Milk Street BAKES: Almond-Coconut Cake with Cherries and Pistachios recipe and review

Milk Street BAKES (Amazon affiliate link) This is a fabulous baking book! And in Milk Street tradition, it’s filled with recipes that aren’t going to be in the average baking book. So many delicious and unexpected bakes! This is a really fun book to play in. It will be loved by the amateur and the experienced baker alike. It’s a huge volume and the cover design is just gorgeous.

I’ll tell you all about the bakes we tried, but let’s get you that Almond-Coconut Cake with Cherries and Pistachios recipe first! Love love love this cake. Every bite is filled with big pops of flavor. My daughter laughed and said this is what people want fruit cake to taste like. Moist, dense, and rich, and filled with cherries, coconut, and pistachios. Strongly flavored and not a bit sweeter than it needs to be. Go make it. Hug me later!

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Milk Street Bakes: Savory Kale and Two-Cheese Scones recipe and book review

Milk Street BAKES (Amazon affiliate link) This is a fabulous baking book! And in Milk Street tradition, it’s filled with recipes that aren’t going to be in the average baking book. So many delicious and unexpected bakes! This is a really fun book to play in. It will be loved by the amateur and the experienced baker alike. It’s a huge volume and the cover design is just gorgeous.

I’ll tell you all about the bakes we tried, but let’s get you that Savory Kale and Two-Cheese Scones recipe first! They are ammmaaazing! They’re super hearty, and the flavor is dialed all the way up and perfectly balanced. And the texture is to die for. Earthy kale, salty sharp cheeses, a little sweet pop from the raisins, and nutty seeds. They’re total lookers, too.

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Plantain nachos with carnitas and black beans recipe – Nachos for Dinner

#DanWhalen #NachosForDinner #WorkmanPublishing

Nachos for Dinner. Yeah. They totally had me at hello with this title. This is a really fun book! Nachos running the full circuit from traditional to highly imaginative. He has really thought of everything. Everything we tried was delicious and the names he made up had us cracking up. Soupchos, anyone??

Got a recipe for you to try! Plantain nachos with carnitas and black beans. Outstanding! Super flavorful pork over plantain chips with cheddar, black beans, Chihuahua cheese, lime crema, habanana sauce, and avocado. It was a meat and plant fest! Oh, that habanana sauce! Bananas, a ton of habaneros, with onions, cilantro, and garlic. It looks scary hot, but it’s a wonderfully flavorful sweet heat. We love this sauce. Love. I think you will, too! The book comes out this Tuesday! If you grab the book, be sure to make the Buffalo chicken nachos next!

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Braised and Glazed Carrots and Parsnips with Orange and Cardamom recipe – Milk Street Vegetables

#MilkStreet #177MilkStreet #MilkStreetVegetables #ChristopherKimball #JenniferGuerrero #Vegetables #Produce

Braised and Glazed Carrots and Parsnips with Orange and Cardamom. What an amazingly flavorful and bright winter dish with gorgeous sweet warmth! The orange and cardamom make these so special. Holiday fabulous, lovely with any roast, and the perfect accompaniment to Swedish meatballs!

Milk Street Vegetables. I can’t get enough of this book. The New Year is here! Regardless of your thoughts on resolutions, I think we can agree that we all need more vegetables and hydration in our lives. I blogged all about the book last week a few weeks back with a gorgeous Tomato Tart with Olives and Gruyere recipe. And their Patatas Bravas recipe. These links will take you there if you missed them!

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Patatas Bravas recipe – Milk Street Vegetables

#MilkStreet #177MilkStreet #MilkStreetVegetables #ChristopherKimball #JenniferGuerrero #Vegetables #Produce

Patatas Bravas. I could write poetry to these. Super crispy exterior with a pillowy interior. The textures are potato dreams. And there’s a smoky paprika sauce and a garlic aioli for drizzling, dipping, and mopping that put these way over the top. I’ve only had the book for two weeks, and I’ve made them four times already. Not even kidding. Then I tried them with sweet potatoes and added 1 1/2 Tablespoons of brown sugar to the paprika. Just skip the aioli and Bravas sauce. Or don’t! Total BBQ heaven. Go make these. Hug me later!

What’s the book???? Milk Street Vegetables. If you want more vegetable happiness in life, go get this. Treat yo’self! The new year is right around the corner, and more produce is going to help with those health goals. Let’s do this! Grab a second copy to gift someone you think is awesome! I blogged all about the book last week with a gorgeous Tomato Tart with Olives and Gruyere recipe. That link will take you there if you missed it!

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Tomato tart with olives and Gruyere – Milk Street: Vegetables


#MilkStreet #177MilkStreet #MilkStreetVegetables #ChristopherKimball #JenniferGuerrero #Vegetables #Produce

Milk Street’s done it again! They are always super flavorful while being as kitchen-efficient as possible. Milk Street Vegetables is delicious and off the beaten path. I found that while I played in the book, I was centering dinner around the produce and coming up with a little coordinating protein and fresh fruit. Fabulous! Yeah. Totally giftable!

I’ll tell you all about the book and the dishes we tried in a minute, but first I wanted to give you a recipe to try. Tomato tart with olives and Gruyere. The flavor is gorgeous and it’s a total looker. And as frosting on that glorious cake, it’s ridiculously easy and quick. Rich puff pastry with earthy tomatoes and onions, briny olives and capers, mustard for a sharp flavor pop, finished with herby fresh basil kisses. We loved everything about this and it’s truly Tuesday night easy. Hope you love it, too!

A huge thanks to the folks at Milk Street and Voracious for letting me share this and two more upcoming recipes with you!

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Speedy Pork Scaloppine recipe – Pioneer Woman Cooks: Super Easy!

#PioneerWoman #ReeDrummond #PioneerWomanCooks #SuperEasy #SheetPanSupper #Healthy #Delicious

Cutlets, scaloppine, schnitzel… Call it what you like, but every culture has a version of these with good reason – they’re awesome! If you’re not sure you love pork chops, here’s a great chance to fix that situation, or you could use chicken if you really want to. Just don’t skip the sauce. It’s wonderful. It’s like a lemony gravy. She suggests “loaded crash hots” (loaded little potatoes). Asparagus and green beans both play so nicely with that sauce, though…

One of my favorite things about Pioneer Woman’s books that you might not be aware of if you’re just grabbing her recipes online are the “Variations” and “Change It Up!” sections at the end. Once you’ve got the basic recipe down, you can transform it into several different dinners. Niiiice. I’m including those here so you can get a feel for them and have all the fun and yumminess!

I told you all about Pioneer Woman’s new book, THE PIONEER WOMAN COOKS: SUPER EASY!, and shared recipes in my last couple posts. Missed them? Here you go! Thanks to William Morrow for letting me share them with you!
The English Breakfast Situation
Teriyaki Chicken Sheet Pan Supper

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Teriyaki Chicken Sheet Pan Supper recipe – Pioneer Woman Cooks: Super Easy!

#PioneerWoman #ReeDrummond #PioneerWomanCooks #SuperEasy #SheetPanSupper #Healthy #Delicious

I love flipping through cookbooks with a fresh stack of post it notes. Pop my feet up in cozy socks, grab a blanket, turn on the fireplace. Yeah. Add a glass of wine for the ultimate “me time”.

I told you all about Pioneer Woman’s new book, THE PIONEER WOMAN COOKS: SUPER EASY! , and shared the recipe for The English Breakfast situation in my last post. Missed it? Here you go!

This is the recipe that really stood out and made me want to stand up and run into the kitchen. It looks fabulous, and to my delight it totally delivers all the flavor I was hoping for! Sheet pan easy, flavorful, colorful, and filled with tons of produce and protein! Hope you love it, too! Go get you some oh-so-delicious “me time”! Thank you to William Morrow for letting me share it with you!

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The English Breakfast Situation Recipe – The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Super Easy!

#PioneerWoman #ReeDrummond #PioneerWomanCooks #SuperEasy #EnglishBreakfastSituation #FullEnglishBreakfast #FullEnglishBreakfastWithExtraBreakfast

Ree Drummond has a new book out, THE PIONEER WOMAN COOKS: SUPER EASY!, and it’s fantastic! I’ll show you my full review of the book with all the dishes I tried, but first, I wanted to share a recipe with you! I always thought I was making the Full English Breakfast with extra breakfast, but I was missing the baked beans and mushrooms <shudder>! How good is it? I had one jar of homemade strawberry rhubarb jam left, and I have no rhubarb to make more. It was totally worth it! It’s supposed to serve 4-5, but my husband and I shared half of it, when our 17 year old walked in and polished off the rest. She just smiled with her eyes closed in satisfaction, said, “Thanks! That was so good!”, and left. I felt bad when our older daughter walked in, but I understand. It’s breakfast pilfering good.

A huge thanks to William Morrow for letting me share it with you! And they said yes to two more upcoming recipes. Woohoo! I bet readers who’ve been following me for awhile will know just which ones I asked for. Hope you love it!

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Disney’s Festival of the Arts

I just turned 50 in January, and my hubby did back in August when travel was right out, so we headed to Disney last week for a big celebration. 8 glorious days. Two in each park. Perfect! We didn’t realize the Festival of the Arts was going on at Epcot! Even better! There are little stands scattered throughout the World Showcase that generally have 2 entrees, a couple of beverages and a dessert. They are little taster plates and mostly in the $6-$10 range, so you can have fabulous bites around the world, kind of like global tapas. We had a fantastic time. Let me tell you all about it!

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