Easy Scones

Learn how to make perfect scones! My recipe is easy to customize with your favorite add-ins, and it yields buttery, flaky, flavorful scones every time.

The best scones are buttery, flaky, and moist inside. They’re crisp and crumbly around the edges, perfect for pairing with a cup of coffee or tea. Scones can get a bad rap for being bland or dry (my husband Jack swore he didn’t like them for years), but when they’re prepared well, they shouldn’t be either of those things. I’m sharing my favorite scone recipe below. It’s easy to make with 10 basic ingredients, and you can customize it with your favorite sweet or savory mix-ins. No matter which ones you pick, it yields tender, flavorful, bakery-worthy scones every time.…

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Fresh Hibiscus Tea with Culligan Filtered Water

The warmer weather has me drinking iced hibiscus tea on repeat! I make this refreshing drink with fresh, filtered Culligan water straight from my tap.

This post is sponsored by Culligan. I’ve been a huge fan for years! Who else is ready for spring?! The temps have (finally) been warming up around here lately, which has put me in the mood for refreshing spring salads and iced drinks. For the past few weekends, I’ve been making a big pitcher of iced hibiscus tea to drink throughout the week. It has tart, cranberry-like flavor that I love, and it’s packed with antioxidants like vitamin C and beta-carotene. I feel especially good about drinking it because I make it with fresh, filtered Culligan water from my kitchen tap.…

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Margarita

We'll be making this classic margarita recipe all summer long. With just 5 ingredients, it’s so simple to make—break out the tequila and limes ASAP!

This classic margarita recipe is our favorite cocktail to make at home. We love it for two reasons. First, because it’s so simple. If you have tequila, lime juice, and orange liqueur on hand, you can make it in under 5 minutes! Second, because it’s so delicious. The lime juice gives it a tart, refreshing kick, which the sweet orange liqueur and agave balance nicely. On a warm spring or summer evening, there’s nothing I’d rather drink. If you’re new to making cocktails, this recipe is a great place to start. Mix it up for a happy hour, Cinco de…

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Easy Tostadas

This easy tostada recipe is a fast, fresh dinner! I pile crispy tortillas with flavorful toppings like refried beans, avocado, veggies, and cheese.

This tostada recipe is a fun, fresh, and FAST weeknight dinner. Just load up crunchy tostadas with toppings like refried beans, crisp lettuce and cabbage, tomatoes, cheese, and avocado. Squeeze with lime juice, and dig in! This recipe has become a great family meal for us lately…because it’s not a true “recipe” at all. It’s more of a suggestion—the toppings here are flexible, and in our house, everyone chooses their own. I take my tostadas with extra avocado and spicy peppers, Jack skips the avocado and piles on extra cheese, and Ollie goes for whatever he’s in the mood for that…

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Pickled Serrano Peppers

Love spicy food? These pickled serrano peppers are for you! I like making them to add a pop of tangy, spicy flavor to tacos, nachos, and more.

Move over, jalapeños! Serrano peppers are my current chile obsession for one simple reason: they’re spicier. Serrano vs. Jalapeño Peppers On the Scoville Scale, the official system for measuring the pungency of peppers, serrano peppers score higher than jalapeños. They clock in at 10,000 to 23,000 SHU (Scoville Heat Units) versus jalapeños’ Scoville rating of 2,500 to 8,000. That’s 3 to 4 times hotter! But lately, I’ve felt like the difference in heat level between jalapeño and serrano peppers is even greater than that. I think the jalapeños at my grocery store are tasting more and more like green bell…

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Grilled Asparagus

This grilled asparagus recipe is my favorite spring and summer side dish. Simply seasoned with olive oil, salt, and pepper, it's fresh and delicious.

Grilled asparagus is the best spring and summer side dish! It’s tender, juicy, and lightly charred, and it cooks in minutes on the grill. Seasoned simply with olive oil, salt, pepper, and maybe a squeeze of lemon juice, it pairs perfectly with almost any meal. Below, you’ll find my easy method for cooking asparagus on the grill, along with my favorite ways to serve it. Even if you’re an asparagus skeptic, I hope you’ll try this recipe. My husband Jack used to claim he hated asparagus, but once he tried it grilled, he became a convert. Who knows? You might…

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Strawberry Spinach Salad

This strawberry spinach salad is filled with pecans, feta, and a tangy poppy seed dressing. Perfect for spring or summer, it's simple and fresh.

This strawberry spinach salad is perfect for spring and early summer. It starts with a base of fresh spinach—one of the first vegetables to appear at my farmers market each spring—and is topped off with juicy strawberries, crisp red onion, toasty pecans, and salty feta cheese. My sweet and tangy poppy seed dressing ties it all together. I think it’s fair to say that this combination is pretty classic (doesn’t Panera have a strawberry poppyseed salad on its menu?), but I still wanted to share this recipe because it’s so simple and fresh, with a wonderful pop of sweetness and color…

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Poppy Seed Dressing

This poppy seed dressing recipe is easy to make with 6 ingredients. Lightly creamy, sweet, and tangy, it's delicious on green salads, slaws, and more!

I can already tell that this poppy seed dressing is going to be the star of my spring and summer salad dressing rotation. It’s lightly creamy, sweet, and tangy, perfect for adding a pop of bright flavor to green salads, slaws, and more. I first started making it to use on my strawberry spinach salad, but once I had it in my fridge, I found that it went well on SO many different combinations of fruits and veggies. This poppy seed dressing is one to make on repeat. Like all my homemade salad dressings, this poppy seed dressing is easy…

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How to Make Hard Boiled Eggs

Learn how to make hard boiled eggs perfectly every time! With this easy method, they'll be easy to peel and have vibrant yellow yolks.

Here’s the good news: perfect hard boiled eggs are easy to make. …And the bad news: so are less-than-perfect ones. I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly cooked my fair share of the latter. When you try to peel away the shell, half the whites come along with it, or when you cut it open, the yolk is slightly green instead of brilliant yellow. Pretty disappointing, if you ask me. See, cooking perfect hard boiled eggs is easy, but that doesn’t mean that the process you use doesn’t matter. After years of trial and error, I’m happy to say…

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Eggs Benedict

This eggs Benedict recipe tastes like it's from a restaurant, but it's easy to make at home! My rich, creamy hollandaise sauce takes it over the top.

This eggs Benedict recipe is guaranteed to impress. It consists of crisp English muffins topped with perfectly poached eggs, creamy, dreamy homemade hollandaise sauce, and juicy tomato slices (instead of the traditional Canadian bacon). I love to make it when I host friends or family for brunch, because even though it tastes like something from a restaurant, it’s surprisingly simple to make. You can even do some of the prep ahead! You can find the complete recipe at the bottom of this post. Along the way, I’m sharing my best tips for how to make eggs Benedict as well as serving…

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Easy Carrot Cake

This easy carrot cake recipe is one of our favorite desserts! It's wonderfully moist and warmly spiced. Tangy cream cheese frosting takes it over the top.

Jack declared this carrot cake recipe the best he’s ever tried. Coming from him, that’s high praise, because carrot cake is his favorite dessert of all time! I don’t disagree with him though. I think this carrot cake recipe is just about perfect! It has a wonderful moist crumb and warm depth of flavor from spices, vanilla, and brown sugar. This cake is chock-full of freshly grated carrots, and while it’s delicious plain, it really shines with a thick layer of tangy cream cheese frosting on top. This carrot cake recipe is easy to make with basic ingredients. It’s simple enough to…

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A food blog with fresh, zesty recipes.
Photograph of Jeanine Donofrio and Jack Mathews in their kitchen

Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.

We love to eat, travel, cook, and eat some more! We create & photograph vegetarian recipes from our home in Chicago, while our shiba pups eat the kale stems that fall on the kitchen floor.