All Posts By Jennifer

Some dishes don’t just fill your belly — they fill your heart. This creamy seafood salad, made with good ol’ imitation crab, takes me straight back to Sunday potlucks at the church hall and lazy lake days with family when no one was in a rush to be anywhere. If you grew up in the Midwest like I did, you know we have our own way of bringing the coast inland. We may not have oceanfront views, but we sure know how to serve up a seafood salad that tastes like it came straight from the shore — even if …

You ever cook something by accident and then wonder why it took you so long to try it? That’s exactly how I stumbled into fried cabbage with bacon. One night, I had half a head of cabbage staring at me from the fridge (the kind of ingredient you buy with good intentions and then forget about). I also had a pack of bacon—because honestly, who doesn’t? I threw them together, not expecting much, and oh my word… it was love at first bite. It’s not fancy. It doesn’t need to be. It’s the sort of food that makes the kitchen …

You ever have one of those desserts that just shuts everyone up at the table? Like, people take a bite and suddenly the room goes silent — all you hear are little hums of approval and the scrape of forks against plates. Yeah, that’s these Caramel Cheesecake Bars. I made these the first time when my sister was visiting from out of town. She’s a cheesecake snob — I say that with love — and she said (quote), “These are better than Cheesecake Factory.” I just smiled and handed her another bar. We both knew it was true. These bars …

Let me tell you something—if there’s one dish that never, ever lets me down, it’s crab legs. Especially baked, dripping with garlic butter, and served to the people I love when the house smells like heaven and everyone’s a little sun-kissed from the day. Crab legs remind me of summers up at the lake—remember those? Long days that started with too much sunscreen and ended with someone accidentally dropping a hot dog into the fire. The evenings were the best, though. Grandma would holler that dinner was ready, and we’d all pile into the kitchen—barefoot, tanned, and starving. She always …

You ever have one of those days where all you want is something warm, crunchy, and made with love? I sure do—and more often than not, that craving leads me straight to these Southern-style crispy chicken cutlets. Growing up, we didn’t need a holiday or special occasion to fry up some chicken. It was just something we did when folks were around and hungry, which, let’s be honest, was pretty much every weekend. Aunt Sharon would be in charge of coleslaw, somebody always brought sweet tea in a gallon jug, and the chicken? That was my mama’s domain. Golden, crunchy, …