Cathy Hornback

I usually follow a recipe closely the first time, but I used it mostly for inspiration based on what I had on hand. I used ground turkey, added some diced red Carmen pepper and since there's very little fat in the turkey I used a little bit of olive oil and didn't drain it. 3 big cloves of garlic, about 1/2 lb of fresh mushrooms, a big bundle of fresh spinach. It was still liquid-y when done so I added a heaping tablespoon of rice flour, which thickened it up nicely. I omitted the cream soup, and just used a cup of light sour cream - plenty of creamy goodness with that. Lastly, I added a tablespoon of za'atar instead of the oregano. It was delicious! I think I'm on to something here. I will add the mozzarella cheese when I serve it for real.

I've made this twice now and it is absolutely amazing. My guests were blown away and so was I. Roasting time took longer than given to get up to temp. I followed the recipe exactly except I used fresh mint from my garden rather than dried. Outstanding recipe.

This was so delicious! The recipe is very forgiving of minor changes - I didn't have zucchini so I used mushrooms instead. Didn't feel like grating carrots so diced them instead. Added a handful of chopped fresh parsley because I thought it would be good. Didn't have half and half so mixed my dairy 2/3 2% milk and 1/3 cream. I needed to use up the leftovers from a big chicken I had roasted so more than 2 cups went in. None of these things mattered - it still turned out great and I'll be making this again!

This is the best peach pie I've ever made or eaten, even though I forgot to put the butter inside! The only other change I made was to use 1/2 white sugar and 1/2 brown sugar. This is now my go-to peach pie recipe.

Delicious, fast, and easy. I found this recipe after I had already bought one 8-oz piece of snapper, so I had to make some adaptions based on what I had. A diced big tomato instead of cherry, bell pepper instead of jalapeno, and a smaller amount of lemon juice instead of lime. The cayenne had to provide all of the capsaicin and it worked in a pinch. I made the whole veg recipe for the one piece of fish and baked it all together in one pan. Castelvetrano olives are scrumptious balls of briny green butter, so it's hard to go wrong with them! I sprinkled some chopped cilantro on it after it was done, and we were tempted to lick the pan afterward. Next time I'll get all of the right ingredients when I buy the fish and try it again.

Just as advertised - the best bean and ham soup. I only serve ham about once a year, and that bone is saved just for this recipe. My family looks forward to it every year. It resembles chili a little more than soup, but who cares when it tastes this good!