Things change. Opinions. Ideas. Directions. Plans. And you kind of just roll with it and see what happens. Still, I am always a little caught off guard by change — especially change that involves my kids taste buds. And boy, have they caught me off guard recently by enjoying some foods with a nip of spiciness.

Not that these Veggie Bean Enchiladas are spicy per se — but they have a little kick to them and the kids love them. Score one for the spicy-loving mama. And for the creamy, cool avocado that offsets the nip of spiciness really nicely.

These Veggie Bean Enchiladas take about 35 minutes to make — but let me warn you: it’s a bit of quick-fire, hands-on cooking, so be prepared for constant motion for the first 10-15 minutes. You start by whipping up a super easy sauce using salsa, vegetable stock and flour — it takes about 30 seconds and is made totally in the blender. Easy as can be.

Then you make part of the veggie filling for the enchiladas while also filling the tortillas with the other part of the filling — refried beans and baby spinach. (Note: I was hired by Old El Paso to create this recipe, so I used their beans in this one.) Once all that is done, you spread sauce in the pan, finish filling the enchiladas and roll them, pour over the rest of the sauce and the cheese. Finally you bake.

It all happens fast.

But, hey, it’s all worth it when you dish out these warm, creamy, cheesy enchiladas with a bite and serve them with cool sliced avocado. Seriously. Worth every single second of work.

Serve these with a big salad.

Disclosure: I am being compensated by Old El Paso for creating this recipe through my partnership with Platefull. All opinions are my own.

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April is National Grilled Cheese Month. (Pausing for appropriate swooning … Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Okay, good now?) I don’t often get excited about food holidays but this is different. Grilled cheese is the thing that happy childhood memories are made of, right?

When I bite into a gooey, melty grilled cheese, I can feel the cane seats of the stools in my grandmother’s kitchen pressing into my legs. With every crunch of the buttery bread filled with creamy American cheese, I can feel the smooth Formica countertop, and picture the stone-like design in earthy red tones of the linoleum floor. Food memories like this are as close to traveling back in time to those happy days of childhood as you can get.

I seriously adore grilled cheese. Anything with cheese, really. So when KitchenPLAY asked me to join in the fun creating a new grilled cheese recipe for the “30 Days of Grilled Cheese” event sponsored by Land O’Lakes, I couldn’t say no.

A few years ago, I discovered Land O Lakes^® Deli American Cheese, which is available in the deli counter. It’s like the cheese I grew up on, but better since it’s freshly cut. And when you melt it inside a grilled cheese, the smooth cheese melts in your mouth with its creamy deliciousness.

For this grilled cheese, I started with a thin bagel turned inside out. I love grilled cheeses on inside out roll-type breads — it adds a new dimension. And thin bagels are a great way to get the feel of that favorite bread without the heft of it. The bagel is buttered, giving a familiar toasted buttery exterior.

Inside this Roasted Portabella Mushroom Grilled Cheese, slices of freshly roasted portabella mushrooms are sandwiched between slices of creamy, gooey melted American cheese.

Say hello to deliciousness.

And one more thing … there’s a pretty awesome thing going on with Land O’Lakes on Pinterest. Here are the details:

Pin a Meal. Give a Meal. From now until May 1, Land O’Lakes will donate $1 to Feeding America every time someone pins or repins a Land O’Lakes recipe on Pinterest. That’s eight meals for a hungry family when you pin a recipe—and eight more every time anyone else repins it. Giving goes viral. Find your favorite Grilled Cheese recipe to pin on landolakes.com.

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Land O’Lakes as part of the Kitchen PLAY Sidecar series. All opinions given are my own.

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When I saw these portabella mushrooms at a local grocery store, I swooned and my head filled with images of meaty roasted portabellas on a salad. Everything else I had imagined cooking vanished (I had really planned to stuff mushrooms with St. Patrick’s Day leftovers). I just wanted my warm portabellas and cool salad.

We’re mushroom fans here. Through and through.

On a recent evening, I browned cremini mushrooms in a skillet with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and then swirled in a little red wine to finish them off. They were meaty, rich and tender. Then I spooned them over medium-rare sirloin steak served alongside some cheesy tortellini. Guess what the kids dug into first?

We eat mushrooms fairly often since the kids and I really love them. They are perfect for roasting alongside bell peppers, Brussels sprouts and other vegetable favorites to be spooned over rice or mixed into pasta with cheese and a little olive oil. They are sliced on salads and stuffed for appetizers. Sometimes, I will saute them and just eat them like that. And no matter how I cook them, they are always greeted with “Oooh! Mushrooms!” by my kids.

Selfishly, I wish they didn’t love them this much — there would be more for me!

I was recently asked to partake in the National Nutrition Month blog tour sponsored by The Mushroom Channel (aka the Mushroom Council, an organization of fresh-market mushroom producers and importers whose mission is to encourage the eating of mushrooms in a variety of meals), sharing how my family add mushrooms to our menu in a way that suits our family’s tastes and health goals. March is National Nutrition Month and this year’s theme is “Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day.” For us — well, the kids and I, at least — mushrooms aren’t just a great meat alternative, but they are also a versatile addition to a variety of dinners … and lunches too. And from a health standpoint, mushrooms also have a lot to offer — they are rich in antioxidants and have a healthy dose of vitamins B and D.

Now, let’s talk about this bodacious meal.

I don’t think I have ever used the word ‘bodacious’ before, but I think it’s fitting here. Because it totally is. Bodacious, I mean. Anyway …

This salad is perfect for a light lunch. Meaty portabella mushrooms are roasted until tender and then topped with breadcrumbs and cheese and roasted a little more. Then, they are served on a cool, creamy Caesar salad. It takes a good 40 minutes to make — but most of it is hands off as the portabellas roast. It’s a little longer than I like to spend making lunch on a weekday, but it’s so worth it.

Just don’t tell the kids that I’ve been indulging in this without them.

One More Thing …

If you love talking mushrooms, be sure to tweet away with the Mushroom Council at their Twitter Party on Wednesday, March 20^th 8-9 PM EST.  The hashtag for the party will be #MushroomDish. The party will serve as a discussion for everything mushrooms, from their versatile nature to their flavorful umami qualities.

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Disclosure: This post was sponsored by the Mushroom Channel/Mushroom Council. Connect with them on Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter. All opinions and recipes within this post are my own.

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There’s something about a warm, toasty, stuffed quesadilla that just says comfort. With all the melty cheese, the crisp outside and … well, whatever you stuff in it. It’s a definite favorite of mine. And I especially appreciate how simple, fast and easy quesadillas are — even when you get a little fancy with the fillings.

And sometimes, biting into comfort food is a little like taking a deep breath. It’s refreshing and calming all at once — both good things that we all need a little more of.

These Veggie Overload Quesadillas are literally stuffed with sautéed veggies — lots of them. It’s a good thing.

To make these, you start by sautéing a bunch of veggies together until they are crisp-tender. Then you slather butter all over the tortilla and stuff it with cheddar and those delicious veggies — and avocado too. Then you cook it until it’s all golden on the outside with warm melty goodness on the inside. That avocado? It adds such an amazing note of creaminess too.

Then you devour it. With salsa, hopefully.

One more little note. I used Land O Lakes® Butter with Canola Oil for this and discovered how amazing it can be for dishes like this. It’s made with three simple ingredients (sweet cream, canola oil and salt) and comes out of the fridge ready to spread — which means that there’s no waiting to spread it all over the tortillas or any threat of ripping them up when you spread the butter on. That kind of rocks. Really. I think I might be a little in love with the ease of this spread — especially since it still tastes like butter.

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Disclosure: This recipe was sponsored by Land O’Lakes via Platefull. All opinions are (as always) my own.

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Paige’s gleeful giggles have a pure melodic quality to them. When they fill the kitchen, it echos across the house — a sweet sound that never fails to make me smile. Hers are quickly joined by Will’s uncontrollable laughter. His laughter is loud and unwieldy and so, so happy. It’s joy, unleashed.

We are so lucky. So incredibly lucky. But it’s more than that. We are blessed — and it’s something I remember every single day. I try never to let myself head down the rabbit hole of what-if, but it’s practically unavoidable. So instead, I have taken to reminding myself to be thankful every time the thought crosses my mind of what could have been.

Even when it gets really noisy in here.

This afternoon, as the kids played a loud and raucous made up game, their giggles and laughter spread through the four walls of our home. They share an incredible bond, and come up with so many imaginative pursuits.

They’d already dug into this homemade pizza, enjoying the mix of garlic, cheese, tomatoes and sauce.

Making Cheese and Tomato Pizza with Garlic Bread Crust

I love me some good stringy, melted cheese. Don’t you?

This pizza starts with an easy and flavorful garlic bread crust. Roasted garlic, melted butter and salt are brushed all over the dough and then baked in. Then, the crust is spread with tomato sauce, mozzarella and fresh tomatoes and baked to perfection. The resulting cheese pizza is a turned-up classic that’s perfect for movie night or a fab game day snack (like the Super Bowl on Sunday!). And since it can be whipped up in just 20 minutes, it’s a fabulous last minute homemade pizza too.

For the roasted garlic in this, I buy already roasted garlic at Whole Foods or a local purveyor, Stew Leonard’s. It makes infusing dishes like this with the caramelized goodness of roasted garlic a cinch.

What Super Bowl recipes will you be serving up this weekend? Any special game day plans?

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Over the weekend (or was it last night?), I suddenly realized that the Super Bowl is this weekend. As in just a few days away. And we don’t even know where we’ll be watching it yet. Oh my. So, by extension, I also don’t know what I am making yet — no Super Bowl recipe list ready to go or anything. But I can tell you — if we end up watching with a bunch of people, I am bringing this artichoke dip for sure. That way I can enjoy it, and I don’t have to worry about eating the whole thing myself.

What?

Creamy Artichoke Basil Dip is a creamy, dreamy, melty, chip-cuddling, warm delight. The combination of cheese and artichokes is one that never ceases to make my taste buds hop with joy … assuming they could actually hop. Which they can’t exactly. But still, you get my point. Adding sweet, fresh basil to the mix in this creamy, cheesy dip makes it totally craveworthy.

This is the kind of artichoke dip you whip up for the Super Bowl and find the bowl scraped clean way sooner than expected — and then wish you made more. It’s that good.

And guess what? Creamy Artichoke Basil Dip only has four ingredients. And it takes minutes — yes, minutes! — to stir together and get cooking. So easy.

Serving Ideas for Creamy Artichoke Dip with Basil

Serve this with a big ol’ bowl of tortilla chips, perhaps some veggie crudites and watch it go. It’s also good with crackers. If you want, you could set out some little bowls for spooning some into — makes it easier to enjoy while watching the Super Bowl or whatever game you want.

Wherever we end up this weekend for the big game, I can’t wait.

Where are you watching the Super Bowl this weekend?

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Disclosure: I was compensated by Progresso/General Mills for creating this recipe with Progresso Recipe Starters. All opinions are my own.

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This morning, I was reading a cookbook in bed when Will came in and climbed in beside me. Soon, Paige joined us too. They both cuddled up, letting me hug them tight. We laughed and joked and even leafed through some of the cookbook together. Today was a snow day, so there was no school to get to and no rush on our morning, so we could just live in those moments — finding joy in a simple morning cuddle.

For 2013, I made a commitment to finding joy in life. It’s a simple thing we should all do naturally, but I am the first to admit that in the past I didn’t. I let myself get into this awful cycle of working too much, being stressed/tired/upset too much and ultimately not doing enough living. And without really living, how can you find the everyday joy? After that horrific day last month though, everything changed for me. Little moments of joy, like the one the kids and I shared this morning, matter so much.

I never want to regret missing a moment. Or choosing something less significant over the laughter and smiles of my kids.

Part and parcel with joy is comfort — perhaps that’s why they are often spoken of together in music and writing. Heck, there’s great comfort in experiencing joy regularly.

There’s also great comfort in a nice bowl of macaroni and cheese. Call me crazy, but this childhood staple is a wonderful thing.

Making Salsa con Queso Macaroni and Cheese

Of course, even a wonderful thing can be take on new meaning when it incorporates other favorite things. Now, prepare yourself because I have a confession to make. And it’s about something I really love, but it’s definitively in the guilty pleasure category of food. Salsa con queso. And not the organic salsa con queso with ingredients you can pronounce. No, there’s something about the hardcore bad for you, so-yellow-it’s-orange salsa con queso with many unmentionables that I just love.

It’s shameful, I know. And I try really hard not to indulge in it too often. Cause really, reading the ingredients is kind of gross.

Fortunately, after a little tinkering and playing in the kitchen, I’ve managed to recreate the flavor of my favorite salsa con queso at home with real, recognizable ingredients … in (you guessed it!) macaroni and cheese.  Seriously, this cheese sauce tastes just like really-bad-for-you salsa con queso. But it’s so much better cause you make it all yourself.

Score one for comfort and joy.

Making it is pretty simple — you really just whip up an easy cheese sauce with Monterrey jack and cheddar and then stir in some salsa. Then mix it with cooked pasta, pour into an oven-safe pan and sprinkle crunchy tortilla chips and more cheese on top. Then bake it until it’s all bubbly and the cheese is melted. Seriously incredible stuff.

Try it. It’s also great for game day.

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As I stood at the stove this morning, heating water for oatmeal and listening to the kids, I realized that we are finally there — the last day of 2012. I smiled, watching the bubbles form and rise in the pot. While I know it’s just a day, the symbolic change of 2012 to 2013 brings with it hope, possibility and the promise of a fresh start. We can leave the disasters and tragedies of 2012 behind and step into 2013 with a clean slate.

And I, for one, will be starting 2013 with a lot of lucky foods. These Cheddar Ham Rolls are the perfect little appetizer for New Year’s celebration, especially since pork (ham) is considered to be a lucky food for New Years. Who doesn’t want to start the New Year with a little luck?

These rolls are more appetizer than breadstuff — filled with melted cheddar and leftover ham, they are substantial, but small enough to be eaten in just a few bites. And they are prime for dipping too (who doesn’t love dipping?!?). And since they are so quick and easy to make, you could totally whip up a batch on a whim tonight or tomorrow.

Making these rolls, which are a delicious dipper appetizer, is pretty simple. You cut dough (I use premade Pillsbury pizza dough) into 12 pieces. Each one is topped with ham and cheddar. Then you fold the dough around the filling, press to seal and bake.

Serve them with barbecue sauce for dipping (or honey mustard, if you prefer).

Wishing you a very happy, joyous and fun-filled New Year!

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Disclosure: I was compensated by Pillsbury for the creation of this recipe. All opinions are my own.

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Thanksgiving is a mere days away now, and if you are like me, you probably know what you are making. But I am going to urge you to rethink your mashed potatoes — seriously.

For me, they tend to be almost an afterthought — the thing I make because I have to. But mashed potatoes? They really don’t need to be an afterthought. In fact, they can be truly spectacular without a lot of effort — like in this easy (yes, easy) Cheddar Mashed Potatoes with Bacon and Apples dish. More on that in a second.

First, I need to tell you something. I’m going to be on television this week. See, recently, I was invited to a taping of The Chew.

And guess where I sat?

The tasting table.

It was amazing (that’s me on the far right in the red).

Have you heard of The Chew? It’s a daytime show on ABC with hosts Clinton Kelly, Michael Symon, Mario Batali, Carla Hall and Daphne Oz. They show’s main focus is food — with a little lifestyle content thrown in for good measure. I’ve been watching it for a while now, mostly because the hosts always seem like they are having so much fun.

There’s something contagious about an energy like that. Turns out … It’s all real too.

The cast and crew were obviously having such a good time together — they are all just so happy. Between takes, everyone (and I mean everyone) bopped to the music, chatted happily and snacked on no-longer-needed dishes — all while also working on getting things ready for the next scene. It makes me want to watch even more.

If you ever have the opportunity to go to a taping, I highly recommend it.

As for the tasting table? It was amazing to sit there. I was so close to all the action and got to chat a little with the hosts between segments. I also got to sample some of the dishes they made on the show. Look for me smiling, clapping and enjoying.

As part of this assignment, I was asked to transform a recipe a little into my own style. When I saw Nigella Lawson’s Cheddar Mashed Potatoes with Bacon and Apples on the list, it was a no-brainer. I mean cheddar! And bacon! And apples? Well, it still sounded awesome.

And it is — sweet, salty, rich, creamy potatoes. These are no afterthought and since they aren’t too complicated to make, they are totally doable for Thanksgiving too.

I altered the recipe in three ways: first, I changed the potato cooking method so that they would cook in a mere 15-20 minutes instead of the original 40 minutes. But cutting the potatoes into smaller pieces, they cook a lot faster — something I prefer when making a holiday dish. Also, that timing thing simplifies this recipe so it won’t make you pull your hair out while creating it. Second, I omitted the onions it called for, changed mild cheddar to extra sharp (a personal favorite) and added a little dry mustard to really bring out the flavor of the cheddar. And finally I cut down on the portions this makes to feed my family of four.

The Chew airs weekdays on ABC at 1 pm EST, 12 pm PST/CST. And be sure to tune in on Wednesday, November 21 — You can see me at the tasting table (I’m wearing red!). Also, I was asked to mention that The Chew is your home for holiday ideas … For more recipe and craft ideas check out ABC.com/thechew.

Visit BlogHer.com to find links to see what the other bloggers created.

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Disclosure: I was compensated for my time, supplies and creating this recipe and post. However, as always, all opinions are my own.

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You know what? This chicken is seriously good. Every bite is a creamy, crispy, earthy, rich delight. I mean, this is the kind of dish that renders the dinner table silent as you all dig in and enjoy. It’s just that delicious.

It’s pretty easy to make too. You cook the chicken on a rack, which lets it bake up with a crisp outside without getting soggy on the bottom (as happens with baked breaded chicken sometimes). While it’s cooking, you brown some mushrooms and whip up a creamy cheese sauce. It’s about 40 minutes total — and about 30 minutes of hands on cooking. Not bad for something that will have your family practically licking the plate clean, eh?

This is totally the kind of thing you would try at a restaurant and then tell all your friends about. (Psst! You should totally tell them about it anyway. Just sayin’.) But it’s better — and it won’t set you back a car payment or two (seriously, is it just me or are restaurant prices through the roof these days?).

And the biscuit? It’s the perfect side for this — you can even sop up the cheese sauce with it. Mmm.

Cheesy Smothered Breaded Chicken with Buttermilk Biscuits
serves 4

1 lb thin-cut chicken breasts
1 egg, beaten well
1/2 cup Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs
1 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, divided
9 oz package sliced mushrooms
salt and pepper, to taste
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup freshly grated Jarlsberg cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Gruyere cheese
4 frozen Pillsbury Grands! Buttermilk Biscuits, prepared

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place a baking rack on top of a rimmed baking sheet.

Wash and pat dry the chicken breasts. Dip each alternatively in egg and then breadcrumbs, turning to fully coat. Place on the rack.

Bake for 20-22 minutes, turning once, until cooked through.

Meanwhile, melt 1/2 tablespoon of butter in a medium skillet. Add the mushrooms and salt lightly. Cook, stirring lightly, until the mushrooms are browned and tinged with golden spots — about 10 minutes.

Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter in a medium sauce pan. Whisk in the flour and cook for 1-2 minutes, until bubbly and smooth. Whisk in the milk. Continue cooking, whisking occasionally, until slightly thickened. Whisk in the cheeses until smooth. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

To serve: Top each chicken breast with mushrooms and cheese sauce. Serve with a buttermilk biscuit each.

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Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Pillsbury. All opinions are my own.

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