Laurel Randolph

I’m one of three sisters, and all of our birthdays are within a few weeks of each other. My poor mother would make each of us a birthday cake, lighting the candles and going through the whole birthday party rigamarole week after week. She’d ask each of us what kind of cake we wanted, and while we tried to mix things up to keep it interesting, all any of us really wanted was a strawberry cake.

As someone raised in the South, I could always count on a cold pitcher of sweet tea sitting in our fridge, waiting to be drunk. We could be low on food and drinks, desperately needing a trip to the grocery store, but there was always tea. As soon as the pitcher ran out, my mom would bring a pot of water to a boil and pull out the Luzianne family-sized tea bags.
While I don’t make much sweet tea at home, I can always count on my mom to have it cold and ready for pouring when I visit.

Fresh strawberries have arrived in my neck of the woods, and I simply cannot get enough. Farmers markets and the produce sections of grocery stores are piled high with bright red berries, and I am eating my weight in the juicy, sweet fruit.

As a native Southerner, I am a buttermilk loyalist. While I understand not everyone keeps a carton of buttermilk at the ready, you really should. There are plenty of substitutes, but they just aren’t the same. The real thing is tangy, creamy, affordable, and lasts a surprisingly long time in the fridge. It’s a key ingredient in flaky biscuits, flavorful pancakes, crispy fried chicken, and creamy ranch dressing.

I can enjoy a warm chocolatey brownie cookie in under 20 minutes.
I am a chocolate fiend. I need the stuff daily, preferably in the form of a fun dessert (cookie, brownie, etc.) or a high-quality confection, although I have been known to eat little bowls of chocolate chips when desperate.

Trader Joe's is always dropping new products, but this month I really struggled to keep up. It felt like every single day the grocery chain was plopping new and returning items on the shelves. It was honestly more than any TJ's lover and product reviewer can reasonably handle.

Try this trick for baked potatoes that are fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside.
It’s hard work for any parent to keep their children fed and happy, and my mom was no exception. She had three daughters to keep sated, all with their own dietary preferences. One daughter was vegetarian and then wasn’t, another became vegetarian but didn’t really eat veggies. Then there was me, the youngest and picky for no good reason. One of the few things I did eat? Meat.

If there’s one dish that’s nearly guaranteed to bring the whole family to the table (beyond mac and cheese and pizza), it’s a creamy chicken situation. Every time I’ve set a skillet or serving dish full of chicken breasts with a creamy sauce on the table, it disappears in seconds. All the better if I have rice or noodles on hand to soak up the sauce.

I am one of those people who obsessively checks to see if the stove is turned off. Sometimes I leave the house and think, Did I turn the stove off? Surely I turned the stove off. Then it haunts me until I arrive home later and see that it is, in fact, off. This all stems from the time a college roommate left the stove on all night with a pan of half-eaten tomato sauce on top. I woke to find a completely ruined pan and a heavy thankfulness to be alive.

My whole life, I’ve never had my fill of strawberries. When berry season rolls around, all I want is perfectly ripe, sweet strawberries day and night. As a kid, my mom would have to cut me off, knowing I’d eat the freshly picked berries from the farm down the road until my stomach ached. And my cravings don’t stop at plain berries, either—strawberry desserts, like strawberry cake and strawberry pie are equally welcome.

I love a wide range of quality cocktails, but when it comes down to it, it’s hard to beat a margarita. A good one hits the spot with a balance of lightly smoky tequila, tart lime juice, and just sweet enough orange liqueur or triple sec.

Marry me chicken has taken the internet by storm the last few years, and its popularity has led to countless riffs. One of those riffs is marry me beans, which intrigued me—I love me some creamy beans. Most of the recipes I encountered used chickpeas and, while delicious, I decided that white beans would deliver a creamier result.

The quest for cookie perfection is real. Especially around the holidays, my social feeds fill with videos and images of perfectly shaped, perfectly decorated cookies. They’re like works of art, too pretty to eat.

While I admire these edible artworks, I don’t want to make them myself. Sometimes I just want to have fun baking and not worry about every little visual detail. I took this rebellious attitude and channeled it into these smash cookies. They’re the punk rockers of sugar cookies.

No matter what you call it—Muddy Buddies, puppy chow, reindeer chow, monkey munch, that delicious stuff in the bowl over there—the crunchy, sweet snack featuring Chex cereal is delicious. The classic recipe you see on the cereal box uses chocolate chips, peanut butter, and powdered sugar for a crowd-pleasing treat.
I must confess, I’ve always found puppy chow too cloying thanks to the sweet chocolate and generous powdered sugar. So I started experimenting.

As we close in on the end of 2023, I’d like to get sentimental for a moment. As the recipe editor for Simply Recipes, I feel incredibly lucky to work with such talented co-workers, contributors, photographers, and recipe testers. They are the reason our site chugs along and continues to put out awesome recipes day after day, month after month.
OK, gushing aside—these are our top 10 new recipes for 2023 and they’re all spectacular.