Chicken and dumplings in July? Well, I don’t defend it as a dish that screams “summer,” but I happen to appreciate comfort food any time of year. Besides, I had a rooster in my freezer who needed to be cooked. It’s true! He came from my brother-in-law, who keeps (and occasionally dispatches) chickens. This particular guy had been a bit of a trouble maker… I could tell by looking at the scrawny bird that the meat would be a bit tougher than a conventionally raised chicken, so into the pressure cooker he went—along with some carrots, celery, thyme, and, at the end, biscuit-dough dumplings. My pot of comfort turned out fantastic, and I came away with two firm convictions:

1. I adore my pressure cooker. You can cook a chicken AND make stock in less than an hour—and still be able to use the meat from the bird. Compare that to traditional stock, where you cook chicken pieces for hours to extract flavor, leaving the meat exhausted, depleted of flavor, and pretty much unusable. I’m more than a pressure cooker convert; I’m an evangelist. It’s like magic, turning out—dare I say—better food than my slow cooker has ever produced.

2. The flavor of a chicken that’s honestly “natural,” that roamed and lived its life as an animal, is incredible. This bird didn’t taste like brine or chicken broth or some other form of saline injection so common in grocery-store poultry; it tasted like chicken. He was scrappy, but what he lacked in size, he made up for in flavor. The dark meat was a revelation! It was deeply dark, and more intensely flavored than any chicken I’d had before, with a chicken liver-y richness. Real food = real good.

Tell us: Are you also smitten with your pressure cooker? If so, check out our favorite pressure cooker recipes. Or have you also had an epiphany moment with farm-to-table food? And if you, too, crave comfort food despite the summer heat, try one of our best chicken and dumplings recipes: Chicken and Rosemary Dumplings, Herbed Chicken and Dumplings, or Chicken and Dumplings. Plus, see more of our top-rated chicken recipes.

With all the hubbub about Mother's Day breakfast and brunch, why not do something different and satisfy Mom's sweet tooth with a homemade, baked-with-love dessert? Last Mother's Day, I made my mom a batch of our mutual favorite Lemon Squares. They turned out great and were a fun, sweet and tangy treat for the warming weather.

So as a lover of baking (and all things sweet), I've rounded up some of my favorite go-to Cooking Light desserts to help find the perfect recipe for you, depending on your Mom's taste.

For the Chocoholic: Chocolate Chunk Bread Pudding
These individual bread puddings are not only delicious and impressive, they're also very easy to make. They're light and airy, but never lacking in rich chocolatey goodness. Be sure not to forget the sprinkle of chocolate chunks (or to make it even easier, chocolate chips) on top before baking. The recipe makes two, but it would be easy to double or even triple depending on your family's size.

For the Fruit Lover: Peach and Blackberry Cobbler
I've made this recipe about five times and it comes out perfectly each and every time (it was so good, I apparently forgot to take a photo after it was finished baking). This dessert boasts summer-fresh fruit with a warm biscuit-like topping. I've only used fresh fruit, but some reviewers have tried frozen with success as well.

For the Traditionalist: Chocolate Chip Cookies
You can't go wrong with a classic and this recipe has been my go-to for a few years now. They're soft and chewy with the perfect hint of vanilla. A dash of cinnamon takes them over the top.

For the All-American Mom: Apple Pie
One reviewer raves, "This is the best apple pie I've ever made and I've been making pies almost 30 years." I have to agree: the filling is absolutely divine. My recommendation: use honeycrisp apples.

For the Crowd-Pleaser: Yellow Sheet Cake with Chocolate Frosting
This cake has something for everyone: buttery yellow cake topped with a cream cheese-based chocolate frosting. Our Test Kitchen awarded it top scores and if I hadn't tried out the recipe myself, I'd have sworn it wasn't light.

How will you be celebrating Mother's Day this year?

The best Mother’s Day breakfast-in-bed I ever made happened to be the first one I attempted. I was seven years old, and—beginner’s luck—made the most perfect from-scratch biscuits I’ve ever made in my life. Or maybe that’s just the way I remember it … but I swear they were tall and fluffy and melted in your mouth. And I couldn’t believe they were made by my hands, that following the directions on a bag of flour (with intent and determination and love) would actually produce something edible. Well, better than edible. My mom no doubt had practiced her Ooos and Aaahs, had her most convincing smile perfected by the time I knocked on the door with her “surprise” breakfast. But when her eyes went wide and then narrowed as she savored her first bite, I knew I had succeeded. You could almost see the “Wow! This is actually good!” thought bubble sprout from her head. Those biscuits are the first thing I remember cooking on my own. And they taught me a beautiful lesson about the power of a simple gesture, about the power of food. We express our love in many ways, and almost none is more beautiful than putting your heart and your hands into the preparation of food, of sharing a feast or a morsel with someone you love. 

What do you remember making for your mom on Mother’s Day? Share your stories of baking triumphs or hilarious kitchen disasters. And try our Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits, maybe even for you own mother this Sunday. Or pass the recipe along to your kids and let them surprise you with breakfast in bed this Sunday.

Get the recipe: Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

This past weekend I made a Cooking Light pasta salad for 18 people—a feat I am immensely proud of. I know what you’re thinking. You just got through a holiday with a turkey that could barely fit in your oven, enough pies to open a bakery, enough leftovers to satisfy late night cravings through New Year’s. What’s the big deal?

For me, it was taking the very few pots and pans in my small kitchen and a recipe originally intended to serve 4 and assembling ingredients so that nothing got overcooked, dried out, or underdressed. This was not easy. I had four pots of different sizes boiling away at different times. I had to dress the pasta in batches so no one got a mouthful of shallot or a slick of olive oil. I had to stretch the recipe a little as the herbs I thought were enough turned out to be just shy of what I needed.

Banana Bread. It means a lot to me. And based on the popularity of our October issue, it means a lot to you, too. Banana bread is one of those Cooking Light favorites that remains on top: top-requested from readers, top-searched on our site, top-rated by our editors. In October, the editors added to our collection of great banana bread recipes with such wonders as Peanut Butter Banana Bread and, dare I mention it, Bananas Foster Bread. Yum.

Maybe it's karma, but banana bread holds a special place for me as well. My grandmother made the most amazing banana bread (OK, based on the recipe, it was more like cake than bread). I would go to great lengths to make sure the required 3 almost-black bananas were left behind in the fruit bowl. When I came home from school, the aromas of baked banana bread smacking me in the face as I came in the door made me, well, bananas.

The day before my first child was born, I was in the mood for that banana bread. So I pulled 3 overly-ripe bananas from my stash in the freezer, mashed them with the wet ingredients, stirred in the dry with a fork as my grandmother did, and proceeded to eat the entire pan while standing in my kitchen. A moderation moment it was not. A memory I cherish, for sure.

At Cooking Light, we take special care to create baking recipes that 1) work 2) taste delicious 3) are lighter than your grandmother's version. Does that mean you should eat an entire batch in one sitting? Absolutely not. Does it mean you have new recipes you can pass to your kids? Yep.

In honor of my favorite quick baking treat, we're giving away a copy of our Special Edition, Cooking Light Quick Baking, on sale now through November 5th on news-stand. It's full of our best quick-baking recipes. Here's how it works:

I am a sucker for fresh baked granola. I love the varieties of crunch, the hidden gems of dried fruit like ruby-red cranberries or golden California apricots. I eat it by the fistful as a snack, over yogurt for breakfast, or heated with milk for a quick porridge on a cold morning. You can toss almost anything into a granola—seeds, toasted wheat germ, or crushed pretzels. Baked with a little vanilla, honey, and brown sugar, salty staples get a sweet kick and meld together perfectly.

Another bonus: it’s cheap! Have you noticed how expensive store-bought granola is these days? For one box of granola, you could purchase enough rolled oats, dried fruit, and nuts to make two or three batches. You can choose how much or how little of each ingredient you want to add (I personally like a little extra fruit—something I’m always digging around for in those store-bought varieties). Homemade granola doesn’t have that stale, overdone texture you find in stores. It also makes your house smell great while it bakes.

Below is my go-to standard granola recipe. I like it because it’s adaptable, super fast, and consists of everything I already have on hand. Got leftover mixed nuts from a party? Omit the salt and toss them in. Like pumpkin seeds? Dried pineapple? Maple syrup instead of honey? The possibilities are endless. A great fall breakfast, snack, or gift for friends.

Cookies for Kids’ Cancer was founded by a mom, Gretchen Holt, after her two-year-old son, Liam, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare pediatric cancer. With the diagnosis, Holt confronted a few hard truths: There is no cure for her son’s illness, and only 30% of children survive. And then she learned that research and experimental treatments are limited by a lack of funding. That was a fact she felt was within her power to change. So she organized a giant bake sale—we’re talking about almost 100,000 cookies, 250 volunteers, and they raised $400,000 for pediatric cancer research! After this success, and when offers of help—and orders for more cookies—continued to pour in, she realized that she could make a difference in the fight against pediatric cancers.
Today, Cookies for Kids’ Cancer is going strong, and in fact the charity is in a tight race to win a $20,000 grant. You can help them win by visiting Jimmie Johnson Foundation or  princeliamthebrave.blogspot.com and voting. Then tell all of your friends. And vote again tomorrow and every day until Sept. 29th.

You can also visit cookiesforkidscancer.org and learn more about how you can support their cause. If you want to host a bake sale, below are a few of my all-time favorite Cooking Light cookie recipes.


Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, and Pecan Cookies
Crunchy Sesame Cookies
Hello Dolly Bars 
Chewy Chocolate Cherry Cookies
Macadamia Butter Cookies with Dried Cranberries (shown below)

I am blueberry-rich. And I know I’m lucky. Both my parents and my husband’s family grow lots and lots of blueberries, so we can pick to our hearts’ delight. While I’ve enjoyed this privilege for almost 20 years, my kids (twin boys, age 41/2) just discovered it last year—and truly started, in their own way, relishing it this year.

So they get all kinds of excited about picking, with much, much chatter about what bucket they’re going to take or how many berries they’ll eat for each one they actually put in the bucket. And when we get out to the bushes to pick, it’s always hot, no matter how early we start, because, hey, blueberries happen in summer, and we live in a very hot place. So the kids lose interest after about seven minutes. They’ll plop down on the ground and just start shoving (literally) handfuls of berries in their mouths and complain about the heat and tell me they just want me to make them a pie.

We had a big weekend down here in Birmingham. For many of us here, football = life. And for one weekend a year, I live in a house divided. My husband bleeds orange for the University of Tennessee, while I'm a fan of the Crimson Tide. We drove to Tuscaloosa for the game (what a nail-biter!).

Tailgating notwithstanding, game days are always hectic. Especially now that we must wrangle with strollers and diapers, shortcuts that lead to good food are a must for our family. If meal can do double-duty and still be delicious, even better.

Since I knew we'd be leaving early Saturday morning to beat the game-day traffic, I made a big breakfast casserole the night before. My recipe, handed down from my mother, could feed a football team (well, almost).

I've adapted it to be a little more waistline-friendly than my mother's version. It is super-easy, soaks overnight and you can pull it out to serve as at breakfast or brunch. Sunday night, I added a green salad and we had it again for dinner.

Ingredients: