Category Archives: recipes

please pass the cranberry sauce.

After this Thanksgiving, I’m adding canned cranberry sauce to the list of Things I Shall Not Buy Because They’re Too Durned Easy to Make From Scratch. {Also on the list: whipped cream.}

fresh cranberries

When I volunteered to bring the cranberry sauce to family dinner, I planned on making a version of my grandmother’s Cranberry Congealed Salad (it’s a southern thing; check out Paula Deen’s recipe if you have no idea what a congealed salad is). During my pre-Turkey-Day grocery trip, I saw fresh cranberries on BOGO so I grabbed a couple of bags with no clue what I’d do with them. About halfway through prepping for the original plan, I realized I hadn’t given myself enough time to let the gelatin set. With a quick Google search, I found this super simple recipe for homemade cranberry sauce and switched gears. Impulse-purchased fresh produce to the rescue!

homemade cranberry sauce

All it takes is a 12-oz bag of fresh or frozen cranberries, a cup of sugar, a cup of water, and about 12 minutes.

As the cranberries cook, they burst like “tiny ticking time bombs,” as C exclaimed as a rogue berry popped him while he stood over the stove. Watch out, they spit. {Aladdin reference, anyone?}

homemade cranberry sauce

This was way yummier than anything I’ve had from a can, and is now officially one of my go-to quick and easy side dishes for the holidays.

What did you guys whip up for Thanksgiving dinner? I love a good recipe swap…

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I was going to post tonight…

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{image via Iowa Girl Eats}

… but I’ve been fantasizing about this recipe since I pinned it last week, and nothing cures a case of the Mondays like a home cooked meal. I’ve managed to tear myself away from the stove and my tasting spoon while this beautiful concoction simmers to final perfection to tell you this:

Point your browser to Iowa Girl Eats, and bookmark that shiz immediately. Kristin’s blog is chock-full of recipes that are easy to follow and replicate, and everything I’ve made has been just… yum. Plus she’s adorable and witty, and as you read through her posts and peep her pictures it feels like you’re sitting in her kitchen while she whips up a meal.

So I’ll be back with our regularly-scheduled programming tomorrow, but until then — chili mac and cheese until our faces fall off.

mini lemon blueberry cheesecakes

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For family and friend get-togethers, I’m usually charged with bringing dessert. Which is a-okay with me, because I love myself some sweets. Even more, I love finding simple recipes that I can throw together quickly but look like I drudged in the kitchen for hours.

For Labor Day, I spent a luxuriously lazy day with some of my closest friends hanging out on the water, followed by an uhh-mazing dinner. We finished up with these mini lemon blueberry cheesecakes I adapted from this recipe.

Keep reading for the super simple rundown…

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monday night’s dinner: hunter-style chicken

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In my recent Keeping it Together post {loved all your feedback and tips} I mentioned that I try to make healthy home-cooked meals as often as possible. I thought I’d start sharing some of my favorite husband-approved easy recipes to give you some mid-week dinner inspiration!

Monday night I made a Weight Watchers version of chicken cacciatore, or hunter-style chicken. I love an easy one-dish recipe — fewer dishes to clean, FTW — and The Mister gave this dish an A+.

You can find the original recipe here. Start to finish, it took me about 30 minutes to whip this up (omitting five minutes for first aid, but we’ll get to that later).

The before and the fingers-crossed-it-looks-this-good after. I used a whole chicken that was cut up by the butcher at my grocery store.

I live by the principle that you should try to get as many colors as possible in your diet (artificial dyes excluded).

Evidence that you should not cook while distracted, exhausted, or tipsy from a glass of wine after a crazy day at work. Exhibit A: the large burn on my forearm from putting a tray of sweet potato tots in the oven a few nights before. Exhibit B: a sliced finger from a botch onion-chopping job. We were out of bandaids, so I had to rig up a tourniquet after my head stopped spinning from the sight of my own blood. My grandmother is shaking her head at me from heaven.