Category: Recipes

Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Main, Recipes
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Creole Jambalaya Recipe

Jambalaya is one of those delicious, stick-to-your-ribs, keep you all warm and cozy, one-pot wonders. A solid jambalaya recipe is always good to have in your back pocket! And really, what’s a mardi gras celebration without jambalaya?!

My husband and I have football season tickets (to the New York Giants; I know, they’re terrible) and usually once a season, when it starts to get cold, we have a jambalaya tailgate. It’s always my favorite! Really, it’s a fun dish to watch come together in a place like a parking lot!

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Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Dessert, Recipes
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Rugelach Palmiers Recipe

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! I’m not usually excited for Valentine’s Day, always kind of seemed silly, but it’s a sweet little holiday, isn’t it? Hubby and I don’t celebrate this one, but I caved and gave him a card and chocolates anyway. I felt like I couldn’t ignore Valentine’s Day! This week also marks 8 years since we started dating so it’s nice to give that a little head nod.

I wanted to share these Palmiers – French elephant ears – on V-day since they bake into little hearts! Aren’t they adorable? They’re also incredibly easy, so run over to the grocery store and pick up some puff pastry to make these tonight!

French Palmiers are typically just cinnamon sugar in the middle, so if you don’t want to make these with the Rugelach filling you can just combine some sugar and cinnamon and then bake them up. They are still so good with just a simple filling!

I love a Rugelach cookie so I wanted to try these with a little bit of something more substantial than cinnamon and sugar. Rugelach filling is usually a combination of walnuts, raisins, sugar and cinnamon. I went to the store, grabbed the puff pastry, and thought I had walnuts and raisins at home…I had pecans and cranberries and sometimes you just have to improvise. And it worked!

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Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Appetizer, Recipes
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French Olive Tapenade Recipe

I am so excited to share this recipe with you today! It’s one that you could always have the ingredients for in your pantry and be ready to throw together in just a few minutes. Who doesn’t love a recipe that’s impressive yet fast to throw together?! And there’s something really elegant about a Provencal tapenade recipe. Makes ya feel fancy!

You all know how much I love salt, which I think is why I love a tapenade recipe – it really is quite salty! You want to serve this with plain baguette or butter crackers so that you don’t compete with the flavor (read: salt) of the tapenade.

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Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Appetizer, Main, Recipes, Seafood
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Mussels in a Mustard and Saffron Sauce Recipe

There’s something so simple-yet-elegant about a pot of mussels. A few summers ago, hubby and I went to dinner with friends at Madame Claude’s in Jersey City. We sat outside with some wine, and pots of mussels, and simple fries and crusty bread for dipping, and it was just heavenly. This girl became an instant fan of les moules!

I love a dish that feels simple and elegant, and honestly, one that results in a sauce that you just want to dip bread into. Even better if the sauce is so good you want to bottle it up; the best if you swear you could just drink it. I think you’re going to want to drink this sauce, y’all. It’s just that good!

This mustard and saffron sauce can be made ahead (and don’t worry, you can leave out the saffron if you don’t have any or if it’s out of your budget), which makes it a really easy dish for entertaining. You’ll make the sauce a few hours ahead, then reheat it, drop in the mussels and in like 3 minutes this dish will be ready!

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Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Appetizer, Main, Recipes
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How to Make French Onion Soup

Before this attempt, I had only tried to make French Onion Soup – soupe l’oignon – once. It’s my favorite soup, so you’d think after failing, miserably, once I’d try to make it again. So finally I did! I’m so happy my first failed attempt didn’t haunt me my entire life. Our trip to Paris felt like a calling for me to move there. Someday. But lately I’ve really been missing Paris and wanting to visit again just for the comforts of things like croissant and coffee in the morning, french onion soup for lunch. And this, friends, really tastes like the soupe l’oignon in Paris.

I also feel like I learned a whole lot about french onion soup this time, which includes:

  • Yep, beef broth is definitely the way to go.
  • Butter. Lot’s of butter with those onions.
  • Yep, you really do need that splash of red wine.
  • Nope, don’t need to add sugar.
  • And, the size of the bread relative to the size of the crock is how they get the cheese to stay on top of the soup and not sink to the bottom.

Learn from me, friends, learn from me! Get the right size bread and the right size crock. I really should have added three slices of bread to each of these crocks to keep the gruyere cheese from sinking to the bottom.

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Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Breakfast, Brunch, Recipes
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Pink & Red Ombre Waffles Recipe for Valentine’s Day

I am about to drop the easiest waffle recipe you will ever see. And, considering it feels all fancy being ombre and all, it will seem even easier. Enter: box cake mix waffles!

Yep, today, I’m going to teach you how to make box cake mix waffles. I’m not even really teaching you, I’m just showing you that it works. And the result is some super cute pink and red waffles for your Valentine’s and Galentine’s Day celebrations!

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Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Breakfast, Brunch, Recipes
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Strawberry Vanilla Granola Recipe for Yogurt Parfaits

Don’t you just love granola? Such a good snack, or over yogurt for breakfast, or even with some really cold almond milk over it. Granola and me, we’ve got a thing going. This granola has been one of my favorites recently – totally have this one on repeat and have made it so often I’ve found the need to give jars of it away. This gal does not need to be eating granola at every meal, ya know?

I love a fruity, bright flavor this time of year, especially after such brutally cold weather last week! If I turned my back to the windows, stood in front of the heater, and took a bite of this granola with a little (almond) milk, I almost felt like it was spring. Almost.

For the yogurt parfaits, I added a little bit of strawberry jam between the layers, which I felt really pulled the whole parfait experience together. The sweetness of the jam complimented the plain greek yogurt and elevated the granola with just a bit more sugar. I also used a combination of plain greek yogurt and strawberry greek yogurt, which honestly just looked pretty! Sometimes you just have to do it because it looks prettier, right?!

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Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Breakfast, Brunch, Recipes
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Sheet Pan Quiche Recipe with Olives, Feta, Pickled Onions & Cherry Peppers

I have to be honest with you about this sheet pan quiche recipe – it was born out of necessity; a necessity to not cut pie slices because I’m just awful at it. I almost never get even slices and it just drives me nuts! But this experiment had a happy result – I love the egg-to-crust ratio of this quiche!

This lovely little quiche made it straight onto this year’s Galentine’s Day brunch menu! I think this flavor combo might just be my favorite, but you know what I’m going to say here, right? You-do-you-boo! You can put anything in a quiche. One of the many reasons I love it – you don’t really need a recipe. It’s a non-recipe-recipe!

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Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Dessert, Recipes, Snack
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How to Make Caramel Chocolate Covered Pretzel Sticks

You know how right after Thanksgiving you feel like you are ready to kick of the Christmas season? After Thanksgiving dinner, we always watch Christmas Vacation, which feels like a real transition to the second part of the holiday season. That’s kind of how I feel about the Super Bowl. Now that the game is behind us, I’m ready to officially shift in to Valentine’s Day. And I expect everyone to transition with me, since for dessert at our Super Bowl party everyone had these Valentine’s Day caramel chocolate covered pretzels.

Admittedly, I’ve been avoiding the whole chocolate covered pretzel thing for quite literally no reason. I think because I couldn’t wrap my head around the combination of sprinkles that would be pretty? So ridiculous to not make them for such an easy problem to solve – and it really was easy to solve! I just went to Michael’s, picked one set of sprinkles I loved and then used those to pick 4 more variations that I thought all looked cute together.

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Posted on by Hailey Wierzbicki Posted in Breakfast, Brunch, Recipes
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Nutella Croissant Bake Recipe

Happy World Nutella Day! This week, we’re talking allBlackberry Croissant Bake about recipes for Galentine’s Day and what Galentine’s Day celebration would be complete without Nutella?! And hot damn do I have a good recipe for you. This one is a little riff off the from a few months ago and is just as to-die-for as the OG. But I might love this one more, especially in this season of chocolate.

I love the way the savory nature of the croissants plays off the nutella custard in this – it balances the sweetness of the Nutella. Once this came out of the oven and was dusted with powdered sugar, I couldn’t believe I even considered adding banana or strawberries to this dish. It really is perfect just the way it is!

I also have to tell you – it’s really great hot out of the oven, and good at warm temp, and surprisingly still delicious cold. I may or may not have had this for dinner last night. I’ll never tell.

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