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Shower? Serve a Rainbow!
'Tis the season of celebration! Bridal, baby and good-luck showers, graduations and family gatherings demand dishes that delight a crowd. If you’re like me, you plan menus to wow your guests, securing your reputation as an inspired hostess. |
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Sweet Liberty Dessert
Wave flags, toot horns and join in the parade! Independence Day calls for a celebration with plenty of fanfare, and I think there’s no better way to celebrate this patriotic holiday than with friends, family and food. |
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Go Nuts for Pecans
I’m nuts about nuts, and my favorite is the all-American pecan. So, I’m pleased to celebrate National Pecan Month by using this sweet, buttery nut in many ways. |
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Bring on the Berries!
Berry lovers, prepare your palates! Much to our delight, spring berry season is here, followed by the bounty of summer’s berries. |
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Graduation Sweets
Got a grad in your life? Graduation calls for celebrating sweet success with delicious fanfare. As they toss their caps to the sky, bring out these stunning, easy-to-make-ahead desserts that will steal the show. And you don’t need a PhD to collect accolades for your culinary skills. |
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Go Nuts for Pecans
I’m nuts about nuts, and my favorite is the all-American pecan. So, I’m pleased to celebrate National Pecan Month by using this sweet, buttery nut in many ways. |
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Easy Easter Brunch Favorite
Celebrate Mother’s Day with a fun gathering that gets your entire family together —brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews — and honors every mom. Family too far away? Gather your closest friends and their families and toast all moms present. Host a breakfast or brunch that’s easy for the kids to help with in a big way. |
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Hop to Easter Baking
Surprise the Easter bunny with sweet treats from your kitchen. If you’re like me, you’ve got more than one bunny to remember with home-baked goodies. |
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Easy Easter Brunch Favorite
The star of my spring brunch is a savory, cheesy potato dish that is studded with onion and bacon. My version of this always-favorite casserole uses frozen hash brown potatoes for convenience. This recipe serves six, and it always disappears — so you might want to make an extra one for backup. After all, fresh spring air stimulates appetites! |
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Chocolate Desserts for Your Valentine
Chocolate. Just the word on a page makes my mouth water! One of life’s blissful pleasures is a mouthful of fragrant, dark and rich, creamy smooth chocolate. Whether morsels, chunks or bars, no other flavor comforts, soothes and satisfies quite like chocolate. |
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Winter brunch a winner
Cabin fever? Not me! Being housebound in February is just my cup of tea. Winter weather is a great excuse for baking and cooking. And it’s not difficult to coax others into the heart of the home with warmth and tempting aromas.
So look no further than "winter" for an excuse to get together. Gather the kids to do some fun baking — bars or other favorite cookies — to prepare for a mid-winter’s party. Plan an easy menu that includes a lot of comfort. |
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Bake warmth into winter
New Year’s resolutions. One resolution that I intend on keeping is to spend more time doing what I really enjoy … baking. Nothing makes me feel quite as grounded and worthwhile as when I’m creating goodies. |
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Pumpkin a powerful SuperFood
Join me in a tasty New Year’s resolution! Let’s put some power on our plates and recap the benefits of super nutrition with the help of Dr. Steven Pratt. His best-selling SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life highlights delicious foods everyone already loves. |
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Share the sweet taste of the holidays
Of all the baking I do all year, none is more special than baking batch after batch of festive holiday cookies. I take pride in making picture-pretty cookies for sharing — using festive, holiday-appropriate colors for decorating both cookies and packaging. And I’ll confess that I also like to take a few shortcuts, using convenient ready-made refrigerated cookie dough and dressing the cookies up in festive style.
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Desserts Dressed for the Holidays
During the holidays I enjoy preparing elegant-looking desserts for my family and guests because it adds that extra bit of festivity to my table.
Pumpkin Roll is a traditional favorite of spiced-pumpkin cake rolled up with a sweet cream cheese filling. Chilled, sliced and served with a sprinkle of powdered sugar, it's a festive classic. A new favorite is colorfully appealing White Fudge with Crystallized Ginger & Cranberries. |
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Give thanks for pie!
My Thanksgiving memories are made of baking together, gathering loved ones around the table, a moist turkey dinner with all the trimmings. But nothing beats dessert. Specifically pie.
When the leftovers are safely tucked away in the fridge and I present the dessert choices, I never hear groans of "I can’t eat another bite" around my Thanksgiving table. For enticing desserts, look no further than pumpkin pie: It’s the all-American, must-have holiday dessert.
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Goodies Packed to Fly
Got loved ones scattered across the country or around the world? Share your home-baked goodies with them, regardless of the distance. Bake, pack and let them fly!
It’s not as hard as you might think to pack and ship treats. In our test kitchens we’ve baked and shipped batch after batch of cookies and bars that will perform brilliantly when shipped on a long journey, whether it’s cross-country or around the world. |
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Baking for Dough
Bake sale season is officially open! Selling treats to raise cash is a breeze, when you know what sells and how to manage the perfect event.
One of the sure-to-sell items is Buckeye Candy. They’re from Ohio — the Buckeye State — and let me tell you, these irresistible no-bake peanut butter and chocolate bites are easy and fun to make. |
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Ghoulish Gathering
With a chill in the air, it’s the time of year when hobgoblins haunt the neighborhood, begging for treats! This year, make it a ghostly gathering by hosting a Halloween party and calling all witches, warlocks and skeletons together for some spooky fun. |
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Back to Baking
Nothing inspires me to get back to baking like autumn weather. No question about it — I’m hard-wired to want to get into the kitchen and start stirring things up as soon as the calendar turns to September. As the heat of summer wanes, baking is a delight. |
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Bring ’Em to the Table
I think kids are secretly glad to get back into a school routine after summer’s pursuits. I know I’m glad to return to a regular schedule, which includes dinner together at the end of a busy day. Sharing a hot meal makes me feel we’re connected. |
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Sweet Summer’s End
Hey, moms! Have your kids been getting restless, like mine? I think they’re (secretly) ready to get back to the school routine. But not before we celebrate with one more carefree, alfresco family party.
Whatever your family’s favorite is — a cool pool party, a farewell-to-summer barbecue or simply sandwiches in the backyard or nearby park — gather your group for an afternoon outdoors. Have the kids help prepare Peanut Butter Swirled Brownies: moist, fudgy brownies studded and topped with dreamy peanut-butter-flavored milk chocolate chips. |
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Lunches They’ll Love
School bells are ringing! In addition to getting the kids up, fed, dressed and off to school, many parents have to pack a lunch. Brown bags that get eaten and enjoyed may be a challenge, but not an impossibility.
In a perfect world, kids would get up early and pack their own lunches. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. However, parents can include their children in the decision making, which is key to packing lunches that get eaten. |
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Craving Cool
When summer sizzles, forget about turning on the oven! Yet even with the temperature climbing, my delight in making desserts for family and friends doesn't wilt. That's when I turn to my file of favorite no-bake sweets. |
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Sweet Endings With Fireworks
Getting out of the kitchen for flag waving is on my agenda for the Fourth! So, I'm topping off my Independence Day festivities with two great desserts that are a breeze to make. |
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No-Bake Treats for Dad
If your kids are like mine, Mother’s Day means breakfast in bed, and Father’s Day means... quite probably another tie, and Dad “gets” to take the family out to dinner.
Help the kids treat Dad like the king he is by making something special in the kitchen. Scotcheroos are a family favorite — one that kids enjoy making and Dad never tires of. Plus, these classic no-bake bars help children practice great kitchen skills, including melting, measuring, stirring and layering. Plan to have plenty of ingredients on hand: The kids might want to make one batch as a trial run, and another for Dad. |
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Soul Food Satisfies!
No one celebrates family in more style than African-American families, many of whom gather during June — Soul Food Month — to celebrate Juneteenth with a picnic or barbecue. Juneteenth, June 19, 1865, is the date that slaves in Texas learned the Emancipation Proclamation had freed them. Celebrating family is as good a reason for enjoying good food that I know, and African-Americans have honed family reunions to fine culinary art! Deeply satisfying soul food, a heritage of good Southern African-American cooks, is something we can all sink our teeth into. |
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Ole! Celebrate With Gusto
Viva la fiesta! Which in my book means "time to party!"
Join the Cinco de Mayo fun by hosting a party Mexican style, with great food, music, festive decorations... and don't forget a piñata or two for the kids. Fuel the festivities with a sweet ’n’ tart creamy drink that starts with lime sherbet. Make Creamy Carnation Margaritas "adults only" with a shot of traditional tequila; make a kids’ version without. |
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Tasty Flag Waving in Fashion
I'm ready for the summer celebration season! To kick it off, let’s give a cheer for Memorial Day as a perfect opportunity to show off by preparing a special, star-spangled dessert to take along to a community gathering. |
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A Taste of Spring
It might have been the birdsong I heard early this morning that made my winter-weary taste buds hungry for spring flavors. Welcome spring! I love the longer days, bluer sky and warmer breezes that bring a hint of new grass and bulbs bursting through the ground. I, too, feel like springing back to life after winter's indoor retreat, so it's an inspiring time for me in the kitchen—I love to cook up an excuse to get together and share good food! |
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Hopping Good Dessert
I've often thought that if the Easter bunny hung around to see what's for dinner, perhaps he wouldn't high-tail it after hiding his colored eggs!
Of all the entertaining possibilities spring presents, gathering family and cherished friends for a festive Easter dinner is tops on my list. My Easter tradition includes surprising my guests with a knock-your-socks-off special dessert. This year, a sublime Chocolate Banana Cream Pie will be eagerly anticipated. |
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Shhh! Sneak Nutrition Into Snacks
If your child is like mine, the first thing on his mind after school is "snack!" Now that's okay, except I want "nutritious", and he wants "treat."
In trying to get kids to choose nutritious snacks, sometimes sneaky works. Like these Pumpkin-Carrot Swirl Bars. |
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Baking for a Cause
The next best thing to baking for loved ones? Baking to raise money for a good cause.
Bake sales are a time-honored American tradition for raising the roof on the church or buying uniforms for the soccer team. Offer up these Chocolate Crumb Bars and watch them disappear! |
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Spicy Soup Satisfies
Good and good for you? Cross my heart! To celebrate American Heart Month, satisfy your family with a substantial supper soup that's big on flavor. Corn Chowder with Poblano is spiked with onion, garlic and lively poblano chile. Poblano is a robust chile, contributing deep flavor and "just enough" heat to make any dish interesting... |
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Have a Heart!
Give your heart away this Valentine's Day with an easy home-baked treat that will capture the affections of the whole family. Everyone loves a chewy chocolate chip cookie, and I've made this classic treat distinctive by shaping cookie dough into a giant heart and topping it with a smooth layer of rich chocolate. Invite the family to gather around this whimsical treat and enjoy... |
