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Make this Southwestern corn chowder for a cozy dinner at home! This vegetarian corn chowder recipe is fresh, wholesome and delicious. It’s perfect for cool late summer or fall evenings when fresh corn is at its peak. Or, you can make it any time with frozen corn.

I wanted the corn flavor to shine and balanced its sweetness with some Southwestern spice. You’ll find bell pepper, poblano and chili powder in this atypical chowder. I promise you will not miss the bacon.

I purposefully avoided using the heavy cream that you’ll find in most chowder recipes. Heavy cream has a tendency to dull flavors and also makes me feel weighed down. Instead, I blended a bit of butter into the soup (one of my favorite soup tricks) and stirred in some crème fraîche or sour cream at the end. These dairy ingredients offer some creaminess, of course, plus some tanginess that you won’t get from plain cream.

You can easily make this soup dairy free or vegan, if desired. You’ll love the end results either way!

Continue to the recipe...

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I love quick breads because they usually don't require an electric mixer — a little elbow grease and a rubber spatula is enough to whip them up. But they're usually on the sweet side, with banana or pumpkin bread being the most common varieties. It turns out quick breads are also a great base for savory flavors, too. This one is seasoned with all the flavors of a fresh homemade ranch dressing and made with under-appreciated cottage cheese for the best overall texture.

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Haaaaaaaallelujah!

Daylight Savings has finally arrived!  And I could not think of a better reason to lose an hour of sleep and wake up a little groggy.  Because I don’t know about you, but I’m one of those people who feels like the extra hour of daylight in the evening is freaking life-changing.

Seriously.

I mean, sure, I’m all for some extra sun shining through my window in the mornings to help get me out of bed in the winter.  But if given the choice between sun in the morning, and glorious, warm, bright, makes-you-feel-like-there’s-actually-more-of-the-day-left in the evenings after work, I will choose DST any day in a heartbeat.  (In fact, yes, I’m totally one of “those people” who wishes Congress would let us keep saving daylight year-round….)  But in the meantime, I’m fully appreciating every second of these sunshiny evenings that celebrate the beginning of this warm season to come.

And one of my favorite things to do when it’s light out in the evenings?  You’d better believe it — cook!  It nearly felt like summer here last night, so I decided to whip up a quick batch of my new favorite “better than takeout” recipes that I’m recently obsessed with making — moo shu!  (Or moo shoo, mu shoo, it seems that the spelling options are endless.)  It has been one of my long-time favorite dishes to order when I’m doing Chinese takeout.  And after studying the ingredients, I recently decided it was worth a try to make at home.

Turns out, Moo Shu Pork (or Chicken!) is super quick and easy to make, it’s chocked full of fresh and vibrant ingredients, and it’s full of those bold sweet and savory flavors we all love.  But best of all, it can be ready to go in 20 minutes, so you can get on with your evening out in the warm spring sunshine.  ;)

Let’s make some!

(more…)

It’s been nearly two months since I shared a new taco recipe and, well… that’s not even right.

Monday is calling and tacos are answering! Exclamation points!

Monday is also calling and telling me that I should stay on the couch and watch Friends all day long and maybe even some old-school throwback I’m-crushing-on-Devon-Sawa movies while I read trashy magazines and I’m not sure what the answer is to that. I can be bought, Monday. Just so you know.

These are sort of summery, but heck – so is our weather right now. All I want to do is hate on it, but I’m probably just going to eat tacos instead. And margaritas. Lots of margs.  This little taco is so full of flavor: tender, juicy pork (I can’t stop laughing), some fresh cilantro lime avocado cream, a sweet chili slaw with a little kick and a bunch of crumbled cheese. Flava bomb.

It’s basically the only answer to Monday.

Err, the only answer I’ve got.

Oh and this answer. Always.

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©2012 How Sweet It Is

Oh hey, friendlies! Happiest Labor Day wishes to you all. I hope you’re spending your day with yummy food, good company and preferably a cabin/beach/park/sunny day on the side.

Me? My day is actually super lame, as the husband is working today. But we made up for it earlier this weekend with some fun end-of-summer times. And I would say I also made up for it by making and devouring these caramel macchiato doughnut muffins I made for my dear friend Stephie’s Friends First series, but the truth is I already made and devoured them weeks ago: even the ones I set aside in the freezer for later. Oy. Good thing I’ve got a free day today and these muffins take like two seconds to make. Winning! (Do people even say that anymore? I need new phrases.)

So in the interest of convincing you to make these muffins as soon as humanly possible (which I hope isn’t too difficult to do) and in the interest of letting you get back to your holiday shindigs, head over to Eat Your Heart Out for the full post and recipe! Spoiler alert: I talk about how these muffins sum up my personality in carb form. It gets weird/awesome.

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The post caramel macchiato doughnut muffins appeared first on Girl Versus Dough.

In terms of produce selection, August is my favorite month of the year. Tomatoes, peppers, okra, peaches, figs, berries – you get the point. Pretty much all of my favorite foods are available in August. I love spending my Saturday mornings at the farmers market with Eric and Clara, especially when we bring home so many wonderful foods and so much inspiration for the upcoming week.

This dinner was the result of a random “what can we make with what’s in the fridge?” type of meal about three years ago.  We had peppers and spinach from the farmers market, neither of which had a purpose, and that’s how this dinner came to life. The concept of it stuck around, and I’ve played around with the fillings based on what we have on hand. It’s always meat + cheese + greens. My favorite combination is sausage, goat cheese and arugula, but anything goes. It’s hard to go wrong when peppers are stuffed with anything. Using this basic recipe as a guide, I’m confident you can come up with an endless array of stuffed peppers to try before summer is over.