Summerado Salad: Avocado, Corn, Peaches and Basil

This Summerado Salad: Avocado, Corn, Peaches and Basil got it’s name for a reason. In my humble opinion it is the embodiment of Summer. Corn so sweet you don’t have to cook it. Fresh garden basil. Local peaches, or even better, Arkansas peaches your family carefully drove up north for you in such large quantities […]

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Lemon Verbena Smash

Believe it or not, at least for the Dirty Laundry Kitchen, it’s time to thinking about the 4th of July, and what’s a better place to start than with this Lemon Verbena Smash cocktail. This past weekend, I was forced to spend my time picnicking and drinking Lemon Verbena Smash cocktails at the dog park […]

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Cherry Bourbon Fizzers

It’s 5 o’clock somewhere, and time for some Cherry Bourbon Fizzers, or, more on my obsession with rose-scented geraniums. After a week of posting Midwestern Potluck items, I’ve still got Wisconsin on my mind. And it doesn’t get much more Wisconsin than brown liquor and cherries. In fact, when I went to buy the alcohol […]

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Banana Cream Pie with Pretzel Crust

While Banana Cream Pie with Pretzel Crust is more Southern than Midwestern, the pudding mix dessert aspect fits right into our Midwestern Potluck theme, which is all about jazzing up low-brow potluck standards. In doing recipe research before I set to preparing this Banana Cream Pie with Pretzel Crust, I discovered a strong split in opinion […]

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Decadent Mac n’ Cheese

As part of the modern update for our Midwestern potluck, my test kitchen crew and I decided we absolutely had to take on Mac n’ Cheese. Of course there are a million recipes for it out there, but hey, why not one more. In my opinion, this is where it’s at anyway. Mascarpone and good […]

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Green Bean Casserole

No proper Midwestern Potluck would be complete without Green Bean Casserole. The most common version features canned green beans, canned mushroom soup and of course, French’s Fried onions and is shared at church picnics and Thanksgiving tables all over; there’s a reason it’s so popular, it’s really easy, the ingredients are easy to keep on […]

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Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup

Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup is normally a winter soup for me, but since I didn’t share it this winter and we need it to make the Green Bean Casserole for our Midwestern Potluck, I’m sharing it now. The truth is, I don’t know why I think of it as such a distinctly Winter item; […]

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Homemade Mint Jello Salad

In May I had the distinct privilege of taking a trip to Chicago to visit two of my favorite Midwestern ladies, Katie and Susan. They also happen to be two of the people I cook with most often, even though we don’t live in the same state. I arrived on a cold and rainy Chicago […]

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Classic Caesar Salad

A few weeks ago I noticed an old jar of anchovies wrapped around capers in my fridge. The truth is, I don’t really like anchovies that often, so who knows how long they had been there. And I only like them on pizza with olives or in Caesar dressing. Then last weekend I made a […]

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Croutons

I hate throwing away good bread and because Marc love French toast with an intensity rarely seen, we don’t really have a lot of extra bread lying around our house getting stale. But there are other things to do with good bread, aside from making French Toast (shhh… don’t tell Marc, he’ll be heartbroken) and […]

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Cardamom Panna Cotta with Berries

This week, the local strawberries came to market in Philly, and that meant I wanted to buy them all, and not simply to make Cardamom Panna Cotta with Berries. I love these very special little berries that taste how all strawberries should taste. I think about these berries all year long, and then when the […]

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Pretzel Sandwiches

Upon moving to Philly, Marc and I learned that Philly is well known for pretzels. While the fame of the cheesesteak seems to overshadow the pretzel, for us, this is a great sadness. While I don’t care much for cheesesteaks at all (blasphemy, I know) I really love a great pretzel sandwich. We first had […]

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