jenny can cook

If you like baking without butter, this marble cake is one to try. It’s not too sweet with lots of dark chocolate swirls. With all the controversy about butter being good or bad for you, I still bake mostly without butter just in case they are wrong again. And I don’t miss the butter in this moist and light cake.

A marble loaf never looks the same twice and when you slice it you never know what the swirl will look like. I always hope it will have an even mix of white and chocolate just like this…

My baking cocoa of choice is Dutch process, which produces a rich dark color and is less bitter than regular powdered cocoa. You can find Droste brand at World Market. I also really enjoy adding some fresh orange zest to this pound cake because chocolate and orange go great together. Plain or with orange, you won’t find a marble loaf this good at any store. Try it for dessert or afternoon tea, or serve it when you have company and wait for the raves. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

I love all desserts made with apples so I try to make them as healthy as I can and still be delicious. I did it with this easy homemade apple crisp. It’s made with 100% whole grains, no butter, and not too much sugar.  You can use butter if you like but you’ll be using a lot less butter than most other recipes.

There’s not much cleanup here either – basically just one bowl and a cutting board. I combine the apples in a plastic bag and you don’t even need a mixer. I use granny smith apples, which are always available, but make sure you slice them thinly so they cook up nice and soft.

Considering the ingredients (rolled oats, whole wheat pastry flour, lots of apples) I thought, “Why can’t I have this for breakfast?” If you can have oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, well that’s what’s in my apple crisp. I even put it in the breakfast category because compared to some breakfasts, like a bagel with cream cheese (no fiber/no fruit), this is a healthier choice. And more fun. Sometimes my breakfast is a hard boiled egg, toast, and apple crisp for dessert. Yum!

Oh, and you can add nuts to the topping if you like (more protein if it’s breakfast!). Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

Guess what? I just found out that my video for these fall off the bone ribs is the second highest viewed ribs recipe on youtube after Gordon Ramsey. Well knock me over with a spatula! It makes me proud because I was just making my home videos for fun, never expecting them to be so popular. But that means lots of people are cooking at home and I’m glad my videos and recipes are helping. Here are my current top 5 most viewed videos.

Fall Off The Bone Ribs – 4 million views

Cabbage Rolls – 3.9 million views

Faster No Knead Bread – 2.8 million views

Easy Whole Wheat Bread – 2.8 million views

Hash Browns – 2 million views (My Hash Browns? I couldn’t believe it!)

It’s exciting to watch these numbers grow. I don’t make ribs often but when I do, I always find myself saying, “Wow, I forgot how good these are!” If you haven’t tried them yet, summer is coming! Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

Potatoes are my friend – boiled, mashed, roasted, hash browned, I love them every way, and in the summer, potato salad is my favorite. I tried for years to make a good potato salad without mayo but was never happy with the result. It was always too dry and if I added more oil, it was too oily.

This time I decided to try something different. I added some of the potato cooking water to my dressing and it was better but still not good enough. Then I tried something crazy. I mashed a little bit of potato and added that to the dressing along with the water. Bingo! It was great. The potato salad was creamy, tangy, and delicious.

So now I’m sharing this recipe for creamy potato salad no mayo, just in time for summer. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

It seems that I’ve been making these crispy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies a lot lately. They keep well, there’s no white flour, they have lots of fiber, and instead of chocolate chips I’ve been using part of a 70% dark chocolate bar (the one that’s good for you), chopped up and added to the final batter. Of course the toasted nuts add a lot of extra flavor.

They are big – about 5 inches across – so we usually split a cookie for dessert. But then we split another one because… well… because I’m in charge in the kitchen and I said it was okay. Today I also made salad, salmon patties, and spaghetti with chard for dinner. Then we had half a cookie for dessert. That’s the truth. We each had half a cookie for dessert. What happened after that is… quite frankly… confidential. ?  Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

Yes. You can make beef ribs that fall off the bone just like my pork baby back ribs with just a couple of small changes. First: Cook them longer. Two: Lower the temperature. After seeing so many questions about beef ribs I decided to try them myself so I could share the recipe. The two changes are very simple:

1. Reduce the oven temperature from 300 to 275° F.
2. Cook them for 3 1/2 hours in the oven (baby backs take 2 1/2 hrs). You can cook them even longer in the oven if you like but they are very tender after 3 1/2 hours.
3. I was never able to remove the silver skin off the back but if you can, it’s best to remove it. (there’s good how-to advice on removing the silver skin in the comment from RussS below – thank you, Russ!)

I cooked 2 pounds of ribs and my dry rub recipe was just enough for 2 pounds. If you cook more, you’ll need to double the rub recipe. My homemade rub and sauce always get raves and both are easy to make. I see a lot of people use Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce but you should know that the first ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. My homemade barbeque sauce is easy to make and really worth trying. For tender fall off the bone beef ribs click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

A German family spent more than 2 weeks decorating a tree with 10,000 painted eggs. Making Easter bread doesn’t seem like that much work after all.

Happy Easter, everyone. ❤️

Here’s more on that spectacular tree: https://www.boredpanda.com/easter-tree-decoration-10000-eggs/

This soft and sweet egg bread is easier to make than it looks. It’s fast. It’s beautiful. And it’s full of golden raisins. My simple recipe needs only one rise so it’s ready in just over two hours. You start with a simple but sweet egg bread and divide it into two. Roll each half into a 24-inch rope. Twist the ropes together like this…

Place the rope on your baking sheet and shape it onto a wreath, pinching and tucking the edges in the best you can. Here it is ready to rise…

After it rises in a warm spot and had doubled in size, it will look like this…

Now, just bake and finish. To ensure success have all your ingredients at room temperature, including the egg + yolk. Adding a cold egg will slow down the rise time. Make the powdered sugar glaze as thin or thick as you like. In the photo at the top I made a slightly thinner glaze than the one on the recipe page. Enjoy this delicious sweet holiday bread on any special occasion. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

The short answer is yes. Warm liquids, such as soup or tea do help relieve cold symptoms but chicken soup is a better choice. Here’s why:

1. A compound found in chicken soup (carnosine) helps the body’s immune system to fight the early stages of a cold or flu.
2. Soup contains anti-inflammatory properties that help reduce a cold’s miserable side effects.
3. The soup’s salt, steam and heat can also help thin mucus, making it easier to expel. The steam also soothes irritated passageways in your nose and throat.
4. Soups are also hydrating, which is particularly important when fighting off an infection. Staying hydrated is key to recovery and salty, chicken soup is packed with electrolytes that may help retain even more fluids than water or commercial electrolyte drinks.
5. Warm soup or other liquids can help open up sinuses, relieving congestion and shortening the time the virus is in contact with the lining of your nose. The faster you can move the mucus through you nose, the better.

Make chicken-noodle or chicken-rice soup or just sip it as a healing broth. If you would like my recipe for healthy, homemade chicken soup click here. – Jenny Jones

 I’m so excited to share this new recipe. It’s very similar to my hugely popular simple whole wheat bread recipe. I’ve been curious about baking with sprouted wheat flour and finally decided to give it a try. What a wonderful surprise!

This loaf is soft and delicious with a great texture, and definitely softer than the regular whole wheat version. The dough is a little softer too so I was afraid it might not turn out, but I love it not just for the great taste and texture but because I researched the benefits of sprouted whole wheat flour compared to whole wheat flour. Sprouted whole wheat flour has…

• More fiber
• More protein
• Less gluten
• More vitamins than regular whole wheat flour, like B, C & carotene
• More minerals than regular whole wheat flour, like calcium, iron, magnesium & zinc
• Enzymes that make it easier to digest
• More flavor because the grains are sprouted

WHAT IS SPROUTED WHEAT FLOUR? Wheat grains are allowed to sprout before milling, producing a living, nutrient-rich food because vitamins & minerals develop that enhance nutrition and digestibility. The major benefit is that those nutrients are in a state that can be more readily absorbed. (I find sprouted wheat flour at Whole Foods and it’s also available online. Once opened, be sure to keep it refrigerated.)

If you like my simple whole wheat bread, this sprouted wheat loaf is just as easy to make. I’m so glad I decided to experiment with sprouted wheat flour. This loaf is softer than the similar whole wheat loaf so if it’s too flimsy for you, try making it with half whole wheat flour and half sprouted whole wheat flour. It will have more body and a really great taste. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones