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The Cowgirl Gourmet in Santa Fe

Good + Good for You in Santa Fe, New Mexico

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Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Energy Bites

Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Energy Bites

January 14, 2021 By hwhunter Leave a Comment

January is the month when we wipe the slate clean and start fresh. With a new beginning comes new hopes and intentions. New ideas and plans. Less sugar, more protein. Or perhaps you are taking the dry pledge this month and eschewing alcohol as your first month of the year resolution. As good as our…

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Spicy Chickpea and Cauliflower Stew with Coconut and Turmeric

Spiced Chickpea and Cauliflower Stew with Coconut and Turmeric

As we turn the last page to the 2020 book we wish had never been written, “soup for the soul” sounds like an elixir we need. After such a wretched year, I think we could all use something soothing, healing and wholesomely satisfying. Something that goes down and makes us feel good. Whenever I’m in…

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Pecan Galette with Dark Rum and Fresh Ginger

Pecan Galette with Dark Rum and Fresh Ginger

Because Thanksgiving is going to be different this year, why not embrace it and celebrate with a new and totally different recipe? Rather than stick with the tried and true traditional Thanksgiving menu, perhaps this is the year we all need to introduce one new dish? One dish that makes the holiday a tad sweeter….

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Crunchy Fall Salad

Crunchy Fall Salad

As we roll into shorter days and longer, dark and cool nights, this seasonal change brings with it an appetite for warm and cozy foods. Dishes that warm you from the inside out. There’s nothing more simple or satisfying than a pot of soup. One that takes a bit of chopping and stirring and then…

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Sugar pie pumpkins

11 Fresh Pumpkin Recipes

Fall’s arrival and pumpkin season go hand-in-hand. Though I don’t crave pumpkin spice lattes, I am a serious pumpkin fan. But not the canned variety. My pumpkin only comes in its natural state–a smaller, spherical-shaped gourd, called a sugar pie pumpkin, grown specifically for baking. To entice you to love pumpkin as much as I…

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3-Ingredient Nutella Brownies

In good times or bad, baking seems to soothe our soul. I learned this coping mechanism when I spent weekends with my grandmother and great-grandmother cooking, baking and baking some more for the family. Every meal had at least two pies, but it was more likely an assortment of sweet offerings. Oma wanted everyone to…

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Pasta alla Norma

Pasta alla Norma

As our summer of confinement–aka the summer that never was–comes to a close this weekend with the Labor Day holiday, I seek to find the good in these bizarre months. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s been fruitful. And, like so many of you, I have been making lemonade with these lemons. Lots and…

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Mango Sorbet

Mango Sorbet

Have you ever walked through the produce department and the smell of ripe mangoes piques your senses? You stop and follow your nose. I’ve never been known to walk away empty-handed from the mango display. In fact, I recently bought a few too many mangoes. But those floral notes are beguiling and alluring and draw…

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Grilled corn salad

Grilled Corn Salad

Though it’s a quiet summer in Santa Fe, summer is peaking. The farmers’ tables overflow with an incredible array of colorful produce, which has reignited my appetite again. From juicy heirloom tomatoes to six varieties of melons to peaches and corn, now is the time to celebrate the bounty we wait all year for–before it…

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Nancy's Chopped Salad

Nancy’s Chopped Salad

As we prepare to roll out of the fourth month of cooking at home and into our fifth month, my culinary creativity is tenuous at best. A few weeks ago, when we were already exhausted from cooking and meal planning, we survived on two weeks of sandwiches tossed with a few tuna salad plates. Now,…

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Two-Ingredient Magic Shell

Two-Ingredient Magic Shell

When the going gets tough, ice cream is a great equalizer, a connector, a way to say “I love you” or “I am sorry” and promises to soothe whatever ails us. And I think we could all use a scoop (or quart) of ice cream about now. For as long as I can remember, ice…

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Memorial Day 2020

27 Classic Memorial Day Recipes

Three months ago, we never dreamed we would celebrate Memorial Day by ourselves or with a limited group of those we have been sequestered with for the last two months. This year’s kick-off to summer is anything but normal and certainly one we soon won’t forget. No big gatherings. No neighborhood celebrations. None of that….

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Chipotle-Honey Shrimp Tacos

Chipotle-Honey Shrimp Tacos

What started merely as a joke has become a tradition in our house over the last two months. In the early days, we called it the Covid-19 Food Fest. And in our quest to maintain this culinary theme during the pandemic, we rise to the occasion. We continue to cook up a storm, dive into…

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Trail Mix Cookie

Trail Mix Cookies

It’s hard to maintain much of a focus these days and it’s hard to conjure what life will be like once this giant pause is over. But what is not hard right now is baking. During this extended pandemic, baking seems like one of the few “normal” things to do, doesn’t it? We all need…

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Ultimate Banana Bread

Ultimate Banana Bread

Waste not, want not. I can hear my grandmother say it now. It was her go-to comment for so many things in life. Born in the Depression, she knew how to stretch a dollar, repurpose ingredients and never waste anything. As we begin to wrap up our fifth week of staying-at-home with limited access to…

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Tuna Machaca

Tuna Machaca

Living in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, gave us access to the freshest seafood, which is one of the reasons we are seafood snobs. The ocean was the centerpiece of our restaurant and every room in the mansion on the hill had stunning views of Zihuatanejo Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Our resort restaurant, La Cala, was known…

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Irish soda bread

Irish Soda Bread

It wasn’t canceled, so we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day on Tuesday. It’s an annual tradition in our house, but considering that everything is canceled and for who knows how long, we were more than happy to redirect our thoughts to the lucky Irish leprechaun with some traditional Irish food. If only for one meal. Actually,…

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vegan gluten-freeand paleo pancakes

Vegan, Gluten-Free and Paleo Pancakes

The new year is off with a big bang, and, like many of you, we seriously dialed back our daily culinary experiences after a mildly gluttonous holiday. Stepping away from the table means we have been eating for sustenance and not for pleasure or entertainment. And our waists are thanking us. Plenty of vegetables, baked…

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Top 10 Recipes in 2019

Top 10 Recipes of 2019

There’s a reason everyone loves to dive deep into analytics. It shows what’s gaining traction, what is on-trend, what most people like best and also what they like least. As I was looking back on this year’s recipe analytics, my favorites are certainly different from yours. But it’s your voice that matters–because I like every…

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Gluten-free and Paleo Pumpkin Pie

Gluten-Free and Paleo Pumpkin Pie

In previous decades, the holidays were a time of gluttony. Serious baking episodes with my grandmother and great-grandmother that started on Thanksgiving weekend and didn’t stop until the week before Christmas. Though I helped make the cookies, I was the queen of quality control which required lots of taste testing. Even in my 20’s and…

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Celery salad with apples and blue cheese

Celery Salad with Apples, Blue Cheese and Roasted Almonds

It’s not often I go to bed knowing exactly what I want to eat the next morning, but the salad I made on Thanksgiving Eve was nothing normal. It was an incredibly flavorful yet oh-so-simple salad that screams “holidays.” And when there are leftovers of this salad in the fridge, that is exactly what I…

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Korean vegetable pancakes

Korean Vegetable Pancakes

While there are countless reasons we live in and love Santa Fe, there are but a few (and I do mean few) drawbacks. Constant dirt, dust and grit fall into the number one spot for me. Washing the car is often a useless task because tomorrow the car will look like it did before you…

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Pumpkin scones

Pumpkin Scones with Maple Glaze

As the aspen trees begin to color the mountains with a brilliant golden hue, our sights turn to foods that celebrate the changing seasons. Butternut squash, hearty soups and stews and, yes, pumpkin. No PSL’s (pumpkin spice lattes) for me, please, but these pumpkin scones are certainly worth their weight in gold. Early October is…

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Flourless Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

Flourless Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

There are cookies and then there are chocolate chip cookies. Oscar the Grouch and I have more in common than I would like to admit, but, like him, I have never met a chocolate chip cookie I didn’t like. Though I have had some that, sadly, didn’t like me. Those would be traditional chocolate chip…

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Via Carota The Ultimate Green Salad

The Ultimate Green Salad

Cooking for four or eight people is a breeze. But cooking for one comes with less joy and a lot more pain. Whether you are single, choose to live alone, travel a lot or are flying solo while your better half is out of town (like mine is), I think cooking for one poses inherent…

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Toasted Sesame Brown Rice Crackers

Toasted Sesame Brown Rice Crackers

On long and hot summer days, a big meal is often the last thing I want. But tasty and easy snacks are a welcome way to feed yourself, your friends and family without much fuss or fight but plenty of fun. Call it nibbles or snacks or appetizers, more and more frequently, people are putting…

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28 recipes to celebrate the 4th of July

28 Recipes to Celebrate the 4th of July

Because this year’s 4th of July celebration lands on a Thursday, we are all in for an extended holiday weekend. And that’s fine by me. We have a party to attend every night, beginning Wednesday through Sunday. Naturally, I have been tapped to bring desserts to two of the four gatherings and I am currently…

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Peach and tomato salad

Peach and Tomato Salad with Basil and Fresh Mozzarella

It’s not often I drop the ball. But in the midst of traveling for work, countless deadlines and unexpected turbulence, I dropped a ball. Instead of providing two recipes to accompany an article I wrote for a new publication, I only managed to squeak out one before the drop-dead deadline. The reality of not being…

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15-minute pasta

15-Minute Pasta

How often are you desperate to eat something within the next 15 minutes? If the primary goal is that it’s easy to make and brimming with flavor, pasta may not be the first thing you think of. Or perhaps it is. If I am making pasta, it’s generally going to be topped with Rao’s marinara…

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Little wedge salad

Little Wedge Salad with Crispy Shallots

What food do you refuse to eat? Lima beans? Smelt eggs? Liver? Iceberg lettuce was always a no for me. As one who values nutrient dense foods, I always wondered why anyone would actually choose to eat this food which has so little nutritional value. Developed in the 40s and popularized in the 50s, iceberg…

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No-Bake Almond Butter Balls

No-Bake Almond Butter Balls

The extraordinary outdoor life in New Mexico is one of the many reasons we moved here. Depending on your outdoor tastes and interests, it’s a year-round activity. Skiing and snowshoeing in the winter and hiking, running, biking, rafting, camping and fly fishing in the summer. David is a former professional ski racer, so living near…

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Sunrise Springs' spring pea soup

Sunrise Springs’ Spring Pea Soup

Chocolate pot de creme

Chocolate Pot de Crème

Za'atar Caesar with Charred Hearts of Romaine and Crispy Croutons

Za’atar Caesar

Apricot cashew coconut energy balls

Apricot, Cashew and Coconut Energy Balls

No'atmeal cookies

No’atmeal Cookies

Chardonnay Dijon Vinaigrette

Chardonnay Dijon Vinaigrette

No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars

No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars

Celery salad with dates, parmesan and toasted almonds

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

Blueberry-Cauliflower smoothie

Smoothie 2.0

Emergency Brownies

Emergency Dessert

Let’s Make 2019 the Best Year Yet

Azteca squash soup

Three Sisters

True Blue

Thankful

Squash Your Way into the Holidays

Viva Mexico!

Paleo apple cinnamon walnut coffee cake

Falling for Apples

LIttle cacao cake

Little Cacao Cake

Classic French Tradition

A Soup for All Seasons

Melba sauce

Peach Melba

Jammy coconut cookies

An Enchanting Summer

Sweet Basil

Perfectly Crisp

Stay Golden

A New Twist on Summer (and Hummus)

That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles

Strawberry-rhubarb chia jam

Let’s Jam

Sensational Sips

Curry Favor

Chai, Chai, Chai

A Spring Renewal

Super Nutty Chocolate Chip Cookies

Friday Night Special

Baked oatmeal-blueberry muffins

Grab and Go Muffins

Treasure Hunting

A Hot Remedy for a Chili Winter Night

Use It or Lose It

I’ll Have “Seconds”

Yoga Not Required

Birthday Sandwiches

Chana Masala

Cafe Redux

Simply Delicious

Nuts for Milk

A Dang Good Deal

Green Light for this Magical Sauce

Turmeric-Coconut Rice

Spice Up Your Rice

Scratch Hummus

Great Balls of Energy

Not Corny Corn Bread

A Sweet Ending to 2016

Let’s Go Crackers

No BS BS

Good Traveling Companions

Brownie Points

Chicken Soup 2.0

Trading with Joe

Cool Beans

Banana Bread Revival

A Smashing Idea

The Golden Years

paleo granola

Granola for Cavemen

This is Berry, Berry Good

Banana-peanut butter popsicles

Pop Goes the Banana

A Different Path for the 3rd of the 4th (of July)

Jam On

Tasty Travels

Spark Some Joy

Matcha Gotcha?

24 Hours in Fredericksburg

charred sugar snap peas with aioli

Snap to It!

Bar None

Driving for Salad

How to Easily Change Your Life

overnight oats

Overnight Delivery

Oatmeal Makeover

Tea for Two or Three or Four

Good Things for a Good Year

A Seedy Side of Christmas

This Bark is as Good as its Bite

Crispy Potato Latkes

Crispy Potato Latkes

Paleo Popover

Pop Over for a (Paleo) Popover

An Apple A Day

Fall Slaw is Here

Everything’s Crisp

Autumn in New York

Paleo pumpkin bread

The Great Pumpkin

Get Smashed!

Grain-free pumpkin bars

Hello, Pumpkin

A Comforting Alternative

Wedded Bliss and Brownies, Too

The Best Paleo pancakesever

Return of the Pancake Man

Start Waffling Around

One Recipe, Two Desserts

No Ifs, Ands or Nuts

Mint Condition

Too Corny

Got (Coconut) Milk?

Thierry’s Tomatoes

Go Greek!

Fit for a King

A Fateful Dessert

Green with Envy

Practice Makes Perfect (Pudding)

Got (Almond) Milk?

Quick pickled red onions

In a Pickle

Repurpose with a Purpose

Yes to Nopales

Swoon for Macaroon

A Good Egg

A Healthy Way to Fiesta

A Season and a Reason for Citrus

Beet It

Freeze!

Get Dirty

Squash the Latkes!

The Paleo Brownie Challenge

Good Eats in 2014, And More in 2015

No Bagels? No Problem!

Keep On Soupin On

Let’s Get Pickled

The Green Bean Specialist

Stewing Over Eggplant

October Fresser Fest

Pumpkin pie smoothie

Pumpkin Season is Here

Fall for Slaw

Holiday Dessert Preview

These Little Piggies

Best Broccoli You Ever Ate

Squash the Pasta Craving

The Uncut Version

Lettuce Eat Asian Pork “Tacos”

Chillin’ and Grillin’

Lasso a Lassi

Better than Toll House

12 Ways to Fiesta on the 4th of July

A Peachy Revelation

Berry Delicious

Dessert First, Please

Slaw It Down

Welcome, Summer

Polo in the Park

Bake the World a Better Place

Spring Salad with Dill Vinaigrette

Jaiba Feliz (Happy Crab)

Better than Reese’s Cups

When Life Gives You Carrot Tops, Make Pesto

Far East Brussels Sprouts

Breakfast at Giada’s

Something to Fall For

Thai One On

No Wedding Required

Winning Super Bowl Strategies

Paleo Banana Bread

DIY Soda

Green Balls of Heaven

Toolin’ Around

Not Famous Amos

sugar cookies

A Sweet Tradition

the wedge salad the palm

The Wedge

11 Reasons to Make it a Comestible Holiday

You Say Potato, I Say World’s Best Baked Potato

Cook from the Book

Three Reasons to Love Thanksgiving

Brown Butter Memories

Take a Fritter Break

It’s Getting a Little Chile

‘Nuf Said–Eat Some Bread

Ten Reasons to Visit Santa Fe

On the Road to the Enchanted Salad

Happy Tappy Yoka

Drink This, Not That

Mean Green

These Are a Few of My (New) Favorite Things

There’s Always A Rainbow

Down By the Sea

The Green Scene

When Life Gives You Lemons…

Not Hard Soft Serve

Not Living Without

Make Your Own Bottled Dressing

DIY Sausage

key lime pie bars cooked

Key Lime Pie for Cavemen

watermelon gazpacho

Souped Up Gazpacho

Holy Basil

Holy Choco-Mole!

A Taste of Summer

Coconut-chocolate chip ice cream

Dairy, Dairy, Quite Contrary

salt and pepper

Just the Basics

Almond butter chocolate treats

Wanna Feel Like a Nut?

A Nice Dinner

Paleo pancakes

This Ain’t IHOP

Viva La Fiesta

Quinoa salad with lemon vinaigrette

Bon Appetit!

An Easy Break-Up

Honeyed carrots

Sweet Carrot Memories

Sea Food and Eat It

Pudd’nhead

Salad–Straight From the Heart

Rosemary almond meal crackers

Cracked Up

Dirty cauliflower rice

Save for a Rainy Day

Easter Eggs to Dye For

Do the Merengue

Lemongrass-ginger tea

Tea-Licious

Roasted strawberry buttermilk ice cream

A Splendid Idea

Seattle’s Best (Salad)

Let Them Eat Healthy Carrot Cake!

Drink This, Not That

Painting the Town and a Frittata, too!

Natural Citrus Cleaner

Go a Little CocoNUTS for Valentine’s

Go Red!

A Good Trick