150 brand-new recipes, party ideas and menus, killer playlists, and inventive beauty projects from How Sweet Eats blogger Jessica Merchant . Jessica Merchant is like your most reliable girlfriend--that is, if your girlfriend was a passionate cook and serious beauty junkie. With her second book, she brings her signature playfulness to the page. It’s filled with 150 brand-new recipes, along with themed menus, party ideas, killer playlists, and inventive beauty projects. She’s the extra hand guiding you in the kitchen giving you the most inventive pizza toppings (crispy kale and summer corn), showing you how to make hibiscus blueberry mint juleps, and telling you the coolest way to make an avocado face mask while you plan your weekly menu on Saturday morning. All her recipes are deliciously indulgent (think: poke tacos, toasted quinoa chocolate bark, pistachio iced latte) and all take 60 minutes or less to make.

8220;Jessica Merchant is the embodiment of the gorgeous, successful, modern woman we all aspire to be. The Pretty Dish serves as a playbook for the sweeter side of life. Full of utterly delicious, vibrant recipes, natural beauty concoctions, and curated playlists for every mood, the aspirational has never been more attainable.”

—Andie Mitchell, New York Times bestselling author of It Was Me All Along

“This cookbook is absolutely gorgeous—Iliterally want to make everything! Jessica is so creative in the kitchen; her delicious recipes are crowd-pleasing and fresh. I’m excited to have this cookbook on my shelf!”
—Gina Homolka, author of The Skinnytaste Cookbook and Skinnytaste Fast and Slow

“Discovering Jessica Merchant changed myalready pretty great life for an even better life. She personifies my philosophy that we have three chances EVERY DAY to celebrate being alive: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every single recipe in this book will make your day and some will even make you pretty. Jessica is my culinary hero.”
—Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Identicals

Autorentext
Jessica Merchant is a full-time recipe developer and writer who happens to be crazy passionate about all things food. She is the author of Seriously Delish, and details her adventures in and out of the kitchen on her popular blog, How Sweet Eats, which is read by millions.

Leseprobe
Introduction

It’s 6:47 a.m. when my alarm goes off, and as I peek at my phone screen with one eye open, I see that I have six texts from last night at 1:32 a.m. from my cousin Lacy. It’s a group text—one of my least favorite things in the universe—but it includes food, so that softens the blow a bit. Plus, the notifications all went off while I was sleeping and not doing something important like scrolling through Instagram and falling into the vortex of my brother’s ex-girlfriend’s sister who just got married to a guy I “went together with” in fourth grade, so it’s cool.
 
Speaking of Instagram, that’s what the group text was all about. Lacy sent a screenshot of a crazy dessert that she thinks we have to try out together, and she must have been scroll happy, because what follows are screenshots of things that are equally delicious and increasing in calories. A pizza supreme fondue, a peanut butter truffle doughnut, a quinoa salad that would utilize everything we could get at the farmers’ market on Saturday morning, and because life doesn’t exist without cocktails: a blueberry mojito punch.
 
Thanks to her, at 7 a.m. on a Monday morning I am now starving for anything but the bowl of overnight oats that sits in my fridge, waiting for a sprinkling of chia seeds and dried raspberries.
 
There is nothing worse than the dreaded Monday breakfast, when you’re still in a food coma from the weekend and craving all sorts of crispy, crunchy tacos with white Cheddar queso and an endless pitcher of margaritas.
 
Gosh. This just keeps getting worse.
 
Food is one of the things that tie Lacy and I together; it’s one of the ways that we honor our grandmother and one of the activities that we enjoy doing together. Eating and cooking, that is. It seems like in the last 4 years, time has both sped up and slowed down. When I was pregnant with my son, Max, everyone told me over and over again how it would be life-changing, and boy were they right. The thing was, though, that I didn’t quite feel like I had changed. My life and circumstances changed, and it took a lot of adjusting to the “new normal” to feel like things were back in place.
 
Which is totally a joke, because I think I’m still adjusting to the “new normal”! Two-and-a-half years later, here I am secretly pregnant (only Eddie knows!) with my second child as I write this book, preparing to enter the next new normal that will come with the pitter-patter of multiple baby toes under my own feet.
 
Of course, there were times in my son’s newborn stage when I didn’t think I could even manage to make it into the kitchen. Nights when we ate egg sandwiches for dinner, and certainly not ones that you would see on the cover of Food & Wine. I had running lists of recipes that sounded so fantastic, but days that were rather exhausting and led me to make quick chicken quesadillas for dinner instead.
 
One thing that has remained constant is my complete and utter adoration for sharing food with people I love. It’s funny, because I often tell others how I really have no desire to be a chef in a restaurant and cook for strangers—my true passion lies in cooking and sharing food with people I know and love.
 
That totally includes you. Writing a blog on the Internet has been world-altering for me, even if my parents (and occasionally even my husband, Eddie) ask, “Wait, what is it that you actually do? Is this really … work?”
 
Writing the blog has been such gratifying work that it has changed my life. While I’ve never claimed to be a professional chef or culinary expert—and I relish the fact that I’m mom-taught, grandma-taught, and, let’s be real, Internet-taught—sharing the experiences that I’ve had making thousands of recipes over the last 8 years has been so much fun. I have met some of my closest friends this way and feel an incredible connection with the community on my website.
 
Because of all that, I find that my love for sharing food is twofold. Sharing recipes with readers of my blog, new readers of my cookbooks, and general invisible Internet friends (I know you’re real!) has bridged the gap with so many people that I would have never been able to connect with otherwise. It’s an easier way to find others who share the same tastebuds that I do, who have a passion for home cooking, and who possibly even enjoy reading the ridiculous rambles that find their way onto the pages of my little corner on the Internet.
 
However, the other part of this love is that this entire experience has broadened my expertise in being able to share food with family and friends. One of Eddie’s and my favorite things to do is host a homemade pizza night, which includes grilled pizzas in the summer or baked pizzas in the winter, and I’ve learned to let go of the stress of cleaning up the mess while we entertain others.
 
The meals in our home are not always picture-perfect. There are many nights (occasionally, even once a week) when I will eat cereal for dinner or Eddie will make pancakes and eggs. Cooking and sharing food does not have to be glamorous …