• Grilled vegetable salad with avocado

    grilled vegetable salad with avocado

    Even though Super Bowl is all about beer, meat and football, I thought we should have at least one healthy thing at our party. And I wanted it to be something delicious and interesting, not just a couple of wilty celery sticks shoved on the table at the last minute. Usually, I’d make this guacamole […]

  • Resolve to eat your vegetables

    I recently had lunch with one of my best friends from high school (who I don’t see very much anymore, sadly), and she mentioned that when the book “Deceptively Delicious” — a cookbook for moms who want to hide vegetable puree in their children’s meals — came out, she bought it so she could trick […]

  • Best-ever Thanksgiving sweet potatoes (with marshmallows)

    best thanksgiving sweet potatoes

    My mom makes the best Thanksgiving sweet potatoes ever. How do I know? Besides the fact that I have eaten them since (probably) infancy, every person I have ever served them to loves them — and usually asks for the recipe. Obviously this don’t have to only be made for Thanksgiving, but I’m not sure […]

  • Buttermilk mashed potatoes

    My mom makes the best mashed potatoes. They’re not fancy, they don’t contain carmelized shallots or fresh herbs or bacon bits… just potatoes, sour cream, milk and plenty of butter. So it’s not really a surprise that Toby’s dinner of choice tends to be pork tenderloin, cheese biscuits, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and a […]

  • Southwestern butternut squash saute

    I have a really hard time getting dinner on the table every night — particularly a well-balanced, homemade dinner. Do you have this problem? It seems like it always turns into a thing. What do we want to eat? Do we want to try to eat something healthy? Do we have anything in the fridge? […]

  • Roasted root vegetables

    I know roasted root vegetables don’t sound as exciting as three-layer cakes and frosted brownies. But, seriously? Don’t let the not-so-appetizing word “root” fool you: These are delicious and super easy. And at least a teeny bit healthier than brownies. Predictably, you start with raw vegetables. I used a turnip, carrots, parsnips and a sweet […]

  • Brussels sprouts with orange butter sauce

    Here’s the thing: If you had asked me a year or two ago to make a list of the things I could never, ever see myself cooking and blogging about, that list would look something like this. 1. Fish/shellfish 2. Mushrooms 3. Brussels sprouts And yet, here I am. With a bag of Brussels sprouts […]

  • Baked sweet potatoes and bananas

    When I first saw this recipe on Tyler Florence’s website, I wasn’t sure if it was a recipe for baby food or regular food. He does both. And while I know nothing about babies and their eating habits, I would have to guess this would work as a baby food item. But it also works […]

  • Spicy(ish) bean salad with roasted corn

    I talked to my friend Aaren for the first time in a long time a few weeks ago, and after talking about a lot of other stuff, she mentioned that she and her sister Jenna read my blog and were wondering why I was posting things like Mexican wedding cakes when I am supposed to […]

  • OMG I’m craving spaghetti… squash

    I believe you all know I love pasta. But it’s not just the carbs. I must have some kind of lycopene deficiency or something, because I totally crave the tomato sauce. So, if I can’t have spaghetti, I need another vehicle for the sauce. I had never eaten spaghetti squash before, but I figured it […]