was reminiscent of both apple butter and pumpkin pie. It effectively... more

A fresh take on your classic chicken noodle soup recipe, this one uses acini di pepe pasta, leeks, radishes, and a healthy assortment of rainbow carrots. For the past week I’ve watched as leaves in shades of gold and crimson drift towards the ground. I stood under my neighbor’s towering maple as my kids walked down the street to school, listening. The branches swayed softly, rustling with the crinkle of drying leaves as they floated down around me, my shoulders turned in and my arms... more

A recipe for making pain d’epi or what stalk bread loaves, as well as a photo tutorial on how to cut the loaf. (Recipe from The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.) It is my life’s goal to do as little as possible. Let me rephrase. It’s my life’s goal to spend as little time as I can doing anything categorized under “things that must get done” like making dinner, doing laundry, scrubbing floors. The reason is so that I have time to do all the other things:... more