Kelli Avila July 17, 2026

Hi and Happy Friday!

There’s a lot happening in the world right now, and much of it feels heavy and too big to fix. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how the most meaningful care often happens closer to home, in small communities, in our kitchens, and with the people we see every day. When I’m feeling overwhelmed by what the world, my community, or my own family is facing (more on that below), I lean into small, tangible acts of care.

Sometimes that looks like baking something for someone else. Dropping off a dessert for a friend. Bringing something homemade to share at work. Other times, it’s quieter and more inward. Baking simply because it feels grounding, and conveniently ending up with something sweet to enjoy yourself.

Both matter. Taking care of the people around you, and taking care of yourself too. And if that care happens to come in the form of a baked good right now, I’m fully on board. Possibly more than most.

Here are a few recipes I wanted to share that work especially well for sharing, gifting, or unapologetically keeping to yourself this weekend.

One-Bowl Snickerdoodles My apologies if you follow me on social media and are now hearing about this again, but I can’t stop making these snickerdoodles. And by extension, I can’t stop talking about them. They’re genuinely easy to pull together and an easy win as far as cookies go, both in effort and payoff. Everyone who’s eaten one instantly feels more joy, guaranteed. get the recipe

More Cookie Recipes:

• ​One-Bowl Chocolate Chip Cookies​
• ​Pistachio Shortbread​
• ​Ted Lasso Biscuits​
• ​Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies​
• ​Italian Orange Cookies​

Puff Pastry Apple Turnovers Apple pie is the kind of dessert that reliably makes you feel good, and these puff pastry turnovers are a shortcut, portable version of that same comfort. get the recipe

Wild Blueberry Muffins Easily made anytime of year, because they use frozen wild blueberries this Greek Yogurt Wild Blueberry Muffins have a tiny bit of almond flour to aid in both texture and taste, and they're really a wonderful muffin recipe you'll keep coming back to. get the recipe

More Muffin Recipes (over on my other website Everyday Family Eats):

• ​Pistachio Muffins​
• ​Apple Oat Muffins​
• ​Carrot Cake Muffins​
• ​Whole Wheat Banana Muffins​

Mississippi Mud Pie This is one of the more involved recipes on my site, with five distinct layers of chocolate. None of the steps are especially difficult, but it does take some time to put together. If you’re looking for a project to settle into, something that keeps your hands busy and rewards you at the end, this one fits the bill. get the recipe

Dark Chocolate Pudding On the opposite end of the ease spectrum from the Mississippi Mud Pie is this dark chocolate pudding. It’s minimal effort for maximum payoff. Rich, deeply chocolatey, and exactly the kind of thing that feels generous despite how little work it takes. get the recipe

More Pudding Recipes:

• ​Butterscotch Pudding​
• ​Pistachio Pudding​
• ​Coconut Pudding​
• ​Rice Pudding​
• ​Vanilla Pudding (Which can be made into a Banana Cream Pie)

Chicken Pot Pie If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a homemade chicken pot pie, you know how special it feels. This is my go to dish when someone could use a freezer meal they can pull out and bake fresh for a comforting dinner. I’ll be making a few of these next week (along with Beef Shepherd's Pie) for my own family and for a friend’s family. I freeze them unbaked and include simple instructions for baking straight from the freezer, which makes them easy to share and easy to use. get the recipe

The theme for this email came together today very organically because it reflects what I’m personally leaning into right now. It’s also a theme I’ve touched on before. It feels like everyone around me is carrying something heavy, and our family is no exception.

If you’ve been here for a while, you know I’m a cancer survivor and continue to receive treatment to prevent a recurrence. It’s a lot to manage, especially as a mom to kids in my thirties, but it’s part of our daily life now. You may also know that my husband, John, has been dealing with long term health issues of his own.

And we have good news to share on that front, though it comes with a lot of varied emotion. A living donor has come forward as a perfect match, and John is scheduled to receive a kidney transplant in February. The idea that my husband could one day feel better and have a working kidney still feels hard to fully grasp, as he's been slowly declining in health for so long. And alongside that hope comes another stretch of uncertainty for our family as we think about the recovery process, and a deep sense of gratitude for our donor, who is making the extraordinary gift of life despite the hardships it could possibly cause for them.

This is the kind of small community care I keep coming back to. We can’t fix everything in the wider world. But we can look around and ask who needs support, comfort, or help right now, and offer what we can, whether it’s something small or something truly transformative.

For me, the answer is often in sharing food. If you signed up for this newsletter, that might be true for you too. We can’t all fix the biggest problems or do the most extraordinary things. But for those of us who want to make life feel a little better and aren’t always sure how, this feels like enough.

Have a wonderful weekend, and we'll talk next week.