spicy noodle bowls made with ramen noodles (or any pasta you like!) are the perfect mid-week alternative to spaghetti with meat sauce. this asian noodle bowl is the best!
What do you watch while you eat dinner?
Do not tell me that you talk to other people. I won't hear it.
...HIHI how was your Christmas, or holiday, or break, or week, or weekend?
We had....all of those things. This was the first year that I can remember having all of our sisters in town from both of our families. We had family outing after family outing, happy hour(s), dinners out, gift exchanges, and a great deal of time spent discussing WHY Will insists on spitting up so much, and how on earth he's gaining any weight. It's a mystery, and a very gross one. I've never done so much laundry in my life.
Jay is mercifully, blissfully off the rest of this week, and I'm caught between wanting to 1. organize everything and let him hang out with the kids, 2. do absolutely nothing, and 3. send them all away so I can actually catch up on work for once in my life. I'm THINKING that there has to be a balance between those three things, but likely I'll spend a ton of time thinking about it and not a ton of time accomplishing the things I really need to be doing.
What I will be doing, though, is cooking. I love cooking on holiday weeks, two or three meals per day and some snacks, trashing the kitchen, listening to music, all of it. This vodka sauce is one of my favorite weekend/holiday meals, and it's perfect for this time of year - maybe even for New Year's Eve if you're staying in! It takes a bit of time because the sauce gets roasted in the oven, but the steps are simple and the results are SO worth it. We have spicy sausage, tangy vodka and tomatoes. Extra garlic, absolutely. After the sauce roasts we pink it up with heavy cream and toss it with pasta or zoodles if you're starting your New Year's resolutions early! Honestly the sauce is so good I could eat it plain.
...This super easy roasted pork loin is completely fool proof and has a garlic and herb butter crust that makes the most delicious pan drippings. Try this for a holiday dinner or medium-fancy weekend dinner idea!
Here's our 2018 Holiday Meal!
No but seriously. I'm going to make this roasted pork loin once a week until February.
How was your weekend? Our was....well, let's just say that I'm really excited for the holidays but also am feeling the exhaustion and the feelings and the busy-ness and WHY ARE YOU PUKING ON ME AGAIN, BABY, in a very hard way. The week before Christmas feels like packing for vacation to me...once we get it done and onto the main event everything will be fiiiiiine.
...This wild rice soup has sausage in it for extra oomph and flavor in the chilly months! This is one of my favorite meal prep soups and can be frozen as well - make a double batch and enjoy the gift to your future self when you thaw out your already-made dinner! This soup is thickened with cornstarch instead of a flour to make it a gluten free soup recipe. HIGHLY recommend a batch of no-knead bread to go with this.
It's FREEZING here.
No, but really. Multiple nights under 30 degrees F this week = the natives are LOSING it. We live in South Carolina, after all. The south. Warm. Stuffy. No fall. Lots of summer. Sweat. Humidity. You get it.
So when it's this cold (and, yes, I know some of you have way colder lives than this, I understand how different climates work), and dark at 4pm, and we're decorating for Christmas between snuggling with our newborn and battling our toddler, we totally completely absolutely for sure need a perfect easy soup to get us through the winter.
...This fall sausage ragout has sweet potatoes and kale for a perfect fall dinner. I love it over zoodles, but you can use pasta or even polenta as a base for this yummy fall meat sauce!
Is it too long if there has to be commas in the title of the recipe? Don't answer that.
HAPPY MONDAY. Did you sleep extra this weekend? We didn't, because the cutest little alarm clock wakes up at 7am and apparently it's bad form to let a 2 year old tend to herself in the morning, much as I think she'd prooooobably do ok with the task. We did, though, eat a ton of yummy food, hit up two parks, handle some laundry, and try a new bulgogi place, so weekend events definitely happened, if not much rest.
The balance between work and getting ready for baby and trying to enjoy THIS life right now is a real struggle, as it is for every single human, and this dinner gives us the balance we can't always manage in our regular life. Zoodles for health and low carb. Sweet potatoes for...carbs. And a superfood! Sausage and parm for yum, kale for your bod. This sausage ragout is made pretty much like a regular marinara: meat then veggies then simmering, add extra salt and crushed red if you need more spice. I cook my zoodles for about 2 minutes right before we eat to wilt them just a little bit, but you can absolutely eat them raw for even more texture.
PS raw zoodles last pretty well in the fridge, so if you have a bunch of zucchini you can spiralize them all at once and keep them in a container for easy access. I find that the spiralizer is like the food processor - it makes everything super quick and easy but getting it out feels like climbing Everest some days. Which is dumb, but true. So make a bunch at once and eat them all week!
Let's zoodle.
...Hello Oktoberfest! This pork schnitzel recipe has a quick side dish of cabbage and apples and is one of our favorite fall dinners. Bread extra pork chops for meal prep and keep them in the freezer, too!
HAPPY OCTOBER WE MADE IT.
To the fourth quarter, to the months that have a shot at being cold (mid-80s here all this week in case you were wondering), and mayyyyyybe to the month that our son is born! My family has decided, very scientifically, that it makes sense for this child to be born on the 26th. Their reasoning is that my dad and Jay have 26th birthdays (different months, but it counts). This actually works really well for me too for a few reasons. First, October 26 is my last day of work, so having the baby sooner would be a pain for my boss and not great for my clients that week. I'll also be 38 weeks and one day pregnant at that point so it'll be safe to deliver AND I'll be allowed to deliver at the birth center - if this kid comes out before 37 weeks they kick us to the hospital. Finally, I don't want the baby to be born on Halloween which I realize is dumb and doesn't matter but I've found that if I focus on dumb wishes instead of...please don't have anything major or life-threatening wrong with you...I sleep better at night.
So, all this to say, the baby will definitely not be born on October 26, but wouldn't that be fun?
...Ok, here is our detox-but-its-still-a-holiday-week compromise dish for the next few days/weeks/months. 
How was your fourth? We did a party on Tuesday and yesterday with friends/toddlers/grilling, I ate way too much beef and loved slash regretted it, and I feel like I can't shower enough times to become not sweaty. Suggestions welcome for that one. The humidity around here is quite excessive.
So let's talk about this compromise food. Wonderful veggie base, corn and tomatoes that are getting just so good this time of year. Garlic for your health and happiness. Then for mental health and protein pancetta and cheese because you're worth it, basil at the end because of course there is. The best part of it is that it's made super quickly so the ingredients stay super fresh and not mushy at all, and we have a healthy + worth it meal in half an hour or so with very little fuss.
...
Yumyumyum, in other words. 
Here's your new favorite brunch item! Baked eggs. Anyone who knows me knows that I do not actually like eggs in their purest form. Runny yolks are questionable, don't get me started on hard boiled eggs, and scrambled eggs are good for approximately 3 seconds before they turn cold and sad. Omelettes are on my happy list because veggies and cheese can be involved, and quiche is a no-brainer because of the crust, clearly. However, I'm always on the hunt for ways to use eggs that I do like, because they're cheap and a great source of vegetarian protein.
Obviously I added pork to this so we are NOT left with a vegetarian dish, but what we end up with instead is something similar to shakshuka, a Middle Eastern baked eggs dish that I'm super into finding pictures of on the internet because the combination of flavors and textures and colors is just so pretty and appealing to me. Tangy sweet tomatoes, creamy eggs, garlic + onion, and I started with chorizo to bring extra savory flavor to the party.
Bread for dunking is a must, mimosas would be perfect for a brunch. If you serve this for a morning situation, I love that it can alllllmost be made in advance; make the tomato sauce, leave it (covered in the fridge) in the skillet overnight, then crack the eggs into the skillet in the morning, bake the eggs, and brunch! I have a few fun weekend-morning events coming up, and I'm thinking this would be perfect for a shower or early-in-the-day birthday party, right?
...
One of the best game day appetizers, ham and swiss sliders! Sometimes called Ham Delights, these super easy sandwiches are made on Hawaiian rolls for a sweet + savory combo that is to die for. These are delicious with deli ham, but leftover glazed holiday ham makes them even more special! I make them ahead and stick them in the oven right before serving for hot, gooey, cheesy bites.
This recipe was last updated January 2021.
...aka HAM DELIGHTS.
You know these little love nuggets, right? If you live in the south, I'm thinking yes, but I don't know where else these are a STAPLE for parties, tailgating, and sportsball watching in general. Like this week, there is some kind of game on Sunday night? That might be kind of important.
I feel that it's important to state that I do in fact know that this weekend is the Super Bowl. And here's the next recipe you should ABSOLUTELY make for it.
So these sandwiches, just in case you aren't familiar. It's regular ham and cheese layered in sweet dinner rolls, then doused with a butter + spice mixture, wrapped in foil, and baked to ooey gooey perfection. Easy doesn't begin to cover it; the hardest part of the whole recipe is melting the butter in the microwave and measuring out the spices. The sandwiches can be made well in advance and then baked at the last minute. I like to bake them in batches of 12 at a time so that they're always hot during parties or wherever I'm serving them.
...For your Tuesday! For your Whole30! For your health!
This is probably the healthiest sausage dish I've ever made, and if that isn't the most delicious kind of irony I don't know what is. Jay's still plowing through Whole30, so we've been enjoying low-carb (and all of the other rules) dinners for a few weeks now. I made this this weekend, and we both really loved it - it's not a salad which just feels punishing after a long day when it's cold out, but also not mac and cheese or anything too heavy. The sausage + veg combo is the perfect mix of indulgent and healthy, and a plate of this will easily provide two or more servings of vegetables, which we all need more of no matter what kind of eating plan we're working with.
The real reason I wanted to show you this asap, though, is the zoodles! Jay's mom got me a spiralizer attachment for my KitchenAid for Christmas, and it is very likely that this will end up being my favorite Christmas gift. Kitchen gifts are always a sure bet with me, for obvious reasons, but I was super surprised by this and thrilled with how easy it was to use and clean up after. It's the first attachment I have for my mixer, and now of course I want them all and have nowhere to keep them so....maybe just the spiralizer for now.
...
One of my favorite soups ever, white bean kale soup with sausage! This gluten free soup is perfect for meal prep and comes together in just half an hour or so. Leftovers are EVEN BETTER, so make a double batch and enjoy this soup all week! PS - not terrible with no-knead bread. Not terrible at all.
I have been SO excited to tell you about this soup. It's my new fall signature dish, and I haven't met a single person who doesn't like it.
It's simple, first and foremost. The ingredients are easy to find, there aren't too many of them, and they all add a ton of flavor to the finished dish. The whole soup can be made in about 30 minutes, and you can eat it right away or let it simmer for a little while, whatever works.
I actually have two meals like this for your Thanksgiving week - meals that are simple, delicious, and appeal to lots of people. This soup is gluten free and can be dairy free with the cheese on top omitted, and I use local sausage and kale because the flavor is SO much better. You can use any sausage you like, hot or mild, any kind of kale you can find, even pre-chopped bagged stuff to save even more time. The kale and sausage combine with stock, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and that's IT. Throw in some white beans (or skip them for a lower carb option), blanket the whole thing in parmesan, and good to go.
I love this for nights when people are kind of coming and going, which seems to happen so much more in the fall, and I love it for holiday weeks where you definitely need to eat but making multiple dishes for a meal isn't as much fun when Thursday involves SO many dishes and steps. Let's do it!
...I don't know about you, but capers for breakfast are my total jam. Instead of, like, jam. 
Here's my thing with breakfast: It's never my go-to food group. I don't like eggs much, don't care a ton to eat a mountain of sugar first thing in the world, and you can only eat so much bacon and drink so many mimosas before you're all GET ME TO GYM EVEN THOUGH I HATE GYM, you know? It becomes a bit much. I do, however, very much enjoy brunch menus that include fully lunch-appropriate items because I find nothing wrong with eating a fried chicken sandwich at 9am, thank you very much.
Jay, on the other hand, adores eggs and all things breakfast.
So this is the compromise! This is actually inspired by a veggie has that was available in our lodge in Belize this summer - it had only grated veggies that were seared so perfectly and were the most fresh addition to any breakfast we ordered. I love finding ways to add veggies first thing in the morning, and loved that addition to the menu. This is kind of a cross between potato and veggie hash with lots of spices and chorizo crumbled right in for good measure. The hash is all I want for breakfast, and egg-lovers can add their egg of choice to the dish. Everyone wins!
...
Hey ~summer~, I just met you, and this is crazy, but STOP BEING FREEZING HERE. 
It's just like the song, get it? Anyway. It is cold, what the hell. We were talking about it in yoga this morning, it's like the day school started back the earth took a massive exhale, almost as if it knew it didn't need to work so hard to be bright and cheerful and fun anymore. We've had 10-15 degree cooler days, wind, clouds, and the stores are teeming with cute boots that I definitely don't need but totally want.
And this is our segue in to fall. It's still technically summer. We are going to the beach this weekend! The local okra is nuts - delicious and vibrant and plentiful. But there's something about this dish that feels slightly cozy. Maybe it's the rich sausage or warm rice. Maybe it's the heat from the spices and hot sauce we add. The gumbo itself is meal enough, and with the crispy, juicy shrimp on top this meal ends up over the top without taking up a ton of time or effort.
Let's make it!
...
WHAT did you do this weekend? I ate all of the foods. It was glorious and today I'm craving raw veggies, which is rare. 
Lighter stuff, you know? Just for like a day, nothing insane. Is it fine if I present to you a light recipe topped with sausage?
I gotta be me, after all.
Depending on the ingredients you use here (check labels, etc), this is an accidentally gluten- and dairy-free recipe, which DEFINITELY makes it a health food. I've seen several recipes for marinated beans around the internet, and I'm so excited about all of them. White beans absorb flavor pretty quickly and you're left with the creamy beans, tangy dressing, and sharp + crunchy vegetables. You could absolutely make this year-round as well since dried rosemary works just as well as fresh.
...
Literally 6 ingredients, not including salt and olive oil, which you probably don't even need. EVEN WITH THOSE THINGS, one of the easier pastas in all of the land. 
I feel like I see a ton of kale and sausage recipes so I was hesitant to share one, but the reason I see them so much is that it's such a wonderful pairing, right? You know it is. This particular dish uses fire-roasted tomatoes for extra flavor (hence, only a few ingredients), local sausage that is super crumbly and not chewy like some sausage, and enough kale for you to feel as though you're making the right choice, which you clearly are.
Plus, 30 minutes or so is all this takes.
...
Six ingredients to dinner, guys. Six!
It's a Monday-after-a-snowy-weekend, is what I'm trying to say.
We are having a mustard moment, and you're along for the ride. I wish I could say I was a blogger that posts really thoughtful things that are a nice variety of food in terms of ingredients, style of food, and difficulty, but really you just have to make what I make if you want to follow along with this life. I'm a part-time blogger and full-time everything else. Hence, six ingredient dinners.
But! The ingredients are GOOD. And also affordable and flavorful. Nothing too weird, but the combo of apples and mustard and pork is one that I really love. This is also a one-dish meal, baked in the oven, which means cleanup is so easy and nothing is spattering all over the stove. You'll love it.
...
This copycat honey baked ham recipe (a simple dry glazed ham recipe) is one of the most popular recipes on my site and has been for several years! It's super easy to make at home, is mostly hands-off time, and is perfect for Easter, Christmas, or regular life meal prep!
Like a dry rub. But a glaze! For ham!
Because Beck loves ham. This was her birthday ham!
I didn't really intend for it to happen that way, but I knew I wanted to show you a new Big Meat kind of dealio for Christmas, because turkey is all well and good but we kind of know how to do that, you know? So I decided to make a ham, but then I'd have a whole ham 3 weeks before Christmas. SO I MADE HAM FOR BECK'S BIRTHDAY. When she turned one. I made little sandwiches for her party and diced up a ton of it for her, and everyone was pleased.
There is a local-ish regional chain called Honeybaked Ham where we live, and the price for ham there is exorbitant. Truly ridiculous. BUT, Honeybaked has this great sugary spicy crust and obviously there is a benefit to outsourcing a thing or two for holiday meals. I'm a big Honeybaked fan, but wanted to make my own for fun and to save money. The dry rub for ham we make here is a great copycat for much less money and freshly baked ham at home smells really, really good.
...Warm flavors. I think that's my thing this season. There are so many great fall standbys, pomegranate, pumpkin spice, chai, etc that are so lovely this time of year, but the warmth of it all is really what gets me. That's here, but with a little mid-east flair. 
When we were growing up in France there was this couscous dish that was topped with a tomato/chick pea mixture and flavored with North African spices. Cinnamon, sometimes a curry essence, allspice, cumin - there's that warmth again. My mom learned to make it and it's stayed a staple in our family for decades since we lived there. It usually includes raisins and pine nuts and, honestly, I'd love to have used those in this dish butttt I didn't have any and wanted pork chops flavored this way RIGHT NOW and heaven forbid I plan anything in advance so....here we go.
It's seared pork chops, veggies and canned garbanzos + tomatoes, tons of spices. The everything roasts together in the oven and the sauce thickens, then we top the whole mess with crispy sage and the brown butter used to fry the sage leaves.
Fall, but sexier, you know?
...
I mean, do you need to know more? 
This is another recipe that involves slow cooked meat + onions, but don't be fooled - this is tons different than the pull-apart bread mess we made a few weeks ago, promise. And, if it were that similar, would it be such a bad thing?
Jay's a big fan of a Cuban sandwich, but I've never made them at home - there are a lot of components and for some reason we aren't really sandwich-making types of people. Fork food and/or salads with the occasional pizza is more of our jam, for whatever reason. Probably because I prefer to use a fork for food and not get all messy, and bread is best covered in butter soaking up the remnants of said fork food. Which makes no sense.
BUT, we went to the market, as we do, and we grabbed a piece of pork shoulder, and went on and on with ideas for it, and landed on this: local bread, local pork, ham, pickles, cheese, onions. The pork is cooked IN mustard, then everything gets toasted and wrapped in foil so that it gets ooey gooey before you bite into it. It's worth the slow cooker wait time, that's for damn sure.
...
Breakfast for lunch on Tuesday! 
Or dinner, or anytime. Because chorizo.
We don't eat a ton of big breakfasts, but I made this last weekend; I'd bought some chorizo impulsively and needed something to do with it. Truthfully, this was more like sausage with a ton of paprika in it, I think I'd classify the flavor as Spanish-style, but this was a raw sausage, not hard cured chorizo that you find on a cheese plate, if that makes sense. So, use any kind of chorizo you like, but you want it to be raw like sausage.
Then we have crispy potatoes, some veg for our arteries, cheese, eggs....it's perfect, basically.
...
