It’s time to celebrate! The holidays are here and New Year’s Eve is next week! Whaaaat!?! I can’t believe another year has flown by! As we say goodbye to 2014 and “Hello” to 2015…let’s celebrate with homemade cocktails! This Apple Sage Sparkler is simple yet elegant; perfect for a party. Plus, I’ve rounded up 20 other delicious cocktail recipes within 4 categories: herbs, spice, citrus, and punch. Let’s drink!
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Virtual Vegan Potluck: Lemon Thyme Polenta Bites with Arugula Pesto & Mushrooms
Hello and welcome to the 2014 Virtual Vegan Potluck! I’m so excited to be part of the VVP this year and want to give a huge shout-out to Annie, Angela and Poppy for organizing this worldwide virtual foodie event! Be sure to check out all the awesome vegan recipes by way of the Go Forward/Go Backward buttons at the bottom of this post. You can also go back and start at the beginning of the potluck chain. Have fun, get hungry and enjoy!
Savory Dill Yogurt Biscuits
Spontaneity can be one of the best, and most underrated, ingredients in a kitchen. It can lead to impromptu discoveries and unexpected combinations. I tend to cook the best food when I’m being spontaneous and not over-thinking things. I woke up the other morning on a lazy Sunday and decided to make biscuits. I started gathering the ingredients and spotted a bright green feathery bunch of fresh dill in the fridge. Thinking, “hmm, why not?” I grabbed it and added a handful to the biscuit dough. That little change — that bit of spontaneity — made a HUGE flavorful difference to what would have been plain old ordinary biscuits. They became savory, herbaceous and fresh!
The Best Sweet Potato Pie
I often hate it when recipes titles declare things as “perfect” or “the best.” I find it a bit smug. I mean, really, how does one know it’s the best? Have they tried all of the other recipes for that particular dish? And what is perfection? Food is extremely subjective. Taste is extremely subjective. Cooking techniques vary greatly with ingredient or equipment preferences, dietary choices, even one’s kitchen ethos. There is no perfect; there is no best.
Share & Swap with The Friendly Fig
I’m changing it up a bit today with a heartfelt shout out to a wonderful blog I’ve come to know, follow, respect, and love: The Friendly Fig! Written by Bianca Scartabello and Sara Day along with guest blogger Kate Brierley, this veg-friendly food and lifestyle blog shares recipes, vegan tips, cruelty-free style and product guides, giveaways, and hilarious anecdotes. Seriously hilarious…I was laughing out loud with this one! But on top off all that fabulous information, wit, magnificent writing, and mouthwatering recipes, they have an energy and enthusiasm that just makes you feel good. Period.
Crispy Skillet Potatoes with Buttermilk Ranch Sauce
For a very, very long time I’ve been trying to figure out how to make perfectly crisp skillet potatoes. The kind of potatoes that give you that supremely satisfying CRUNCH as you bite into them but are gloriously silky and creamy in the middle. I’ve been looking for a fool-proof method that would work every time…and I found it! This is it. And they are indeed crispy…crispy with a capital C-R-I-S-P-Y. And to top off these wondrous carbs, I made a buttermilk ranch sauce — because everybody secretly knows ranch is the BEST.
Pumpkin Pancake Muffins with Maple Glaze
Breakfast. Brunch. Dessert. These pancake muffins will do the J.O.B. for all of the above. Just a hint of pumpkin and cinnamon kiss the batter and a maple syrup glaze finishes off this part pancake / part muffin situation.
Curried Apple Chutney
If you’re looking for a recipe to have fun with, to play around with, chutneys are the way to go. They’re incredibly versatile and very forgiving; you really can’t mess them up. They’re also a great way to use up a variety of fruit and vegetables you may have on hand. Have an overload of apples you need to use up? Some peppers that are beginning to wrinkle? Make this!
Apple Kale Salad with Curry Vinaigrette
Restraint and I are not the closest of friends. I may have overdone it a bit on Halloween and the day after. So much candy. So many drinks. Such a good time. And that’s why kale was invented. It’s our reset button. Kale is our designated driver, our friend that reminds us to not eat that 10th mini snickers bar. Kale sets us straight, makes us right. And this salad does just that in the most delicious way possible!
Candy Corn-Dipped Pretzels
This is crazy. This is bizarre. This borders on absurd. Salty. Sweet. Crunchy. Chewy. Sound good? Yeah, let’s do this.
Step 1. Cut a hole in a box…no, wait, I was thinking of something else. Um, melt some candy corn in the microwave.
Step 2. Dip pretzels in it.