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Key lime pie is perfect for this in-between time of year. (Especially today-Pi Day 3.1415!) It’s green (extra points for St. Patrick’s Day), citrus is in season, and it tastes like summer when there is still snow on the ground. Depending on whom you ask, authentic key lime pie is either decidedly baked or not baked. This is a no-bake recipe. The pie comes together in a snap, and will transport you straight to the Florida Keys. In fact, it comes to you from Florida, and is a recipe my boyfriend has made since he was a little boy. He was born and raised in Florida.

Of course, fresh key lime juice will taste the best, but Nellie & Joe’s bottled key lime juice is the second best. You can find it in the juice aisle or perhaps by the cocktail mixers. The almond crust is a nice change of pace from graham crackers, and keeps the pie gluten-free. Feel free to use the filling in a standard graham-cracker crust if you don’t need to be gluten-free. I’ve also made this with a gluten-free gingersnap crust or chocolate crust. All delicious!

Natalie of Good Girl Style joins us each month to share incredible desserts with Big Girls, Small Kitchen readers–desserts that are entirely gluten-free, but not like obviously gluten-free. That means no specialty flours or hard-to-find ingredients, just lemons, lemons, and more lemons. Want even more GF desserts? Check out Natalie’s Chocolate Cookies.

This winter has gotten me hungry for travel, and I’m delighted to introduce this post, by Carly Diaz, which transports us to the kitchens of Amsterdam. It’s a recipe for a traditional mashed potato and kale dish called Stamppot that I know we should make one of our wintry edible traditions back home.

Stamppot is one of the most traditional dishes in the Netherlands, a straight-from-grandma’s-kitchen kind of meal. Hearty and simple, it can be bought ready-made from the ubiquitous Dutch grocery store chain Albert Heijn or easily made at home. Translated as “mash pot,” it is essentially mashed potatoes and vegetables with a sausage on the side, and the recipe can easily be customized to your preferences and the contents of your fridge.

This quintessential meal perfectly captures the Dutch spirit of pragmatism. Stamppot is a utilitarian dish through and through - meant to fill the belly using inexpensive ingredients that are readily available pretty much year round. You can easily picture a working-class Dutch family in a century past gathered around the table with steaming plates of Stamppot. The dish has staying power though and remains a favorite today.

Although I lived in Amsterdam for nearly seven years, I only had Stamppot a handful of times: at a kitschy Dutch-food restaurant, as a half-joke at a going-away party for a colleague (part-joke because there is nothing very festive about Stamppot and part-serious because it was actually his favorite food), and at home when I received a large bunch of endive in my weekly CSA with an accompanying Stamppot recipe. But once I moved back home to Portland, Oregon, making Stamppot kept me connected to the country I called home for so many years.

Some days require a quick chocolate fix, and these gluten-free cookies are just the ticket.

Deeply fudgy and altogether satisfying, they take just minutes to whip up and don’t require any flour. I think they might be a miracle cookie. With a crispy outside and a brownie-like fudgy interior, there is something for every chocolate lover in these cookies. A glass of milk is almost a required accompaniment. When a midnight craving hits, keep this recipe close at hand. That is, if you don’t memorize it after the first few times making it.

I like to think these are healthy-ish, too, with no butter or egg yolks to speak of. The espresso powder is optional, but if you have it on hand (perhaps from making the Cappuccino Marshmallows), you won’t notice a coffee flavor, but instead a more intensified chocolate flavor. Parchment paper will make taking these delicate-when-hot cookies off the tray much easier. If you wait until they cool, they are prone to fall apart, so grease the cookie sheet well or use parchment paper and slide them onto the cooling tray while still warm. They retain their fudginess when cooled, but are especially delicious warm.

Natalie of Good Girl Style joins us each month to share incredible desserts with Big Girls, Small Kitchen readers–desserts that are entirely gluten-free, but not like obviously gluten-free. That means no specialty flours or hard-to-find ingredients, just lemons, lemons, and more lemons. Want even more GF desserts? Check out Natalie’s Lemon Pudding.

Natalie of Good Girl Style is here today, and she’s brought an easy dessert that you can make to satisfy your late-winter craving for easy sweets. And you probably have all the ingredients, which means you don’t have to leave the house til spring. Natalie joins us each month to share incredible desserts with Big Girls, Small Kitchen readers–desserts that are entirely gluten-free, but not like obviously gluten-free. That means no specialty flours or hard-to-find ingredients, just good old-fashioned butter, sugar, chocolate, and cream.

Ahh, the dregs of winter. Here we are, staring at mounds of messy, dirty snow, being tempted by moments of sunshine and blue skies. It could give the most cheerful of us a case of the winter blues.

There’s nothing more comforting for a cold late-winter day than a bowl of rice pudding. Warm, creamy, perfectly spiced-and easy to make on the stovetop whenever a craving hits. You can also top this dessert with raisins and/or caramel sauce. So hunker down with a movie and this consoling dessert, and wait it out. Spring will come. And in the meantime, nutmeg, vanilla and Casablanca will be there for you.

We started our Great Minds Eat Alike series in order to mix up the usual BGSK offerings with interviews and submissions by cooks and eaters whose mentality towards cooking and eating meshes with ours. Today we are incredibly excited to bring you a psychoanalysis of breakfast and a great morning recipe from Libbie Summers, who wrote a cookbook called The Whole Hog Cookbook: Chops, Loin, Shoulder, Bacon, and All That Good Stuff, which is about, well, the whole hog, and which the New York Times dubbed an “aggressively pretty” book. From grilling and frying to braising and pickling, Libbie has a special way with pork, taking comfortable dishes and updating them with a stylish twist and making you laugh with her musings along the way. Visit Libbie’s food-inspired living blog here and her professional portfolio here.

Here’s Libbie!

How can someone hate cooking breakfast? This early morning culinary angst is a recurring theme among my girlfriends. One colorful friend actually said, “Cook breakfast –I’d rather shop for tires!” (anyone who’s spent even a minute smelling a “new tire” aroma mixed with cheap cologne and dirty fingernails knows how powerful that statement is).

The thing is, breakfast is my favorite meal to cook

We started our Great Minds Eat Alike series in order to mix up the usual BGSK offerings with interviews and submissions by cooks and eaters whose mentality towards cooking and eating meshes with ours. Today, on the second day of spring, we are incredibly excited to bring you a great guide about a dirty duty: getting your kitchen, from spice cabinet to pantry, clean. When you call it “spring cleaning,” it just sounds so fresh and bright, and, well, appealing. Especially because it comes from a fellow quarter-life blogger, Carrie Murphy.

Carrie is a poet who blogs about healthy, easy …

We started our Great Minds Eat Alike series in order to mix up the usual BGSK offerings with interviews and submissions by cooks and eaters whose mentality towards cooking and eating meshes with ours. Today we are incredibly excited to bring you College and Stephania, the founders of Thursday Night Dinner, a site dedicated to getting together with your friends, cooking, crafting, and having fun. All things we can get behind!

We’ve long been admirers of Thursdays, since you know from our Mag Club tradition that we adore the promise of a good dinner party or potluck with our …