Maine Influencers

From savory sweet potato fries to sweet potato hash browns to marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole, there are so many ways to enjoy them. This dish — Rosemary Garlic Parmesan Sweet Potato Casserole — was inspired by potatoes au gratin, which my family used to eat at our Easter meal (and other times too). This Rosemary Garlic Parmesan Sweet Potato Casserole recipe relies on the uniform quality that mandolines provide. Once you have those thin slices of sweet potatoes ready, they are layered with garlic, rosemary, parsley, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese in a casserole.

Rich, savory Slow Cooker Barbecue Chicken Thighs are delightful served over baked sweet potatoes. Slow Cooker Barbecue Chicken Thighs on Sweet Potatoes is a recipe like that — Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, prick the cleaned sweet potatoes a few times on one side and cook them directly on the rack for 50-60 minutes until tender. You’ll want to place a baking sheet on the oven rack below to ensure that nothing bubbling out of the potatoes hit the hot oven floor.

As I mixed the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in the mixer recently, I was also mentally preparing for my daughter’s virtual high school orientation. This recipe has three stages of preparation: mixing the wet ingredients, mixing the dry ingredients and mixing the wet and dry ingredients together. I have a KitchenAid stand mixer that’s been my trusty companion for nearly 16 years, but any mixer will work — a different brand stand mixer or a handheld mixer. Sharing homemade food, like these cookies, is a wonderful act of love — and maybe it will create some memories in your own life so you can mark the progression of your time by cookies too.

Here’s how to cook corned beef in a slow cooker. Here’s how to cook corned beef in the slow cooker. However, the flat cut has an even layer of fat on one side that ensures the meat stays moist when it’s slow-cooked, as in this recipe. I use a large 6-quart slow cooker to cook corned beef in a slow cooker.

This Chocolate Chip Pie recipe makes a gooey, rich, buttery pie filled with chocolate that’s such a treat to eat. With Pi Day approaching in the coming week (that’s March 14, named for the mathematical term that represents the number often abbreviated to 3.14), it seemed like the perfect time to share my recipe for Chocolate Chip Pie. It’s like the rich, chocolatey, soft, gooey brethren of a classic chocolate chip cookie. This recipe starts with similar ingredients to the ones you’d use in a cookie — flour, sugars, butter, oil, an egg, chocolate chips and the like.

This quick and easy recipe for Bruschetta Chicken Skillet uses pantry ingredients to credit a bright, bold chicken dish perfect for dinner. However, if you cannot find thin-cut chicken breasts, it’s easy to make your own. Simply place boneless, skinless chicken breasts between sheets of wax paper and use a meat mallet (it’s a hammer for meat) to pound the chicken until it’s uniformly about 1/4-inch thick. One note of caution though: don’t pair this Bruschetta Chicken Skillet with a boldly flavored side dish as it will take away from the boldness of this dish.

Sweet northern-style cornbread is my very favorite and this Buttery, Crumbly Cornbread recipe is a great example of it done right. As someone who grew up in New York, northern-style cornbread is the one that I associate with happy childhood memories and bowls of steaming hot homemade chili. This Buttery Cornbread recipe is a decidedly northern bread, sweet and crumbly and ready to be dipped into something spicy. Buttery Cornbread is a quick bread, which means that there’s no rising time required.

Rich, sweet and salty, this Sesame Ginger Dressing recipe takes minutes to shake up and is delightful on salads. like this one — are so incredibly easy to make with pantry ingredients that it’s a wonder there are so many options lined up on the salad dressing shelves at the grocery store. It’s also delightful with avocado, shrimp, tuna steak, chicken or garbanzo beans. This Sesame Ginger Dressing can also be used as as a marinade for chicken, beef or seafood like shrimp or tuna steak.

But we got the dishes under control (thanks to a new chore sheet that reminds my kids when and how dishes are to be done and a changed process for post-cooking for all of us) and took control of our storage. Both changes would be done with the idea of making the room even more usable — and making the house more serene. The open concept living room and dining room are steps from the kitchen. Now, that room is my yoga studio, my daughter’s dance studio and the place where my kids can go to play Just Dance and other video games on an old TV.

This Easy Beer Bread recipe is a quick 3-ingredient loaf that’s ready in less than an hour. This recipe calls for just three ingredients — Self-rising flour, beer and salt. In other words, if you hate hoppy beer, you aren’t going to love hoppy bread. What’s especially great about this Easy Beer Bread recipe is that the loaf can be used for anything — sandwiches, French toast, croutons, whatever.