Sparkle Kitchen
Explore a world of culinary delight with our Sparkle Kitchen category. Discover mouthwatering recipes, cooking tips, and kitchen adventures to satisfy your appetite and spark your creativity in the kitchen.
Solstice Bonfire S'mores
Prepare yourself for a classic s'more with a holiday twist. I've subbed the traditional graham crackers for gingerbread cookies and the usual plain chocolate for seasonal peppermint bark. When the warm gingerbread spices and the cool peppermint chocolate combine with the marshmallows, it tastes like Christmas is exploding in your mouth.
Our Nine Favorite Homemade Holiday Gifts
These nine projects make for wonderful holiday gifts, whether you make them for friends and family (with the help of children!) or you create them for the members of your own dear home.
Sparkle Kitchen: “Small Batch” Gingerbread Cookies
Do you like gingerbread cookies? Here's a handy, time-saving recipe for making small batch gingerbread cookies (by freezing the dough ahead of time!). This way, you can enjoy the yummy treats, just like Martin & Sylvia do in Day 6 of Martin & Sylvia's Audio Advent Calendar, without having to brave the grand, sticky process.
Sparkle Kitchen: Fromage Forte
Fromage forte (“strong cheese”) is a French cheese spread that is made from odd bits and pieces of cheese. (Odd bits and pieces of any cheese, like, whatever you have in your fridge right this second.) The cheese is broken up and mixed in a food processor with chicken stock until it's a spreadable consistency.
Sparkle Kitchen: Gluten-Free Quoll (Monkey) Bread
This week's recipe takes the concept of sharing one step further. In a nod to the story we're calling it “Quoll Bread,” but it's essentially Monkey Bread made with gluten-free flour. And because it's gluten-free, you can share it with that many more friends!
Sparkle Kitchen: Hot Chocolate on a Stick
Homemade hot chocolate is a soothing comfort that will help with both literal and figurative winter chills, but the logistics of delivering it can be difficult. These hot chocolates on a stick let you share all the love of hot chocolate with your friends and family — but without sloshing it all over your lap on the way.
Sparkle Kitchen: Homemade Pretzels
If you would like to try your hand at homemade pretzels for a Martinmas lantern walk, give this recipe below a try.
Sparkle Halloween Treats Round Up
Halloween is almost here! We're excited to share a few fun and not-so-spooky Halloween treats with you. Make a few at once and you've got a Halloween party!
Sparkle Kitchen: Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese
As it so happens, butternut squash — which is in season this time of year and so very good for you — has a trick that's quite similar to Sylvia's. Because of its golden color and creamy texture, butternut squash is very skilled at camouflaging itself as cheese sauce for macaroni and cheese.
Sparkle Kitchen: Elephant Snack Mix
Sending snacks to school can be so hard. I absolutely want to be supportive of my children's friends who have allergies, but that can get complicated fast when you're trying to provide a snack for 20 kids — many of whom have different sets of concerns. This snack mix is my answer to that problem!
Sparkle Kitchen: Halloween Special: "Apples in a Row" Tart
Inspired by the apples left neatly in the orchard, this Sparkle recipe features a bit of autumn magic. With just five ingredients, this tart is easy to whip up on a whim for dessert or a decadent breakfast.
Sparkle Kitchen: Gumbo
In the FIFTY story for Louisiana, “Gumbo and the Petticoat Insurrection,” Ambroisine Melange sets out from Paris to seek adventure and opportunity in Louisiana — a place where, so she was told, anything was possible.
Sparkle Kitchen: Halloween Special - A Jack-o'-Lantern Crust Topped Chicken Mini-Potpie
For this week's recipe, we've taken Garrith's jack-o'-lantern idea and turned it into something that a more typical baker might create: a chicken pot pie. But these pot pies have a little something extra. In a nod to the season, each one has a smiling jack-o'-lantern face grinning from the top of the crust.
Sparkle Kitchen: Overnight Apple Spiced Oats
These overnight apple spiced oats are a satisfying, portable breakfast that can be made up on the weekends and used as needed through the week. Their secret ingredient is a dash of cardamom — something that always gives me an extra hint of fall that I don't quite get from plain cinnamon.
Sparkle Kitchen: Forest Caterpillar Snack
This week's recipe takes its inspiration from all of the weird and wonderful caterpillars who live in the forest.
Sparkle Kitchen: Pesto Toast Tangram Dragons
Topped with the tail end of this year's fresh pesto, these two dragons are an easy—and delicious—introduction to tangrams. Couple them with a few slices of bell pepper (or, “dragon fire strips” if you want to keep with the theme), for a healthy, savory snack.
Sparkle Kitchen: Mason Jar Peach Cobblers
My philosophy on summer picnics is very low-fuss—some cheese and lunchmeat in a cooler, a box of crackers, a tub of hummus, and plenty of cool fruits and veggies. That being said, though, even the simplest picnic benefits from a good dessert, and these little peach cobblers fit the bill perfectly.
Sparkle Kitchen: Lemon Ginger Chia Muffins
In our modern times, we take citrus fruit for granted, but not so long ago lemons and limes and oranges were actually rare and expensive. Even my own mother likes to tell how she used to get an orange in the toe of her stocking each Christmas morning and it was considered a real treat.
sparkle kitchen: raspberry shrub
Do you know about shrubs? They're drinks made with fruit, sugar, and vinegar. They were popular in the colonial era—both mixed with alcohol and mixed with water as a non-alcoholic "day drink”—and are now enjoying a comeback as trendy craft cocktails and homemade sodas.
Sparkle Kitchen: Teeny the Toadlet Sandwich Stacker
If you're looking for ideas to help make those starting-a-new-school-year transitions easier, give this “Teeny” sandwich stacker a try. A spinach tortilla wrap does most of the work for you—just by being green—and you can customize the filling to suit your child's favorites.
