Holidays and Entertaining

Festive recipes and cooking crafts for holidays and everyday celebrations from Jackie Alpers
Campfire Grilled Fish Recipe

Campfire Grilled Fish Recipe

How to grill a whole, freshly caught trout, bass, perch or other freshwater fish over an open campfire using a camp grill and foil. Each fish is stuffed with lemon slices and rosemary and set on a foil-lined camp grill to cook over the open fire. In about twenty minutes you have tender, flaky, perfectly cooked grilled fish. The recipe works with any whole freshwater fish. This recipe is an excerpt from my  Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook.

Pumpkin Empanadas: Easy Baked Mini Hand Pies

Pumpkin Empanadas: Easy Baked Mini Hand Pies

These mini pumpkin empanadas are brushed with a buttery, warming aromatic coating are fun and super easy to bake (not fried) using pre-made sheets of pie dough and a spiced pumpkin filling.

Goose Tacos Recipe

Goose Tacos Recipe

Recipe for Sonoran-style goose tacos inspired by Peking Duck. These goose tacos are served on flour tortillas with hoisin sauce, salsa macha, cabbage, carrots and scallions. Food photography for this recipe is shortlisted for the 2025 World Food Photography Awards in the Food Influencer category.

Green Chile Tamale Pie with Molé Sauce

Green Chile Tamale Pie with Molé Sauce

Sonoran-style vegetarian tamale pie recipe made with a creamy green chile and masa base and a rich, quick molé made with peanut butter, tahini, and cocoa.

Chipotle-Lime Grilled Corn Recipe

Chipotle-Lime Grilled Corn Recipe

Recipe for a lighter version chipotle lime grilled corn on the cob from the Sonoran Arizona-Mexico borderlands cookbook author Jackie Alpers

Cara Dutton’s Pot Roast Braised in Irish Stout Beer

Cara Dutton’s Pot Roast Braised in Irish Stout Beer

Pot roast with carrots and potatoes braised in Irish Stout beer is similar to recipes brought to the American West by Irish settlers. Inspired by the Yellowstone 1923 TV series. Use as the base for Cara Dutton’s Irish Pasties recipe.

Mediterranean Diet Grilled Octopus Recipe

Mediterranean Diet Grilled Octopus Recipe

Recipe for Mediterranean diet grilled octopus served with scallions, romaine and fresh tomatoes in a light citrus vinaigrette from The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook by Jackie Alpers.

Onion and Mushroom Soup Recipe with Acorn Flour

Onion and Mushroom Soup Recipe with Acorn Flour

This onion and morel mushroom soup recipe is made with acorn flour. It’s topped with a toasted baguette, melted Gruyère and Parmesan. If you can’t find fresh or dried morel mushrooms, use any wild or cultivated mushrooms available. 

The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook Resource & Gift Guide

The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook Resource & Gift Guide

Shop for products from the Yellowstone TV series as seen in The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook by Jackie Alpers. This comprehensive list includes ingredients featured in the cookbook, cookware and plates and glassware used as props on Yellowstone, 1883 and 1923, and cooking resources.

Sweet and Spicy Mixed Nut Brittle

Sweet and Spicy Mixed Nut Brittle

Inspired by ingredients local to the Northwestern U.S. this crunchy, spicy, sweet mixed nut brittle is perfect for holiday gifting. Walnuts, hickory nuts, and hazelnuts are grown in Montana where the television series Yellowstone is set

Gin Cocktail with Sour Cherry and Juniper Berries

Gin Cocktail with Sour Cherry and Juniper Berries

A cocktail recipe from The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook author Jackie Alpers for Gin & juice – Yellowstone Style! With ingredients local to the Dutton family ranch. Drinks from the Yellowstone Bunkhouse: The Red Domino Cocktail.

The Bee’s Knees Gin Cocktail

The Bee’s Knees Gin Cocktail

The Bee’s Knees is a prohibition era, honey-sweetened gin cocktail featured in the speakeasy scene in Yellowstone’s 1923.

Tortilla Snowflakes Recipe

Tortilla Snowflakes Recipe

Sweet and sparkly tortilla snowflakes – an edible version of the popular Mexican folk art, papel picado which will brighten any winter holiday table.

Mexican Street Corn Cups (Elote en Vaso)

Mexican Street Corn Cups (Elote en Vaso)

Recipe for Elote en Vaso, Mexican street corn in cups. Pan fried corn kernels tossed  in a creamy sauce seasoned with chile and lime. From the Taste of Tucson Cookbook by Jackie Alpers.

Parmesan Crisps with Caviar and Crème Fraîche

Parmesan Crisps with Caviar and Crème Fraîche

Festive enough for New Year’s Eve, this pretty appetizer only takes about 5 minutes to make. Bacon infused caviar adds a unique smokiness that will intrigue your guests and is fairly inexpensive, but any decent quality caviar will do. The one-ingredient parmesan crisps are a savory, no-carb alternative to blini.

Homemade Sprinkles Recipe

Homemade Sprinkles Recipe

Learn how to make homemade sprinkles in custom colors using the royal icing method. From the author of the Sprinkles cookbook.

Chelada Beer Cocktail Recipe

Chelada Beer Cocktail Recipe

This super-refreshing citrus beer cocktail is served in a chile and salt rimmed glass over ice. It’s kinda like a beer margarita. I love it because it’s a big drink that lasts a long time and it has considerably less sugar and calories than a margarita. 

Skillet Stuffing Shakshuka Recipe

Skillet Stuffing Shakshuka Recipe

Recipe for Shakshuka made with leftover stuffing. Be sure to make extra-extra holiday stuffing so that you can make my Skillet Stuffing Shakshuka the next morning with the “leftovers”

Buffalo Chicken Rumaki Bites

Buffalo Chicken Rumaki Bites

This modern Buffalo chicken rumaki recipe updates the Polynesian appetizer served at tiki parties in the 70s.

Elote Hot Dog Recipe

Elote Hot Dog Recipe

I’m pretty sure I invented the Elote Dog when I first developed this recipe for The Food Network in 2018. Since then Elote Hot Dogs, inspired by Sonoran-Mexican Street Corn have become a sensation with hot dog enthusiasts all over the word coming up with their own version. Here’s my recipe for hot dogs topped with elote, mayo, lime and spices and served in a bolillo roll.

Cincinnati Chili-Cheese Nachos: Cincinnachos!

Cincinnati Chili-Cheese Nachos: Cincinnachos!

Ohio meets Arizona! Cincinnati chili cheese nachos. “Cincinnachos” are the best of everything for snacking season. Cincinnati Style Chili, tortilla chips, kidney beans, cheddar cheese, raw onions and jalapenos.

Savarin Chantilly: French Bundt Cake with Apricot Glaze

Savarin Chantilly: French Bundt Cake with Apricot Glaze

Savarin, a rich airy cake soaked in a simple syrup and topped with apricot glaze and whipped cream. It’s traditionally served as a feast-day dessert in France. This is her recipe. It’s a little more complicated than the recipes I usually post, but I think it’s worth the effort.

Sprinkles Fairy Bread Sandwiches

Sprinkles Fairy Bread Sandwiches

Make any day a celebration! Just barely sweet, these sparkly sandwiches make a fun breakfast surprise, after-school snack, or party food.

Inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “Fairy Bread” from A Child’s Garden of Verses, fairy bread is a popular treat at children’s parties in Australia, New Zealand, and other little pockets of the world.

This recipe is from my book Sprinkles!: Recipes and Ideas for Rainbowlicious Desserts. The photograph is previously unpublished

Postmodern Art Popsicles

Postmodern Art Popsicles

What is the nature of art? Can it exist in popsicle form? Is it still art after the popsicle has been eaten? How does the process of melting affect the piece? These are some of the questions that I pondered while creating, and then ingesting this popsicle. made it from diamond shaped sprinkles in primary colors and Sno-Caps candies.

Lavender Limeade

Lavender Limeade

Here’s an easy summer beverage. Lavender Limeade is super easy and you don’t need to add a bunch of sugar. The lavender flowers add their own sweetness.

Order Jackie's Cookbooks

Screenshot
The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook Cover
cover of The Unofficial Elf Cookbook by Jackie Alpers. Treat every day like Christmas with recipes inspired by the classic film "Elf".
The Unofficial Elf Cookbook by Jackie Alpers
Food photography by Alpers of loaded hot dogs is an American Photography 41 winner.
Jackie Alpers 2025 World Food Photography Awards for Food Influencer and Food in the Field
Tucson City of Gastronomy designation for Taste of Tucson cookbook