Jolene's Recipe Journal

  Once in a while my husband presents me with a cooking challenge and this time around he brought home some salmon.  I've never cooked it and it had a pretty hefty price tag on it, so I turned to my most trusted resource, Taste of Home.  

I'm in charge of the desserts for all of our holiday family gatherings.  I do a combination of new recipes and family favorites, and these Chocolate Caramel Brownie Cups are on the must-make list every year! The recipe was originally given to me by a friend via an online message board, and I've been making them for 10 years. 

  This is the last day of #ChristmasCookies Week and I'm sharing one last find from my Gram's recipe box.  I always hesitate when it comes to rolled out cookies, but the combination of the spices in these just seemed so perfect for the holidays I decided to give them a try. I highly recommend grating the spices fresh if you can.  I have a handheld twist grater that's awesome for this.

I hope you are enjoying Christmas Cookies Week as much as I am! So many great recipes being shared, my holiday baking list is getting bigger by the minute! Another find from Gram's recipe box today, classic checkerboard cookies, but I put a bit of a Christmas spin on them.

  It's the most wonderful time of the year- Christmas Cookies Week! I've got 3 new recipes coming your way, starting with these Cherry Garlands, a treasure I found in my Gram's recipe box.

Christmas Cookies Week is coming up and I was having a hard time getting the candied cherries I needed for a recipe. I went searching for a recipe to make them myself and found this simple one on the King Arthur Baking Company site.

This week I've been testing out some potential new side dishes for our holiday celebrations. First up were these Pretzel Topped Sweet Potatoes from Taste of Home.  I did adapt the recipe slightly based on what I had on hand, which was mini pretzel twists and dried cranberries.

Since the temps have dropped here in New England I've been baking up a storm! This weekend's craving was for donuts, so I searched my Pinterest boards and these Baked Vanilla Donuts with Mocha Glaze caught my eye. 

I didn't get tortillas in this week's grocery pickup but I really wanted taco s tonight.  I searched the Taste of Home site for a recipe and these Homemade Tortillas looked simple enough, only 4 ingredients.  

The weather is changing here in New England and I've started the shift from outdoor cooking to indoor cooking. I've attempted burgers indoors in a variety of ways, and my guys reactions were always the same, lukewarm. 

One of my favorite things to do is take a drive to the nearby farms and see what local products they have. One of these trips led to an absolutely delicious dinner!

I'm finishing up #FallFlavors week with what I feel is one of the most underrated items of the season, pears.  I know that I'm guilty of going all gaga for apples as soon as the calendar flips to September, but there are so many awesome pear varieties available too! 

Baked Hasselback sweet potatoes have a delicious oat cookie crumble, creamy butter, brown sugar, and vanilla!

Welcome to Fall Flavors week! I'm kicking things off with a spin on one of my husband's favorite desserts, tiramisu.  Since I used Republic of Tea's Caramel Apple instead of coffee, I've dubbed it Tea-ramisu!

I'm closing out #BacktoSchoolTreats Week with something that's always a winner here- cookies! They are by far my favorite thing to bake, and I'm always on the hunt for new recipes to try out on my guys.

I hope you're enjoying #BacktoSchoolTreats Week as much as I am!  I've had a serious s'mores fixation this summer and when I saw Diana P's recipe for S'mores Stuffed French Toast on the Taste of Home site I knew it would be a perfect for this event.

Welcome to #BacktoSchoolTreats Week!  This year more than ever I think kids could use some fun treats to get back into the school spirit.  This year my son will be a senior, and I'm hoping he gets to experience it and enjoy it to the fullest.

I hit the jackpot when I stopped by the farm this week, they had loads of heirloom cherry and grape tomatoes.  I also grabbed red and yellow bell peppers, so I went searching on the Taste of Home site for a recipe to use them both.

Welcome to Farmer's Market Week! I started grilling pizza a few years ago, and I'm always experimenting and looking for new versions to try. I saw this Grilled Zucchini & Pesto Pizza in my current favorite Taste of Home cookbook, American Summer.

Another month has flown by and it's Muffin Monday again!  I thought I'd be able to share a blueberry recipe this time around, but my berries weren't quite producing enough.  In an effort to clear out some freezer/pantry space, I chose these Banana Mocha Chip Muffins from Taste of Home.

July is National Ice Cream Month, and we're celebrating by sharing some of our favorite ice cream treats! Whether you make it yourself or buy it at the store, nothing beats ice cream on a hot summer day! 

I hope you're enjoying #SummerDessertWeek as much as I am! We've had a lot of days over the 90 degree mark here in New England. This means that I'm constantly looking for quick meals and cool treats to help get through the hot days.  Popsicles are a perfect way to beat the heat!

Welcome to the 4th Annual #SummerDessertWeek event hosted by Angie from Big Bear’s Wife . We're celebrating all things summer with a week-long event that is absolutely filled with some of the best summer dessert recipes!

So happy to be joining the #MuffinMonday crew this month! I found the recipe for these Red, White & Blueberry Muffins while searching for ways to use up white baking chips. I have a bit of a baking chip collecting problem, I see so many fun ones, grab them, but then I'm not sure what to use them in.

This is my third year participating in GirlCarnivore's #BurgerMonth, and it has been my most challenging yet.  Several wonderful ideas had to be scrapped due to my son's school going to remote learning, or the inability to get ingredients, but I'll be circling back to them in the upcoming years, for sure.

When I was a kid, my mom would keep me out of her hair by making up a batch of icing and sitting me down with some decorating practice sheets. She was an amazing decorator, the one that everyone came to for cakes for their special occasion.

Over the last month there are two things that I've been doing a lot of: baking and drinking coffee.  When Door County Coffee & Tea Co. reached out and asked if I would help promote their Coffee for a Year giveaway there was zero hesitation.  I was introduced to their product just about a year ago and I've been a huge fan ever since!

Lots of cookie baking going on here over the last few weeks.  This is another family favorite, I've been making these for over 15 years! Their beautiful color and citrus flavor is great for any occasion. I found this recipe in a Hershey's cookbook, and it's also on their website.

These are one of the easiest cookies that I make, and they are always a hit. They start with a pouch of Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie mix, and you dress them up with colored sugar, nonpareils, or sprinkles.  I started adding a teaspoon of extract to the dough, vanilla, sometimes lemon, but anything will work.

Each January I make a list of recipes or techniques I'd like to master and a great source of information is Nielsen Massey's Better Your Bake series.  I've used their tips previously in some of our favorite dishes, Honey Vanilla Pancakes (Tip #1: How to separate eggs & whisk), Brown Butter Chocolate Snickerdoodles (Tip #2: How to brown butter), and Mini Chocolate Eclairs with Vanilla Pastry Cream (Tip #4: How to fill a pastry bag).

I hope that you've enjoyed Spring Sweets Week as much as I have!  I've found so many new things that I can't wait to try, my fellow bloggers are so creative. For my last recipe, I'm sharing a spin on a quick bread that I found in my Gram's recipe box. Hers used blueberries, but I swapped those out for some strawberries and rhubarb.

I hope you've been enjoying Spring Sweets Week as much as I have.  I'm constantly amazed by the awesome, creative recipes my fellow bloggers come up with! For me, some ideas pop straight into my head right away, and this dessert was one of those.

One of the first cookies I can remember eating is a pizzelle, and I'm still a huge fan today.  Even though you need a special iron to make them, the rest of it is really so simple. This time around I took the basic pizzelle recipe and instead of vanilla or anise, I used Adams lemon extract. I also used some of their yellow food coloring to distinguish them from my regular pizzelle.

I've talked often about our family gatherings and all of the great food I remember from growing up. It seems like I have a much clearer memory of the desserts more than anything else.  I remember a larger, puffy cookie that was almost crumbly in texture, shaped like crosses or Easter eggs, covered with a glaze and sprinkles.

  March is Maple Month here in NH.  We love getting out to the sugar house and picking up a gallon of syrup and some other maple goodies. 

Be a food blogger, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Now I want to say this up front, this is not a complaint post, I enjoy cooking and sharing what I make with all of you.  It's more that I want to put out into the universe that no one is immune to cooking fails. No one.

I'm excited to be joining the #MuffinMonday bakers this month, it's been a while! I keep a board on Pinterest full of muffin recipes to try, but I kept coming back to this one from Taste of Home.