I love a good Trader Joe’s hack for making meal prep a little easier, and there is nothing easier than this tasty, flavor-packed jalapeno-pistachio chicken salad recipe! The chicken salad gets a kick of heat and sweetness from the  delicious Trader Joe’s Jalapeno Sauce (seriously, this stuff is so good!), and tons of texture from the crunchy carrots and chopped pistachios. I love to make this in a double batch and eat it for lunch all week inside lettuce wraps – a few salty, crunchy potato chips on the side is the perfect pairing! Get the full recipe below: Save Print Trader Joe's Jalape ..read more

Last week I hosted an event and needed to bring an easy dessert to feed a crowd, so I pulled out this fool-proof and extremely easy lemon shortbread cookie recipe from my cookbook: New England Invite: Fresh Feasts to Savor the Seasons. The citrus brightens up the sweet and buttery flavors and cookie dough has just 5 ingredients. I added in some food coloring to tint it in different ombre pink, red and purple tones for Valentine’s Day (you could adapt the color for any holiday, I’ve done green for St. Patrick’s Day shamrock cookies too!).  This recipe also makes a fun, buttery, sticky doug ..read more

This granola bar recipe is an old favorite from my blog archives, and I pulled it out this weekend for a little experiment with my new heart tray I picked up at Target! Instead of slicing the granola bars into bars, I pressed into the heart molds and added a few heart sprinkles onto the top and bottom, and they were a BIG hit. My one tip is to make sure you press them into the molds really hard so they compact down tight and stick together!  This recipe contains peanuts and peanut butter, so leave out the nuts and swap for a nut-free if you’re planning to make them for a lunchbox sna ..read more

Meatballs are a weeknight staple at our house, because they’re easy to make ahead, great to freeze and use for leftovers, and they’re pretty much always a crowd pleaser! So I’m always trying to find new ways to add different flavor spins on the classic meatball mixture. I was recently craving my favorite chicken piccata dish from a restaurant in my hometown. It’s  traditionally a dish of chicken cutlets dredged in flour and browned, and served with a sauce of butter, lemon juice, capers, and stock or white wine. So I decided to take all of those flavors and bring them to my turkey meatbal ..read more

I am partnering with my friends at RiceSelect today to cook up the most fragrant, savory holiday risotto dish today with their classic Arborio rice — it’s my go-to for risotto dishes! I made this risotto dish with browned sausage, sauteed onions and mushrooms, and pops of flavor from the finely chopped dried cranberries, fresh sage, and orange zest sprinkled on top. It’s bursting with of seasonal flavors that will fill your kitchen with delicious notes if you’re entertaining for the holidays. ​RiceSelect rice is one of my pantry staples, and their Arborio rice is high in starch, giving th ..read more

My friends at Bertolino Foods shared some of their delicious ingredients with me, and their Certified Angus Beef Shaved Ribeye was calling me to make one of my favorite sandwiches: a garlic bread steak and cheese! This melty, buttery, garlic steak and cheese sandwich is the ultimate weekend snack and works great for football snacks if you make it on a large loaf of French Bread and then slice it into handheld sized strips.The focus of the sandwich is the steak, and Bertolino Shaved Steak is lean, tender, thinly shaved beef that packs tons of flavor and cooks up in just minutes. I make a flavor ..read more

I am partnering with my friends at RiceSelect today to mix up some tasty back to school snack mixes and storing them in repurposed rice jars. These easy, no-cook snack mixes are a great way to use up leftover snacks, the last scoop of dry cereal, a few nuts that are left over from a recipe, and other end-of-the-box ingredients.RiceSelect rice is one of my pantry staples, and when I’m done with one of the jars, they are easy to clean out and reuse for an easy storage solution. I love the indented handles that make it easy to pour ingredients, and they’re made of 100% BPA-free plastic. Perfect f ..read more

I hosted some friends on a recent summer night and there was the teeniest chill in the air that hinted at the change of the seasons. I set out to experiment on a dish that still had the bright, fresh flavors of summer, but with a hearty twist. The result: this lentil and quinoa salad, full of crisp spinach, delicately sliced slivers of red onions, crumbles of goat cheese and crunchy almonds, and topped with the tastiest, juicy peaches. Add the lentils and quinoa while they’re still warm to the bowl to help wilt down the spinach and red onions, and soften the almonds a bit. The goat cheese ..read more

I got the most beautiful box of colorful summer ingredients from my friends at Clover Food Lab delivered last week and it inspired one of the tastiest (and summer-iest!) salad I’ve made in a long time. It was a perfect pairing at my book club dinner with herb-y lobster rolls. Atop a big bowl of fresh mixed greens, I sprinkled thinly sliced red onions, juicy tomatoes and cucumbers from my garden, loads of summer blueberries and fresh corn cut off the cob. Everything was topped with goat cheese crumbles and chopped up pecans and almonds. Give it a little drizzle with white balsamic and good oliv ..read more

I can not stop myself from eating these Manchego, Olive, Soppressata and Melon Bites! They’re a super easy, no-cook appetizer idea that is perfect for summer entertaining. Start with mini skewers or toothpicks and add small blocks of manchego cheese (or another sharp cheese of your choice), marinated olives (get these from the grocery store olive bar), slices of soppressata (fold them into ribbons on the toothpick for easy bites) and cubes of sweet cantaloupe. I made them a few hours ahead and kept them chilled in the fridge under plastic wrap until ready to serve. They’re a refreshing, flavor ..read more