Spice Up Your Life -

‘Chew’se a chocolate-free bar cookie for your summer treat

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date June 4, 2026

Southern pecan chewies have a chewy, soft center, as advertised, with pops of crunchy pecans throughout. They are a great bar cookie for summer events.

There’s a phrase we often hear when we travel north: Minnesota Nice.

It refers to how friendly the folks in Minnesota are, and that’s especially true when you visit in the summer months. After being snowed in and freezing in sub-zero temperatures all winter, they are ready to go out and about and are happy to see any other smiling face around them.

Kansas obviously doesn’t have quite the same winter woes as Minnesota, but I do think there’s a kind of excitement when the weather warms to be social and spend time out on a porch or patio with other people.

We benefitted from some friends’ desire to host on a recent, beautiful evening.

As soon as I heard we were going to hang out and enjoy food off the grill, I knew exactly what recipe I wanted to try to bring along with us.

This recipe comes from the blog “Pear Tree Kitchen.” You can find the original at https://peartreekitchen.com/pecan-chewies/. I added extra vanilla in my version.

Southern Pecan Chewies

Southern pecan chewies have a chewy, soft center, as advertised, with pops of crunchy pecans throughout. They are a great bar cookie for summer events.

Course Dessert

Keyword bar cookies, brown sugar, butter, cookie exchange, pecans, quick bar cookie, summer dessert, vanilla

Ingredients

1 cup butter melted
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pecans chopped

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Prepare a nine-by-13-inch baking pan by spraying it with cooking spray, and set it aside.
Add the butter and brown sugar to a mixing bowl, and mix until it’s well combined.
Mix in the eggs and vanilla. Add in the flour, baking powder and salt, and mix until smooth, and finally, stir in the pecans.
Evenly pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the edges are browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with only moist crumbs.
Let the bars cool completely before slicing and serving. Store the bars in an airtight container.

These were nutty and sweet and perfect for a summer evening.

It’s nice to have some non-melty desserts in your back pocket for summer events, and these did not disappoint. They’re a little chewy and soft in the middle, and the crunchy pops of pecan are a perfect addition to these bars.

And, even better, I didn’t need to bring any leftovers home with me. They were well-loved by the assembled group.

There are few things better than sitting in a lawn chair, eating a masterfully charred burger and fresh salad, while talking with a group of interesting people, and summer in Kansas is the perfect time to do so.

This piece first appeared in print June 4, 2026.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Tags bar cookies, brown sugar, butter, cookie exchange, pecans, quick bar cookie, summer dessert, vanilla

Cookies Dessert

Oven mistake? Just keep calm and ‘berry’ on

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date May 28, 2026

Fresh strawberry cookies are perfect to make when ripe strawberries are in season. They feature a sugar cookie base, with pops of sweet fresh fruit throughout. They’re a perfect summer dessert.

When I graduated from college and rented my own home for the very first time, I decided that I would do my darnedest to cook meals for myself as much as possible and avoid premade stuff from the freezer section.

I remember one of the first times I fired up the stove, heating some oil to fry something or other. I was shocked to turn around and see flames shooting out of the pan.

Luckily, my mom trained me well, and I knew to smother the fire and kill the heat, but I was completely confused. I had never managed to start a fire in the kitchen before.

Then, I made some cookies for the first time and burned them to a crisp, and I suddenly realized that not all ovens are made equally—and this one could maybe double as a kiln. I had to be careful the whole time I lived there.

This week, when I made some strawberry cookies in my own oven. They were spreading out really quickly, and they were way softer than they should be. I kept trying to figure out what in the world I did wrong with the dough, even tossing it in the fridge at one point, but I should have remembered the oven lesson I learned years ago.

I made a double batch of the cookies, and each pan just kept having a strange bake. It wasn’t until I went to turn off the oven that I realized I was using the “quick bake” setting by accident. Oops.

Despite mine turning out a little weird, these cookies were really yummy and perfect for a summer get-together. The recipe comes from the blog “Luxe Beauty.” You can find the original post at https://www.beauty-luxe.com/soft-chewy-strawberry-cookies/. I added extra vanilla in my version.

Fresh Strawberry Cookies

Fresh strawberry cookies are perfect to make when ripe strawberries are in season. They feature a sugar cookie base, with pops of sweet fresh fruit throughout. They’re a perfect summer dessert.

Course Dessert

Keyword butter, cookie exchange, fresh strawberries, strawberry, sugar, summer dessert, vanilla

Ingredients

1 cup butter softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh strawberries diced

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and prepare a couple baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper, and set them aside.
In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar until the mixture is light yellow and fluffy.
Beat in the egg and vanilla, and then beat in the flour, baking soda and salt.
Finish by folding in the diced strawberries.
Drop the dough by the tablespoonful onto your prepared baking sheets, leaving about two inches between each cookie.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are set and the cookies are light brown.
Let the cookies cool on a baking sheet before transferring them to an airtight container.

These were delicious. They had pops of fruit, combined with a very nice sugar cookie base.

And if you want them to be fall-apart soft, you can always try baking them with convection, too, although I don’t recommend it.

Luckily, our friends don’t mind some slightly ugly cookies, and they helped clean up all the evidence of my oven mishap.

I figure soft cookies are superior to the burnt kind, though, so it was probably a win. Plus, I don’t think I’ll be making that same mistake again any time soon.

This piece first appeared in print May 28, 2026.

Tags butter, cookie exchange, fresh strawberries, strawberry, sugar, summer dessert, vanilla

Main Dish

‘Rice’ to the occasion with tasty caramelized pork

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date May 21, 2026

Caramelized pork with rice is slow-cooked on the stove top, along with onions and plenty of Asian-inspired seasonings to make a hearty dinner, along with plenty of leftovers.

Until I really started exploring some Asian recipes during the pandemic, the ginger in my spice cabinet was pretty much only for baking sweets.

If you would have asked me, I would have said it was there merely for projects like pumpkin bread and ginger snaps.

Boy, was I missing out on an entire, delicious genre of ginger-filled recipes.

I was thinking about that recently when I made this week’s recipe for some delicious, Asian-inspired pork.

This comes from the blog “Berry & Maple.” You can find the original post at https://berrymaple.com/sweet-caramelized-pork-rice/. I added extra onion and soy sauce and added more seasonings in my version.

Caramelized Pork with Rice

Caramelized pork with rice is slow-cooked on the stove top, along with onions and plenty of Asian-inspired seasonings to make a hearty dinner, along with plenty of leftovers.

Course Main Course

Keyword brown sugar, dried ginger, fish sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, pork butt, pork shoulder, rice, soy sauce, white onion, white rice, yellow onion

Ingredients

1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small yellow or white onion diced
2 pounds pork butt cut into one-inch pieces
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
4 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons dried ginger
2 teaspoons onion powder
salt and pepper to taste
prepared white rice and sesame seeds for serving

Instructions

Heat one tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet.
Add the onions and saute until they are almost cooked through.
Add more oil, if necessary, and saute the pork in batches until it’s browned on all sides.
Add one cup of water to the skillet, along with the onion, pork, brown sugar, fish sauce, soy sauce, garlic powder, dried ginger and onion powder. Stir to combine well.
Bring the mixture to a low boil, and then let the mixture simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring regularly, until the sauce reduces and becomes thick. Give it a taste, and add salt and pepper, if needed.
Serve the pork over white rice and topped with some sesame seeds.

In the past, I would have never thought to add ginger to a recipe like this, but it adds a lot of great flavor, so I highly recommend it.

It’s amazing how many applications different spices have, especially ones like ginger, cinnamon or even cayenne, when it comes to both sweet and savory dishes.

Something I take pride in is continuing to explore the entire grocery store aisle of herbs and spices. The good news is I don’t think I’ll ever get bored or actually conquer them all.

The better news is there’s always good old ginger snaps to come back to, as well.

This piece first appeared in print May 21, 2026.

Tags brown sugar, dried ginger, fish sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, pork butt, pork shoulder, rice, soy sauce, white onion, white rice, yellow onion

Appetizer Crockpot Side Dish Snack

Your guests will go hog wild for this amazing bean dip

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date May 14, 2026

Frijoles puercos, or “piggy beans,” are made with five pork products, along with some fresh veggies and plenty of cheese. It’s good on tacos or other dishes or just as a bean dip, served with tortilla chips.

It’s the time of year that Joey’s bowling team comes for their end-of-season cookout at our house.

That means Joey throws something on the grill or smoker, and I figure out some tasty sides and desserts to make them all happy.

The guys are always gracious enough to put up with new experiments from me every year, and when Joey decided he was going to do pulled pork tacos this year, I knew I had a bean dip that needed to be made.

It’s one of those recipes that is absolutely terrible for you, so you only make it when you can spread it out amongst a ton of people and spare yourself the leftovers.

This comes from creator Arnie “ArnieTex” Segovia. He has a cookbook out, and he makes his own seasonings, so you can buy his if you don’t want to measure out what I have below. You can find the video where he make it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18tlP5AM5YQ. I added chicken broth, sussed out the seasonings and added extra chipotle peppers to my version below.

Frijoles Puercos

Frijoles puercos, or “piggy beans,” are made with five pork products, along with some fresh veggies and plenty of cheese. It’s good on tacos or other dishes or just as a bean dip, served with tortilla chips.

Course Appetizer, Side Dish, Snacks

Keyword bacon, bean dip, chicken broth, chicken stock, chili powder, chipotle peppers, chorizo, cumin, fresh jalapenos, garlic powder, hot dog, Monterrey jack cheese, onion, oregano, pickled jalapenos, pinto beans, pork rinds, restaurant bean dip, Roma tomatoes, salt pork, white onion, yellow onion

Ingredients

2 cups dry pinto beans rinsed
7 cups chicken stock or broth
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
10 ounces chorizo divided
4 ounces salt pork diced
2 strips bacon diced
1 hot dog diced
6 to 8 pork rinds broken into smaller pieces
1 small white or yellow onion roughly chopped
2 Roma tomatoes roughly chopped
2 fresh jalapenos roughly chopped
7 ounces chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
3 ounces pickled jalapenos
8 ounces Monterrey jack cheese freshly shredded

Instructions

Add the beans, chicken stock, garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, oregano, salt and pepper to a large crockpot, and stir to combine.
Turn the heat on high and let cook for about 30 minutes.
Once the stock is heated through, add four ounces of the chorizo and all of the salt pork, bacon, hot dog and pork rinds to the crockpot, and give it another stir.
Cover and cook for another 30 minutes.
Add in the onion, tomatoes and fresh jalapenos and continue to cook on high for another three hours or until the beans, meat and vegetables are all cooked through.
When the beans are almost done, add the rest of the chorizo to a skillet and saute until it is cooked through, breaking it apart as you do. Add the cooked chorizo, along with the chipotle peppers in adobo and pickled jalapenos to the crockpot and stir. Turn the crockpot to low or warm.
Now, using an immersion blender (or a regular blender, going in batches), blend the entire mixture until it is completely smooth.
When no more chunks remain, stir in the cheese, and keep stirring until it is completely melted. Serve with tortilla chips or along with your favorite Mexican dishes.

I was told I made a friend look at restaurant bean dip totally differently after knowing what all was in these beans. That tells you two things: one, these were definitely restaurant-quality and super delicious, and two, bean dip is decidedly not a health food.

It’s not very spicy, despite including the jalapenos and chipotle peppers, and the combination of the fattiness of the pork, along with the fresh veggies and beans is fabulous. Frijoles puercos translates to “piggy beans,” and that’s pretty much what it’s made out of and how you feel when you enjoy it.

And, thank goodness, I was able to load up leftovers and send most of the remaining bean dip off with others to be enjoyed, so Joey and I didn’t have to worry about raising our collective cholesterol through the roof.

It’s great to have friends; it’s even better when they help you eat something that’s a bit over the top.

This first appeared in print May 14, 2026.

‘Espresso’ yourself with some great chocolate cookies

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date May 7, 2026

Chocolate espresso cookies are an excellent treat for those who like their chocolate a little bitter and their cookies just a bit less sweet. They pair really well with a good cup of coffee.

When I was a kid, Hershey’s sold powder for chocolate milk in brown, kind of rectangular containers.

I loved (well, love) chocolate milk, and I remember a specific day where I was snooping through the cabinets, seeing what I could find, and there I spotted it: a brown, rectangular-ish container, emblazoned with “Hershey’s” in big, bold letters.

I was elated.

I filled a big glass with milk and climbed up on the counter to reach the sacred container, located clear up on the shelf, next to Mom’s baking spices.

I dumped several big spoonfuls of the powder into my glass, and I have to admit, I was a little confused when it didn’t mix in very well at first, but I didn’t care: I was ready for a glass of chocolate milk.

And that was the day that I discovered that Hershey’s sold both their chocolate milk powder and their baking cocoa in very similar containers. And that was one of the only times in my life I didn’t even try to finish a glass of “chocolate milk.”

Nowadays, I’m still sure I wouldn’t enjoy baking cocoa mixed with my milk, but I do love bitter, dark chocolate, and boy, oh, boy, did this week’s recipe really scratch that itch.

This comes from the blog “Bakers Brigade.” You can find the original post at https://www.bakersbrigade.com/recipe/chewy-chocolate-espresso-cookies/. I added extra vanilla in my version.

Chocolate Espresso Cookies

Chocolate espresso cookies are an excellent treat for those who like their chocolate a little bitter and their cookies just a bit less sweet. They pair really well with a good cup of coffee.

Course Dessert

Keyword cocoa powder, cookie exchange, espresso powder, instant coffee, molasses, vanilla

Ingredients

12 tablespoons butter melted and cooled
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tablespoons molasses
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons espresso powder or instant coffee
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
sugar for rolling cookies

Instructions

Add the melted butter, cocoa and molasses to a mixing bowl and stir until everything is well combined.
Add the sugar, egg, vanilla and espresso powder and stir again. Finally, mix in the flour, baking soda and salt.
Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Add some sugar to a small bowl, scoop the dough by the tablespoon-full and coat the balls in sugar.
Place the cookies at least two inches apart on a baking sheet, and bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the centers set and are starting to crack.
Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

These weren’t as coffee-forward as I expected, but the combination of the espresso, molasses and chocolate gave these a pleasant bitterness, with just the right amount of sweetness. They’re chewy and would be great alongside a cup of coffee.

Or maybe a glass of cold milk.

Just be careful if you decide to mix in some chocolate. Not all powders are made the same.

This piece first appeared in print May 7, 2026.

Tags cocoa powder, cookie exchange, espresso powder, instant coffee, molasses, vanilla

Crockpot

Get your mojo going with this citrus-forward pork recipe

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date April 28, 2026

Slow cooker mojo pork has a bright flavor, thanks to plenty of fresh citrus, that makes it the perfect dinner over some yellow rice and black beans.

I’ve said before that trying to figure out measurements while Joey cooks is pretty much a herculean feat.

He’s a man who always measures with his heart. And, boy, does his heart love our spice cabinet.

That’s perfectly fine with me, though, because he is great at combining flavors, and he’s also the person you want in the kitchen when you know the dish you made still needs “something,” but you can’t quite figure out what that is.

That’s enough compliments for him, though, because as I mentioned last week, he and I decided to have a face-off on who could prepare the best pork butt, and the recipe I’m sharing this week is the one he decided to try.

The good news is I was hovering behind him, writing down measurements as he cooked so that you can re-create it, too.

This was a combination of a recipe from the website “AllRecipes.com,” which you can find at https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/281144/slow-cooker-mojo-pork/ and from an Instagram creator, Nicole Nelson McLaughlin, who posts under @nicolemcmom. Plus, Joey had some adjustments of his own, of course.

Slow Cooker Mojo Pork

Slow cooker mojo pork has a bright flavor, thanks to plenty of fresh citrus, that makes it the perfect dinner over some yellow rice and black beans.

Course Main Course

Keyword bay leaves, cilantro, cumin, fresh cilantro, fresh garlic, fresh lime, fresh oranges, garlic powder, lime juice, lime zest, minced garlic, orange juice, orange zest, oregano, pork butt, pork shoulder, yellow onion, yellow rice

Ingredients

4- pound pork butt roast
1 large yellow onion thinly sliced
zest from two large oranges
zest from two large limes
3/4 cup orange juice freshly squeezed
1/2 cup lime juice freshly squeezed
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh cilantro chopped, plus more for serving
8 to 10 cloves garlic minced
2 bay leaves
4 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
prepared yellow rice for serving
15- ounce can black beans rinsed, for serving

Instructions

If there’s quite a bit of fat on your pork butt, you may want to trim and discard some of it (leave a little—fat is flavor).
Add the pork butt to a crockpot, and then sprinkle the rest of the ingredients around it. (You can stir a bit to combine things, if you want, but it’ll combine as it cooks, too.)
Cook, covered, in your crockpot for seven to eight hours on high or four to six on low until the pork is cooked through and easy to shred.
Discard the bay leaves.
Shred the pork in the crockpot, and serve the shredded pork and onions on top of the yellow rice and black beans. Top with some of the juice from the crockpot, as well as some fresh cilantro.

The delicious smell of this recipe just completely took over our kitchen. The citrus came through in a really pleasant way to highlight the pork and give it some brightness.

We just ate this in bowls over the rice and beans, but you could put this into tortillas, too, if you wanted to or scoop it up with tortillas chips.

So, I do think our pork butt competition fully ended in a tie. But the good news is that we ended up with two very different kinds of leftovers over the next week or so.

And I definitely had to refill several of my spice containers afterwards, but that’s the price of a great meal.

This piece first appeared in print April 30, 2026.

Crockpot Main Dish

This kick-butt crockpot recipe should be on your list

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date April 23, 2026

Crockpot mushroom pork butt is a home-y, simple dinner that is awesome over a big pile of mashed potatoes.

After finding a huge, eight-pound pork butt on sale a few weeks ago, our first inclination was for Joey to throw it on his smoker, as he normally would.

Instead, we debated a bit back and forth about what kind of new recipe we could try, and it turned into what we deemed to be a “pork butt face off.” (Which doesn’t sound very nice, but when you’re creating a weird competition in your own kitchen, you can call it whatever you like.)

We each chose a recipe, and we went to the grocery store to get our ingredients.

Thanks to our love of hosting, we have two large crockpots, so we each claimed one and got to work.

We chose distinctly different dishes for our respective halves of the pork butt.

For mine, I decided I wanted something that was in the comfort food genre—something that was filling, belly-warming and made for great leftovers.

So I landed on a recipe from the blog “The Kitchen Magpie.” You can find the original post at https://fastandslowcooking.com/mushroom-gravy-slow-cooker-pork-butt. This was simple enough that I didn’t do much outside of swapping out the kind of mushrooms and onion the recipe called for.

Crockpot Mushroom Pork Butt

Crockpot mushroom pork butt is a home-y, simple dinner that is awesome over a big pile of mashed potatoes.

Course Main Course

Keyword baby bellas, crockpot, fresh mushrooms, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy mix, onion, pork butt, pork gravy mix, pork roast, slow cooker, vegetable broth, vegetable stock, yellow onion

Ingredients

3 to 4 pounds pork butt roast
2 pounds large whole mushrooms (I used baby bellas)
1 large onion sliced (I used yellow)
2 cups vegetable broth or stock
21- gram packet mushroom gravy mix
21- gram packet pork gravy mix
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons cornstarch
mashed potatoes for serving

Instructions

Add the pork butt to a crockpot, and place the mushrooms and onion on and around the meat.
In a bowl or mixing cup, whisk the vegetable broth with the two gravy packets until it is well combined.
Pour the mixture on and around the pork in the crockpot. Add salt and pepper, to taste. (Don’t forget that the gravy will likely have some built-in sodium, too.)
Cook on low for eight to 10 hours or on high for four to five hours, until the pork butt is tender and easy to shred.
When you’re ready to serve, transfer the pork to a separate plate or dish and cover to keep it warm, and then add all of the liquid from the crockpot to a saucepan. Heat it over medium-high heat.
Whisk the cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water, and slowly whisk it into the drippings in the pan.
Once the gravy reaches your desired consistency, taste it and add more salt and pepper, if desired, and remove it from heat.
Shred the pork and serve it with the mushrooms and onions over top of mashed potatoes and drenched in the gravy.

This recipe was exactly what I wanted to create. The mushrooms added a great, meaty flavor to the pork, and adding creamy mashed potatoes with a really flavorful gravy was absolutely perfect.

So, did I win the face-off?

Well, yes and no.

Joey and I both really, really liked this, but we both really, really liked his recipe, too. (Don’t worry; I’ll be sharing it with you later.)

I guess a tie, when it comes to homemade dinners, is a pretty great outcome, too.

This piece first appeared in print April 23, 2026.

Tags baby bellas, crockpot, fresh mushrooms, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy mix, onion, pork butt, pork gravy mix, pork roast, slow cooker, vegetable broth, vegetable stock, yellow onion

Dessert

There’s no doubt you should cobble together dessert this week

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date April 16, 2026

Carrot cake cobbler is like taking a carrot cake and marrying it with a pecan pie, and its warm spices and gooey filling demand a big scoop of vanilla ice cream for serving.

If you didn’t know, we recently celebrated the first-ever “Local News Day” on April 9.

The effort to observe local journalists around the country came from a push in Montana. In Newton, we had a small, but mighty, group of community members who stood outside our office with signs, touting the importance of having a local newspaper. It was really neat.

What the newsroom also really appreciated was the group very kindly dropped a bunch of delicious goodies at the office, as well.

My favorite? Some carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

I absolutely adore carrot cake.

Ironically, that particular cake is the inspiration for the recipe I’m sharing with you this week for a really easy cobbler. It takes all the flavors of carrot cake and combines them with a pecan pie for an excellent dessert that must absolutely be enjoyed with a big scoop of ice cream.

This comes from the blog “The Salty Cooker.” You can find the original post at https://thesaltycooker.com/carrot-cake-cobbler-with-caramel-pecan-filling/. I added extra spices in my version.

Carrot Cake Cobbler

Carrot cake cobbler is like taking a carrot cake and marrying it with a pecan pie, and its warm spices and gooey filling demand a big scoop of vanilla ice cream for serving.

Course Dessert

Keyword allspice, brown sugar, buttermilk, carrots, cinnamon, cloves, cobbler, dark corn syrup, Easter, easy dessert, ginger, nutmeg, pecans, shredded carrots, vanilla

Ingredients

Filling Ingredients

3 eggs
1 1/2 cups dark corn syrup
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups pecans chopped

Cobbler Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter cold
3/4 cup buttermilk I used milk with a touch of vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups carrots shredded

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a seven-by-10-inch baking dish, and set it aside.
For the filling, in a large bowl, whisk the eggs, corn syrup, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, allspice and salt until it’s well-combined. Stir in the pecans, and pour the mixture into the baking dish.
In another mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and salt and stir to combine.
Cut in the butter with a fork or pastry cutter until it’s well incorporated. Stir in the buttermilk, vanilla and carrots, just until it’s combined.
Drop scoops of the cobbler mixture evenly over the top of the filling (there will be some gaps).
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the filling bubbles around the edges.
Rest for at least 10 minutes before serving.
Serve warm or room temperature, along with some vanilla ice cream.

We had this for our family Easter celebration. It was really, really good. The warm spices, along with the texture of the filling and the cobbler topping, just took it over the top.

And it was a lot less work than creating a whole cake or a batch of carrot cake muffins, which were—by the way—a great addition to the newsroom, not only because the reporters all love snacks but also because I didn’t share a single bit of this cobbler with any of them.

This piece first appeared in print April 16, 2026.

Tags allspice, brown sugar, buttermilk, carrots, cinnamon, cloves, cobbler, dark corn syrup, Easter, easy dessert, ginger, nutmeg, pecans, shredded carrots, vanilla

Dessert

Vintage crunch recipe gets two ‘plums’ up

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date April 9, 2026

This vintage recipe for plum crunch combines the rich flavor of fresh plums with the warm spice of cinnamon and the nuttiness of an oatmeal-based topping.

When I look at my bookshelf of cookbooks, I often think of a lady I never got the opportunity to meet in person but whom I feel connected to through a very sweet gift: Merna Snay.

Merna, a former resident of the Mount Hope and Haven area, was a prolific cook—and by all reports, a really good one. She got the opportunity to compete in the Pillsbury bake-off on several occasions. When she downsized, many years ago, she gifted me with some amazing vintage cookbooks, and when I decide I need a challenge, I will flip through them to see if I can decipher the directions. There was a generation of authors who often wrote recipes with the assumption that anyone reading them could fill in the blanks for the parts they weren’t including.

Recently, I purchased a big bag of plums from our local grocery store, and with a gathering at our office on the horizon, I decided it was time for one of Merna’s books to come off the shelf.

The recipe I landed on is from the booklet “Rare Recipes and Budget Savers, Volume 2,” published by the Wichita Eagle in 1963.

It was originally submitted for the Home Town News column on June 26, 1962, by Mrs. T.P. Mueller. She included the following note with it: “For that little lady who is in the doghouse for the loss of her plum crunch recipe, here is one, very good, and can be used either with plums or dried prunes.”

I never lost a plum crunch recipe, but I was glad for Mrs. Mueller’s guidance, nonetheless. I did add extra cinnamon in my version.

Plum Crunch

This vintage recipe for plum crunch combines the rich flavor of fresh plums with the warm spice of cinnamon and the nuttiness of an oatmeal-based topping.

Course Dessert

Keyword brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, cobbler, crumble, fresh plums, plum, quick oats, rolled oats

Ingredients

Filling Ingredients

3 1/2 cups fresh plums pitted and chopped
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter melted
1 tablespoon flour

Crunch Ingredients

1 1/4 cups quick or rolled oats
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup butter

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease an eight-by-eight-inch baking dish with butter, and set it aside.
Add the plums sugar, cinnamon, butter and flour in a bowl and stir to combine well.
In another bowl, add the quick oats, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon, and mix to combine. Cut in the butter with a fork or pastry cutter until it is mixed throughout the crunch mixture.
Press half the crunch mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan, and then spread the filling mixture over top. Sprinkle the rest of the crunch mixture evenly over the top.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the filling is bubbling around the edges and the top is browned nicely.
Serve warm or room temperature. Store leftovers in an airtight container.

I doubled this recipe and baked it in a nine-by-13-inch pan. It received excellent reviews from our guests. It was sweet and cinnamon-y and home-y.

We had a bit of the crunch left over, so we ended up swirling it into a quart of ice cream, using my stand mixer, so we can enjoy it later on.

And as I crumbled the oats and spread the sugary plums, I had to think of a beautiful connection made between two women from Haven, born decades apart but sharing a love of anything homemade.

Some gifts are priceless.

This piece first appeared in print April 9, 2026.

Tags brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, cobbler, crumble, fresh plums, plum, quick oats, rolled oats

Main Dish

This week’s dish is ravi‘whole’i made for someone with spare time

Post author By Lindsey Young
Post date April 2, 2026

Beef and spinach ravioli can be made completely from scratch at home, and while it is a lot of work, the freshness and flavor are definitely worth it.

Something I love about Joey is that he is often quite willing to jump into a grand kitchen experiment with me.

Recently, that was when I pulled out my pasta roller, and instead of merely making noodles, as I have so far since I bought it, I proposed creating ravioli from scratch.

He was totally on board.

We did some troubleshooting together, trying to hone our technique, and by the end, we had some pretty nice looking stuffed pasta, ready to be made into dinner. (It might have also been after 8 p.m. by the time we finally accomplished this, but that’s not the point.)

This recipe is a combination of a beef ravioli recipe from the blog “Josie and Nina” (you can find their original post at https://josieandnina.com/italian-beef-ravioli/) and from “Easy Italian Cookbook” by Jennifer Donovan.

Beef and Spinach Ravioli

Beef and spinach ravioli can be made completely from scratch at home, and while it is a lot of work, the freshness and flavor are definitely worth it.

Course Main Course

Keyword baby spinach, breadcrumbs, fresh pasta, fresh spinach, ground beef, nutmeg, onion, panko, parmesan cheese, ravioli, ricotta cheese, white wine, yellow onion

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion diced
6-8 cloves garlic minced
1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup white wine
16 ounces fresh spinach
1 cup breadcrumbs I used panko
1/2 rounded cup parmesan cheese grated
garlic salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
8 ounces ricotta cheese
batch of fresh pasta dough

Instructions

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet.
Add the onion and saute until it is cooked through. Add in the garlic and saute for about a minute or until it just starts to be fragrant.
Add the ground beef to the pan and saute, breaking it apart as it cooks, until it’s cooked through. Remove any excess fat from the pan, and then pour in the wine, being sure to scrape up any bits from the bottom of the skillet. Add the spinach, and let everything cook for about two minutes, stirring to wilt the spinach into the mixture.
Add the meat mixture to a food processor and process for a bit, just to get things incorporated, and then add in the bread crumbs, parmesan, garlic salt, pepper and nutmeg, and process until the mixture is kind of a paste.
Mix the ricotta into the meat mixture.
Assemble your ravioli by rolling out the dough into long strips. Using the utensil you’ll use to cut the ravioli (I used a two-inch scalloped cookie cutter), gently make impressions along the dough where you’ll want to cut out each ravioli (you’re just marking it, not cutting the dough), and then scoop about one teaspoon of filling (or more, if your ravioli are larger) into the center of each of the spots. Using a pastry brush, brush a thin layer of water around the edges of each spot. Cover with another sheet of dough and press around each mound of filling with your fingers to seal them, working out as much air as possible, and firmly press your cutter to cut out each individual ravioli.
Set the finished ones off to the side.
To freeze, place them on a baking sheet lined with waxed or parchment paper, and place them in the freezer until they are frozen through. Then place them in a freezer-safe container or bag until you’re ready to cook them.
To cook them, fresh or frozen, boil a large pot of salted water, and carefully drop the ravioli in. Let them boil for a couple minutes until they float to the top and are warmed through. (You don’t need to thaw the frozen ones before cooking them.)
Serve with your favorite sauce.

We ate our ravioli with pesto, and they were really tasty. I did learn that it’s imperative to really flour your surface when you’re cutting out the ravioli so that you can get them to release without tearing.

These were a lot of work, and I’m sure many people would think it’s a waste of time to make your own ravioli, when there are excellent ones in the freezer section at the grocery store. But Joey and I had a great time cooking—and eating—together, and that made it worth it.

This piece first appeared in print April 2, 2026.

Tags baby spinach, breadcrumbs, fresh garlic, fresh pasta, fresh spinach, garlic, ground beef, minced garlic, nutmeg, onion, panko, parmesan cheese, ravioli, ricotta cheese, white wine, yellow onion