These shortbread cookies have an exciting play between sugar and salt that when mixed with their buttery flavor and crumbly texture are tantalizing and delicious. Humbly beautiful on their own with tea or coffee, they can also be sandwiched with jam, covered with glaze, or flavored with an endless list of mix-ins. At its most basic, shortbread is a cookie made from flour, butter, and sugar. The cookie gets its name from its “short” texture....

The Best Way To Use Garden Cucumbers This is all well and good, as long as I remember to pick them daily. As careful as I can be, hunting for cucumbers in the tangle of leaves and vines, I do miss them occasionally, only to discover a monster cuke hiding perfectly camouflaged under a leaf! Like zucchini, left to their own devices, cucumbers will grow to ginormous proportions, resulting in a thick-skinned, seedy bat....

When the cranberries do finally come in, we load up, so we have plenty of frozen cranberries to last us the year. Then we start cooking with them. Cranberry relish, cranberry sorbet, even cranberry salsa. We even have three different recipes for apple cranberry pie. One of my father’s favorite things to make is applesauce with cranberries added in for tartness, flavor, and color. We’ll eat it for breakfast, as a side for pork, or with ice cream for dessert....

Most of us go into each week with this sense of “I’m going to conquer the kitchen,” only to find ourselves ordering pizza by Wednesday because we are so exhausted from cooking multiple meals a day. In this week’s meal plan we can repurpose some of the recipe components and ingredients to use in other meals later in the week. Additionally, sides like rice, orzo or roasted potatoes are all dishes you can make in bulk to serve with two or more of this week’s meals....

What Is Brining? Brining means making a salt water solution and submerging the turkey for about 24 hours before roasting. This spa treatment helps the turkey retain more moisture during roasting and prevents it from drying out. A brine also gives me a chance to season the turkey with herbs and spices, especially the skin! Sage and citrus is one of my favorite combinations. It’s so festive and makes the house smell amazing....

While it was hard for me to find decent Chinese food in my small rural town growing up, these days, Chinese food is universal and delicious! While Chinese is one of the more common things to order as takeout, if you have a few special ingredients stocked in your pantry, you can make great Chinese dishes at home—like this easy Chicken Lo Mein! It’s family-friendly, fast, and economical. Video: How To Make Easy Chicken Lo Mein Kids and Chinese Food This lo mein is a great chance to introduce some new flavors to kids, because you can use almost any veggie along with the chicken and noodles....

It doesn’t take long to make it from scratch, but you can also make it ahead of time if that’s better for you. It’s my favorite soup so far this season! What Kind of Potatoes To Use for Potato Soup I personally prefer Yukon Gold potatoes. They have less starch than russet potatoes and get very creamy and smooth when you blend them. However, a lot of potato soup recipes called for russet potatoes, and if that’s what you have in your pantry, go for it....

My favorite restaurant Brussels sprouts are actually served in San Diego. At BO-Beau Kitchen + Bar, they bring a heaping pile of Brussels to the table on a rustic wooden serving board topped with shavings of salty Parmesan and drizzles of sweet and tangy balsamic glaze. It’s a classic combination that is reliably delicious. There are even fantastic vegan Parmesans out there these days (my favorite is from Violife) if you want to go totally plant-based....

There are several methods and twists for making garlic bread, the easiest being just rubbing a cut clove of garlic over toasted slices of Italian or French bread, and spreading the toast with olive oil or butter. Here are a couple of methods that make wonderful garlic bread, depending on how you like it, either toasty or soft. Toasty or Soft Garlic Bread? The methods for making toasty garlic bread or soft garlic bread are slightly different:...

But these donuts are truly exceptional because they taste like a traditional donut you ate while growing up as a kid. The texture is spot on—super tender and light. So, I figured it was time to try my hand at making them at home. I went one step further and made my version gluten-free, so everyone could enjoy them. Use a Donut Pan to Make Homemade Donuts These are baked donuts (as opposed to fried) and while I generally try not to write recipes that require special equipment, you do need a donut pan to pull these off....

There was a keg dressed as Santa, guys and girls in fake antlers, and pirated Christmas music blaring over the din of the crowd. And if you could push your way through the tipsy mass of people, one noble student was playing bartender in the corner. The choices she gave us were mulled wine or a Grasshopper cocktail. Not yet one for wine and unsure what a Grasshopper was, I chose the latter....

This simple preparation of green beans, with butter, thyme, and toasted almonds, comes from my friend Heidi in Carlisle Mass, and over the years has become one of my favorites. More Great Recipes for Green Beans! Green Bean Casserole from Scratch Pressure Cooker Green Beans with Tomatoes and Bacon Roasted Green Beans with Shallots and Pancetta Creamy Green Beans and Mushrooms Stir Fried Green Beans with Ginger and Onions...

Amy highly recommended the grilled cheese sandwich with bacon and pear, and it was, true to Amy’s suggestion, fabulous! The sweet pear worked beautifully with the bacon and sharp cheddar. A great combination. Bartlett pears are just now finally making a show at the markets and I made these sandwiches for the family this week. We also tried them with ham, in place of the bacon. The bacon won. There is a debate here as to whether gruyere would do well in place of the cheddar....

The pumpkin provides some natural sweetness, which plays well with the different spices. If you aren’t able to find fresh pumpkin, then butternut squash, acorn squash, or any other hard squash would be good substitutes. Video!: How to Make Pumpkin Chili Pumpkin Chili’s Secret Ingredient I love using beer in my chili recipes because it adds a rich, earthy flavor and just enough bitterness to balance the richness of the finished dish....

While I love to make this recipe to ring in the New Year, it is really great for any occasion. The warm spices are perfect for fall and winter and you can serve it as a dinner party dessert, a snack cake, or at breakfast with a cup of hot tea or coffee. Honey and Rosh Hashanah Honey cake is a staple of Rosh Hashanah (also known as the Jewish New Year) because honey symbolizes a sweet and fruitful year ahead....

In this recipe we marinate the whole chicken in lemon juice for a few hours, roast the chicken, then glaze it with honey the last few minutes in the oven. Marinate in Lemon Juice for Tender, Flavorful Roast Chicken The acidity of the lemon juice works like buttermilk to tenderize the chicken. The chicken is salted when it goes into the marinade so the marinade doubles as a gentle brine as well....

These are words from “Each Peach Pear Plum,” a children’s book by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. It is a charming book filled with even more charming illustrations, painted in soft pastels—Tom Thumb slightly hidden in each page and English nursery rhyme characters play the leading roles. Like so many young children, my now-grown son Luke was enchanted by the rhyme and the story—he demanded I read it to him over and over again....

Like potatoes! A pressure cooker makes fast work of steaming a bunch of cubed potatoes, and I use them for all sorts of things all week long. You might be thinking that it’s overkill to bring out the pressure cooker for a simple kitchen task like steaming vegetables, but it’s the way that works for me. I like being able to load up the cooker, press a button, and walk away, rather than waiting around tending a pot on the stove....

But if you, like me, did not grow up on the Bayou or in some other land of shrimp bounty, you, like me, might be scratching your head wondering how to unsheathe your tasty shrimpies from their shells upon your first encounter with them. Becca kindly taught me how to peel shrimp, and how to devein shrimp (thank you m’dear). The technique is below. She also informed me that the best shrimp are from the Gulf of Mexico, by the way....