• Christine on November 02, 2012

  This is one of my favorite blogs and I keep up with it regularly. A lot of Maria's recipes fall into one of two categories: vegetarian or sweets -- which are my two favorite kinds of foods to make! You'll find plenty of meal ideas for pastas, salads, soups, and more. There are also some non-vegetarian recipes (mainly chicken based). And as for the sweets, Maria is known for her cookies, but she shares a lot of other delicious baking recipes as well. This blog has recipes for the kind of food I like to eat and I've had much success with any I've made so far.

Notes about Recipes in this site

• Chocolate chip salted caramel cookie bars

  • Christine on March 24, 2014

    These were a rich and decadent treat, super-gooey in the middle with all that caramel. I don't often say this, but they really are best enjoyed in small portions. I liked them best when warm -- a quick zap in the microwave was perfect for the leftovers not eaten fresh from the oven.

• Peanut butter Snickers brownies

  • ssdrabek on October 16, 2012

    Made with milk ways because kids would not like nuts from the snickers and these were AMAZING!!!

• Pumpkin chocolate chip bars

  • trudys_person on November 02, 2014

    Great texture - like a cakey brownie. Very tasty and easy to make.

  • Christine on October 23, 2012

    My family has been making a plain chocolate chip bar recipe for years, but this may become a new favorite. They were the perfect fall dessert. The texture was a little bit soft and cakey and the flavor was phenomenal. I highly recommend this recipe.

• Black bean and sweet potato soup

  • trudys_person on January 29, 2019

    Made for a family lunch. This recipe is just OK. It really isn't a recipe, because it doesn't give any can sizes. I made it with one 28 oz can of diced tomatoes and a tiny (2 oz) can of green chilis. And I diced the sweet potato in 1/2" dice. You really just have to go with your soup making instincts ...

  • sldoug on November 05, 2015

    Made October 2015. Used one can tomatoes and chilies and one can fire roasted tomatoes instead of three, and added coriander while cutting back on the chili powder a bit. Overall the soup was not great. Even cutting the tomatoes by a third still left the soup harshly tomato flavored. I added lots of cheese and sour cream but they only made it tolerable.

• Cranberry coffee cake

  • StoicLoofah on June 14, 2017

    Very popular with my co-workers. In my pyrex dish, I ended up having to bake it 10 minutes longer than specified because it was still soft in the middle. I also overworked the streusel, which ended up being less than great. It would have been better if it was more crumbly.

• Pumpkin cinnamon streusel pancakes

  • trudys_person on October 16, 2019

    Not bad, but fussy to make. If you follow the instructions you end up with uncooked streusel on one side of the pancake. And if you use the full amount of streusel indicated in the recipe, you'll be in a diabetic coma! The recommended maple syrup and butter are completely unnecessary. Update - two hours later: My sugar fiend husband scraped the streusel off his pancakes. I should have done the same--now I have a tummy-ache ...

• Blueberry mango smoothie

  • TrishaCP on April 29, 2020

    I like the combination of blueberries and mangoes here, but I needed some honey to round out the flavors.

• Whole wheat kefir pancakes with blueberry sauce

  • anya_sf on September 21, 2019

    I just made the pancakes, not the sauce. Tried these as I had some kefir to use up. Made 1.5x the recipe (using 1 Tbsp oil + 2 eggs), yielding 11 pancakes. The pancakes cooked up surprisingly high and fluffy. Would make these again anytime I have kefir.

• Roasted plums with Greek yogurt, honey, and almonds

  • Hannaha100 on November 17, 2016

    Roasted plums with agave syrup instead of honey and served with porridge. Very nice!

• Baked oatmeal

  • Christine on September 18, 2012

    I've made this twice and it makes for a tasty, healthy breakfast. I've never really liked oatmeal because of its mushy texture, but baked oatmeal I can do. I substituted more dried cranberries for the raisins because I like them better. I also used a multigrain oatmeal mix I wanted to use up and it worked just fine in place of the regular oats. In my oven, I had to bake this a good ten minutes extra. After the recommended 20 minutes it was still way too liquidy, so I'd keep an eye on it and take it out when it's browned a bit and baked into a more solid texture.

  • cjannace on April 16, 2014

    I had never had baked oatmeal before, but really enjoyed this recipe. Since I live on my own, I made the full batch and reheated servings in oven-safe bowls throughout the week & it was a delicious, filling breakfast and something I"ll be making again.

• Huevos rancheros

  • adrienneyoung on October 11, 2012

    Pretty, reasonably delicious, and easy to modify based on what you've got in your fridge. A mid-week keeper.

• Chocolate chip zucchini brownies

  • lorloff on October 01, 2017

    These were excellent brownies. I used Valrhona chocolate and used a combination of chocolate nibs and chocolate chips. I thought the vanilla worked really well. I had vanilla bean seeds from Oaxaca and added a teaspoon of vanilla bean seeds to the brownie recipe. It is great that it uses zucchini in the batter as a core ingredient. It's hard to believe that there is zucchini in them when you taste it. So good.

  • Christine on August 17, 2014

    Hard to believe a dessert with so much vegetable in it could taste so good! Fudgy, rich, and delicious, the zucchini keeps the brownies moist, but they don't taste "healthy" (not that they should with all that sugar and chocolate...) These brownies don't call for a nominal amount of zucchini either, but rather a full 2 cups so it's great to make when you have a glut of summer zucchini you can't keep up with making savory dishes alone. I used half whole wheat flour and a 11x7 baking dish (I don't think 11x8 is a very common size, to be honest), so needed to bake slightly longer. Normally I would ignore directions telling me I needed a mixer to make a simple recipe such as brownies, but I did use my hand mixer for the step where you add in the zucchini -- it was not coming together easily with a wooden spoon and it seemed to need the force of a mixer to get the moisture out of the zucchini and work it into a batter. Would definitely make these again.

  • cjannace on July 22, 2015

    Delicious! I was looking for a way to use up some of the zucchini that I had from my CSA and this was a perfect solution. I was definitely a little wary while preparing the batter, it did not seem moist enough and was not a very pourable batter. But the result was delicious, moist brownies that my boyfriend and I both love.

• Peanut butter banana bundt cake with Reese’s peanut butter cups

  • Agaillard on October 29, 2017

    I will edit the note tomorrow after I am able to actually eat the cake - but just finished making and cooking it : this is gigantic and I did not even use all the batter? I did not use a bundt cake but a 20cm-deep simple round cake... I don't think I ever made such an enormous cake :) Which is why I am not eating now, but bringing to the office so people can help me finish it :)

• Dorie’s classic banana bundt cake

  • ashallen on September 09, 2019

    Nice banana cake. Banana flavor was sweet, mellow, and less intense than the banana bread I usually make. Texture was also lighter than banana bread and nicely springy - no sogginess here! The exterior browned a bit more than I like and therefore had a few bitter notes, but I believe that was the fault of the nearly-black bundt pan I used. I think that dark pan was also the reason the cake finished baking 10-15 minutes sooner than specified in the recipe. I used 14-15 oz banana (without peel) that I'd frozen, thawed, and brought to room temperature. Drizzled with molten chocolate ganache which worked well with the banana flavor. [Cross-post for Baking:From My Home to Yours/Two Peas and Their Pod.]

• Pomegranate white chocolate chunk cookies

  • Jane on December 04, 2017

    I liked these cookies a lot and they went down well at the party I took them to. They are best on the day they are baked - the next day they had become rather soft due to the moisture in the pomegranate arils. Although it is a pain pushing individual arils into each cookie dough ball, it is worth it as mixing them in would cause them to leak. There was an unattractive gray streak on a couple of cookies where some arils did leak - not appealing.

• Buttermilk biscuit bread

  • ssdrabek on October 22, 2012

    This bread lacked any flavor...I had high hopes!

• Oatmeal cookies with white chocolate and dried cranberries

  • Bloominanglophile on December 30, 2016

    These are lovely, but I just had to tweak the recipe a bit. I was inspired to add 2 Tbsp more oats, used a 3.5 oz finely chopped white chocolate bar (had better ingredient than the chips), and whatever volume was lacking to make it 1 cup was filled with finely chopped Trader Joes Sweetened Dried Orange Slices. Fabulous!

  • StoicLoofah on May 19, 2017

    Maria isn't joking when she says to pull them at 10 minutes. They won't look done, but they came out nice and soft anyways.

• Cinnadoodles

  • j_h on August 30, 2016

    I use a whole bag of 'chips' (about 280g) and have also made these with peanut butter chips - yum! If you can't get cinnamon chips, you could probably use plain white chocolate chips too.

• Mini banana cupcakes with a Nutella swirl

  • Agaillard on March 19, 2017

    Those are really nice!!! Amazing taste and melting nutella center :)

• Slow cooker pulled pork sandwiches

  • chandraandmadhav on May 10, 2015

    this recipe makes A LOT!

• Quinoa salad with roasted sweet potatoes, kale, dried cranberries, & red onion

  • Fiona on March 01, 2015

    I liked the flavors in this dish, and it all came together better than I thought it would. I would try again with a different dressing rathe than just the balsamic vinegar. The timing given for the kale is completely wrong - as several comments pointed out. Needs 5 mins max and it isn't clear to leave them whole while cooking - which I found was a better way to do it on my second batch - having burnt the first lot!

• Roasted tomato basil soup

  • imaluckyducky on July 03, 2020

    5 stars! Extraordinarily simple with a wonderful, nuanced payoff.

• Easy vegetarian chili

  • Bloominanglophile on April 28, 2018

    I made this for some of my daughter's vegetarian friends (along with a beef chili) so they wouldn't be left out. Had some myself--and really didn't miss the meat! I did use 4 cans of Rotel (mild), and took the cumin down to 2 1/2 tsp. (toasted it before grinding and adding to the pot), and the chili powder to 1 Tbps. Topped my serving with sour cream, grated cheese, green onions and chopped cilantro. Nice!

• Roasted sweet potato and spinach risotto

  • kateiscoooking on September 15, 2019

    I used chicken stock since that's what's in the freezer. And, I added a handful of shredded honey deli ham. This was fabulous and we will absolutely make it again.

• Banana-nut oat bran muffins

  • imaluckyducky on July 29, 2016

    5 stars. Made as directed, and they came out moist and flavorful. Used almost-black bananas for the best banana flavor. Healthy and filling as a breakfast on the go, heated up with a little bit of peanut butter.

• Apple cinnamon bread

  • anya_sf on November 02, 2018

    I used white whole wheat flour and reduced the sugar to 3/4 cup; the bread was plenty sweet (I used sweeter apples). I didn't have enough allspice, so I added some nutmeg. For the topping, I used 2 Tbsp turbinado sugar with the cinnamon. The bread turned out great. Next time I'll try brown + granulated sugar for the topping, as much of the turbinado sugar fell off, but 2 Tbsp seems to be plenty.

• Pumpkin chocolate chip bread

  • Jane on October 01, 2015

    This is a really good pumpkin bread recipe. It's very quick to pull together and the results are great. I was worried when the loaves came out of the oven that they looked a bit overdone but the level of moistness was perfect. Good spice flavors. I used mini chocolate chips as I like just getting a hint of chocolate rather than big blasts from regular chips.

• Peach scones [honey vanilla glaze]

  • anya_sf on July 12, 2018

    I used 2 nectarines, which was probably more like 1 1/2 cups fruit. The fruit added a lot of moisture to the dough, so I had to sprinkle a lot of flour on top in order to shape the scones. I just cut them into 6 large wedges, froze them overnight, then baked the next morning for about 27 minutes. They were good (not too sweet). Next time I might add more cinnamon or something to boost the flavor. I also might make them drop scones, since it's so difficult to work with the wet dough.

• Reese’s peanut butter cup popcorn

  • cassiemcgannon on August 12, 2012

    I made this without the Reese's cups, as they're a rare commodity here in Australia. Still delicious, although I think I'd use a little less honey next time (or substitute glucose syrup?) to allow the PB and chocolate flavours to come through.

• Zuppa Toscana soup

  • Rinshin on October 17, 2020

    Loosely followed the recipe tasting as I went. Only used half the sausage and bacon and it was plenty. Used combo kale and spinach and since I wanted more creaminess, added 1/3 cup sour cream along with mushroom seasoning and parmesan rind. Just a smidgen of sugar was also added to counter salty flavor. Makes for comforting soup with basic ingredients. Our quick lunch today. Photo added.

• Easy chicken and rice soup

  • Agaillard on May 27, 2020

    I found it really bland - it is necessary to use great real stock, and potentially spice it up, otherwise it is pretty tasteless in my opinion, or otherwise seriously spice it up, potentially with wine ("faire chabrol") and spices. Might try this tonight actually as I have leftovers and plans to open a bottle of red, and have to add stock again anyway. Omitted celery as did not have and replaced with more onions, but I don't think that fundamentally changed the taste.

  • spharo00 on January 03, 2014

    Everyone in my family loved this! I used onion powder in place of the onion and dried thyme instead of fresh. I also used wild and brown rice and smoked chicken. I cooked the soup for 45 minutes to allow the rice time to cook.

• Pineapple mango green smoothie

  • TheGrubbery on January 14, 2013

    Analyzed by SmoothieRx (http://www.thegrubbery.com/apps): Calories: 377 kcal Nutrients > 25% of daily requirement for a 25-year old male: 9/18. Those 9 are: 1. Protein (28%) 2. Mg (33%) 3. VitA (56%) 4. VitB2 (59%) 5. VitB6 (70%) 6. Folate (60%) 7. VitB12 (54%) 8. VitC (141%) 9. VitK (248%)

• Smashed chickpea & avocado salad sandwich

  • shamby on August 04, 2013

    This is a simple, tasty sandwich.

• Mini rocky road cookies

  • ssdrabek on November 25, 2012

    my kids do not like them but other people do....know your audience is my advice

• Greek quinoa salad

  • clkandel on April 07, 2019

    This is a simple, delicious dish. I added some avocado too.

• Blueberry yogurt waffles

  • anya_sf on January 10, 2021

    I had full fat Fage yogurt, so I used lowfat milk and only 2 Tbsp butter. I also reduced the sugar to 3 Tbsp since we were having the waffles with maple syrup. If serving with whipped cream and strawberries, I'd use the full amount of sugar. The waffles baked up crisp and relatively light considering the whole wheat flour. I got 8 round waffles.

• Grilled chicken fajita kabobs

  • carlenedrake on August 24, 2014

    I really liked the marinade for the chicken.

• Salted caramel apple crumb bars

  • Christine on June 11, 2014

    These are delicious! I tried to use a candy thermometer as recommended, but there wasn't enough caramel in the size pot I used for it to read properly. I gave up on that and followed the directions based on color and appearance without any trouble. I don't know what size mason jar Maria has that fits this amount of caramel, but I certainly don't! I poured it into a large Pyrex bowl instead and recommend waiting until you have transferred the caramel to stir in the sea salt. Stirring it in while in the pot caused some to clump around the bottom edges and got left behind, so I had to taste and re-salt once the caramel was in the Pyrex. It was still plenty hot for the salt to melt in, it just seemed to do so more evenly. The recipe was a bit time-consuming, but I sent half of the tray to my husband's office and they were enjoyed by all. After a couple of days, the caramel drizzled on top starts to soften up the crumb topping, so I think I might drizzle just before serving next time.

• Oreo white chocolate pudding cookies

  • ssdrabek on September 01, 2013

    I use Hershey's cookies' n cream drops in place of the white chocolate chips, one of Emma's most requested and favorites!

• Baked blueberry coconut oatmeal

  • anya_sf on March 20, 2017

    The combination of blueberries and coconut was great. I did not have coconut oil, so I used melted butter. This is also a great basic recipe that can be tweaked a number of ways. I especially like using almond milk for baked oatmeal, as the flavor is complementary and almond milk has fewer calories than cow's milk.

• Homemade Oreos with peanut butter

  • ssdrabek on August 25, 2013

    Bake longer....cookies need to be firm

• Salted caramel skillet brownies

  • jay.moe on July 26, 2020

    This is my favorite brownie recipe ever. I've made it several times, both in a cast iron skillet and in a 9 x 13 baking dish, and it turns out great every time. My family loves it.

• Kale, mushroom, and ricotta calzones

  • anya_sf on March 21, 2017

    I used Trader Joe's pizza dough. I usually double the recipe and freeze the leftovers.

• Mini M&M® cookies

  • ssdrabek on September 01, 2013

    used mini semi-sweet instead of milk chocolate and they were great!

• Greek yogurt biscuits

  • spharo00 on January 03, 2014

    These are the best biscuits I've made, by far. The recipe is easy and the biscuits come out of the oven flaky and puffed high. The only thing I would change next time would be to add a bit more salt to the dough.

• Cucumber canapés with whipped feta, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil

  • monicahorridge on February 14, 2014

    Really easy, tasty, and look great. Have to be eaten the day they are made, though, or the cucumber becomes rather slimy.

• Roasted cauliflower and chickpea tacos

  • Hannaha100 on November 06, 2018

    This was a great, easy one to do - mostly in oven then assemble at end. Could easily adapt with other veg. Crema was fine with soy yogurt but may try with vegan sour cream. Toddler liked and would eat again - left out chilli. She loved the roasted cauliflower. Make sure plenty of avocado as she loves that too.

• Chickpea, pesto, tomato, and mozzarella salad

  • Shelmar on May 17, 2020

    Very quick and easy!

• Raspberry coconut cake with coconut streusel

  • ashallen on January 23, 2020

    Very nice flavor - I'm a big fan of combining raspberry + coconut and this recipe did a nice job of balancing the two flavors. Cake texture was heavier than I'd expected though the photographs on the website are accurate - I just didn't look very closely! Texture also had a nice, creamy vibe to it. I used unbleached all purpose flour and might try some bleached flour next time to see if that lightens it. Also, my butter+sugar never got very fluffy, though that might have been because my kitchen was cold. Some butter oozed from the bottom of the springform pan - since it's a relatively short cake I might go for a 2" deep regular cake pan next time. Cake needed ~15 extra minutes in the oven, likely because the springform was shiny, the raspberries were frozen, and I opened the oven more than usual to deal with the butter ooze. Streusel in center still looked kind of wet/glistening at that point but cake was cooked through.

• Easy chickpea vegetable stir fry

  • Christine on March 18, 2016

    I used this recipe as more of a template. I made half of the sauce and a combination of fresh and frozen vegetables I had on hand. This was a perfect vegetarian dinner to brighten up my plate and break the monotony of a winter cooking rut I had been in.

• Dark chocolate raspberry cookies

  • imaluckyducky on December 30, 2016

    3.5 stars. These were part of a homemade Christmas gift basket. The taste is quite lovely, however, working with frozen raspberries adds a level of difficulty. The cookies don't bake evenly, and cookies with more frozen raspberry pieces end up needing to cook longer or risk having soggy portions of cookie. Will probably make again, but will change how I make them: will put the remaining cookie dough in the fridge or freezer while the first batch of cookies are baking to minimize the raspberries breaking down as they thaw. May push frozen raspberries into the cookie balls on the baking sheet instead of mixing them in.

• Flourless chocolate peanut butter cookies

  • Christine on June 18, 2015

    So good! Not overly sweet and very peanut-buttery. Lovely as an afternoon treat and a nice change from cookies made with butter and flour.

• Brown butter zucchini coffee cake

  • Christine on August 03, 2015

    I used sour cream as suggested instead of Greek yogurt. This is an excellent recipe, but I do think the brown butter flavor got completely lost. Considering that, I don't think it was worth the extra time it took to brown the butter and let it cool. Next time, I would try this recipe with softened butter in the cake batter and cut cold butter into the crumb mixture as I do for other crumb cake recipes.

• Chocolate banana bread

  • Agaillard on January 31, 2018

    This is clearly not bread. Looks and tastes more like a light brownie/chocolate cake! Anyway, brought at work, HUGE success, this is amazing. So will definitely bake again. Very easy to make too! I did not find Dutch chocolate so just used Cadbury :)

• Strawberry bread

  • StoicLoofah on June 14, 2017

    Tasty. The strawberries aren't super-present, but it works. It's not too sweet and comes out more bread-y than cake-y, especially since I only do a tablespoon and sparkling sugar over the tap.

• Bacon, corn, and tomato pasta salad

  • nicolepellegrini on August 11, 2019

    This was quite good - like a classic macaroni salad but lighter, with more veggies and fresh ingredients.

• Honey sesame chicken {Instant Pot}

  • stef on January 03, 2020

    Came together quickly. I used 1/3 cup honey. We liked it a lot and will repeat

• Peanut butter banana bread

  • StoicLoofah on August 25, 2018

    I thought the recipe was so-so. Adding the peanut butter seemed to dry it out a bit

• Sheet pan pasta bake with chicken and kale

  • Jane on June 30, 2020

    A quick and easy weeknight dinner. As my daughter is GF I used GF penne and no breadcrumbs on top. I also used spinach instead of kale. I did find it a bit odd mixing the pasta/chicken with the greens/tomatoes on the sheet pan. Much easier to do that in the pasta pan then tip into the sheet pan for baking.

• Strawberry banana bread

  • StoicLoofah on September 02, 2019

    Recipe worked fine. Nothing too special amongst banana breads, but it's a nice way to use up some strawberries

• Honey mustard sheet pan chicken with Brussels sprouts

  • StoicLoofah on July 13, 2020

    The sauce is great: I was surprised the chicken itself wasn't more flavorful, though. It wasn't bad, but there are better sheet pan chicken recipes out there

• Pumpkin snickerdoodles

  • Bloominanglophile on October 30, 2019

    This is a nice cookie for this time of year. Even after chilling overnight, my dough was still quite soft, so don't handle the dough more than you have to or leave it out too long at room temperature. I like the sparkle of sugar on these type of cookies, but didn't get any with the ratio of cinnamon to sugar that the dough balls are rolled in. Next time I will lower the amount of cinnamon. Also watch the baking time--mine baked in 9 minutes.

• Spaghetti with chickpeas & kale

  • StoicLoofah on May 24, 2020

    Nice recipe. It was a little difficult to get the spaghetti and the chickpeas picked up together. Maybe a shorter, fatter pasta like shells would work better?

• Smoky cauliflower tacos

  • Hannaha100 on May 06, 2020

    Did half cauliflower spiced and half plain for kiddos. Didn't need quite as long as stated, may turn the oven down slightly next time. Made the sauce with vegan mayo instead of Greek yoghurt as suggested in recipe. No black beans so used kidney beans. No red onion so shredded some lettuce instead. This went down fairly well. DH and I liked it - not too fiery, nice variety of textures. M1 ate the cauliflower, tortilla, lettuce and avocado. M2 mainly ate the tortilla and cauliflower (and a bit of cheese). Neither kiddo liked the red cabbage raw. If I did again I would probably do another veg that they like e.g. sweetcorn, peppers, broccoli instead.

• Chocolate banana cookies

  • StoicLoofah on July 25, 2020

    Really tasty. The salt is key to making sure this isn't too sweet. Freeze to bake in small batches and eat them fresh.

  • trudys_person on August 02, 2020

    Delicious and easy!

• Stovetop pumpkin mac and cheese

  • anya_sf on December 08, 2020

    I just used 2 Tbsp butter in the topping and 3 Tbsp in the sauce, used penne pasta, a mixture of sharp cheddar and fontina, and added 8 oz crumbled, cooked Italian sausage. Very tasty and filling. The crispy panko topping was a nice contrast with the creamy pasta. I chopped the sage leaves for more even distribution. The sausage got a little lost; slices of smoked sausage would have been more noticeable. Roasted veg might be a nice addition.