Sweet Potato Noodles with Garlic & Kale

Sweet potato noodles inject the classic Spaghetti Aglio e Olio with brilliant color in this easy dish. I love to top mine with basil & plenty of Parmesan.

Have you tried sweet potato noodles? In the past, I’ve made zoodles and doodles (noodles made out of daikon radish), but it didn’t occur to me until recently to make swoodles(?). Is that what we’re calling them? Anyway, one night, with a hungry stomach and minimal ingredients on hand, I saw this gorgeous recipe for Spaghetti Aglio e Olio, and I realized I could make something similar using sweet potatoes in place of the pasta. This recipe starts with 2 medium sweet potatoes – you’ll be surprised how many noodles they make, and then you’ll also be surprised by how much they cook down…

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Apple Sage Grilled Cheese

A fancy fall grilled cheese that's sweet and savory. Delicious for a quick weeknight dinner.

Of course you don’t need a recipe for grilled cheese, but I just HAVE to share this simple combo because it’s so so delicious. This is the sort of thing that I love to make when I don’t feel like spending time in the kitchen but I also don’t feel like leaving the house. Sweet, soft apples, savory sage, red onion, and a good slather of grainy mustard – all between melty cheese (or vegan cheese) and bread. I think this might be my favorite sandwich assembly to date, I just love the sweet and salty mix. Make these with a…

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Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

Topped with a sweet and savory rosemary cashew cream and a lemony broccoli salad, these twice baked sweet potatoes are totally irresistible.

These twice baked sweet potatoes are a complete departure from the sweet potatoes I ate growing up. Then, I only had them once a year at Thanksgiving, where they were layered into a casserole loaded with mini marshmallows. For years, I thought I didn’t like sweet potatoes. It turns out, that casserole was just too sweet for me! I actually love sweet potatoes, but not when they’re loaded with brown sugar and marshmallows. These twice baked sweet potatoes are a perfect balance of sweet and savory. They take the potatoes’ natural sweetness and offset it with cozy, bright, and tangy flavors.…

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Tagliatelle with Tomatoes and Greens

Try this tagliatelle recipe once, and it'll be in your regular dinner rotation forever. A tomato wine sauce coats floppy egg noodles in this delicious dish.

This tagliatelle pasta was inspired by a reader who wrote me to say that this vegetable soup recipe – with its sweet stewed carrots, tomatoes, and other vegetables – would make a delicious rich tomato sauce for pasta. Soon after that, I tried turning that soup into this tagliatelle recipe. We loved it so much that it made it into our first cookbook. So thanks, Rachel! Here it is, hope it was worth the wait! Weeknight Tagliatelle The soup that inspired this pasta is a simple, clean-out-the-fridge sort of recipe. It works with whatever veggies you have on hand, and…

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Prettiest Spring Vegetable Platter

A fresh, healthy way to serve veggie crudite at your next happy hour or party! Vegan and gluten free options, with dip, wine, and cheese pairings.

Is it just me or has spring come early this year? Last weekend, I loaded up on the prettiest brightly colored vegetables to put together a gorgeous yet easy wine party crudité appetizer spread. Two things always intimidate me about putting together party food: 1: Spending tons of time (and tons of money) putting together a guest-worthy spread, and 2: Picking out great wine. So today I have some tips for both… Let’s start with the wine (always my favorite place to start). We’ve partnered with WineSimple, which is my new favorite way to choose wine because they choose it for you! You start…

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Chipotle Apple Sweet Potato Salad

Chipotle Apple Sweet Potato Salad - an easy fall favorite. This sweet & spicy salad is SO filling with apples, corn, roasted tomatoes, and chipotle.

This is my new favorite salad… and I don’t throw words like “favorite” or “best ever” around lightly. You may have noticed that I love roasted sweet potatoes in just about any salad (as evident here, here, and here) but this combination – with roasted tomatoes, roasted apples, corn, and a tangy/smoky chipotle dressing – was so good that I made it for dinner two nights in a row. The first night, I made this as a lazy-girl dinner. Jack was out of town so for an easy “by myself” dinner I decided to roast the things (pictured above) that had just arrived in my Farmhouse Delivery…

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Summer Panzanella with Squash

Though pattypan squash is my top choice, you can use any summer squash you have on hand to make this bright, bold late summer panzanella.

Hold your pumpkin bread – I have one last super summery recipe before this season really ends. You can use any summer squash you like here (zucchini or yellow squash are both great), but I found pattypan squash at the farmers market and had to try it! I considered making a totally different pattypan squash recipe by stuffing and baking it, but I didn’t want to turn the oven on. Then I noticed that I had some really stale bread, so this hearty, delicious pattypan squash panzanella was an obvious choice. I’m a HUGE fan of panzanellas, or Italian bread salads (see…

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Tart Cherry Cheesecake Parfaits

The other day, I had this intense craving for cheesecake. The timing was a little out of the blue since I eat cheesecake exactly once a year when my mom makes it at christmas time. She makes a family recipe – my Grandma Kissel’s infamous recipe – and no one but her and my Aunt Kathy have it. It’s amazingly creamy and light and perfect and it won’t be getting passed down to me anytime soon. I wasn’t going to attempt to make sub-par cheesecake to satisfy my craving, so I made a lighter and altogether easier no-bake version. I’m not going to exactly call this…

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Oyster Mushroom Po’ Boys

Breaded & baked oyster mushrooms take the place of meat in this veggie riff on a po' boy sandwich! They're fun, healthy, and downright delicious.

This blog may be mostly healthy, but I have to admit that I enjoy my share of fried foods from time to time. Fried oysters, fried shrimp – I love it all, even if it’s “sometimes food.” That is until now, because these baked oyster mushrooms are every bit as crispy, meaty, and delectable as anything fried. They’re easy to make, they’re healthy, and there’s no messy fry oil involved. I’ll just go ahead and say it – if you make one recipe this summer, make this one. These mushrooms are so delicious stuffed into a soft baguette with a slather…

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Watermelon Feta Salad with Kale & Avocado

Nothing beats this cooling watermelon feta salad in the summertime. With a bright dressing & lots of crisp veggies, it's a yummy, refreshing lunch.

I love kale, and I love summer… therefore this might be my perfect salad. The temps aren’t too high here just yet but with all of the crazy rain we’ve been having, the humidity makes it sweltering to say the least. This watermelon feta salad is as refreshing as it gets – cool, crisp watermelon, fennel, and cucumber are mixed with creamy avocado and feta cheese. It’s pretty much everything I love tossed into a bowl. This is a greener version of this spicy watermelon salad that I love. The kale idea came from a salad that I regularly get at Snap Kitchen, a…

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Green Bean & Purple Potato Salad

If you’re at a picnic, do you go for the potato salad or the cole slaw? I’m a cole slaw person always – the really sweet mayonnaise-y kind. But potatoes smothered in mayo? No thanks. Why is cabbage in mayo better than potatoes in mayo? No clue. But while I don’t go for “potato salad,” I do like a potato salad. Of course, what I mean is that this is a salad… with potatoes (and green beans and yellow wax beans and some other things). Instead of mayo, it’s dressed with everything that I think goes best with potatoes: olive oil, good dijon…

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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.