Acorn Squash Soup

This acorn squash soup recipe comes together in three easy steps: roast, simmer, and blend. It's creamy, cozy, and flavorful--perfect for a cold night.

I’ve had a stash of this acorn squash soup in my freezer for the last couple of weeks, ready and waiting for the type of cold fall day that necessitates creamy orange soup. Well, last weekend, that day finally came. Saturday arrived, chilly and crisp, and I knew that this acorn squash soup would hit the spot. I heated up a bowl for lunch, and I enjoyed it so much that I polished off the rest on Sunday. This weekend, I’m definitely making more. This acorn squash soup is sublimely creamy (but not from cream!), and it’s deliciously seasoned with…

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Farro Salad

Farro adds delicious chewy texture and nutty flavor to this fresh, versatile salad recipe. Enjoy it for a healthy lunch, or serve it as an easy side dish.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop experimenting with new farro salad recipes. This chewy, nutty grain lends itself well to all sorts of ingredient combinations, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than stumbling across a really good one that I haven’t tried before. I first made this farro salad recipe earlier this fall as a way to use up odds and ends we had on hand in the fridge. Arugula, radicchio, most of an apple… I loved the way the nutty farro played off the bitter greens, the sweet fruit, and some salty, funky pecorino cheese I tossed in at…

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Sweet Potato Hash

I call this sweet potato hash a breakfast recipe, but honestly, we love it for any meal of the day. It's healthy, satisfying, delicious, and SO easy to make!

A good sweet potato hash will always be one of my favorite things to eat. I love the balance of sweet, smoky, and spicy flavors. I love how the tender veggies and sweet potatoes get deliciously crispy on the bottom of the hot skillet. But perhaps most of all, I love that a sweet potato hash is a healthy, one-pan meal that I can easily pull off in 30 minutes. This sweet potato hash recipe is my go-to. It’s nicely spiced with chili powder and packed with veggies like peppers and kale. It’s a great simple meal to have in…

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Instant Pot Chili

If you love recipes that are as simple as they are delicious, then you have to try this Instant Pot chili. It's smoky, spicy, savory, and SO easy to make!

This Instant Pot chili delivers everything you love about regular chili–a smoky tomato broth, tender peppers, and hearty beans–but it has the added bonus of being a set-it-and-forget-it recipe. I won’t argue that regular chili is difficult to make (I call my recipe Easy Vegetarian Chili, after all), but it does require you to stay nearby the kitchen if not in it, close enough to adjust the heat of your stove from time to time to maintain a lively simmer. For most of my life, I loved that aspect of making chili or soup. I wanted to hang out in…

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Instant Pot Pinto Beans

These Instant Pot pinto beans are tender, flavorful, and ready in under an hour, no soaking required! We love them as a side dish or in chili and more.

This Instant Pot pinto beans recipe has become my favorite way to cook pinto beans. It’s faster than simmering them on the stove (no soaking required!), but it still yields beans with a far better texture and flavor than the canned ones have. These Instant Pot pinto beans are tender, creamy, and deliciously seasoned with chili powder, cumin, oregano, and sea salt. They’re so tasty that you can serve them as a side dish on their own, but we love them in other recipes too. Try adding them to chili or soup, or use them to make tacos, refried beans,…

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Pumpkin Spice Latte

This homemade pumpkin spice latte rivals any coffee shop version I've tried. It's creamy, warmly spiced, and naturally sweetened with maple syrup.

The next time you’re craving a pumpkin spice latte, save yourself a trip to a coffee shop, and make this recipe at home! By October, I always feel like I should share some kind of pumpkin-y treat on the blog, and this year, I thought a homemade version of the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte would be fun. I know it’s a bit of a fall cliché at this point, so I was surprised by how much I ended up loving this recipe. Creamy, cozy, and lightly sweet, it’s warming and comforting on a cool fall morning or crisp afternoon. It’s…

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Apple Muffins

These apple muffins are moist, tender, and packed with juicy apple chunks. Crowned with a crunchy cinnamon crumble, they're the perfect fall treat.

On a crisp fall morning, these apple muffins really hit the spot. They’re moist, warmly spiced, and studded with tender chunks of apple. A sweet cinnamon crumble sits on top of them, offering a delicious crunchy contrast to their soft middles. Pair one with a hot cup of coffee, and you’ll have a hard time finding a more enticing autumn treat. I speak from experience. The temps dropped here late last week, just in time for the first day of fall. I made a batch of these apple muffins to celebrate, and I haven’t been able to resist eating one…

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Easy Enchiladas

This easy enchiladas recipe is always a hit! Featuring a flavorful homemade sauce and lots of melty cheese, it's simple, comforting, and delicious.

This enchiladas recipe is the kind of simple, comforting dish that we all need in our weeknight rotations. It’s easy, it’s flavorful, and it will win over the pickiest palates (our kiddo always asks for more!). The filling is a combo of gooey cheese, black beans, and steamed spinach. I roll it up in corn tortillas, which I then smother with homemade enchilada sauce and more cheese. Finally, I bake the enchiladas until the cheese is melty and the edges of the tortillas are crisp. For such a simple recipe, the taste, texture, and overall deliciousness are out of this…

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Enchilada Sauce

Flavorful and easy to make, this homemade enchilada sauce is so much better than the canned kind. Use it in your favorite enchilada recipes!

When I’m craving enchiladas on a weeknight, I first make this red enchilada sauce recipe. It’s the perfect starting point for fast, flavorful homemade enchiladas. It takes minutes to make, and it calls for simple pantry ingredients. Still, its balance of tangy, earthy, and savory flavors really packs a punch. Swap it in for the store-bought stuff, and I promise, you’ll taste the difference. Homemade Enchilada Sauce Recipe Ingredients Growing up in the Midwest, I thought of enchilada sauce as one thing: the tomato-based stuff that comes in a can. But when I moved to Austin, I learned that in…

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Oatmeal Pancakes

This healthy oatmeal pancakes recipe comes together in a blender, meaning that it's quick enough to make on weekdays and weekends alike.

I’ve been sharing lots of back-to-school breakfasts lately (see here, here, or here), and I have one more for you today: these oatmeal pancakes! I think most pancake recipes are best suited to a lazy Sunday morning, but these oatmeal pancakes are quick and easy enough to make on any day of the week. They’re so speedy because the recipe employs the help of a blender to mix up the batter – no whisking required! The blender trick also means that you won’t find any flour in this recipe, just lots of whole rolled oats. As a result, these healthy…

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Breakfast Sandwich

This make-ahead breakfast sandwich recipe is the ULTIMATE way to start your day! Filled with veggies, eggs, and cheese, it's hearty and delicious.

If you start your day with a breakfast sandwich that looks like that (see above), you KNOW it’s going to be a good one. And the best part about it is that you don’t actually have to make said sandwich on the day you’re planning to eat it. Nope, this breakfast sandwich recipe freezes perfectly, so you can assemble a week’s worth of sandwiches on the weekend and feast on them all week. If you ask me, it’s one of the nicest things you can do for your future self. Sitting down to a toasted English muffin slathered with herbed goat cheese…

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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.