Jolene's Recipe Journal

September means that back to school time is in full swing! So, for those of you with children or who work in the education field, quick breakfasts, make-ahead dishes, lunchbox ideas, and easy weeknight dinners are all especially important. This month our group of food bloggers is sharing recipes for back to school time! Back to school varies a lot throughout the country, but once September comes it seems to be that everyone is headed back. We hope you find some recipe inspiration here as you plan out your meal ideas for the month. Don't forget to check back on the last day of each month to see the monthly recipe round-up! I don't know about you, but I'm not quite ready for summer to be over. The daylight is already getting noticeably shorter, our tomatoes are all ripening, and we've had some cooler breezes in the air recently. Even though I'm not going back to school, I can sense the seasonal change on the horizon. ~Breakfast~ Sausage, Egg, & Cheese B...

Even though it was a tough spring, my blueberry bushes still managed to put out a nice quantity of berries.  I made some of our old favorites, and have tried a few new recipes as well.  Something that always goes over well here are turnovers or hand pies.  Who doesn't love pie you can take with you?  I chose a recipe from Taste of Home that used puff pastry this time around.  It calls for cooking down some of the berries with sugar, cornstarch, and some lemon zest.  This keeps the filling from becoming too runny and your turnovers from being a soggy mess. To divide the puff pastry into squares, I like to use a pizza cutter.  It glides through it very smoothly.  I packed mine completely full before crimping them closed, and it lead to a little bit of the filling leaking out, but that's fine with me! Instead of the glaze I used the egg wash and sprinkled the tops with sugar before baking.  Huge thanks to the Taste of Home Test Kitchen...

  I'm wrapping up #FarmersMarketWeek with a new spin on one of my favorite dishes, arribbiata. The word means angry in Italian, but I promise you won't be mad at this dish!  The recipe comes from one of my awesome fellow Taste of Home Community Cooks, Courtney Stultz.  I did make one change to her recipe.  Since it's tomato season here, I didn't use the canned tomatoes as called for.  For yesterday's recipe, Smoky Grilled Corn Salsa, I had to grill up tomatoes, so I just did a bunch of extra to use in this.  I loved the extra flavor that bit of char gave them. This recipe also gave me an excuse to break the spiralizer out of the box that my guys gave me for Christmas two years ago.  I kept saying I was going to get to making something with it, and somehow never did.  Now I just want to spiralize everything, it's so much fun!  I'm just going to put this out there- zucchini is not pasta.  It's not going to have the same te...

Salsa and chips are one of my all-time favorite snacks.  I'm constantly trying out new version with fun twists. This recipe from Taste of Home features corn, and since it's in season right now, I couldn't wait to give it a try.    It takes just a few minutes to prep all the vegetables but then you can sit back and relax while they grill.  A nice adult beverage, a good book, and about 15 minutes later, everything just needs a quick chop.  I combined the remaining ingredients in a jar that had a screw on lid and just shook it to combine.  I am not a fan of cilantro, so I used parsley instead. Thanks so much to Alicia D. for sharing her recipe.  Be sure to go and check out what the other bloggers are making for #FarmersMarketWeek by clicking the links down below the recipe.  Here are some other salsa recipes you might like: Fresh Strawberry Salsa Watermelon Salsa Smoky Grilled Corn Salsa Print With Image Without Image Author: Jo...

I'm a bit of a packrat when it comes to recipes.  I've saved far more than I'll ever be able to make in a lifetime.  This recipe is a perfect example of why I will continue to save anything that sounds good to me, or catches my eye.  A few years back, one of my fellow Taste of Home Magazine Coomunity Cooks, R.D. Stendel-Freels, posted in our Facebook group about making bacon and eggplant sandwiches and submitting the recipe.  I thought, those sound amazing! And I immediately pinned them to my eggplant board.  Fast forward, and I'm searching for inspiration for #FarmersMarketWeek. I knew I wanted to do something with eggplant, but wasn't quite sure what.  There these were, and they sounded absolutely perfect for this event.  Tomatoes are just coming in, and I got some beautiful eggplant. I didn't make any changes to his recipe, but if you absolutely don't like eggplant, they would also be fantastic with zucchini.  Don't like provolone? ...