Citrus Yogurt Cake

This is my go-to loaf cake for any occasion or no occasion at all. It's moist, the slices hold up, and the flavor is delicious. I have made it with all different kinds of citrus: lemon, orange, grapefruit (as in the original), lime, key lime, tangerine, and even kumquat. I have made it with 100% all-purpose flour, almost 100% whole wheat pastry flour, and usually a mixture of the two. I have made it with nonfat, full-fat, and Greek yogurt. I once made it dairy-free and it was still great. Sometimes I add random berries (raspberry, blueberry) or other fruit (pear) into the batter. This cake, it never disappoints.

A version of the very adaptable citrus yogurt cake with lemon
and poppyseed.

Perfect Vegan Cupcake (high altitude)

I've adapted sea-level recipes for dairy-free, egg-free cupcakes before, but they usually end up sunken and stuck to the muffin tin (or stuck to the paper liners, even worse). So, I went on a hunt for a really good cupcake/muffin that would work at high altitude. (I'm not sure what separates a cupcake from a muffin. I've reduced the sugar from the original cupcake recipe, bringing these dangerously close to muffin territory.) These can be frosted for dessert, or filled with power ingredients like nuts and raisins to make a breakfast or snack. Most recently, with autumn on its way and apples falling from the trees, I made these with apple chunks and walnuts, cinnamon and allspice, and brown sugar instead of white. It tasted like fall and it was delicious.

Whole Wheat Crepes

With the chickens popping out 4-6 eggs every day, we look for ways to use them up. I'm not the biggest fan of straight-up cooked eggs, but I love to make crepes, high-altitude popovers, and German pancakes, all of which use a lot of eggs with a little flour. This crepe recipe uses 4 eggs, fills the whole blender, and makes delicious crepes to last a week. Cook them all up at once and store in a baggie in the fridge.

Soft Maple Applesauce Cookies

When 30 lbs of apples show up on your doorstep (a surprise "leave the produce and run" drop-off from a friend), what do you do? We're dehydrating them, making apple jelly and apple butter, and applesauce cookies. This recipe assumes you have already made the applesauce, or you can use store-bought. The cookies are scrumptious and customizable. I made them with a boozy cream cheese/maple glaze, but without the glaze, sub chocolate chips, would be awesome, too. These cookies are wonderfully soft, but the flip side is that they're not too sturdy. Don't toss them into a backpack without any protection, or they'll be crumbs.

Chocolate "Mousse" Pie

This is one of the easiest, most impressive desserts you can throw together in a few minutes (plus a few hours to let it chill). It is a dense, firm, rich, dark chocolate pie but it can be easily made with less chocolate for a more kid-friendly dessert.   It is also very simple to make it dairy free/vegan, as the "mousse" is silken tofu (but no one will ever know, unless you reveal the secret). If you make it as-is, cut small, thin slices for your friends – it’s that chocolately rich. Serve with a dollop of homemade whipped cream (if you’re not required to be dairy-free), ice cream (coconut-based would be delicious), and/or a blended sauce ("coulis") made from your berries of choice. Really, this recipe just BEGS to be served with fruit.

Dense, dark chocolate "mousse" pie with fruit and ice cream.

Anytime Pumpkin Pie

After the Thanksgiving and holiday rush on pumpkin pie, a few more months pass before we make it again. When it starts to feel like summer's almost here, we always realize we still have a few of last summer's pumpkins sitting decoratively on the counter, and we finally make the last few batches of pumpkin pie before the growing season begins anew. We love the vegetabley goodness of pumpkin pie with garden pumpkins absolutely any time of year, and this is my go-to recipe.

Pumpkins and squash sitting decoratively in the kitchen.