Jolene's Recipe Journal

It's National Iced Tea Day!  I'm going to throw this out there and admit that push comes to shove, I'm definitely an iced coffee girl.   When this event was announced, I decided I wanted to jump in and get out of my comfort zone a bit.   There's one type of tea that I love, and it's the kind that's served at Chinese restaurants.  The closest thing I've found to it is the Mandarin Spice from Celestial Seasonings.  And what goes better with orange than blueberries?  We've still got a ways to go before we can get them locally, but the ones at the grocery have been pretty good lately.

There's a few steps to this, but they all go quickly. First, I made a blueberry simple syrup by combining sugar, water, and blueberries. Normally it's a 1:1 ratio, but my berries were very tart, so I used 3/4c sugar and 1/2c water.  I was lucky to find some mandarin oranges at the market, so I zested one and added that to the syrup too. You can use a regular small oran…

June is National Fruits & Vegetables Month! The thing I most look forward to in June is strawberries.   We're very lucky to live around lots of farms, and we make going to pick a family outing.   Usually we bring home somewhere around 15 pounds.   We leave some for snacking, a bunch gets turned into jam, and then I like to try a handful of new recipes.   One of this year's picks is this Fresh Strawberry Salsa from Taste of Home.

I made some very minor changes to the recipe. I'm not a fan of green bell pepper, so I used red and orange. I had beautiful heirloom cherry and grape tomatoes on hand, so I quartered them up and used those. I had serranos, so I used those instead of the Anaheim.  Sadly, I am in the "cilantro tastes like soap" camp, so I used fresh parsley instead.

This is such a great dish.  So fresh and colorful.  I love all of the textures and flavors.  It's great on top of chicken in a wrap or on it's own with some tortilla chips.   Thank y…

The weather is heating up here, and I've been searching the Taste of Home site and my magazines for meals and snacks that are delicious and filling, but not heavy.   This Inside Out Veggie Dip fit the bill nicely.


I made some small changes.  I used Greek yogurt cream cheese, omitted the green onions because I forgot to buy them, and garnished with some dried parsley.  You definitely can change up the veggies any way you like, those mini bell peppers would be perfect for filling too.  Bermuda onion would give the filling some beautiful color. The cream cheese mixture was also amazing on crackers and bagels.

This is a super quick to put together recipe, but it looks so fancy.  It would be great for showers, summer gatherings, or just sitting barefoot out on the patio with a good book.  I'll definitely be making this one a lot, thank you so much to Judie T. for sharing her recipe!


On Tuesdays I like to share what myself and my other fellow Volunteer Field Editors from Taste of H…

June is #DairyMonth and today is #NationalCheeseDay! What is better than hot melty cheese? Not a lot! So many of my favorite dishes are made with cheese, like nachos.  We all love them, but the guys are pretty boring in that they just like the chips and cheese.   I like toppings, and lots of them, and don't forget the sour cream on the side!   Traditionally I see nachos with refried beans, and I'm not particularly a fan.  I ran across this recipe from Taste of Home on Pinterest, and loved that it used black beans instead.

I used cherry tomatoes instead of the canned, it was what I had on hand.  I seeded and sliced the jalapenos per the recipe, but they weren't spicy enough for me that way.  Next time I'll definitely just slice them.   The rest of the toppings were perfect. Crunchy chips, cool tomatoes, a little heat from the peppers, plus the protein-packed beans.   Thank you so much to Cynthia N. for her awesome recipe!

Thank you so much to Camilla from Culinary Adven…

*This is a sponsored post.  I received products for use in the creation of my #BurgerMonth recipe.  All opinions are my own.*

So excited to be a part of Girl Carnivore's #BurgerMonth event this year! It's a happy day when the snow has finally melted and I can get to the grill again.   This year it seemed to take far longer than usual, so we've been enjoying it even more now that the weather has been cooperative.

This burger is something that I've been working on for a while now. It started from a chicken sandwich that I get from a local restaurant chain that I cloned at home.  I love the sauce and the flavors so much that I decided to try them on a burger. I've always made them with cheddar cheese, but Cabot sent us an amazing variety of cheeses, and the pepper jack called to me.  I also added a new product I discovered, French's Crispy Jalapenos.




Remember that cooperative weather I referred to earlier?  Well, on the day that I had chosen to make my burger, the…

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