This creamy pumpkin dip straddles the line between sweet and savory in the best way. It’s a seasonal riff on my recipe for Baked Goat Cheese that incorporates pumpkin purée and pumpkin spice. If you enjoy pumpkin and goat cheese separately, I’m confident you’ll love this recipe!

The key flavors in this dip are goat cheese, cream cheese, pumpkin purée, pumpkin spice and honey. Then we ramp up the savory side with one clove of garlic, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes (optional, for some heat).

The post Baked Pumpkin Dip with Goat Cheese appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

Meet the best 7-layer dip I’ve ever had. I’ve sampled my fair share of them, and wow, this recipe is the winner! Every layer is delicious on its own and builds on the last. The end result is creamy and cheese, of course, but it’s also perfectly balanced. Fresh avocado, jalapeño, cilantro, green onion and salsa offer fresh and bright flavors that cut through the cheddar cheese, sour cream and refried beans.

Store-bought ingredients yield great results, so you don’t have to turn on the stove to make this one. Each layer contains a fun little surprise, like a splash of salsa in the refried beans to loosen the texture and a burst of freshness from jalapeño in the sour cream. All seven layers come together quickly, too, so you can enjoy your appetizer after about twenty minutes of assembly.

Bring this 7-layer dip to your next watch party. Football season is in full swing (go Chiefs!), and I’ll make this recipe again this weekend. I’ve enjoyed the leftovers for lunch, so you don’t need a big occasion to make this recipe. I hope you love it as much as I do.

Continue to the recipe...

The post 7-Layer Dip appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

The Americano cocktail is a fizzy, bittersweet drink with Italian origins. It’s the perfect aperitivo before dinner or a refreshing weekend afternoon sipper. The Americano is a unique spritz that strikes the elusive balance between bitter and sweet. This cold, bubbly drink is lovely on a hot day, yet the complex, warming flavors are equally welcome before Thanksgiving supper.

Americano cocktails are made with Campari, sweet vermouth and club soda. If you love a Negroni, this drink is right up your alley. The Americano is served in a taller glass with club soda instead of gin, and the Negroni is actually a derivative of the Americano. Don’t write off this cocktail if you don’t like Negronis, though (I don’t!). It’s like a Negroni light, and you can adjust it to suit your preferences.

Americano cocktails have nothing in common with Americano coffee, except that they were both popularized by Americans visiting Italy. Apparently, the Americano is based on another drink, the Milano-Torino, which is made with just Campari and Vermouth di Torino. There are several origin stories, and I’m not sure which one is true. All I know is that this is a nice cocktail! I hope you enjoy it.

Continue to the recipe...

The post Americano Cocktail appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

This Kalamata olive-flavored white bean dip is the recipe you didn’t know you needed. Sure, it’s not the most appetizing-looking appetizer out there, but it’s delicious and easy to make. It’s a nice alternative to hummus and a lovely way to savor Kalamata olive flavor without feeling overwhelmed by the saltiness.

This recipe was inspired by an appetizer we ordered at Lidia’s, a local Kansas City restaurant owned by renowned chef Lidia Bastianich. Some white bean dips are downright unappetizing—they can be gloppy, too salty, or flavorless—but not this one. The Kalamata olives lend welcome richness in both texture and flavor.

To make this recipe, you’ll need just a few basic ingredients—white beans (I used Cannellini, but Great Northern would also work), pitted Kalamata olives (plus a splash of brine), olive oil, salt and pepper, and an optional sprinkle of fresh basil. You’ll find serving suggestions and the full recipe below.

This white bean dip is a great impromptu recipe to whip together when guests are on their way. I’m always scrambling before guests arrive, so I like to have a repertoire of easy recipes that I can pull together in no time. This one is a winner! I hope you’ll bookmark it to make soon.

Continue to the recipe...

The post Kalamata White Bean Dip appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

Love a good paloma? Me, too. The paloma is a delightfully fizzy grapefruit, lime and tequila cocktail hailing from Mexico. If you enjoy a Greyhound, grapefruit margarita or ranch water, this cooling drink is right up your alley.

South of the border, palomas are typically made with grapefruit soda like Squirt or Jarritos, which taste similar to Sprite to me. Up here, bartenders often mix them with fresh grapefruit juice and sparkling water instead. I prefer mine to be less sweet and more citrusy, so I love the made-from-scratch option.

This paloma recipe is made from scratch with basic ingredients. You’ll need tequila, fresh grapefruit and lime, simple syrup (which is very easy to make), and Topo Chico or sparkling water. Make them at home with top-shelf tequila and you’ll enjoy a better paloma for less money than you’d pay a restaurant.

To make this paloma, we’ll shake everything but the Topo Chico in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shaking the ingredients together yields the kind of paloma you’d receive at a fancy cocktail bar. It’s a brief step that is worth the extra effort.

Finally, we’ll pour the mixture into a glass filled with ice and top it with Topo Chico to retain all those glorious bubbles. You can watch how it all comes together in the brief video below.

Continue to the recipe...

The post Paloma Cocktail appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

Want to roast chickpeas that are actually crispy? You’re in the right place. I’ve cracked the code, and I’m here to share it with you. These roasted chickpeas are a delightful snack rich in protein and fiber. They’re also great sprinkled over hummus and salads.

To be honest, I never loved roasted chickpeas until I learned how to make them this way. They were always just ok—warm and lightly crisp on the outside but unchanged on the inside. They didn’t feel worth the effort when chickpeas warmed on the stove are nice already.

These roasted chickpeas are legitimately so gloriously crisp that they are popcorn-level irresistible. In fact, they’re so crisp throughout that you should serve them with a drink to help wash them down.

The trick is in the method. I found some helpful clues in a New York Times recipe by Colu Henry and tweaked the method from there. It took ten tries to ensure we had landed on the very best technique, and I found several fun flavor variations along the way. Here we go!

Continue to the recipe...

The post Crispy Roasted Chickpeas appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

Friends coming over? Make this baked goat cheese! It’s warm, creamy, tangy but lightly sweetened with honey, and a touch savory.

This irresistible appetizer comes together quickly in a food processor with simple ingredients. We’ll whip the goat cheese with cream cheese, honey, garlic and seasonings. Once baked, this dip is your favorite restaurant-level delicious.

I modeled this recipe after the lovely goat cheese dip at Rye, a restaurant in Kansas City. We visited a couple of times to research the French Blond Cocktail (reportedly Taylor Swift’s favorite!) and I remembered how much I love their goat cheese appetizer.

I asked about the ingredients and came home determined to recreate it. I’ve simplified the ingredients a bit, but this dip is just as nice. I hope you’ll try it!

Continue to the recipe...

The post Baked Goat Cheese appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

These vegetarian enchiladas are a hearty and satisfying dinner. Make them on a weeknight and you’ll enjoy leftovers for lunch the next day. Or make it on the weekend and invite friends over to make a party out of it! You could make a double batch and freeze the extras—you’ll find freezing instructions below.

You’ll love the fresh filling in these enchiladas, made of sautéed bell pepper, broccoli, onion, spinach, black beans and warming spices. These enchiladas are nicely cheesy, but not overwhelmingly cheesy like many restaurants make them.

This enchilada recipe has become quite popular since I published it nearly eight years ago. I used my spinach artichoke enchiladas as a blueprint and covered them with my go-to homemade enchilada sauce, of course. They’re just fantastic and I hope you’ll give them a try, if you haven’t already.

If you’ve never made enchiladas before, you can do it! You’ll find a detailed recipe, step-by-step photos, and an instructional video below.

Continue to the recipe...

The post Veggie Black Bean Enchiladas appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

These hearty bowls feature roasted fajita veggies and halloumi cheese over beans and cilantro-lime rice. This recipe makes an amazing vegetarian dinner! I’m so excited to share this recipe with you and hope the photos speak for themselves. This vibrant meal is almost too delicious for words to capture.

The bowls are a very abstract take on Mexican fajitas, which typically feature strips of bell pepper and onion cooked with steak, served with tortillas and toppings on the side. These roasted fajita veggies offer similar flavor and texture.

Halloumi cheese hails from Cyprus, an island country in the Mediterranean—far, far away from Mexico! I love halloumi because it offers a salty, creamy, chewy and almost meat-like texture once roasted. I’ve used it in place of bacon to make vegetarian BLTs. Conveniently, the veggies and cheese roast in the oven simultaneously on separate pans.

While you can absolutely serve these components with tortillas, I felt that the flavors shined more over black beans and cilantro-lime rice. The recipe for that component comes from my cookbook, Love Real Food. Try the Grilled Veggie Skewers with Avocado Chimichurri Sauce on page 160 once it’s grilling weather outside!

Continue to the recipe...

The post Fajita Veggie & Halloumi Bowls appeared first on Cookie and Kate.

These thumbprint cookies offer classic shortbread flavor with dazzling jam centers. Using almond flour makes them gluten free and extra delicious! They’re tender and buttery with a pop of sweetness in the center. Make these irresistible cookies for any special occasion, or just because.

This thumbprint cookie recipe is honestly so easy to make. You don’t need a mixer. You don’t need to wait for perfectly softened butter. You don’t need to chill the dough before baking. The dough comes together so quickly and rolls so easily that this recipe would be a fun baking project with kids. If you don’t typically bake with almond flour, this recipe is absolutely worth buying the bag.

Thumbprint cookies are particularly fun and versatile because you can change the flavor and the color of the centers by your choice of jam. These treats are perfect for the holidays, like Valentine’s Day (I suggest raspberry or strawberry filling), Easter (try several jams for a fun color mix), Independence Day (perhaps raspberry and blueberry), and Christmas (anything red).

For those with special diet considerations, I’ll point out that this recipe happens to be gluten free and egg free. You can make it dairy free and vegan by substituting coconut oil for the butter (see recipe notes). It’s also partially naturally sweetened with maple syrup. Of course, the recipe is not nut free due to the almond flour, but it might be just the cookie you’ve been searching for.

I’ve been perfecting this recipe over the past couple of months. I’m just so excited to share it with you! I hope it becomes a go-to recipe for you, too.

Continue to the recipe...

The post Thumbprint Cookies appeared first on Cookie and Kate.