This Healthier Pumpkin Banana Bread is sure to become a staple in your household this fall! Full of comforting, good-for-you ingredients and delicious fall flavors, serve warm and smother with nut butter for a tasty snack or breakfast!

This recipe is a marriage between two of my favorite flavors – banana and pumpkin. I have probably baked banana bread no less than 250 times throughout my life. (Exaggeration? Honestly, maybe not.) I can’t tell you the last time I let overripe bananas go to waste. In fact, the first recipe I published on my blog was a healthy banana bread recipe. It was modified from one of my Grandma Cookie’s old recipes. As you may have guessed from her name, she wasn’t as big into the healthy versions, but I think she would forgive me. ;)

I'm back! This time with one of my favorite sweet and savory snacks: Bourbon Maple Sausage Bites. These bites are a perfect holiday breakfast, snack or treat! This recipe started somewhere and ended up somewhere completely different and I am not mad about it. That is what I love most about creating recipes; thinking you are creating one thing and ending up with something else.

These bites are savory and sweet with a hint of sassy (that’s the bourbon). They call for a few more steps than normal, but they are more than worth it and will definitely be a crowd-pleaser at your upcoming family get-together!

As always, let your girl know if you decide to test this one out!

Summertime is in full swing and the cicadas are singing! Gardens are in full bloom and harvest season is upon us. I have so many favorite “backyard” recipes, such as a wonderful basil pesto BLT sandwich piled high with hand-picked lettuce and a sunny vine-ripened tomato or fully loaded garden veggie lasagna featuring zucchini, tomatoes and onions. These fresh dishes are always so satisfying after a day of play in the bright summer sun!

Oftentimes, the life of a chef is spent cooking food in a restaurant for someone else. You rarely have the energy to make yourself an amazing meal when you’re home. Many times, my fridge was simply filled with water, eggs and maybe an old to-go container of Chinese takeout from the weekend.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love cooking for others. It’s my passion. There’s a simple joy of watching someone else eat food I make, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that feeling!

Anyway, before I started “Quarantine Cookie,” I rarely baked at home because I was spending 50 or more hours of my week baking at work. Last March, when the pandemic began, I finally had spare time to simply bake.

This recipe is a favorite of my fiance and I from baking during quarantine. Personally, I love using this Mixed Berry Gallette in the summers to use up any spare fruit from farmers markets.