Kristie Pryor 
The first time I made this lemon cheesecake tart, I was standing in my kitchen with no real plan, just a craving for something lemony, something creamy, and something with a buttery, flaky pastry on the side. What came out of the oven was the dessert I have been making every spring since, and it is … Read more
There is a pack of chicken thighs in your fridge right now, and you are not sure what to do with them. Maybe you grabbed them because they were on sale, or because someone told you they are more forgiving than breasts, but now they are sitting there waiting on a plan. I have stood … Read more
Yes, you can freeze cream cheese safely. If you have ever stared at a block of cream cheese approaching its expiration date and wondered whether the freezer is an option, the answer is a clear yes. Freezing cream cheese extends its shelf life up to two months without any food safety concerns, though you should … Read more
The first time someone asked me for my “from scratch” confetti cake recipe at a birthday party, I almost laughed in their face. It was a box mix. A doctored one, sure, but the kind of box that costs three dollars at the grocery store and lives next to the brownies. That moment is exactly … Read more
Today is a donut day. Honestly, around here every day is a donut day, but today the craving hit before my coffee had even cooled, and that is how I ended up elbow-deep in donut dough by 9 a.m. If you have ever stood in front of a bakery case and reached past the yeast … Read more
Cookies and cream. Honestly, does anybody else just light up inside when they hear those three words together? Because the second I do, I’m eight years old again, sitting at our dining room table with my brothers, a tall cold glass of milk, and a stack of Oreos between our open homework binders. Nothing got … Read more
I keep a two-pound bag of frozen shrimp in my freezer the way other people keep eggs in the fridge. On the nights when dinner felt like a problem an hour ago, easy shrimp recipes are the answer I reach for first. Ten minutes under cold water, fifteen minutes in a hot pan, and the … Read more
The first time I made a dump cake was on a Tuesday night when I had committed to bringing dessert to a school bake sale and forgotten until 9 p.m. Cherry pie filling, a yellow cake mix, one stick of butter sliced thin across the top, 47 minutes in the oven. I pulled out something … Read more
Daylight savings has come and gone, the calendar swears it is spring, and Vancouver, as always, has not received the memo. It is still cold, still grey, still very much wet out there. So today I am making my own sunshine the only way I know how, with a very big batch of pretty pink lemon … Read more
Last Tuesday I forgot dinner existed until 6:47 PM. The kids were melting, my husband was on a work call, and I had exactly zero plan. I pulled a foil-wrapped chicken pot pie out of the freezer that I’d assembled three weeks earlier, slid it in the oven, and twenty-five minutes later we were eating … Read more