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Italian Sausage and Cheese Manicotti
I don’t know what it is about this colder weather that has me on an Italian food kick lately! Perhaps its the hardiness of the pasta and sauce or the warmth that emanates from the casserole dish. Either way I am here to present a dish that is also Italian in origin and tastes like it was delivered to your table at a restaurant. Introducing Italian Sausage and Cheese Manicotti. I am a cheese fanatic as it is. Pasta stuffed with cheese with more cheese on top? A resounding yes please! This amazing recipe does take a bit of extra prep work with stuffing the pasta shells but I promise you it is worth the…
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Chicken Florentine Artichoke Bake
There are nights when you want to cook a dish that is enough to feed a crowd but doesn’t keep you in the kitchen all day. Enter Chicken Florentine Artichoke Bake. You can cut down on the time for this classic dish by using either rotisserie chicken from the grocery store or canned chicken meaning all you are really left to do is cook the pasta, combine all the ingredients, and let the oven do the rest. The result? I meal that tastes great and looks like you spent the entire afternoon cooking. This is also very kid friendly in that my kids not only love eating it but also enjoy helping to prepare it.…
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Rigatoni with Broccoli and Sausage
You know how sometimes you want to eat something for dinner that is relatively light, tasty, and does not take hours to make ? This rigatoni with broccoli and sausage is the perfect blend of all of those things using one pot and chances are you probably have most if not all of the ingredients to make this simple dish. This is also the perfect time for a lighter meal since so many fall dishes are typically very heavy. The other thing about this dish that is perfect for busy nights is that it uses only one pot as mentioned above. Yes, a one pot dish! You can use the same pot to cook the…
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Apple Cinnamon Ice Cream
Tis the season for everything apples. Apple donuts (thanks local apple orchard), caramel apples, apple pie, the list goes on for the unlimited amount of tasty foods that incorporate apples. As the kids and I were brainstorming on what we should do with the newly bought bag of apples sitting on our kitchen counter, my oldest came up with a brilliant idea. Ice cream. We decided to try using apples and cinnamon to make Apple Cinnamon Ice Cream to go with some Mountain Dew Apple Dumplings (recipe here) we had baked. It was quite experimental at first but it ended up being a hit! The flavor was just right, with little bits of softened apples in…
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Asian Chicken Noodle Soup
Cold outside? Check. Hungry? Check. Craving something warm to eat? Yes. Solution: Asian Chicken Noodle Soup. This is not your ordinary chicken noodle soup that grandma made or anything like the watery canned chicken noodle soup from college. No, this has some serious flavor in it with an added kick of spice to make your chilly fall night warm up with each flavorful spoonful. What sets this recipe apart from other chicken noodle soups is that it incorporates some familiar Asian ingredients such as kochujang, a spicy Korean red pepper paste, as well as garlic, Sriracha, and rice stick noodles. It also uses lots of fresh ingredients like carrots, cilantro, and green onion. This dish can…
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Caramelized Butternut Squash
I am a sucker for warm savory fall foods like butternut squash. Something about the crisp air outside, the beautiful colors of leaves, and the desire to curl up on the couch and be warm lends itself to a dish like Caramelized Butternut Squash. This is by far one of the simplest, easiest, and tastiest recipes I know for the buttery fall vegetable. And with a total of 5 ingredients needed, two of which are salt and pepper, this is a great addition to any dinner. All this dish takes is the butternut squash, some melted butter, brown sugar, and salt and pepper to create the perfect compliment to a cool fall night.…
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This Week’s Top 5
This week everything that surrounds me is full of fall: the colors, the smells, the sounds, the food. What solidified the season change and made it official was our family visiting the local apple orchard which included a pumpkin patch. As we all enjoyed the beautiful (dare I say hot?!) day at the orchard this past weekend, I started thinking about the savory meals, decor, and accessories that include fall produce such as squash, apples, and pumpkin. Here are my Top 5 things I’m obsessing over this week. 1. The Soup Via My Recipes I was perusing through a health magazine online and came across this recipe for a Roasted Tomato and Garlic Soup.…
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Korean Beef Bulgogi
Bul-GO-gi? BUL-go-gi? Bul-go-GI? No matter how you pronounce the name of this amazing and increasingly popular Korean meat dish, Korean beef bulgogi is extremely tasty and one of my favorite dishes to prepare when I am entertaining and looking to impress guests. It is healthy, flavorful, and when paired with lettuce wraps becomes a fun meal to eat with a crowd. It is exciting that Korean beef bulgogi is becoming more common in many different restaurants and food establishments. For example, I have seen bulgogi tacos on a number of menus, as well as bulgogi sushi, bulgogi bowls like the ones I have shown on the blog before, and more. Here I started with…
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Caramel Apple Cookie Ice Cream
Fall is now upon us and what better way to celebrate than by making some Caramel Apple Cookie Ice Cream? We just recently purchased an ice cream maker for our son’s birthday and have been trying all sorts of different combinations of treats. The idea to try the new Caramel Apple Oreos came when eyeing the cookies on the store shelf a few days ago. Oreo cookies, caramel, and ice cream? Yes please! Who doesn’t love ice cream with a little caramel in it?! To be honest, I was not really sure how all the flavors would come together but in the end it tasted AMAZING! Just the right amount of sweet caramel, the…
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Cold Brewed Iced Coffee
You know when you want one more jolt of energy but hot coffee sounds… well… too hot? Not to mention I know it sounds lazy but sometimes you don’t want to take out the coffee maker, scoop the grounds, and wait… wait… wait for the coffee to brew (yes, a bit dramatic, I know). The solution? Cold brewed iced coffee. Iced coffee is one of my favorite drinks during the summer to combat the heat. It sounds simple to just brew some hot coffee and pour it over ice. As logical as that sounds, however, it actually creates very poor iced coffee for a couple of reasons. One reason is that pouring a…
