I am so incredibly excited to get our Christmas tree this year. Since it’s Jane’s first Christmas, it’s like I’m experiencing the holidays for the first time too. You should have seen her eyes widen when we walked down the holiday decorations aisle at the store the other day, and she saw all of the trees and lights and giant blow-up lawn decorations. She was in complete awe. I know these moments of childhood holiday magic can be fleeting, so I’m determined to start new traditions right away and take advantage of this time when the holidays have that extra special sparkle.
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As if I didn’t already love dip enough, stick it in a bread bowl and I’m on cloud nine. I thought it would be fun for the holidays to put a new spin on this dip and bread bowl combination and found an easy way to make my own bread “wreath” to wrap around a bowl of Heluva Good! Dips. This is a holiday entertaining DIY for those who are short on time but still want to put something extra special out during this season for guests.
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As the holiday season starts off, I love dusting off the entertaining skills and brainstorming new ways to celebrate with family, food and drinks! When I’m coming up with new recipe ideas, I always like to start with in-season ingredients. Around Thanksgiving and into the Christmas season, there is nothing tastier (and local to my area!) than using cranberries in recipes. I’ve found countless ways to add them into my entertaining mix in the past and continue to find new ideas for incorporating them into drinks, appetizers and décor.
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I’m keeping pace with my summer Farmer’s Market challenge (in fact it’s the one thing I’ve marked off my summer bucket list – I need to tackle my summer reading list and some of our day-trips before summer slips away). So far I’ve made a charred summer vegetable salad, mixed in tons of fresh veggies in a farmer’s market pasta dish, and made use of those first summer tomatoes with a fresh bruschetta mixed with brine-y olives. The berries are starting to show up on the tables at our little Farmer’s Market and I had to scoop up some bright red strawberries to play with, and I ended up with a tasty strawberry goat cheese crostini recipe this week. 
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I am on a Farmer’s Market kick right now and am doing well with my own personal challenge to try a new recipe each week inspired by the seasonal ingredients I’m finding there. This week, I started to see a nice variety of sweet, colorful summer tomatoes and knew they were the ingredient for me. Appetizers have been on my mind with all of the upcoming summer celebrations and BBQs. I thought it would be a fun idea to create an individually portioned starter that guests could grab and nibble on while playing lawn games.
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Every year at Christmas our family friends serve these amazing meatballs as an appetizer at their annual holiday party. It’s one of my favorite food traditions, and I was thinking about how delicious they were recently. I got the idea in my head to rethink the flavors in this tasty appetizer and give them a warm-weather spin to serve at summer parties. We’re huge fans of spicy food at my house, and drizzle hot sauce on just about anything we can get our hands on, and adding some heat to a meatball appetizer seemed like just the perfect idea.
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I’m super excited to have one of my recipes featured in this month’s issue of Family Circle, a perfect treat for those last few January Sundays on the couch watching football. I took a classic game day snack and gave it a healthier twist with a big tray of crispy baked brussels sprouts tossed with a classic game-day flavor: buffalo wing sauce. The spicy brussels sprouts are baked to a crisp and pairs with a cool, refreshing Hidden Valley Ranch dip. I love that combination of spicy heat and cool ranch flavors — it makes these so addictive! Serve them on their own, or as a fun side dish for burgers or chicken sandwiches. 
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With the weather getting cooler, the holidays inching closer, and my pregnant silhouette getting bigger and bigger by the day, all I really want to do on the weekends now is cancel plans, hibernate by the fireplace, and indulge in some rich, tasty snacks. Those savory appetizers that can almost replace a whole meal have been front of mind for me, and I got an idea for this one after Family Circle Magazine asked me to create a holiday dish that featured California Walnuts. Their nutty flavor paired with crisp diced apples that are cooked down with sugar and spices and drizzled over the warm brie for a sweet and savory appetizer that will impress your guests this holiday season! Check out the write-up in this month’s issue of Family Circle Magazine, and access the recipe below: 
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Leftover from my early-pregnancy period of morning sickness is a bit of a distaste for vegetables at the moment. I’m trying my best to eat healthy, but sneaking in veggies has been a challenge. So I’ve been trying hard to find any flavors of vegetable that sounds moderately appealing to me, and go full-force packing those into my diet. Butternut Squash has such a sweetness to it, that I can almost trick myself into thinking it’s less veggie and more like a treat! This weekend I experimented with a homemade hearty butternut squash soup packed with tons of vegetables and autumnal flavors. I hid a few carrots in there, and an apple and shallots for even more flavor. Some salty roasted pepitas and crusty bread make it a perfect chilly fall day meal! Full recipe below:
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This post was created in partnership with Keurig Green Mountain® . All opinions, images, and ideas are my own.
With a theme like pumpkins and apples, I was pretty sure that most of the recipes brought to the potluck would be on the sweeter side. We had lots of baked goods (and no one was complaining!) featuring these fall flavors, and served with warm Green Mountain™ Hot Apple Cider (made with real apples!) brewed at the touch of a button from my Keurig® K475 brewer. The hot apple cider is such a perfect fall treat, with hints of cinnamon and brown sugar. With all of the sweet flavors, I decided for my apple-themed recipe I needed to bring something a bit savory to the table to balance out our menu and pair well with the Green Mountain™ Hot Apple Cider. 
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