Garlic Butter

Learn how to make garlic butter with just 4 ingredients! Creamy, savory, and rich, it's a delicious topping for potatoes, dinner rolls, noodles, and more.

What’s better than regular butter? Garlic butter! This spread is rich and, well, buttery, brimming with savory garlic flavor. It’s quick to stir together, and it lasts for days in the fridge. Keep it on hand for slathering onto bagels and toast, tossing with noodles, dotting onto baked potatoes, and more. It’s such an easy way to amp up the flavor in simple, everyday meals. How to Make Garlic Butter This homemade garlic butter recipe has to be one of the simplest on the blog. It only calls for 4 basic ingredients: Unsalted butter, garlic, finely chopped fresh parsley or…

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15 Best Vegan Cookie Recipes

These delicious vegan cookie recipes include peanut butter cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate chip, and more. You won't miss the butter or eggs one bit!

You don’t need eggs or butter to make delicious cookies, and these vegan cookie recipes are here to prove it. They include all the classics – peanut butter cookies, sugar cookies, gingerbread, and chocolate chip – as well as fun, out-of-the-box vegan cookie recipes for anyone looking to try something new. Whether you’re gearing up for holiday baking or just in the mood for an easy sweet treat, I hope you find some vegan cookie recipes you love! Vegan Spice Cookies These vegan cookie recipes are especially perfect for the holidays, but if you’re tempted to make them at another…

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Minestrone Soup

This minestrone soup recipe is a delicious version of the classic Italian vegetable soup. Serve it with crusty bread for an easy vegetarian meal!

Today, I have two goals: to bake a batch of Christmas cookies and to make a pot of minestrone soup. To me, the two go hand-in-hand. After I spend an afternoon baking (and eating!) something sweet, I want nothing more than a warming, nourishing pot of soup for dinner at night. I love this minestrone soup recipe in particular because it’s so satisfying, but still light and fresh. Onions, carrots, and celery add depth of flavor to its herb-flecked tomato broth, and starchy beans and pasta make it nice and thick. I toss in green beans for texture, and, as…

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25 Best Dutch Oven Recipes

These easy Dutch oven recipes show off the versatility of everyone's favorite cast-iron pot. Use yours to make bread, stew, pasta, risotto, and more!

‘Tis the season of cozy soups, comforting stews…and holiday shopping. If you’re thinking about treating yourself or a loved one to a new piece of kitchen equipment, let me recommend a Dutch oven! This type of heavy-duty pot might seem like a specialty item, but if you cook often, I promise, you’ll use it daily. In fact, I always have one perched on my stovetop, ready and waiting for the next time I cook a soup, pasta, sauce, or whatever other Dutch oven recipes I might have up my sleeve on a given day. Speaking of Dutch oven recipes, I’ve…

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Balsamic Vinaigrette

Skip the store-bought salad dressing! Instead, make this balsamic vinaigrette at home. It's rich, tangy, and SO easy to make. Just 7 ingredients!

If you keep a bottle of balsamic vinegar in your pantry, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be making your own balsamic vinaigrette at home. Really, skip the store-bought stuff: this balsamic vinaigrette recipe calls for 7 ingredients and comes together in under 5 minutes. It doesn’t get simpler than that! And this recipe isn’t just simple – it’s flavorful, too. Thanks to the balsamic, mustard, and a touch of honey, it’s bold, sweet, and tangy. It’s a perfect way to jazz up salads, roasted veggies, and more. Try it once, and you’ll be hooked. Balsamic Vinaigrette Recipe Ingredients Here’s what…

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Green Beans Almondine

If you love low effort-high reward recipes, you need these green beans almondine in your rotation. They're super simple and absolutely delicious!

If you’re not one for green bean casserole, add this glossy green bean recipe to your Thanksgiving menu instead! It’s my twist on green beans almondine, or amandine in French. Though it sounds fancy, this classic French side dish is really just green beans topped with sliced almonds. It’s remarkably simple and absolutely delicious. Green Beans Almondine Recipe Ingredients To make this green beans almondine recipe, you only need a few basic ingredients: Fresh green beans, of course! French haricots verts are best here, as they’re more tender than other varieties of string beans. Sliced almonds – Their nutty crunch…

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Arugula Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

If I could, I'd make this arugula salad recipe every night of the week. Tossed in a bright lemon dressing, it's a simple, fresh, and flavorful side dish.

There are few things I love more than a simple arugula salad. To his credit, Jack knows it. Not far from our house, there’s a little food market/sandwich shop that sells the BEST arugula. It’s crisp, tender, and perfectly peppery. Every time Jack goes out to get a sandwich for himself, he comes home with a box of arugula for me. I’ve used it to make all sorts of arugula salad recipes over the years (this one, this one, and this one, for starters), but lately, I’ve been especially smitten with this combination. I toss the arugula with a bright…

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Avocado Fries

Crispy on the outside and creamy in the middle, these avocado fries are SO fun and delicious! Devour them hot with a tasty sauce for dipping.

I first started making these avocado fries last spring. But back then, I didn’t think of them as fries. Instead, I wanted to use them as a taco filling. It sounds like a great idea, right? Crispy/creamy avocado slices spiced up with cumin and coriander and loaded into tortillas with all the fixings… Well, it turns out, these avocado fries are actually too good to bury in a taco. They’re the sort of thing that’s best devoured on its own, preferably straight off the sheet pan, preferably with a tasty sauce (or two!) for dipping. That way, you can really experience…

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Chipotle Ranch Dressing

Love chipotle sauce? Love ranch? Then you have to try this chipotle ranch dressing recipe! It's creamy, tangy, smoky, savory, and super easy to make.

What happens when chipotle sauce meets ranch dressing? This chipotle ranch dressing recipe! It’s a simple mashup of my go-to chipotle sauce and my vegan ranch, and, let me tell you, I can’t get enough of it. It’s creamy, tangy, smoky, and savory, with a little bit of heat from the chipotles. Use it as a sandwich spread, a salad dressing, or dip…or steal tastes straight off a spoon. This chipotle ranch dressing is bold, punchy, and downright delicious. I think you’re going to love it. Chipotle Ranch Dressing Recipe Ingredients You just need 8 ingredients to make this recipe:…

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Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

Say hello to the best vegan peanut butter cookies out there! These easy cookies have chewy middles, crumbly edges, and a fantastic nutty flavor.

As soon as I tried these vegan peanut butter cookies, I exclaimed, “They taste like Nutter Butters!” I meant it in the best way. They have a delicious crumbly texture with slightly chewy middles, and they’re bursting with sweet peanut butter flavor. For me, they’re the perfect peanut butter cookies. If you need a second opinion, talk to Jack. I’ve made over six batches of these vegan peanut butter cookies in the last two weeks, and they’ve all disappeared. Suffice it to say, we’re hooked. Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies Ingredients Here’s what you’ll need to make these vegan peanut butter…

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Homemade Chili Powder

The first time I tried this chili powder recipe, I knew I'd never get the store-bought kind again. It's flavorful, complex, and surprisingly easy to make.

It’s official: I’m never buying chili powder at the store again. This homemade chili powder is so much more flavorful, nuanced, and complex, and it’s not at all tricky to make, either. Toast some spices and dried chiles on the stove, whizz them up in a spice grinder, and voila! You’ll have made delicious homemade chili powder in under 10 minutes. I know I’ve mentioned Kite String Cantina a few times before, but I have to give them another shoutout here. They’re a bar in our neighborhood that serves amazing sauces and taquitos, and their signature chili seasoning (aka “Kite…

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A food blog with fresh, zesty recipes.
Photograph of Jeanine Donofrio and Jack Mathews in their kitchen

Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.

We love to eat, travel, cook, and eat some more! We create & photograph vegetarian recipes from our home in Chicago, while our shiba pups eat the kale stems that fall on the kitchen floor.