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20-Minute Berry Jam

Use up your almost over-the-hill berries for the sweetest homemade jam that cooks in just 20 minutes.

Who else finds themselves guilty of the best of healthy intentions and buys too many berries that then start to look like Yoda as they ripen faster than you can eat them? It’s okay, not to worry, there’s a remedy for that: Homemade jam.

The thing is, homemade jam is the perfect remedy for those fresh berries that are at, or have just passed the point, of being perfectly ripe for snacking. Just because they may not be picture perfect is no reason for tossing them out.

The berries may not look the same the day they went into the fridge—with a few more dimples and their skin beginning to look a bit withered—but that’s my signal that their sweetness just leveled up, making them perfectly ready for crunchy sourdough toast and this easy to make, sweet berry jam. continue to the recipe… about 20-Minute Berry Jam

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad Bowls with Berries

This Vietnamese rice noodle salad is a vegetarian-forward version of the traditional bún salads drizzled with nuoc cham—the popular Vietnamese dressing and dipping sauce—with spring lettuces, crunchy fresh vegetables and sweetened with the season’s best fresh berries.

Yes, this noodle salad does taste as good as it looks. And it’s just the beginning of my job to convince you to try this baby soon.

I’ve been a fan of fresh and crunchy Vietnamese vermicelli noodle salad bowls (bún) since my college days way back when, and ever since visiting Vietnam last Christmas, lighter, healthier, simpler recipes with a flare of these worldly-inspired Asian flavors have been at the top of my must-have cravings.

Today I’m sharing this recipe for vermicelli noodle salad to be served as a main meal noodle bowls for four. Or, the salad can be served in smaller portions as a side dish to this lighter chicken satay, tossing it all together in one big bowl the same as I do in my basic, fresh and easy Vietnamese noodle salad for serving to a party or salad recipe for a potluck or bbq.

There’s no cooking involved with this salad, just some peeling and chopping, so let’s get on to getting our salad cravings cured.continue to the recipe… about Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad Bowls with Berries

Mango Salsa Recipe

Fresh mango and strawberries mix with avocado, cilantro, red onion and jalapeño in this easy to make, zesty mango salsa that’s sweetened with lime and honey.

My chicken breasts were crying out for help. “Ka-kah! Help me! Just salt and pepper makes me b-o-r-i-n-g”

Because who craves boring chicken? Me? You? Hardly.

“Wait! I have that mango salsa recipe that would be the perfect topper. Let me go to the bloggity blog and find the recipe!”

Actually, that was me “asking” my husband to go to the blog and find it. And he couldn’t.

“But I know it’s there.” And it was. But not in plain sight. You guys may think that food bloggers have each and every recipe we’ve created formatted directly into our brains like the hard drives of our computers. That, my friends, is a fallacy.

The more likely scenario is that because we’re always dreaming of recipes akin to sugar plums dancing through our heads that we can’t remember a dad gum thing.continue to the recipe… about Mango Salsa Recipe

Creamy Tropical Fruit Slushies

Trade in your handheld popsicles for this frozen slushie treat that’s iced, creamy, and a total tropical flavor delight made from real fruit and almond milk, making it more delicious AND healthier than what you’ll find at the local snow cone shack.

This recipe is brought to you by Almond Breeze

Who else has stood in line at the little wooden shack on a hot summer day sweating bullets but so totally not moving because you’re finally next in line for a cold, frozen slushie/snow cone/ icy treat?

Or rather, who hasn’t?

Once we hit the dog days of summer, the summertime slurping ritual of savoring a brain freeze/Slurpee/shaved ice is at an all-time high. But here’s the deal, do you really know what’s in those things? Basically, it’s just a lot of sugary syrup made from weirdly manufactured ingredients over chunks of ice. And if you get the creamy version (because it tastes SO much better!) it’s doctored with heavy cream and/or sweetened condensed milk.

Talk about a calorie load!

But you do have options! Instead of piling on the unnatural sugared syrups and heavy cream options, it’s so easy to make healthier iced slushies at home. And you don’t even need a slushie machine to do it. Instead, just a good quality kitchen blender will totally do.continue to the recipe… about Creamy Tropical Fruit Slushies

Strawberry Avocado Spinach Salad with Chicken

A simple balsamic dressing does double duty as a marinade for the chicken in this light and healthy, fresh spinach, avocado and strawberry salad.

The best recipes are made from muscle memory.

These are the recipes you’ve made time and time again, with so much repetition you really don’t even think about what you’re doing when you make it, you just do.

These recipes aren’t really even recipes at all. They’re just the wonderful result of what happens when you take the basics and then add a twist here and a switcheroo there, all depending on what’s fresh and seasonal and hanging out in the fridge.

This spinach salad is exactly one of those recipes and finds itself as my lucky lunch at least once a week. And if I love it that much I’m betting you will too.

Isn’t that the perfect reason to share?

continue to the recipe… about Strawberry Avocado Spinach Salad with Chicken

6 Easy Snacks in 5 Ingredients or Less

A crunchy Triscuit cracker holds up to every flavor combination in these six bite size snacks using just 5 ingredients or less.

This post is in partnership with Triscuit and Refinery 29.

I’m a snacker. I think I get it from my grandma Mary Jane. She was never a big eater, but was always snacking on “just a little something.”

My snacking habits started young. It was part of my daily routine, just as much as brushing my hair and mercilessly teasing my little sister.

Every day after school I would get out my homework, and then flip on the kitchen TV (ours was a black and white 13-inch number with rabbit ears and no remote) to watch re-run episodes of The Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, Leave It to Beaver, Eight is Enough, Bewitched and the occasional ABC After School Special.

Then it was time to start my snack fest.continue to the recipe… about 6 Easy Snacks in 5 Ingredients or Less

Strawberry and Avocado with Tuna Salad Recipe

It’s back!

After a summer peppered with vacations to the beach / cabin / red rocks, popsicles and cereal flavored milkshakes, far more thunderstorms than I ever remember a summer possibly possessing and not nearly enough time spent weeding my garden (thank you for doing so, my #1 rock star dad!), just like that, we’re shocked back to reality and the routine of school days once that dang alarm goes off.

I, for one, am embracing it.

We’ve hit Target for new pencils, anitbacterial wipes and college ruled composition books. She chose her new outfit for the first day (denim on denim, how chic!) and I somehow got her to let me curl her hair, sort of. We took the requisite first day photo with her two babies and marveled at how in the heck she could have grown this much in just one year!

Then it was off to school where watched with the rest of the hovering parents as she immediately forgot us, as if we merely existed to be her estranged support system in her stratosphere of gal pals and those boys she totally doesn’t like ;).

continue to the recipe… about Strawberry and Avocado with Tuna Salad Recipe

Berry Tart With Lemon Curd Mascarpone

Today, you almost had me at quinoa. Or rather a twist on quinoa salad of a favorite ethnic variety. A recipe I’ve been craving, with bright flavors, creating lighter lunchtime fare. But then…this happened: Berry Tart With Lemon Curd Mascarpone.

Don’t be ashamed, be real. It’s okay you too like these berries more than quinoa. Even when you’re secretly giving me fist pumps and high fives. Even when your conscience is chanting, “Quinoa! Quinoa! Quinwwwwwaaaa!!!!!!”

My little Meyer lemon bushes have been wintering indoors like retired Upper East siders who call the southern beaches of Boca Raton their snowbirding home.

So there I was with hands on hips, staring these little bushes down as I pondered whether it was time yet to subject them to the harsh reality of the wild outdoors where they belong. Like swallows heading back to Capistrano, is it time for my two little lemons that bloomed over the winter to face the outdoor elements?

What? And leave their personal furnace vent and sunny west side disposition? Or would that be west side exposure? Just so long as it’s the good side of the west side we have a deal. Wazzup Westsiiiiiide?

Gosh, that makes me almost want to come back one day as a lemon tree. But only if you’ll call me Ms. Meyer.

continue to the recipe… about Berry Tart With Lemon Curd Mascarpone

Summer Berry Spinach Salad

Lunchtime is when I pull away from the computer, and blast some music while I fix a simple—and most days healthy—bite like this Summer Berry Spinach Salad before solving the world’s problems.

Like this problem that’s been bugging me for the past month.

What happened to this year’s song of summer, it’s anthem, the essential addition to the road trip music playlist? Where is 2013’s Carly Rae Jepson and it’s 20 million parodies on YouTube?

Back in the day we had no YouTube, no Pandora, no immediate downloads. We had the radio and it played incessantly, creating an essential mix tape of summer memories that immediately flood the brain once you hear the opening tracks no matter what time of year or where you are in time or location.

There was always a standout song that heralded my days of lifeguarding at the country club—skimming the pool at sunset to REM’s Document—or driving down PCH searching for the stars homes along the shores of Malibu while singing along to Coldplay’s Viva la Vida and looking for any of the cast members of Friends to emerge from Courtney Cox’s house. And who DOESN’T think of Summer Lovin’ Oh now this is fortuitous and takes me back to summers of the late 90’s.

continue to the recipe… about Summer Berry Spinach Salad

Dessert Nachos with Strawberry, Mango and Avocado Salsa

This is the thing I like about nachos. If you agree, you’re invited to the party. If you don’t, I’ll be the first to pass along an elementary-style lunch tray to ensure all of your primary food groups stay at arm’s length of one another.

Nachos. They’re layers upon layers of my favorite tastes. A little bit of salt, a lot of spice, maybe a little bit of protein—if I’m feeling the urge to act like a well-rounded adult—all blanketed in cheese, aka the glue that melds this flavor bomb together.

Last week I asked my friends on Facebook for help on what recipe they wanted to see this week: spring pasta or salsa? By the looks of today’s post I think you can see which dish came out as the clear winner.

The confirmation that this recipe was the clear winner came from my Smudge who declared it would had judiciously been added to her birthday party menu. This is serious stuff folks. Maybe it received this exclusive validation because she had become invested in the recipe as my scribe, studiously practicing her cursive skills as I dictated the ingredients and portions. By the way, I DO know there is no “t” in avocado. Most of the time. Can you even tell the difference between my handwriting and a 3rd graders? Aye—yi—yi. Scary.

Cinco de Mayo is on the calendar for this weekend’s celebrations replete with menus full of chunky guacamole, tacos (you gotta try this fried avocado version), enchiladas and a serious round of salsa. I thought about adding to the Mexican madness by recreating a standard savory affair, but headed off on a bender, pointed South and conquered the sweeter side of the border, thanks to mangos in my refrigerator in dire need of a destination resulting in this Mango, Strawberry and Avocado Salsa.

continue to the recipe… about Dessert Nachos with Strawberry, Mango and Avocado Salsa

Spring Fever and a Strawberry Banana Milkshake

Would you take a look at that? What, what? What could it be? Sun. Languishing. Full on soaking it up time.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Self…Why is Heidi posting Strawberry Banana Shakes when its not even St. Patrick’s Day? Where’s the green minty shake? The Easter Egg colored Smoothie?”

I’ll give you two reasons for this shake. Smudge and her friend K.K.’s a request for a sweet afternoon treat. See, now that the weather has finally made a turn—70 degrees is in the forecast today and I’m going skiing to celebrate—the girls decided it was high time to ditch the snowpants and break out the shorts, tanks and lounge cushions.

Shakes are a summertime staple around here but with sweet, spring strawberries hitting the stores we think it’s high time to take an early plunge into shake making. Oh, that poor dog in a dress.

One of our standing traditions after Smudge visits the dentist, and if she gets a clean bill of dental goodness—Hey mom, look! No cavities yet!—all bets are paid up and its time to get a milkshake. That’s when we head to Iceberg.

continue to the recipe… about Spring Fever and a Strawberry Banana Milkshake

20-Minute Berry Jam

Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad Bowls with Berries

Mango Salsa Recipe

Creamy Tropical Fruit Slushies

Strawberry Avocado Spinach Salad with Chicken

6 Easy Snacks in 5 Ingredients or Less

Strawberry and Avocado with Tuna Salad Recipe

Berry Tart With Lemon Curd Mascarpone

Summer Berry Spinach Salad

Dessert Nachos with Strawberry, Mango and Avocado Salsa

Spring Fever and a Strawberry Banana Milkshake

How to Make the Best Potato Salad

How to Make Classic Macaroni Salad

How to Make the Best Grilled Salmon

The Best Greek Chicken Marinade

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