Holidays

Pimento Cheese Squash Casserole

July 9, 2018 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Oh hell yes.

Hi! How was your weekend? We had a great one, including being at home with Beck all day Saturday and not leaving the house. We did yard work, hung some remnants back on the walls from the construction on our house, watched TWO movies, and cooked a boat-load, which was fun but also a benefit to eating out on the weekends means the kitchen isn't so ridiculously dirty all of the time. Cue me spending Monday undoing our all-at-home weekend.

So this casserole. This time of year we seem to find ourselves with tons of squash and zucchini, all of the time. My grandparents grow it, it is super cheap at the farmer's market, cooks quickly, lasts for awhile in the fridge, reason after reason to keep it around at all times. Mostly we saute it with onions and salt and pepper for a quick dinner veg, but sometimes, especially when we have a ton of it, we need to go old-school and decadent, you know? This is that. It's definitely a vegetable and definitely vegetarian, but other than that I'm not going to scream at you about health benefits.

This casserole is made on the stovetop and includes almost all of the seasonings from my favorite pimento cheese and traditional squash casserole. Ritz crackers are a must for topping, and you can bake the casserole for a few minutes and eat it immediately or keep it in the fridge for a few days and heat it up for dinner one night this week. Make-ahead friendly!

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Classic Deviled Eggs

July 2, 2018 by Lindsay 2 Comments

These deviled eggs with relish have filling made right in the food processor for the lightest, fluffiest deviled egg filling ever. I like to make the filling in advance and pipe it in right before serving to avoid any mess.

Happy July!

True life, I don't like eggs all that much. It's a texture thing, and the overwhelming smell is just...not enough to negate the idea of a cheap+sustainable+healthy protein. BUT, because everyone else likes eggs, and I know how good they are for us, I really want to like them.

So, imagine my sadclown surprise when my magazine editor assigned me deviled eggs for our July feature. It was surprising because mainly I choose my own topics, but I'm always asking for direction because I'm eager to please and insecure.

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Bourbon Apple Cider Spritzer

November 30, 2017 by Lindsay 2 Comments

Honestly I have no clue what this should be called, but it's topped with club soda so....fizz? Spritzer. Sounds light, and Glory knows we need some light around this time of year.

To be fair, I'm not sure a cocktail that involves bourbon and apple cider is reaallllyyy light, but the fizz definitely is. So.

Here's our annual cocktail! I realize that sounds lame, but we are way more beer/wine/vodka tonic types of people not fancy cocktails ever, full stop. BUT, there's something about the holidays that makes it super fun to mix up something festive, you know? My drink of choice when I do decide to get fancy is a dirty vodka martini with as much blue cheese as possible stuffed into olives. Jay thinks it is horrendous, I think he is wrong.

This taste nothing like salty vodka infused with stinky cheese, promise. It was recommended by my friend Kim, who is very smart and cool and a wonderful person and mother. Her husband drinks bourbon straight and this was the answer to "we have a lot of bourbon and I only like bourbon a little bit." She shared it with me, we made it for you, you get it. The testing of this recipe involved Jay saying "I don't know, it's just not quite strong enough" and me going "RIGHT, its' the first drink of the night." It was comical, and at the end of the night we were fiiiiiine on strength of cocktail. ...

Healthy Sweet Potato Casserole (In the Microwave!)

November 14, 2017 by Lindsay 2 Comments

This super easy healthy Thanksgiving side dish is made in the microwave with just a few ingredients! The citrus + ginger in this healthy sweet potato casserole SHINES, and anything off the stovetop and out of the oven is a win for big holiday meals. We love this as a side dish for garlicky roast pork as well!

...I type as I'm going back and forth with two different families about Thanksgiving menus, aka MY SUPER BOWL.

I love meal planning so much, it's just the best.

THESE, also, are just the best, I present to you, Grandmother's Sweet Potatoes (healthy sweet potato casserole). My grandmother was a lifelong reader, and very often would send me recipes or clippings of food articles she found that she thought would interest me (they all did, I adore reading about food). I think that's how this recipe came to be; she found a version of it in the newspaper or in a magazine, then my dad started making it once he took on Thanksgiving for our family.

We have these lightened up sweet potatoes every Christmas and Thanksgiving, and I've already made them once this year for a Friendsgiving! They are SO good, and really different from anything else sweet potato you've had before, I can almost promise.

First and foremost, this entire recipe can be made in the microwave, which is huge when it comes to fighting for oven space before big meals. We've finished these in the oven or microwave, and I swear you can't tell the difference one way or another. The sweet potatoes are also initially baked in the microwave, which saves time and doesn't heat up the whole dang house. THEN, the potatoes are mashed with lemon juice and orange juice and just a teensy hint of salt, sugar, and butter. The mixture goes into a baking dish, is nuked or baked a little more, and the lightest, brightest sweet potatoes ever are ready for your Thanksgiving table.

Reviews last weekend included "I was not expecting to like these at all but I did!" So, there. Glowing? Glowing!

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Two Weeks to Thanksgiving!

November 9, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

In what is probably the busiest week of our lives, we are working a ton, attempting to finish the re-do of our room, finalize Christmas plans, turn in a bunch of projects, and prep food for a mountain girls' weekend that starts TOMORROW. Never have I ever needed time away so badly, although I really really want to bring Beck.

But! In addition to prepping for this weekend I'm already thinking about Thanksgiving! I've been sharing some of my favorite oldie-but-goodie recipes on Instagram, which I really wish you'd follow me on, but I'd also like to direct your attention to the THANKSGIVING AND CHRISTMAS CATEGORY PAGE. ...

Four Cheese Spinach Artichoke Dip

October 23, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

HAPPY MONDAY.

You deserve this. How was your weekend? Ours was fabulous, filled with a wedding with wonderful friends, cooking, family time, begging Beck to sit in a high chair to eat (??), yard work, enjoying fall weather, the absolute most perfect mix of relaxation and fun and productivity.

So instead of ruining that feeling with vegetables or a salad or similarly boring Monday meal, we're cutting straight to next weekend, where you should probably definitely for sure make THIS. Super simple spinach artichoke dip with four cheeses, including goat. Goat cheese makes it fancy, duh. My sister actually came up with the idea and I made a big batch of this for our last family gathering, and the dip was GONE in about four seconds. We have garlic and green onion for flavor, so much cheese, and the base is vegetables which practically makes this a salad, so no worries if you end up making this today and eating it with a spoon for dinner.

Let's not waste any more time talking about it.

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Roasted Cauliflower Soup with Gruyere and Bacon

October 2, 2017 by Lindsay 3 Comments

This recipe for roasted cauliflower soup is super simple to make and perfect for meal prep! I use my blender to make it super smooth, but a food processor or even a potato masher would work perfectly for this creamy, cheesy low carb soup with bacon.

Happy October! It FINALLY feels like fall here. Overnight it seems (not it seems, really), we went from 90 degree days, which was so dumb, to chilly nights in the 50's and no hint of a temperature above 80 for the foreseeable future. I know to some of you that sounds like summer, but here we're like IT'S COLD GET A JACKET. Beck still only wants to wear sundresses (she now has opinions and wants to choose her own clothes which is generally something wedding-appropriate), so leggings and cardigans have made her look kind of like a crazy artist for the last few days.

Also, my front porch looks basic af. I love it.

So! To celebrate the season we have this recipe for roasted cauliflower soup. It's almost entirely made of cauliflower, which makes it light, low carb, and vaguely good for you. Bacon, garlic, and Gruyere add the best umami and nuttiness, and we blend the soup so it's practically velvety on your tongue. Plus, it's topped with ROASTED cauliflower for texture and flavor. Definitely omit the bacon and use veggie stock for a vegetarian option - it's delicious that way too.

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Southern Stewed Cabbage

August 2, 2017 by Lindsay 15 Comments

This super yummy recipe for stewed cabbage has just a few ingredients and is so simple to make! I love this on a weeknight for a quick veggie side dish with some grilled maple chicken, but we've made this for Thanksgiving and everyone loves it as a holiday side dish as well!

Oh hey! There are a few teeny tidbits you should know. First, last night I dreamed that my incredibly tiny sister Emily had decided to lose some weight because she met some PhD (?) students who were very thin but younger than her and she decided that she needed to lose weight. We were in some sort of a convenience store and I went full WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU and she got really mad and yelled to our grandparents (?) that I am so mean to her. Then she proceeded to say "it's just the best because once I lose this weight I can set a new goal and lose more!" and then in this convenience store with our grandparents I made her repeat the word anorexia to me the same way I do with Beck when we are working on new words. I'm going to have to call Emily and work....something...out.

All that to say. My sister married a guy named Ben who has a similar essence to Jay. Buzzed head, hipster glasses, casual style. And when Beck was learning to talk and figuring out that more people than just Mama and Daddy existed she referred to Ben as DAH!!! in pictures. Because they look the same but not.

And so now that you know that, you can know that when I did some kind of "what do we eat with cabbage?" query online a few weeks ago when I had 3 heads inexplicably in my fridge, Emily chimed in with BEN LOVES CABBAGE, he chimed in with a link to a recipe similar to this, and that is the story of why we are having a very simple but flavorful and delicious stewed cabbage side dish today.

It's a pretty classic southern thing, and everyone has their own version of it, but the short and sweet is that you chop up cabbage, cook it down in some flavorful liquid, and when it's super tender and flavorful douse it with salt and pepper. Some people steam theirs for health purposes, some people add spices or herbs, use different kinds of cabbage, tons of options. I think anything cooked with onion, butter, salt, and pepper is a winner, so I went that route.

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Broiled Meyer Lemon Green Beans with Basil

March 27, 2017 by Lindsay 5 Comments

Spring is here!

I know, I know, it has sprung, but that's just the dumbest thing ever in all of the land to say, right? Spring has been springing for a few weeks here already with this crazy weather, and some of our daisies and tulips have already done their thing and are gone until next year. Sad because it feels like time is going way too fast, you know?

This time of year I like cooking with a main ingredient and supplementing with salad or proteins that need to be used up. Kind of like spring cleaning for my fridge, no more languishing food, I say to myself every year. It's a noble pursuit. These broiled green beans are definitely flavorful enough to be the absolute star of a dinner with some sliced tomatoes and grilled chicken or similar. They're coated in butter and spices, to start, and the broiler action leaves you with some nice flavorful dark bits and beans that are tender but not sad/mushy. No one likes those guys.

And the Meyer lemon! Tastes like a Cutie + a lemon, but sub regular lemon if you have that instead of a Meyer. It is slightly sweeter than a regular lemon, but either variety would work perfectly. The lemon chars just a little bit and the juice mixes with the butter to make a nice little sauce.

You should probably serve these broiled green beans over rice for sauce-mopping purposes.

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Merry Christmas!

December 24, 2016 by Lindsay 1 Comment

We're grateful for you. Have a lovely day!

photo by mira photographs

Puff Pastry Cheese Straws

December 19, 2016 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Quick + easy + flavor. Christmas week musts!

It always feels like a funny so-close-yet-so-far thing, the last week before Christmas. On the one hand, work is hopefully winding down and things are done, but on the other hand I have 10 million more gifts to get and am LISTING MY HOUSE FOR SALE TOMORROW.

But time still marches on and we still have events that require goodies and hostess gifts and snacks, right? You get it.

Don't list your house for sale 5 days before Christmas. Trust me.

No matter how busy or unbusy you are this week, you definitely for sure need these cheese straws in your life. They're super easy because we use frozen puff pastry as the base, but sharp cheese and a few spices make them super tasty with very little effort. My grandmother always made traditional cheese straws, the kind that are like a shortbread and require piping. I loved them so much and miss her so much, but God BLESS I have nowhere near the kind of time or patience. This is the best imitation I can muster.

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Baby + Toddler Gift List

December 14, 2016 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Tis the season!

Well, you've probably done all of the shopping in the world that you need to do, and THAT'S GREAT FOR YOU. I, on the other hand, have barely started. I've gotten gifts for most of my friends and our adopt-a-kid gifts are due Thursday, THEN I'll move on to our families. It's just how the year has gone.

But! My favorite people to buy for are babies, hands down. I'm fully obsessed with baby gear and like having a few different-but-practical ideas for kids + parents. Christmas is a perfect time for a few overpriced gems, so spoil away! PS some of these links are Amazon Affiliate links, which means I get like $1 of whatever you buy if you use the link down there, so that's nice. ...

Easy Dry Glazed Ham

December 13, 2016 by Lindsay 14 Comments

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.

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Parsley Feta Cheeseball

December 7, 2016 by Lindsay 1 Comment

Party could be swapped in for parsley here, FOR SURE.

So, this summer, when I was on my blog break, my sister got married! To Ben. Ben hadn't been around for suuuuper long, but he wears black plastic glasses and has a short beard and bald head like my husband, so we went with it. It's rather uncanny.

But really! My sister and Ben had been together for about a year and are both teachers, so I think they had a moment where they looked at each other, shrugged, and planned a wedding and a house sale and a move in 6 weeks. Quick and dirty was exactly what my sister wanted (I'm the same, the extended engagements aren't our thing), so they got married and now we have a new brother in law and a new niece, who happens to be a killer baker.

Ben's a great cook and experiments with new recipes a lot, which I appreciate at family events especially because I tend to make the same things for every holiday and feel annoyed at myself for not changing it up. A version of this classic cheese ball was present at Thanksgiving and I IMMEDIATELY knew that it needed to make an appearance on this blog for your Christmas spread. It's a super easy recipe, but the contrast of the rich cheese and tons of parsley is just insanely delicious to me. See also: raw onion really finely diced that adds huge flavor to the ball after it sits in the fridge for a few hours. Not oniony, just flavorful. Promise.

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Rosemary Parmesan Snack Mix

December 5, 2016 by Lindsay 2 Comments

For Christmas presents!

Every year since I've written this blog, I've tried to give you an idea or two for a Christmas gift. I think exactly ONE year (maybe two?) I gave a suggestion that wasn't food. That's me being "authentic," aka lazy aka predictable. I prefer giving gifts of food. Sometimes I'll make it a thing, like a casserole in a nice dish that also serves as the gift, but I really like giving food and kitchen-related gifts. I think this is because I like being right and know a lot about food and kitchen gear, or so I tell myself.

It's a personality flaw, but at least I'm aware of it? You decide.

This is also fully enabling my super duper strong nostalgia happening right now due to mah bebe turning one in four days. FOUR! She wore shoes this weekend for the first time and only screamed a little bit. She's practically in college.

Growing up my grandmother made gallons and gallons of Chex mix every year for the holidays, and now my dad does. He makes a super classic version that's heavy on peanut flavor and Worcestershire sauce, and we gobble it up by the fistful. I have nothing in the world against classic party mix and still secretly love it from a bag on car trips. Buttttt I also love fresh rosemary and it's just so perfect for this time of year. So, I made a nearly-classic-with-a-twist version of snack mix that you should 1. make asap and 2. give away in jars as gifts. Maybe with a bottle of fancy Worcestershire sauce or something cheesy like that.

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Barbecue Bacon Butternut Bites

November 30, 2016 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Listen. I don't invent recipes solely on alliterative ingredients.

But when it happens, I'm not terribly mad about it, you know? It just feels right. It's informative, too!

Ok so here's your holiday appetizer. I wish I could say I was a great planner and had planned this allll along but secretly we made these last week for Thanksgiving so why not share them now, you know? On the eve of December, the time of year where you need 1 appetizer about every 4 hours for some gathering or another. Here's your go-to. Butternut cubes roasted with a barbecue-ish spice blend, topped with bacon and some green onions which is practically a salad. The spice blend is going to then make an appearance on grilled chicken for the next 4 years of your life because it's GOOD, and your friends and family will love you for not bring spinach artichoke dip, because that's their go-to. This is yours. ...

Thanksgiving Favorites

November 22, 2016 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

2 more days!

We are celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday AND Friday, then Jay's birthday is on Saturday, and at some point we are decorating our house for Christmas, which is my most favorite thing to do all year. I love it so much. I'm taking the rest of the week off from the blog, but wanted to leave you with a few more ideas for your holiday meals. These are some of my favorites for the whole season, so don't just stash them away this week!

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Holiday Mules

November 21, 2016 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

We aren't really cocktail people, I'll be honest.

Jay likes vodka mixed with....Le Croix, mostly, which I guess is technically a cocktail, but it's very rarely that we drink some kind of a specialty mixed drink at home or restaurants. Mainly because they're complicated (at home) and expensive (out), and we're lazy and cheap. Full disclosure.

But! That doesn't mean we aren't fully into all the holiday-spiced stuff that is available right now - flavorings, combinations, amped up classic cocktails, I know you've seen them. We've had a few at restaurants that are truly delicious, and I wanted to make a simple version at home to complement a drink setup at a holiday party. I think offering too much liquor is a recipe for disaster (just our friends?), but that having beer + wine + one cocktail at an event is lovely and charming without being too expensive or too much work.

So that's what we're doing! A take on a regular Moscow Mule with ginger simple syrup and soda instead of ginger beer. The garnishes are distinctly holiday, but the recipe can be used year round, DUH. The simple syrup takes all of 5 minutes to make, and gets more delicious the longer it hangs out with the spices in the fridge. So, make now, serve at every weekend until January 4, give or take.

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Cornbread Oyster Dressing

November 17, 2016 by Lindsay 2 Comments

It sounds gross but it's not!

This is a new dish for me, and one that I only know about because of Jay. This was his request for "something new for Thanksgiving," and I'm doubling it as his Birthday Blog Dish, which isn't a real thing but should totally be a real thing. Jay's birthday is on or around Thanksgiving (13 days before Beck's interestingly), but he's not into desserts much (we don't eat them that often, and he's more into calories elsewhere), so it's not terribly practical for me to throw a huge cake around here once a year. Because I'd end up eating it all.

But! This he's totally on board with. A family friend that we've had several holidays with makes a version of oyster dressing which, best I can tell, is something of a New Orleans invention. It's not supposed to be fishy necessarily, but super savory and umami-ish from the salty oysters and bacon. Like any stuffing it can be made well in advance, but it does need oven space right before the meal - should that factor into any of your meal planning.

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Apple Pie

November 15, 2016 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Step 2 in our make-ahead Thanksgiving Dessert Trying New Things in 2016!

It's a working title.

Anyway, pie! I made us pie. Specifically, I made apple pie that can be frozen, baked from a frozen state, and an all-butter pie crust made in the food processor. It was easy, tasted great, and you can literally make this today to bake next Thursday and no one will be the wiser. There are a few items such as turkey, gravy, and fresh veggies that obviously need to be made on the day of your big holiday meal, so I'm all about listing the things that can be made ahead with no sacrificing of flavor or quality. Desserts are almost all great if made a few days in advance, and this is tricky in that you make it in advance but bake it on the day of (after everything comes out of the oven, while you're eating your turkey), so it fully tastes fresh and warm and cozy. Everyone needs a little bit of cozy, right?

Right. ...