Recipes built around what’s in season, from spring produce to holiday classics.
A poinsettia cocktail is cranberry juice, orange liqueur, and sparkling wine, and the cranberry base batches perfectly the night before. The ratio I use, why it isn’t quite a Christmas mimosa, and how to scale it for a crowd without losing the bubbles.
My cranberry Moscow mule is built to be batched the night before, with the vodka, cranberry, and lime mixed ahead and the ginger beer poured in at the glass so it never goes flat.
To make mulled wine you can batch ahead, simmer a cheap dry red with cinnamon, cloves, orange peel, and sugar, stir in brandy off the heat, then chill it overnight and reheat it low and slow. The batch-ahead method, the wine to buy, and how to hold it warm in a slow cooker all night.
The best cranberry sauce substitutes are fresh cranberry relish, a quick orange marmalade thinned with a little water, or a cherry sauce made the same way you’d cook cranberries, since all three land close to the tart-sweet flavor and jammy texture people expect on the table. If you’re standing in your kitchen right now realizing
The most elegant Christmas appetizers use just two or three high-quality ingredients arranged simply, like cranberry brie bites, whipped feta with hot honey, marinated shrimp, or prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, and most of them take about 15 minutes of hands-on work rather than any real cooking skill. I used to think elegant meant complicated. My first few
A halloween 7 layer dip is a classic seven-layer taco dip made with refried beans, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, cheese, and olives, finished with a sour cream spiderweb piped on top and dragged into a web pattern with a toothpick. I’ve made some version of seven layer dip for basically every Halloween party I’ve hosted
A sparkling pomegranate fizz is 100% pomegranate juice and fresh lime mixed with club soda over ice, roughly 2 parts juice to 1 part sparkling water, finished with pomegranate arils for garnish.
A Halloween batch margarita made with blanco tequila, fresh lime juice, orange liqueur, and a splash of blue curacao for that eerie green witch’s brew color is the easiest Halloween tequila cocktail to mix ahead and serve a crowd straight from one pitcher. I used to make individual margaritas at every Halloween party I hosted,
Leftover Halloween candy cookies are just a basic brown sugar cookie dough with chopped candy bars folded in and pressed on top, baked as one pan of bars instead of individual scooped cookies. You dump in whatever chocolate candy is left in the bowl, chop it small, and let the oven do the rest. I
A healthy salmon bowl made with garlic butter salmon, rice, and quick veggies, ready in 15 minutes. My go-to reset dinner when the week gets away from me.
Coquito is a rich Puerto Rican coconut and rum drink you make by blending coconut cream, coconut milk, evaporated milk, and condensed milk with warm spices, then chilling the whole batch for at least a day so the rum and coconut actually taste like one drink instead of two.
A candy charcuterie boo basket is a Halloween gift basket where you arrange snack-size candy, chocolate bars, and spooky treats on a board or tray like a mini charcuterie spread instead of just dumping it all into a bag. That’s the whole idea, and it’s why the format took off. A regular boo basket is
The best halloween snack mix recipes combine crunchy cereal and pretzels with a melted white chocolate coating, then finish with candy corn and M&Ms for a sweet and salty bowl that actually gets eaten to the bottom. That’s the whole idea behind candy corn chex mix, sometimes called monster munch. You get a salty, crunchy
Cranberry brie bites are mini muffin-tin appetizers made by pressing squares of puff pastry into the cups, tucking in a cube of brie and a spoonful of cranberry sauce, then baking at 375°F for 15 to 18 minutes until the pastry puffs golden and the cheese turns soft and melty. That’s the whole idea, and
The best marinated shrimp appetizers use shrimp that’s already cooked, tossed cold in a lemon garlic marinade and chilled for at least two hours, because raw shrimp left sitting in lemon juice starts to “cook” from the acid and turns rubbery. I used to think marinating meant dumping raw shrimp into a bowl of lemon