Bok Choy with Garlic and Bay Leaf

June 03, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in cooking, sophie

Have you had bok choy? I never did until we started growing vegetables for a living. It is well received at market, so it has become a spring staple. It is a Chinese cabbage that is delightfully crunchy, crisp at the bottom (sort of like celery) with dark, tasty leaves on top. It has the slightest hint of the spice you get from a turnip, a touch of bitter earthiness like kale, and the tender smoothness you get from spinach. It is also tastiest on the smaller side. Then it is much more tender and can be eaten raw, sliced into a salad or on its own. As it gets bigger and more mature, the bottom becomes much tougher and the flavor less delicate.

almond raspberry "wedding" cake

May 27, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

A rich vanilla buttermilk layer cake glazed with an amaretto syrup, filled with raspberry jam and topped with a lightly almond-flavored swiss meringue buttercream.

I love this cake, so much. It’s rich, and yet delicate. Sweet, but not too sweet. The flavors come together into a soft balance—just a touch of almond and a kiss of raspberry.

the well-stocked kitchen: essential utensils

May 20, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in collaborative, home & family

Wow, it’s been a while! Like, a whole year since we first began running this series. But we’re back at it again!

Maybe it’s all the extra time we’ve been spending in our kitchens lately as we social distance or maybe it’s just that time of year (weddings, showers) when kitchen supplies are on the mind. Either way, we’re picking up with part 4 of the well-stocked kitchen, a series in which we take a walk through our kitchens and name off what we consider some of our favorite and essential items for cooking and baking.

overnight yukon gold cinnamon rolls with brown butter icing

May 13, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

“We are a cinnamon roll people.”

Out of the mouths of babes. That was the proclamation of my four-year-old daughter mid-morning after recently making, and consuming, a large number of these indulgent cinnamon rolls.

For some time I have been wondering about putting this recipe up on the blog, since we already have a recipe for buttermilk potato cinnamon rolls and another one for pumpkin cinnamon rolls. But if you’re part of a “cinnamon roll people,” clearly you can’t have too many.

Banana Cobbler

May 11, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

This recipe is great in so many ways. It uses up very ripe bananas (a nice switch up from banana bread), requires few ingredients that are almost always on hand, and is delicious.

Fudge frosted bakery-style big & soft peanut butter cookies

May 06, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

A bakery cookie can come as a revelation, or it can be a dud.

I once got a chocolate chip cookie at a local bakery that, when I went to split with my 3yo daughter, shattered into a hundred dry and crumbly pieces. That was a dud.

Two years ago I wrote about our quick 2-day trip down to the Florida Keys, where I had my first and only Matheessen’s cookie. It was the size of my outstretched hand, big and soft and full of peanut butter flavor, topped with a slather of dense and chewy chocolate fudge. The man behind the counter explained how they used to top their peanut butter cookies with chocolate frosting, which proved a bit of a mess. The cookies stacked for display would stick together and the frosting would smear. Then one day the owner was inspired to take their housemade fudge and slather a bit on top just before it set. The resulting cookie was a revelation.

Strawberries and Cream Chiffon Cake

May 04, 2020 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria

This cake is what dreams of springtime are made of. The cake is light and airy like angel food cake, but a bit sturdier, richer, and moister from the vegetable oil and egg yolks. Together with a light whipped cream frosting and sweet tart strawberries, each bite of this cake is a delight. It makes a really large cake that would be perfect for a gathering, but it also keeps really, which is how my family of six enjoyed it for a full three days. A cake like this is really adaptable: add zest to the cake to give it a citrus flavor, brush the cake with a flavored syrup or jam, use different fruits or no fruits at all! But in my opinion, nothing gets more classic than strawberries and cream and the textures suit the flavor profile perfectly.

everything bagel bombs

April 29, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

If you’re into food novelties, these are for you.

Also, if you like convenient party food, these are for you.

Chocolate Peanut Butter

April 26, 2020 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria

This was a recipe I definitely did not mind testing. But though I tested (with LOTS of tasting), there’s still just a lot of wiggle room in the recipe. When you have a treat like chocolate peanut butter, it might as well be just to your taste. So please don’t be annoyed by my loosey-goosey ingredients list. Feel free to follow it to the letter the first time, but fiddle with it as you please! I really just want to empower you to just try making it, that’s all. And anyway, chocolate and peanuts? You can’t really mess it up.

raspberry oat bars

April 22, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

Linzertorte is a traditional Austrian dessert sandwiching fruit preserves (typically raspberry) between a nut-based pastry and a beautiful lattice top. These raspberry oat bars are the happy result of a search for a linzertorte-like dessert without so much of the hassle, and without the nuts.

Pita Bread

April 08, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in baking, sophie

Have you made pita bread? You should. It is wonderfully easy. Plus, it can be filled with a whole array of things to make a meal (falafel, veggies & rice, meat, bananas & peanut butter, fried eggs & quinoa, etc…). Or, simply have it on the side to enjoy! Toasted and smeared with butter — incredible.

"Twix" Candy Bars

April 06, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in sophie, baking

For the past several years, my sister-in-law and I have been making the bulk of our Easter candies. Both of us love to bake, and it is fun to pick out different recipes to try out, opt for new challenges, and try again to nail a previous favorite.

Broccoli tuna noodle casserole

April 03, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in cooking, sarah

An all-time family favorite, this broccoli tuna noodle casserole is comfort food at its best: cheesy, creamy, crunchy, warm.

The broccoli adds a bright pop of green, and there’s enough of it to satisfy the veggie-conscious out there, but it’s also disguised enough to be acceptable to picky eaters.

Grilled chicken caprese sandwich

March 28, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in sarah, cooking

Okay so when I was in college, there was this local coffee shop in town that also served breakfast and lunch fare, and the Grilled Chicken Caprese was kind of the sandwich. It had a cult-like status among students.

I spent many lunch dates the last semester of my senior year picking apart the Grilled Chicken Caprese, analyzing the components, and storing it away in the back of my mind.

Because when I graduated and moved on, could life even continue without the Grilled Chicken Caprese?

Orange Cranberry Scones

March 23, 2020 by Maria Almeida in baking, maria

If you can’t have too many muffin recipes, neither can you have too many scone recipes. My favorite will always be the impossibly easy cream scones, but I don’t mind a little change up now and then. These scones are lightly orange-scented and studded with tangy cranberries. Cream scones are soft and tender, whereas these butter-based scones have a richer flavor and are a bit dryer with crisp golden edges. They’re good fresh, but my favorite is to wait a bit longer and then slice, toast, and spread them with butter.

Basil mint cake with pistachio chantilly cream

March 17, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in baking, sarah

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Just over a year ago I came across a recipe for a parsley cake while visiting Maria and flipping through her copy of Food52’s Genius Desserts cookbook. It was love at first sight…a crazy vibrant green herb-loaded cake.

Everyday Soda Bread

March 14, 2020 by Sophie Barrows in sophie, baking

Ever since writing this post our first year up and running, I’ve begun to bake Irish soda bread beyond the annual St. Patrick’s day. It is too good not to enjoy more times of the year! Plus, it is so quick and easy. We are a bread with every meal (basically) family, so soda bread is a great one to fall back on.

meatless meals

March 13, 2020 by Sarah Blanchard in collaborative, cooking

Lent: it’s the time of year when more meatless meals make it into the weekly recipe rotation.

To make things easier for you (and ourselves!) we’ve rounded up some of our favorite meatless meal recipes from the blog into a single post.

Cornmeal Gnocchi with Cumin Lime Refried Black Beans

March 11, 2020 by Maria Almeida in cooking, maria

The inspiration for this dish came from 1) how often we eat rice and beans or quesadillas with beans or burritos with rice and cheese and beans, and 2) a dish called Gnocchi alla Romana that my family loves. Gnocchi alla Romana, if you’ve never had it (but you should!), is nothing like the potato gnocchi you proably have had before. Basically you cook semolina flour in milk, beat in some eggs and Parmesan, let it cool and firm up, cut into circles and layer around a dish, and then recook in a hot oven until puffed up and crispy and golden. Its AHhhhmazing. We love it with a meaty red sauce or some roasted veggies and Italian sausage. Or just plain. But back to those rice and beans. We eat a lot of that kind of meal. And I doubt if we could ever get sick of it, but still - it’s nice to add a little variation. So I thought, why not swap in a corny grain, use cheddar or monterey jack cheese, and serve it with refried black beans? So I did and it was delicious and the kids loved it and I love having a new way to eat gnocchi (alla Mexicana?) AND beans.