Green bean casserole is one of my sneaky favorites at Thanksgiving, partially because it’s a dish I really only eat at the holiday so each bite has nostalgic flavors. I’ve made a few riffs on Thanksgiving green bean recipes over the years and had an idea to dress up those crunchy veggies with the savory, rich flavors of French onion soup. The recipe starts with caramelizing the onions, which takes quite a bit of time! The good news is you can prep the onions in advance, get them caramelized the day before, deglaze the pan and add in the green beans, and then store the dish covered in the fridge until you’re ready to serve it. On Thanksgiving Day, just add the cheese on top and bake it in the oven – it may need 5 extra minutes of cooking time to get the onions and green beans bubbling hot again. I like to make this in a dish that can go from oven to stove to table, it’s one less dish to worry about when hosting (I use this stainless steel pan). The onion flavor is sweet and savory from the caramelization, and the melted cheese on top gives the dish a salty balance – it’ll make you want an extra helping of green beans on your Thanksgiving plate! Get the full recipe below:
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It’s hard to improve mashed potatoes, I mean they’re carbs mixed with butter, so basically perfection in a side dish! I love to experiment with little tweaks to my favorite Thanksgiving dishes and had the zany idea to give my classic mashed potato recipe a Cacio e Pepe twist! I started with peeled russet potatoes and cooked them until they’re tender, while reserving a bit of the starchy potato water. When you make cacio e pepe, the starchy pasta water is key to a silky sauce! In a pan of melted butter and lots of cracked black pepper, I whisked in fresh parmesan cheese with the starchy potato water and a tiny bit of heavy cream to create a gooey, nutty, cheesy sauce that gets poured over the hot potatoes and mashed together. Mashing the potatoes by hand is KEY to getting them light and fluffy (I use this masher). In a recipe like this where the ingredients are so simple, quality makes a big difference – spring for good parmesan cheese and a high-quality butter (I like Kerrygold!), they’ll add so much flavor to the dish! Get the full recipe below:
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I keep hearing the phrase “back to routine” repeated, as back-to-school season also means a different schedule for many of the grown-ups this fall. Whether you’re going back into an office or shifting your routine with kids back in school, I always find the first few weeks of September to be a re-setting period — it’s my New Years of the fall! With that comes a chance to start fresh and set myself up for success with good habits – like preparing healthy, smart lunches (the bar is low, since most days I’m grabbing a half-eaten PB&J slice of a toddler’s lunch plate!). A big hearty salad with crunchy Little Leaf Farms greens is one of my go-to options, and I thought I’d share a few ways that I keep lunch salads feeling new – a refresh to your salad routine!
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If there could be an official meal of summer 2021, this would be it: Eggplant Caprese! My garden has been producing eggplant like crazy this year, and with tomatoes also at their peak we have been eating this simple dish on repeat. I make crispy breaded eggplant and layer it with sliced juicy tomatoes, loads of fresh basil leaves, and tuck it all around a decadent burrata or fresh mozzarella. Season everything well with salt and pepper, the salt brings out even more flavor in the tomatoes – and give it a light drizzle of olive oil and good balsamic before serving. Summer perfection!
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So many of my favorite summer ingredients rely on pollination by honeybees. In fact, I designed my whole veggie garden this summer with attracting more bees in mind! My friends at The National Honey Board and Allrecipes Magazine challenged me to create a seasonal dish that highlights these pollinator-friendly ingredients and I tossed together this fresh salad of tomatoes, avocados, cucumbers, oranges, chives, and of course a honey-base vinaigrette. I think the bees would approve! Learn more at honey.com, check out the current issue of Allrecipes Magazine with my feature, and get the simple recipe below!
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Macaroni salad is always a staple at our summer gatherings, if the grill is full of hot dogs and hamburgers then you can bet that I’ve made this is a side dish! I gave my traditional macaroni salad recipe a bit of a refresh with a buttermilk-herb dressing that coats each bite of pasta with tons of tangy flavor. It’s also full of colorful, crunchy veggies like broccoli florets, bell peppers and carrots (and my favorite ingredient – the green olives!). Get the recipe below and give this a save for your next summer grilling side dish!
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My garden is just starting to produce a few of my favorite spring-summer ingredients — the basil plants are looking robust and my English peas are climbing the trellises. I’m jumping on the opportunity to pluck the basil and blend up a batch of simple, fragrant homemade pesto sauce with a twist — this version has peas blended into the sauce as well as tossed whole with al dente pesto-coated pasta. The benefit of pesto is that even loosely following a recipe will yield good results, you can always play around with proportions and it’ll almost always taste good! Mix it with any pasta shape of your choice, I love these long curly fusilli that capture the pesto and peas in each twist of the fork. Get the full recipe below:
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Over the last few years, I’ve put a big focus on reducing food waste at our house. Being a food writer and stylist, there are weeks when we have a veryrandom assortment of leftovers and ingredients from various client projects taking up space in our fridge. I’ve developed lots of little tricks to make the most of what’s on hand to reduce the amount of food waste we create. It’s a great way to save money, but more than that, it’s better for the environment. The EPA estimates that in the United States, more food reaches landfills than any other single material in our everyday trash. And when food decomposes in landfills the nutrients in the food never return to the soil — the wasted food rots and produces methane gas.
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A quick batch of hand-cut sweet potato fries are a go-to side dish for weeknight dinners, and I love to serve them with a chili-lime dip made with tasty sour cream. The sour cream is a perfect balance for the heat in the dip and I’ve even been known to add a little bit to the top of my burger bun for extra flavor too! A few secrets for getting the fries super crispy: dust them with corn starch before baking, space them out on the pan to so they have room to crisp, and wait to season them with salt until after they’re fully cooked! Get the recipe below:
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I’ve been craving a big, restaurant-style Caesar salad and mixed up one from scratch this week. The keys to an amazing Caesar salad: crunchy crisp greens, lots of fresh cracked black pepper and salty parmesan cheese, and a fresh, homemade dressing! It’s simple to make, and the vigorous whisking can count as your arm workout for the day. A few tips: You can use whole anchovies, but I opt for the paste since you only need a tiny bit and it lasts longer in the fridge! And if the raw egg makes you nervous you can substitute 1 Tbsp of mayonnaise for the egg yolk. See the recipe below:
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