While I love one-pan, veggie-packed Mexican recipes like my Healthy Beef Taco Skillet, I have a deep affection for stuffing all the flavor into my vegetables instead. Maybe it’s the little girl in me that likes to have her own special serving, but when I place a recipe like Stuffed Peppers on my plate, I feel special. It’s as if someone gave me a pepper present: a healthy, yummy meal neatly packaged just for me....
After two marathon weeks of recipe testing and video shooting for Slow Cooker Pulled Pork and Instant Pot Pulled Pork, we were left with enough leftover pulled pork to open a barbecue stand. If you’ve ever experienced a similar influx of leftover pulled pork, then you know sometimes you need to make something with pulled pork besides sandwiches. My answer: Pulled Pork Quesadilla. Tender pulled pork, black beans, and green chiles folded in a crispy tortilla and bound with melty cheese, this pork quesadilla is a tasty culinary mashup that will breathe new life into your dinner routine....
I would apologize for these little rice cake snacks—I got a tiny bit carried away with the fruit art—but they are too addictive for regrets. You are looking at peanut butter and fruit rice cake snacks #4, #7-10, #13, and #15. I lost all self-control during the photoshoot and all of the missing numbers disappeared into my mouth. (I also might have temporarily jammed my camera button with peanut butter....
As a kid, I never would have imagined using the words “candy” and “broccoli” in the same sentence as synonymous, but that was before we started making Roasted Vegetables! Crispy from tip-to-end, caramelized at the center, with savory and sweet notes, roasted broccoli will turn even the most ardent vegetable haters into vegetable believers. (Who knows, they may even be willing to try Roasted Beets next.) As a kid, my understanding of veggies, in general, was as something mushy that came out of a can....
Whether you pick them up with your fingers and dip them, or serve them alongside tonight’s knife-and-fork dinner as a delicious side dish, baking green beans in the oven until they are dark, crispy, and caramelized is the most expedient way to turn them into something even green bean skeptics will relish. (Well, that and bathing them in a creamy sauce à la Healthy Green Bean Casserole and Crockpot Green Bean Casserole, but I digress....
I ran for the bus every single day that I worked in a corporate office. I’d shuffle down the block in my heels, my hot coffee sloshing onto the pavement, and my mouth full of a grab-and-go breakfast (like these Strawberry Oatmeal Bars), silently praying that the bus was behind schedule. This was my Monday through Friday for four straight years. You would think that after one year of stressed-out suit sprinting that I would have learned to leave the house earlier, let alone after four years, but it never happened....
In fact, go run over and plug your waffle maker in now. It’s probably hiding in the back of a cupboard, wedged behind the toaster oven and the single-serving smoothie maker you keep promising yourself you’ll use. Smoothies can start Monday. Today it’s all about healthy Whole Wheat Waffles with applesauce! Thanks to a lighter ingredient list, these yummy waffles are filling and wholesome. Feel great eating them this weekend, then stow a few in your freezer and toast them off on weekday mornings before you head to work....
In fact, I served it to our neighbors and casually didn’t mention that this recipe uses thinly sliced zucchini squash in place of the lasagna pasta noodles. No one knew. Mild zucchini is a surprisingly good pasta stand-in when paired with robust sauces, like the hearty Bolognese-ish sauce you’ll find in this zucchini lasagna with meat, the fresh tomato sauce in Zucchini Pasta, and the garlic in this Healthy Shrimp Scampi with Zucchini Noodles....
The bread must be golden and deeply toasted, but not burned. Sturdy enough to hold up to the cheesy interior but still soft enough to sink your teeth into with delight. The cheese must be properly melted. It sounds obvious, but if you’ve ever experienced a grilled cheese that’s charred outside with bits of solid, room temperature cheese inside, you know it’s more nuanced than it seems. It should be buttery but not greasy, ooey-gooey but not soggy....
Have you ever had one of those moments when you try a new food for the first time and become instantly hooked? That’s how I felt the first time I tried an avocado pesto. Skeptical of the lack of basil and nuts (as used in my homemade Basil Pesto or this fabulous classic creamy pesto recipe from The Well Plated Cookbook), after one bite of this nontraditional pesto recipe, I knew this was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship....
Sometimes, a lady just needs a cookie. Whether it’s with coffee for breakfast, a mid-day pick-me-up, or a midnight snack attack, if you ask me, any time is cookie time. Working from home, I’m constantly surrounded by tempting treats, including, but not limited to: Whatever recipe I’m currently testing (I’m frequently working on variations of these decadent Brownie Bites).Ben’s bi-weekly batch of Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies.Or the four different flavors of ice cream I have tucked away in the freezer (like this Banana Ice Cream)....
A classic French confection, meringue cookies are easy to make, low calorie, and gluten free. Talk about angel food! Meringue cookies are probably the one major French contribution to the world of pastry that doesn’t involve copious amounts of butter, flour, or cream, a fact that made me suspicious of them when I first traveled to France (I headed straight for the French Hot Chocolate and Strawberry Crepes instead). Boy, did I misjudge....
If you’ve never had a mug cake, please allow me to introduce you to what will surely become one of the most delicious, dangerous recipe concepts to grace your kitchen. What makes this particular recipe stand out among the rest is its lineup of ingredients. I dropped the excess butter, oil, and refined sugar you’ll find in most chocolate mug cake and chocolate mug brownie recipes for a healthier lineup: whole wheat flour, peanut butter, Greek yogurt, maple syrup, and, of course, plenty of dark chocolate....
It’s time for some Thanksgiving life advice. Do not, I repeat, do not buy canned cranberry sauce or cranberry jelly. I’m saying this because I care. The holiday meal you spend hours preparing deserves the real deal. This Thanksgiving, I’m on a mission to eradicate canned cranberry sauce and demonstrate to all that homemade cranberry sauce is: Easy. Simply dump all the ingredients into a saucepan, stir, and BOOM. Bright, blissful cranberry orange sauce that’s the perfect tart bite against juicy Thanksgiving turkey, Glazed Sweet Potatoes, and Balsamic Brussels Sprouts....
Pepper steak is a classic Chinese American dish that’s named for its two primary ingredients: peppers (bell peppers, specifically) and strips of steak (often sirloin, flank, or round). It’s in a thick, almost gravy-like sauce made with ginger and soy sauce; the sauce coats every morsel with its rich, savory flavor. No dry grains of rice here! Pepper steak is typically served as a fast, stir-fry style dish, but I wanted to see if I could adapt it for the slow cooker....
This healthy crockpot chicken noodle soup is not fancy or sophisticated. It’s not even particularly unusual (unlike my Lemon Chicken Orzo Soup ). But it is very, very yummy. Yummy (along with easy, healthy, and great leftover) is a top-quality we look for in our meals around here. For the parts of us that are grown up, I added an elevated twist to make it one of the best chicken noodle soup recipes you’ll try....
This luscious, velvety spiced healthy carrot soup is one of the very first recipes I cook when I am transitioning you into fall. At the start of a new season, it’s hard to know your mood—or if a chilly breeze is going to pick up when you least expect it. (Here in Wisconsin, the weather likes to change about every 20 minutes). Do I need my coat to run to the store?...
Like Sweet Potato Souffle, these glazed sweet potatoes are a tradition in my family. They feature hunks of sweet potatoes, bathed in a spicy-sweet honey glaze. We make this recipe every year, and then we fight over the leftovers. The morning after Thanksgiving, and you’ll catch me munching them cold out of the fridge, for good reason: they are nothing short of sensational. If you don’t finish them right away, someone else will!...
Destined to be topped with ice cream, I have no doubt EVERYONE (no matter their diet) will fancy this gluten free apple dessert! With so many past stops along the fruit crisp, cobbler, and crumble highway, I like to think of myself as a well-traveled connoisseur. You might be thinking that after creating a scrumptious Vegan Apple Crisp (which is dairy-free and features the addictive addition of coconut) and the spectacular Everyone’s Invited Apple Crisp from my Well Plated Cookbook (which has a surprise ingredient addition that you’ll need a copy to discover!...
Juicy grilled steak tumbled with arugula, cherry tomatoes, and blue cheese in a tangy honey vinaigrette, it’s the kind of breezy-yet-exquisite recipe I envision myself serving to my pretend celebrity friends at a casual summer soiree. Cooking steak makes me feel fancy, but this steak salad is anything but pretentious. It’s satisfying (thanks steak!), without being over the top (look at those greens!). If you are new to cooking steak and feel intimidated, I did too....
