Before I share recipes on the blog I like to do lots of testing and experimenting, and since I got a new air fryer I have been doing just that.After lots of trials with a variety of dishes, I’m excited to share my first air fryer recipe today: air fryer corned beef and cabbage spring rolls for St. Patrick’s Day! Corned beef and cabbage always reminds me of my as-Irish-as-they-come grandpa, a dish my as-Italian-as-they-come grandma would make for him on St. Patrick’s Day (it was a lot of meatballs and lasagna the other 364 days a year and he didn’t complain!). This version has a modern twist, and I think would be quite fun to make as an appetizer to enjoy on St. Patrick’s Day while sipping your favorite Irish beer. The ingredients get rolled up in a spring roll wrapper (wonton wrappers would work well too!) and crisped up quickly in the air fryer. Serve it was a good grainy mustard for dipping! Get the recipe below:
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A few months ago I got a real craving for chocolate mousse. I dug around for a recipe, made it for no occasion at all, and whipped up a decadent dark chocolate batch. In the process I realized two things: 1) it’s actually quite simple to make, and 2) it’s SO DARN DELICIOUS. I am in a season of mousse right now and have made it a few more times since, each time better than the next. I thought I’d try my hand at a St. Patrick’s Day inspired version and incorporated Guinness beer into the recipe! I served them in wide champagne coupes for easiest spoon-ability, but consider putting them in beer glasses with extra whipped cream to mimic the look of a that classic Guinness beer with a white foamy top! Get the festive recipe below: 
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Our family is continuing our efforts to eat more vegetarian meals each week and this Taco Lentil Soup recipe has been a perfect weeknight dish to help us with that goal. A few things I love about this recipe: 1) it’s easy to make and is a one-pot meal for quick clean up, 2) it’s full of pantry staples like dry lentils, canned beans, salsa and taco spices so I can make it when there’s not much in the fridge, and 3) the recipe is great for making ahead of time and reheats well for leftovers.
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We are in a stage of toddler-hood where everything and anything must be tied to a seasonal theme. We need decorations on all of our windows that feature the nearest holiday, our Sunday morning pancakes must be in the shape of a holiday icon (bunnies! shamrocks! hearts!), and even our after dinner treats require some seasonal touches. Jane requested St. Patrick’s Day cookies and we made this green M&M cookie recipe together on a recent snowy day.
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I am always on a mission to reduce food waste, and one of my favorite ways to use up the scraps leftover in our fridge is to make a big pot of chicken stock. It’s a ritual in our house, every few weeks I’ll roast a chicken for dinner and use the leftovers for lunches and the bones for replenishing my stash of chicken stock (it freezes well for later use!). The stock is a kitchen staple –I use it in so meals from soups and sauces, and it even tastes great on it’s own. My secret to make fast work of stocking up on stock is to use my Instant Pot. 
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I’m sitting at my desk and staring out the window — looking at the blanket of snow covering our yard — and the idea of springtime seems quite distant. My friends at Christmas Tree Shops andThat! invited me into their stores last week to preview all of the festive new items for spring and Easter, and it got me so excited for that snow to melt, for the flowers to bloom and to celebrate in the season ahead!
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Last week my friend Sarah Waldman — a fellow food writer and my go-to-gal for clean beauty advice — and I hosted a little chat on IG Live. We talked all about how we both got on our clean beauty journey (read more about mine here) and then dug into some of our favorite products. We specifically chatted a lot about winter skin — and both of us have very different skin types so I thought it was interesting to see the products we both love and a few of the unique items she recommended that weren’t on my radar — Sarah loves the face oils, I’m a serum gal! You can go back and watch the entire interview on my instagram page, and I thought I’d share a few of the highlights from it in a blog post. Scroll down for some of our favorite clean beauty products for winter (and PS: new customers can get 20% off their orders right now — just visit beautycounter.com/katebowler to shop!)
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I’m kicking off another year of my annual reading list — it’s a running list of every book I’ve read with a brief recap and mini-book review. Last year I didn’t meet the goal I set, I fell short because I had a hard time focusing at night and was juggling a lot during the end of the year (weren’t we all?!). I’m just starting to get back into the reading groove and it’s such a good way for me to escape and power down at the end of the day (and fingers crossed that later in 2021 I’ll get to do some vacation reading if we ever get to travel again!). One of my goals this year is to focus on diversity over quantity. Instead of setting a goal for the number of books I want to read, I’m challenging myself instead to read from diverse authors, perspectives, and genres. See everything I read in year’s past on 2018’s list, 2019’s list and 2020’s list for more book inspiration and scroll down for my current reading queue:
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I’ve got an easy little hack to make a double-duty Valentine’s Day treat for all of your sweethearts! Since we’ll likely all be spending Valentine’s Day hunkered down together, I took my favorite boxed brownie mix (Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Brownies, omg) and made a kid friendly batch to celebrate with Jane, and a grown-up version to serve for a special “date-night” with my husband.
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The snow is coming down outside, and I’d venture to guess lots of other parents like me are trying to figure out how to entertain their kids this morning. I love a seasonal DIY project, Jane loves a seasonal DIY project, and we both had a really fun time making this one for Valentine’s Day: recycled heart crayons! We have a big plastic container in our playroom that holds all the random crayons — broken crayons, crayons from restaurants, crayons from craft kits, crayons that somehow ended up in the bottom of my purse. With a little bit of prep work, a silicon mold, and some color sorting, we recycled the abandoned crayons and melted them down into festive heart shapes to share with our friends. 
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