round up

20 Caprese Recipes You’ll Go Crazy For

From the best caprese salads to caprese skewers and the classic caprese sandwich, this list of 20 favorite tomato, mozzarella and basil themed recipes will have you going crazy for caprese.

You know those quizzes you see all over the internet touting, “Choose your favorite XX and we’ll tell you your personality type”? Well, if I had to choose, my favorite-salad-personality-clone would be the caprese salad.

There’s not much you can’t do with the basic ingredients of the classic caprese salad, from the classic caprese salad to caprese skewers to caprese-topped chicken dinners, all you need to get started is:

fresh and creamy mozzarella (any shape or size, and ultra-creamy burrata makes things even that much better)
the season’s best tomatoes (hopefully still warm from the garden)
spicy basil that smells of summer
the best fruity olive oil your wallet can afford
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper for that hit of spice we all need in our day

Alone as a preamble salad or served as a potluck side dish that will be the first to disappear, a classic caprese is pure love on a plate, in a bowl, or on a platter. But take those classically fresh Italian ingredients and add a dose of inspiration and you have so much more: a topper for chicken, or spritzing up toasts, or making breakfast eggs even more of the best way to start your day. The caprese personality is one everybody will love.

The season is now to capture the rapt ripeness of the best tomatoes. Get them before the getting’s gone. It’s time to get your caprese on.

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31 Pumpkin Recipes to Carve Into This Fall

This round up of 31 favorite sweet and savory pumpkin breakfast, pasta soup, and dessert recipes will get you in the fall spirit.

What ingredient is a better beacon of fall than the pumpkin? The seasonal return of this dimply, round squash is marked by PSL’s on coffee shop menus, and neat rows of Libby’s, prominently displayed on endcaps in groceries everywhere. It’s a sure sign that autumn is here, which means full-fledged pumpkin mania can now ensue.

Like stores racing to put out Valentine’s Day paraphernalia as soon as Christmas ends, hardcore pumpkin fanatics start tinkering with recipes in August, if not sooner. Pumpkin cinnamon rolls on a 90-degree day? That’s love. The general consensus seems to be that late September is when it’s socially acceptable to open up that can of pumpkin (in case you were asking for a friend).

While our Thanksgiving tables would be pretty lackluster without the appearance of that classic slice of whipped-cream dolloped pumpkin pie, there are so many more ways to enjoy pumpkin. We love roasting it for salads, puréeing it into soups, and baking it up into sweet morning treats.

Here are 31 sweet and savory ways to enjoy it this fall.

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Top 10 Recipes from 2013

Let the countdown begin and where’s my champagne?

Another year has nearly made its way into the archives and left me feeling a little reflective. Maybe it’s because I’ve taken a bit of a holiday blog and social media sabbatical, leaving me more time to focus on my family—how is my Smudge growing into a totally fun pre-teen so fast?— and think about what FoodieCrush might look like in 2014.

That led me to looking at what you liked the most of FoodieCrush this past year and sharing them, once again, with you.

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10 Best Corn Recipes and Friday Faves

Food blogging can be a solitary job.

Dreaming up wild ideas on your own, being a one (wo)man show in the kitchen, taking on the tasks of a full-service photo studio to become a food stylist, prop stylist and photographer all wrapped up into one. And then there’s the writing, which is probably the only part of blogging that truly takes just one brain to deliver our sweet and savory, crunchy or smooth ideas to the table.

But this week, I was far from alone. Instead, I went from the mountains of Park City, UT to the flatlands of the midwest to be immersed in food bloggerness thanks to some of the most talented names on the www’s.

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