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Creamy, rich, garlicky potato soup made without a drop of cream or milk. I loved this soup from the very first bite. Do not let the name of this soup weird you out. I swear it is delicious! When I made Creamy Cauliflower Sauce for the first time, and the second, third, fourth and fifth times, it almost begged to be used in a soup. (Truthfully, I ate it on it's own as a soup a time or two.) This is not merely a substitute for traditional baked potato soup, this soup stands on its own and is every bit as tasty as its heavier dairy filled friend.

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Creamy, spicy, perfectly smooth and cheesy dip just like they serve at your favorite Mexican restaurant. Smother a burrito with it, pour it on a burger, drizzle it across roasted potatoes, pour it onto Spanish rice, layer in into nachos or dip your chips in it. I highly recommend making a batch of Taco Meatballs to serve with it. Between the meatballs and this dip, my family has been very happy with their dinners lately.

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All of your favorite Mexican spices are wrapped up in these tender juicy bite-size meatballs. This might be the easiest meatball recipe ever and it happened almost by accident a few weeks ago. I made a huge tray of Black Bean and Beef Taco Nachos for lunch and I still had some ground beef that needed to be used. The Mexican spice mix was sitting on the counter and one thing led to another.

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Pumpkin butter is a thick, richly spiced spread that is perfect on top of toast or muffins. It is also delicious swirled into oatmeal or yogurt, dolloped onto crackers or spooned over ice cream. Pumpkin butter is one of the most versatile fruit spreads I make. If you are a pumpkin lover, this recipe is for you.

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Tender pork is slowly cooked with Mexican spices and then layered into cheesy saucy spicy enchiladas. This Slow Cooked Mexican Pork has been at the top of my favorites list for a while now and I've made it at least six times in the past few months. I kept thinking that the pork would be great in enchiladas, but we like it so much on it's own, I never managed to try them until now.

My middle son has been asking for "red" enchiladas for over a month now and these were made specifically for him. (That silly child doesn't love green chile the way the rest of the family does, how is that even possible?) The whole family loved them and there was barely a serving left in the pan.

I'm headed to New Mexico tomorrow to spend the weekend with my sister. In my excitement, I've been making our favorite Southwestern foods all week. I can hardly wait to eat my fill of my favorites in Santa Fe!

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Fudgy, chewy, chocolate toffee brownies are perfect with a tall glass of milk or a hot cup of coffee. The toffee adds a bit of crunch on top and a great flavor throughout each brownie. These brownies have such a rich, deep chocolate flavor they are closer to fudge than traditional brownies.

I made these to share with some friends last week and they disappeared in minutes. The recipe was immediately requested by several people and I promised to post it soon. I love when a dessert turns out that well!

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Crisp roasted potatoes with a fluffy center are one of my favorite side dishes. I serve them for breakfast, lunch or dinner and I usually double or triple the recipe to keep them in the refrigerator during the week for easy breakfasts. Tossing the potatoes with fresh rosemary makes them just a little bit fancier without any real effort or extra time spent. I served these potatoes with Pan Fried Chicken and Caramelized Brussels Spouts. There was hardly a bite leftover after the meal.

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This minestrone soup is filled with three different beans, tender vegetables and pasta, seasoned with Italian spices and topped with Parmesan cheese. My family hardly considers it a meal if there isn't meat on the table, so I included a pound of hot sausage in our soup. The soup is delicious both with and without the meat.

It never fails to make me smile when a simple hearty soup makes everyone in my family so happy. It makes me even happier when that meal requires less than 30 minutes time spent in the kitchen! Served on it's own or with some crusty bread and a salad, this is a wonderfully hearty winter meal.

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Creamy vanilla cheesecake is poured over a simple graham cracker crust and then layered with pumpkin pie cheesecake to create this spectacular dessert. For all that it looks fancier, this is a very simple recipe that results in an unforgettable ending for any meal.

I've made a double layer pumpkin pie each Thanksgiving for years. That pie is frequently requested and it is always a hit. However, this recipe just knocked that one off the table. My whole family absolutely loved this pie and it is officially on our holiday dessert list now!

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Albondigas soup is a traditional Mexican meatball soup. Despite the fact that I grew up in New Mexico, I had never tasted it before making this recipe. My friend Kelly sent me her recipe for this soup earlier this year and I was excited to finally have a chance to try it last night. The whole family enjoyed it for dinner and my kids went nuts over the fact it was a soup filled with meatballs! (Never fear, little ones, I'll be adding plenty of vegetables next time I make it!)

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These crispy, rich, chocolate peanut butter bites are one of the best five minute recipes I've ever made. It took longer to melt the butter than it did to stir together the rest of the recipe! As soon as I tasted one, I wrapped up the rest to send to the office with Sean the next day. (No joke, I could have eaten half the pan if left alone with it all day!) Do I even need to mention that my kids absolutely loved these as well?

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This lightly sweetened and spiced cake is filled with chunks of apple, then drizzled with warm caramel sauce just before serving. A sprinkling of raw sugar over the top of the cake adds a bit of crunch and sweetness as well. If caramel sauce isn't your thing, this cake was also delicious with a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream on top!

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A great flour tortilla should be soft and bendable; it shouldn't tear or crumble apart when you roll it into a burrito. Above all else, it should taste good! I wanted a gluten free version of our favorite flour tortillas, that wouldn't taste like a gluten free version. Finding a combination of ingredients that would produce the perfect tortilla and in the process not taste like weird, chewy cardboard is something I almost gave up on many times.

While this recipe contains three times as many ingredients as traditional tortillas with their simple combination of flour, salt, water and oil; the ingredients aren't complicated ones. Each of these items works with the others to create the perfect tortilla. I've tested this recipe six times now and the tortillas have turned out well every time. We've had more breakfast burritos and breakfast tacos in the past month than we've eaten in the past two years. My whole family is thrilled with this recipe.

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Smoked sausage and tender bites of chicken are simmered in a salty, spicy, gravy-like broth to make this classic Cajun dish. When I was very young, probably around 11-12 years old, my family visited with some friends from New Orleans. I remember tasting gumbo for the first time and loving it. My friend Michelle served it with a scoop of rice underneath and a scoop of potato salad on top. (Stay with me here, the combination truly works!)

A few months ago, I started thinking about that gumbo and wondering why I'd never tried making it on my own. I tracked down my friend Michelle on Facebook and she was kind enough to write out her recipe for me. I've played with it a bit, but the base is mostly the same. I was very happy to see that her recipe includes a dry roux. I'm still intimidated by a traditional dark roux and this was as easy as could be with little danger of burning as it browned! This is a basic meat-lover's gumbo recipe and my boys all LOVED it.

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These are crisp and fluffy Pumpkin Spice Waffles filled with plenty of spices; they remind me of the pumpkin muffins we have loved for years. The recipe comes together in just a few minutes and the house smells wonderful as they are cooking. My boys devoured this whole batch just as soon as they were off the waffle iron.

I served the waffles with my family's Vanilla Waffle Sauce. (Waffle Sauce is our favorite topping for almost every sweet breakfast!) These waffles were a great way to welcome our first cool and rainy day this fall and I'm sure they'll be on our table for dinner in the near future.

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My household has truly fallen in love with Filipino Lumpia. While I have loved them for years, my family has now joined me in my adoration for these perfect little bites of heaven. I have made them several times since I originally posted my friend Irene's recipe for Filipino Lumpia.

I was in search of a way to streamline the process and make one of our favorite meals a little simpler to make. I love the taste of the fried lumpia, but the process takes a good bit longer than I typically spend making our dinners. By rolling them in advance and then baking them all at once, I was able to serve a piping hot meal along with a tossed garden salad that I made while these were cooking.

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Potatoes and cabbage are simmered in an herbed broth just until tender to make this very easy and quick soup. Perfect for a weeknight dinner or a simple weekend lunch. I love using sausage in my soups, because it adds a great deal of flavor with minimal effort. My whole family ate this soup very happily and my youngest even gave it two thumbs up.

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If you've been reading this blog for very long, you know that I have a thing for homemade condiments. With a stocked pantry, you can make homemade versions of your favorite salad dressings, dips and marinades at a fraction of the cost to buying them in the store. Even better than the cost is how much better they taste! I have yet to find a store-bought salad dressing or dip that can compare with what can be made at home in just minutes.

I made this sauce to serve with our Southwest Chicken Bits and it was a huge hit. My family liked it so much, they dipped their vegetables in it as well and requested more of it the next day. This dip is going to be a regular condiment in our refrigerator for a while.

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As soon as I tasted the Pan Fried Southwest Chicken that I made a week or so ago, I knew that those spices would be an awesome variation on the Indian Chicken Bits that have been a family favorite for a couple of years now. Chicken Bits are my go-to, "I don't really want to think about what's for dinner" kind of meal. The whole family loves them and they are a fuss free main dish guaranteed to be a success. I've made this chicken twice in the past week and we didn't have a bite leftover either time.

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Many of my cocktail recipes begin with the words, "while visiting my sister last month..." (It has become a running joke between us.) When I'm at home, it's unusual for me to mix a creative new drink. I know what I like and I tend to stick with it.

However, when we are hanging out in the kitchen late at night and the kids are in bed, my sister and I tend to start playing with ideas for fun cocktails. Often, the classics win out over all other choices, but this fun martini and this Citrus Splash were both huge hits for our Saturday brunch last time I visited her.

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Corn Pudding is beloved throughout my family. I grew up eating my mom's corn pudding for every holiday and plenty of Sunday dinners in between. My siblings and I have been known to sneak the leftover corn pudding out of my mom's house and I'll even admit to "accidentally" bringing home my sister's share of the leftovers (along with mine) once upon a time.

My mom's recipe includes a box of cornbread mix, as does just about every other corn pudding (or corn casserole) recipe I've seen. I started playing with the recipe, determined to come up with a version that didn't require that boxed mix. This simple side dish is rich, creamy, sweet corn deliciousness that is unforgettable. My kids begged for seconds and would have happily eaten even more.

If you haven't tasted it before, you might be cringing at the thought of combining corn with anything and then calling it pudding, but I'm telling you that it works. Not one person I have ever served this to has failed to love it.

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Tomato Jam is unique among all the jams and condiments I've made before; slightly sweet and mostly savory with an intense tomato flavor unlike anything I have ever tasted. I received numerous requests for a tomato jam recipe this year and I had never even heard of tomato jam. When I found myself with an abundance of garden tomatoes, I went in search of a recipe to try. The recipe I chose is simple; combine the ingredients, bring them to a simmer and then stir occasionally as the jam reduces over the next hour or so.

I served this with some cornbread scones and I loved the savory twist on what would typically be a sweet snack. The jam was also delicious spread on a fluffy buttermilk biscuit the following morning, along with a couple of eggs.
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I made pan fried chicken for the first time almost a year ago and I haven't stopped making it since then. Pan fried chicken makes an appearance on our table at least once if not twice a month. It still amazes me that just a spoonful of oil and a little bit of patience can result in juicy, tender chicken with golden crisp skin.

The other day, as I was mixing together a fresh batch of Taco Seasoning for some Spanish Rice I was cooking, it occurred to me that I could use that combination of Mexican spices as a rub for the chicken. The chicken turned out great and every member of the family voted the meal a success. This is a great variation on one of our family's favorite meals.

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