Cooking through the seasons for family & friends in my Colorado kitchen
Diana’s Christmas Cookie Plate I noticed the arrival of Christmas trees shining through neighbor’s windows earlier than ever this year, as well as an unprecedented extravagance to outside Christmas light displays around town. There’s a definite longing for the joy and hope of the Christmas …
Slow-cooker beef & barley soup is a cross between a French onion soup and a tomato soup, with tender beef – but not too much, lots of carrots and velvety barley. The rich broth is flavored with thyme, red wine and soy sauce (the ingrediento segreto!). …
Have you ever tried Bircher muesli? This grated apple yogurt bowl is my oat-less version of Bircher muesli, made with an apple, yogurt, almond butter and lots of cinnamon.
It’s a great make-and-go breakfast or lunch and doesn’t require any soaking time like overnight oats, although you can make it the night before and pop it in the fridge overnight.
This creation was inspired by many months of grating apples to determine the best ratios for homemade Bircher muesli. I remember that light bulb moment back in 2015 when I was desperately trying to reinvent Pret a Manger’s Bircher muesli, realizing how much flavor, sweetness and texture grated apple brings to the table.
Don’t let me lead you to believe I don’t like muesli. But, this grated apple bowl is a nice departure from the usual oatmeal-based bowl.
Since it’s apple season, it’s a great time to stock up on your favorite apple. Did you know apples can be stored in the fridge for up to 8 weeks? So, if you find them on sale, stock up!
This delicious grated apple yogurt bowl is full of good-for-you ingredients. Plus, I promise you, there won’t be many times of the day you won’t be craving this one.
Yogurt – Use what you love here, but definitely go for plain yogurt. You won’t believe how much sweetness comes from the apple. I like whole-milk versions best since they’re so creamy. Greek works really well in this recipe, too, and ups the protein count big time.
Cinnamon – This will seem like too much to add, but this bowl can stand up to a hearty shake of cinnamon.
Apple – Grate the apple with a box grater, as close to the core as you can without slicing your knuckle off! I like the sweet-tart varieties like pink lady or honeycrisp, but use whichever is your favorite.
Almond butter –The combo of apple, cinnamon and almond butter really sings. It’s best to use an unsweetened variety for this as well, because you really won’t miss the sugar!
In preparing for a different sort of Halloween this year, my daughters brainstormed some treat ideas to replace the standard trick-or-treating tradition. There were pleas for these candied apples, from a Pioneer Woman cooking show the girls watched with me last Thanksgiving. Although beautiful, we’re …
With such a simple list of ingredients, it’s surprising how addicting these sweet potato burritos are. The sweet potatoes, combined with almost-caramelized onions, cheddar cheese, cumin, oregano and chili powder, have that crave-worthy sweet and savory flavor profile. In fact, I find the pronounced flavor …
Even though school is already back in session in Colorado, I can’t let the last weeks of summer slip by without sharing one of my favorite summer salad staples: caprese salad with balsamic reduction!
Caprese is made with fresh mozzarella, juicy summer tomatoes, fresh basil and a drizzle of balsamic glaze and extra virgin olive oil. With a rustic loaf of bread, this salad is satisfying enough to count as a weeknight dinner. I’ve been making caprese salad for many years, but it’s been refined through lots of trial and error.
Balsamic glaze or reduction – A drizzle of shiny balsamic reduction or glaze, with its concentration of flavor, far exceeds the look and taste of plain balsamic vinegar. It’s worth the extra step to make it (or the money to buy it), believe me!
Freshly-ground coarse pepper – Turn your pepper grinder to the most-coarse setting and be generous! This gives the salad a bit of spice and accents the acidity of the tomatoes and the sweetness of the vinegar glaze.
Garden-fresh tomatoes – Pick some up at a farmer’s market or select a few heirloom tomatoes from the store if your grocery is well stocked. This will be obvious when you cut into a garden fresh summer tomato, but the color and taste is far superior to those white-centered off-season versions available at other times of the year. My stepmom and Aunt grew these beauties!
3 large tomatoes
16 ounces fresh mozzarella
¼ teaspoon sea salt (or other coarse salt)
¼ teaspoon coarsely-ground black pepper
10-16 large basil leaves, sliced thinly into a chiffonade, plus a few small leaves for garnish
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (may not use all of it)
1/4 cup balsamic reduction/glaze (may not use all of it; recipe below, or use store-bought, like this one)
Balsamic Reduction (Glaze):
Looking for another tasty summer salad? Try this Spicy Banh Mi Chicken & Quinoa Salad or this Lemony Quinoa Salad with Almonds & Dried Cherries.
This is the quick bread I make for breakfast almost once a week in the summer, when zucchini handouts are easy to come by (thank you, family and friends!) and we want something easy and sweet to munch on in the mornings. It also makes …
Last year, my mom probed me to dig through some of my Grandpa Norm’s old recipes to locate a peach pie recipe she remembered. I didn’t remember eating it before, but with a counter full of ripe Palisade peaches, it seemed like a worthy endeavor. I’m proud …
Grilled chicken and quinoa meet a colorful bunch of vegetables including radishes, cucumber, serrano peppers, carrots, green onions and avocado in this spicy and beautiful summer salad. The dressing for this spicy Banh Mi chicken & quinoa salad is bright, slightly sweet and ever so fresh with both cilantro and mint teaming up with fresh lime juice and honey.
Gardening has never been easy for me. It’s frustrating because it’s something I very much enjoy. So this year, when my husband, Matt, surprised me with a bunch of seed packets and proclaimed this was the year we would figure things out, I admit I was skeptical. Our best gardening efforts in years past had yielded very little, even with the advantage of purchasing the giant baby starter plants! The price tag was right on the seed versions, though, and I was motivated and intrigued by Matt’s optimism. Maybe I could do this!
Fast forward about 6 weeks…two-thirds or so of our seeds made it into the seedling stage, but, unfortunately, no more than half survived the “hardening off” phase and were actually transplanted into our yard or small raised bed successfully. It’s now late July, and we have yet to harvest our first tomato or pepper and have had ONE teeny tiny zucchini.
However, turns out, shelling peas and baby mesclun greens have been really successful for us (and they can be directly sowed into the garden), so successful that I’ll continue growing those from seed every year to come! The peas don’t make it out of the back yard after my kids harvest them multiple times a day (that doesn’t disappoint me too much!), but the pretty greens beckoned to be turned into something delicious and a colorful summer salad seemed just right. Best part? My older two girls were so proud of our crop, they ate a remarkable 4/5 and 1/3 of their Banh Mi Chicken & Quinoa salads when we sat down for dinner! The almost-two-year-old also loved the deconstructed version.
To simplify this some, I suggest making the dressing ahead of time, up to one day in advance, as well as cooking and refrigerating the quinoa. You can also save time by chopping up/grating a bunch of the sturdier veggies, and just store them in the fridge until it’s time to assemble. I used my spiralizer because I wanted pretty pink and orange spirals, but I also had time to spare. Next time, I may grate the radishes and carrots on a box grater. Lastly, we have the grill fired up most days of the summer and it’s easy to grill a few chicken breasts, but in a pinch, stove-top grill pan or a shredded rotisserie chicken would work well too!
1 cup cooked quinoa, seasoned with ¼ t. of kosher salt while cooking
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 t. salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 T olive oil
5 oz. baby mesclun greens (or baby kale)
½ cup cilantro, chopped
¼ cup fresh mint, chopped
1 cup carrots, sliced into matchsticks or grated
1 cup radish, sliced into matchsticks or grated, or spiralized!
1 avocado, sliced into ½ inch cubes
4 scallions, thinly sliced
2 serrano peppers, thinly sliced
1 small cucumber, seeded and thinly sliced
4 t. sesame seeds, toasted
¼ cup lime juice (from about 2 limes), plus zest from one of the limes
1 T red chili paste
½ T chopped Serrano pepper
1 T low-sodium soy sauce (or tamari)
1 T fresh ginger, grated
1 T cilantro
1 ½ T honey
¼ cup olive oil
Cook quinoa according to package directions and season with ¼ t. of kosher salt. Set aside to cool.
Add all dressing ingredients except olive oil to a blender and pulse a few times. Stream in olive oil and blend until smooth, about 30 seconds.
Preheat a grill to medium high, about 400-450 degrees or heat a grill pan to medium high. Brush chicken breasts with 1 T of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill chicken until cooked through, about 6 minutes on each side. Set aside to cool before thinly slicing.
Toss together mint, cilantro, baby greens and quinoa with half of the dressing in a large bowl. Divide between four bowls. Arrange prepared carrots, radish, cucumber, avocado, scallions and sliced chicken around the sides of dressed greens/quinoa.
Drizzle bowls with remaining dressing or serve extra dressing on the side. Top with sesame seeds and sliced serrano chilies.
A classic, homemade margherita pizza topped with easy, blender tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, red pepper flakes and lots of basil. Friday nights have become a weekly pizza and movie night around here. The tradition started with frozen Trader Joe’s pizzas interspersed with an occasional Friday …
Banana peanut butter smoothie “milkshakes” are a staple in our house. They’re full of protein with yogurt and peanut butter, have no added sugar thanks to the magical sweetness of a banana, and my kids think they’re drinking a milkshake. It’s the recipe I go to …
My favorite summertime pie, blueberry streusel pie, is probably also my favorite blueberry recipe. Fresh, summer blueberries cook down to a gorgeous purple, jammy confection, studded with a generous amount of cinnamon-sugar streusel and balanced by a buttery, flaky crust. Soooooo good!
My grandma Tina spent a large portion of her childhood growing up in Maine. She used to describe the distinctive flavor of a Maine wild blueberry. “They’re smaller, and more intense in flavor,” she would tell us. Settling in Colorado, she resorted to frozen wild blueberries. Her favorite: Wyman’s. I’ve since discovered Trader Joe’s carries a delicious frozen wild variety too.
When I was in college, I had the chance to visit Stonington, Maine, my Grandma Tina’s special place, with my Dad and Grandma. It was full of all her favorites, which soon became mine: roadside lupine sightings, lobster rolls, quaint bed and breakfasts, Nervous Nellie’s Jams & Jellies, and… BLUEBERRY PIE!
Plain blueberries were never at the top of my list, as a kid, although I probably never admitted that to my Grandma. They were inconsistent in flavor, I thought. Some were sweet, some just predominately mushy, with little flavor. I don’t think I ever really knew what a blueberry was supposed to taste like. It wasn’t until I moved to Oregon and was doing my share of berry picking (oh how I miss the chance to do that every summer!) that I discovered my love for blueberries. There was no turning back after that. These days, I put them on and in everything.
For this pie, you’ll need 5 cups of fresh blueberries. Of course, if you’re lucky enough to live in a place with wild blueberries, use those! But, the plain old, regular ones are delicious in this recipe too, spiked with lemon zest and juice and just the right amount of thickener to ensure it sets up well. If you’re tempted to dig into the pie straight out of the oven, I get it, but I urge you to wait 3-4 hours after it comes out of the oven so it’s easy and pretty to slice. This one keeps very well overnight too (it may even be better on day two!) so feel free to make this a day ahead.
The most important thing to get right with this pie is the baking time. If you under-bake it, the blueberries will be too liquidy and won’t break down to their desired, jammy texture. You want to leave this in the oven for as long as you can, while trying to keep the top streusel and crust from over-browning. I place a thin strip of foil around the edges of the crust for the last 30 minutes or so, or, you can use the fancy pie shields if you have them. If the top streusel is browning too fast, you can set a loose piece of foil on top as well.
You’ll also want to make sure you refrigerate the streusel mixture (or throw it in the freezer if you’re in a hurry) until it’s nice and cold, so it holds up well in the oven. It’s the easiest streusel you’ll ever make because you melt the butter before mixing it with the brown sugar, white sugar, flour and cinnamon… no cutting it in required! Once it’s nice and firmed up in the fridge, it crumbles beautifully.
The filling is very straightforward. I like my blueberry filling on the less-sweet side, especially with the sugary streusel crumb topping, and, often, topped with ice cream too, but you can add up to a ½ cup more sugar if you want yours sweeter or if your blueberries are particularly tart.
1 recipe all-butter (pâte brisée) pie dough
1 recipe crumb streusel topping (recipe below)
5 cups fresh blueberries
juice and zest from 1 lemon
½ cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup flour
pinch of salt
1 cup (4 oz.) all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar (4 oz.)
¾ cup brown sugar (4 oz.)
½ teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
½ cup unsalted butter (4 oz.), melted
Find recipe here. Chill dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes while you make the streusel crumb topping and the filling.
Make the crumb topping: stir together the flour, both sugars, cinnamon, and salt in a medium mixing bowl, and then add the melted butter and stir to fully combine. Pop into the fridge to chill while you assemble the filling and prepare the crust.
In a large mixing bowl, gently stir together the blueberries, lemon zest & juice, sugar, pinch of salt, cornstarch and flour. Let that sit for a few minutes at room temperature to release some juices.
**Set rack of oven to the lower-third and preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit**
Roll out your pie dough with a rolling pin on a lightly-floured work surface until it’s a large enough circle (about 12 inches in diameter) to fit into a 9-inch pie pan. Roll the dough up loosely around a rolling pin and unroll into pan. Press dough firmly into sides and corners of pie pan and trim excess dough around the edges to about 1-inch past the edge of the pan. Tuck the overhanging dough under itself, so the dough lines up with the edge of the pan. Flute with your fingers or use the tines of a fork to make a triangle pattern as pictured below. For more detail on how to roll out pie crust, see this tutorial.
Pour off any accumulated liquid from the filling and then pour the filling into the prepared piecrust. Using your hands, crumble the chilled streusel on top of the blueberries. Place on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 30-40 minutes longer. Keep on eye on things. If the crust or topping starts getting too dark, remove from the oven and place a thin strip of foil around the edges of the crust and/or a big piece of foil loosely over the topping, before placing it back in the oven to finish cooking. You’ll know it’s done when the filling is bubbling and creeping out around the sides of the pie, into the crumble topping. Resist your instinct to under-bake, as you want the filling to fully set!
Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack for 3-4 hours before serving, or up to 24 hours. It’s delicious on it’s own and even better with a scoop of ice cream or homemade whipped cream.
