When we made this pasta the first time, I sent Annie a video of Clara eating it and enthusiastically nodding when I asked her if she liked it. That pretty much sums up our feelings about this pasta. The broccoli is cooked until just tender and then pureed with a bit of cream or Greek yogurt. You cook the pasta in the same pot you used to cook the broccoli, which obviously makes cleanup a breeze. Easy peasy and so delicious. This recipe makes a ton of pasta, so next time I make it I’m going to cook half the pasta and freeze the remaining pesto.

These burgers are filled with shredded cheddar, jalapeño, onion and cilantro and then served with a generous spoonful of guacamole. Are you kidding me? That’s almost too much awesomeness to go inside of a bun. The original recipe called for sour cream and salsa too, but these were so good with only the guacamole that I totally forgot about those things. I hate to be all “this is the best burger ever so go make it now,” so I’ll refrain from telling you that. However, you should know that I’m totally putting these on the menu again this week because they really are just that good. We made our guacamole extra special by tossing in some grill-charred corn kernels, and it was definitely a good addition. Clara absolutely loved this meal. Corn on the cob is one of her favorites, and she devoured her burger patty. We had extra guacamole and tortilla chips on the side, instead of the usual french fries, and it was the perfect summer meal.

I made these cupcakes for a Memorial Day cookout. Our friends have always enjoyed the boozy sweets I’ve made in the past (especially this chocolate bourbon cake), so I was pretty sure they’d go crazy for these cupcakes. Cupcakes + tequila + fresh strawberries = major win. I considered making these for our neighborhood block party but ended up making piña colada cupcakes instead. I promise the next cupcake recipe I share with you guys will be alcohol free. Anyway, these cupcakes were a big hit with everyone. I never know how cupcakes based on drinks will turn out, but I knew these would be great since my friend Josie is the one I got the recipe from. Most of the margarita cupcake recipes I’ve seen use bottled margarita mix, but this recipe uses all fresh ingredients. The base is a tequila-lime infused cupcake, and the frosting is a Swiss meringue buttercream that has strawberry puree, tequila and lime mixed in. The frosted cupcakes are lightly sprinkled with coarse salt, adding a surprising and totally delicious element. Even though I’ve got approximately 2159 cupcake recipes to try, this one will definitely be made again before strawberry season is over.

So far, our canning experience is limited to jams, jellies and pickles. Everything we’ve canned has been done in a water bath canner, so that’s what I’m sharing with you today. I think it’s a good place to start, and I hope you guys will give it a try if you haven’t already. If you follow the directions, there’s no need to worry about botulism or some freak canning disaster. Canning is one of those things that definitely seems way harder than it actually is, and you’ll find yourself wondering why you put it off for so long once you finally do it.

Let’s get started!

Supplies:
Large pot with a tight fitting lid and metal rack (We have thisone.)
Small pot for simmering the lids
Wide mouth funnel, lid lifter, jar lifter, headspace tool (We have thiskit that includes all four.)
Jars, lids and rings
Clean kitchen towels
Ladle

Processing the Jars:
Before getting started, read your recipe thoroughly, make sure all your supplies are nearby and that your jars have been washed. Washing does NOT sterilize the jars, but anything getting processed for 10 minutes or more doesn’t require sterilized jars. You’ll want the jars to be hot before you pack them, so go ahead and add them to your canner or a large stockpot. Submerge them in water and bring to a simmer (180˚F). Keep them simmering  until it’s time for them to be filled. You can also wash them in the dishwasher and keep it closed and warm until you need the jars. Place the lids (just the flat lids, not the rings) into a small pot of barely simmering water.

Once the food you’re making is ready to be canned, remove the jars from the water using tongs or a jar lifter and place them onto a clean kitchen towel on your counter. Use the magnetic lid lifter to remove the lids and place them on the towel, as well. There’s no need to dry anything off because the high heat will cause any water to evaporate quickly. Place the wide mouth funnel over a jar and use your ladle to fill it. You need to leave the appropriate amount of headspace (the space between the food and the top of the jar) that the recipe calls for. Repeat with the remaining jars. Once you’ve filled all of your jars, wipe each rim using your clean kitchen towel or a clean, damp paper towel. Place the lids onto the jars and lightly screw the metal ring into place. You don’t want the ring to be too tight because it could prevent air from escaping while processing. Instead, go for “fingertip tight,” which is as tight as you can get it with the tips of your fingers.

Now that your jars are filled, it’s time to process them so that they can get properly sealed. Place the jars into the canning rack, spaced evenly and far enough apart that water can circulate around them. Alternately, you can keep the rack in the pot and place each jar individually using the jar lifter. The water should be at least 1-inch above the tops of the jars. Cover the canner with the lid and start timing as soon as the water reaches a rolling boil. Process the jars for the amount of time indicated in your recipe.

Once the jars are done processing, remove them and place them back onto the towel-lined counter. The jars need to cool at room temperature for 12-24 hours, but you should start to hear the pinging of the jars sealing right away. Once the jars are cool, check the seal of each by checking to see if the lid is concave. If your jar didn’t properly seal, refrigerate it and reprocess within 24 hours or just plan to eat that one first. Any jars that didn’t seal should be refrigerated and consumed in a short amount of time (I’ve seen as little as 2 days and up to 2 weeks, so use your best judgment).

Remove the rings from the jars and store in a cool, dark place for up to 1 year. That’s it – you’ve just finished canning!

Resources:
Like I mentioned earlier, there are a ton of resources out there for canning. I’ve found Virginia’s Cooperative Extension to be incredibly helpful, and there are actually even classes offered in some counties around here. If you’re more of a hands on learner, definitely look into programs in your area. They also have a handy PDF that goes into more detail and even has pictures. The National Center for Home Food Preservation also has several guides for canning and preserving.

I’ve also enjoyed the following books, both for their canning information and delicious recipes:
Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round
Well Preserved: Third Edition: Small Batch Preserving for the New Cook
The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves

There are plenty of others, but these have been my go-to guides the past couple of years. Make sure to check your library. Mine had a huge selection of canning books, and that gave me the chance to figure out which ones I wanted to buy. If you have any resources to add to this list, please let me know! I’d also love to hear about what you guys are canning, what you want to see recipes for, etc.

This recipe is ridiculously easy but yields a fantastic result. The chicken is cooked first, then the remaining ingredients are added and cooked to create the sauce. One skillet is all you need. The sauce is delicious, and I wanted to pour it over everything on my plate (maybe I did after I snapped the picture). We used a seasonal summer beer in the sauce and had more with our meal. We all loved this and having a quick meal like this on a weeknight meant we still had plenty of time for playing and enjoying an evening walk with Clara before starting dinner. That’s an all around win.

Homemade pizza is a pretty regular meal in our house. Chances are good that we have a ball or two of pizza dough in the freezer and a can of tomatoes in the pantry. From there, we add whatever we’ve got on hand – pepperoni or salami, some herbs, tomatoes, peppers, etc. Even though I plan out each week’s menu, it’s nice to have something to fall back on for those nights that what I planned to cook isn’t doing it for me. This pizza, on the other hand, was placed on the menu with purpose. I’ve been eager to make it for a while, and after eating it, I’m ready to make it again.

This was Clara’s first time eating pizza, and she went absolutely crazy for this one. This pizza starts out with an incredibly tasty white sauce and is topped with mozzarella, shredded chicken, red onion and lots of fresh herbs. There’s extra white sauce for dipping, if you’re into that (and if you’re not, this sauce may change your mind). Light isn’t something I normally think of when it comes to pizza, but this one certainly has that feeling. Sure there’s a rich white sauce, but the pizza itself isn’t at all greasy or overly cheesy. It’s a good summer pizza because we can take advantage of all the fresh herbs growing in our garden. It’s fun to change things up a bit from the traditional tomato sauce based pizza, but this combination isn’t so crazy that people who lean toward more traditional pizzas won’t enjoy it. And even though there are countless pizza topping and sauce combinations, it will be a while before we try another because this one is just that good.

Just over two months from now, this blog will celebrate its fifth birthday (anniversary?). I have been thinking about this date a lot. I’m horrible about over thinking things and wondering what I could have done differently over a given amount of time (my birthday and New Years Eve do this to me too). In the time that I’ve had my blog, I’ve moved, become a homeowner, become a mom, had friends come and go, met friends through my blog, received kind words from readers when I most needed them and a thousand other minor things that I won’t list. I’ve also watched the way people blog change. Maybe it was the rise of Pinterest or the fact that companies realized food bloggers were a good way to gain an audience or something else entirely. Instead of just writing a post, it seems as though now I have to worry about analytics and how many comments I get and backup ads and perfectly styled photos and how to time my tweets and gain more followers on Pinterest. When I started this blog in 2008, I didn’t anticipate being concerned, or feeling like I should be concerned, about those things.

When thinking about how this blog has grown and changed over the past five years, my first thought isn’t pride. It’s inadequacy. I wonder why my blog hasn’t grown as much as another, maybe one that’s been around for less time. There was once a time I didn’t compare my blog to others, but I’ve had difficulty stopping myself lately. I ask myself  what I’m doing wrong. Are my words, my pictures, simply not good enough? And if that’s the case, why do I keep putting them out there? The answer to that is simple. I love blogging. I love the friendships it has brought me, the world of food it has opened up to me, the photography skills I’ve learned because of it. When I started this blog, I had no intention of getting any traffic, hosting giveaways, attending a blogging conference or even becoming friends with other bloggers. I started this blog was for one simple reason – to have a place to save recipes we enjoyed and be able to easily share them with other people. My blog has grown more than I ever expected it to, so I’m not sure why I started caring that it hasn’t grown as much as someone else’s. I’ve gained so much from it that I can’t even imagine what my life would be like if I had never started it. And who says traffic is indicative of success? Have you seen my early blog photos? The fact that the ones I have now are so much better makes it clear to me that I have been successful in improving my photography. My early writing was awful, too. I’ve definitely grown as a writer. So instead of looking back and wondering how I could have gone further, I’m going to look back and see how far I’ve come. Eric told me a couple months ago, “The truth is, it’s a game and you don’t like playing. You just like making pretty things.” So that’s it. I’m out. I’m over it. I just want to make delicious food, take pretty pictures of it and share them with all of you. That’s what I’ve been trying to do all along. Somehow, recently, the other stuff seemed to take more and more time away from doing that. I didn’t plan on telling you guys any of this, but I knew something was wrong when I debated sharing this recipe because I didn’t get a picture of the dressing. Really?! What a dumb reason.

Chipotle has become our go-to takeout place. I really love burrito bowls and was planning to make them at home recently. We ended up having a heavy lunch that day, so I decided to change things up and make Chipotle-inspired salads for dinner instead. We already had all the ingredients on hand, so it was easy to switch up our dinner plans. This dressing is sweet and smoky, with a little tang from the red wine vinegar and lime juice. I think it would be fantastic on any salad, not just a Tex-Mex one. We haven’t bought bottled salad dressings in years, and this is why. It’s so incredibly easy to whip them up at home, and you can totally customize them to your liking.

Last weekend Eric made one of our favorite biscuit recipes, one that I’ve been meaning to share with all of you for a really long time. They’re drop biscuits, which means they come together in no time and are incredibly easy to make. This recipe uses chipotle powder and cheddar cheese, making these biscuits perfect for breakfast or brunch or as a side at lunch or dinner. The chipotle flavor is intense, but the smokiness and heat are offset by a generous smearing of honey butter. The smoky-sweet combo is hard to beat, and these are especially fantastic served alongside bacon. I thought the spice level would be too high for Clara to enjoy these, but she took a bite out of mine and immediately wanted more. Fair warning: these are highly addictive, and you may just find yourself snacking on one at lunch time after eating two at breakfast. Not that I’d know or anything.

These waffles are my favorite for a number of reasons. The texture is perfect – slightly crisp on the outside and light on the inside. The flavor is mild – good enough to eat on its own but also a wonderful base for things like Nutella, peanut butter or just maple syrup. I also like that these waffles aren’t overly sweet. And perhaps my favorite reason for loving this recipe so much is that Clara also loves it. We made these for Christmas morning breakfast and again for her first birthday, and watching her eat them is seriously one of the cutest things ever. She eats hers plain with a side of fruit. Eric and I aren’t as healthy in our waffle consumption. For those times I don’t feel like slathering my waffle in Nutella and loading it with fruit and eating it like a taco (or, as Eric and I refer to it, a wafco), it is perfect for eggs, cheese and a couple slices of crispy bacon. As we ate these Sunday morning, we dreamed up all the combinations we could make if we had a waffle food truck. Since we had so many ideas, I’m sure we’ll be having these for breakfast again soon so that we can test them out.

With Mother’s Day just a couple of days away, I’ve been thinking a lot about motherhood and what kind of mom I am to Clara. Truthfully, I think about this topic quite a bit. Apparently I’m better at thinking about it than writing about it, though, because I sat at the computer for over an hour trying to figure out how to put into words something that I feel so deeply and I totally failed. I wish I had something profound to tell you, some eloquent way to articulate the thoughts that float through my head on occasion, but even though I have a blog, I think it’s clear that recipe making, not writing, is my gift. So let me tell you this. Motherhood is many things to me and has made me feel more emotions simultaneously than I ever thought possible. It’s wonderful, exhilarating, terrifying, exhausting, laughter-inducing, tear-inducing, hilarious and a bundle of other feelings I’m surely forgetting. And my biggest hope through it all is that Clara goes to bed at night knowing she is completely and unabashedly loved.

We don’t have big plans for Mother’s Day here. Eric is making breakfast (waffles with Nutella and strawberries, yum) and we’ll hopefully do something outside together, all three of us. That’s just the way I like it, but I totally understand wanting a break for the day too. While this cupcake can’t take over mom’s duties for the day, it can offer her a taste of a tropical getaway. It’s a coconut cake brushed with pineapple syrup and then topped with a silky pineapple Swiss meringue buttercream. Topped with a cherry and a drink umbrella, this cupcake is about as close to the real thing as you can get without needing a straw. I made these cupcakes for a neighborhood block party and was told they were “the hit of the party,” so I promise you they’ll be making more appearances around here in the near future.

PS – Don’t forget you’ve got until Sunday to enter my giveaway from Anolon!