Jolene's Recipe Journal

Skillet Caprese gnocchi is a fantastic dish that's both easy to make and incredibly delicious. It's a perfect combination of fresh ingredients and flavors.

R is for Raspberry and Ricotta! This year I'm participating in a bi-weekly challenge with some blogging friends to post recipes using all of the letters in the alphabet.  It can feature a food that begins with the letter of the week or the recipe name can contain the week's letter. This time around we're hitting the R twice, once for raspberry and once for ricotta! I've had this recipe printed for a while and this was the perfect time to give them a try. The dry ingredients are pretty much all pantry staples, sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and flour.  I happened to have cake flour on hand from another recipe but you can use all purpose too. In another bowl, combine together milk, ricotta, 3 egg yolks (set the whites aside), lemon zest, lemon juice and almond extract. (I forgot to get a photo so thanks Canva!) My guys are tree nut allergic so I decided to use some raspberry flavoring instead. You could also use vanilla or lemon extracts. Add the wet ingredients

It's been a minute since I've been able to join the Muffin Monday crew. I got a nice crop of blueberries this year so I pulled out my recipe card for these Lemon Blueberry Muffins from Cooking Light. These are made using the standard format, first combining the dry ingredients. The dry ingredients are flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg (ignore the lemon, I obviously needed more coffee).  The butter gets cut into the dry ingredients and I'm all about shortcuts. I hate that whole "cut in with 2 knives" business. I put the dry ingredients in the food processor, added in the cubed butter and pulsed it.  For the wet ingredients, buttermilk, lemon zest and an egg.  Whisk those together in a bowl and set aside. I always toss fruit with a little bit of the dry ingredients before adding them to the batter.   Add the wet ingredients into the dry and combine just until moistened. Then gently fold in the blueberries and any of the dry ingredients

Calling all waffle fans! August 24th is #NationalWaffleDay and we're sharing 20 of our favorite recipes! There's something for everyone, classic, fancy, sweet, savory, from scratch, zhuzhed up store bought. What's your favorite way to waffle?

Q is for Quinoa! This year I'm participating in a bi weekly challenge with some blogging friends to post recipes using all of the letters in the alphabet.  It can feature a food that begins with the letter of the week or the recipe name can contain the week's letter. When I decided to participate in the challenge, Q was one of the first letters I knew I had an ingredient for. I eat a ton of quinoa, usually by way of the 90 second microwaveable pouches. It's quick, filling and a great way to add protein to your diet. I decided to go the breakfast route and was inspired by Chantale M's recipe in Taste of Home. I did make changes just due to what I had on hand and personal preferences. I used pre-rinsed regular quinoa. Since I wanted to see if my kid would give it a try I used whole milk because he is tree nut allergic. For only myself I definitely would use almond or cashew milk.  The original uses cranberries or goji berries but I used strawberries. I also had blueberr