Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup

-with toasted almonds, chives, and Gruyere toasts

Today is just one of those days. Yes, it's Spring and we've had a spate of nice weather days. But you know the old saying "April showers bring May flowers?" Today is a day of April showers. It's been gray, rainy, and cloudy since I woke up. Not only do I get a day off from keeping the un-sprouted seeds in the garden moist, but it's the perfect day for a comforting bowl of soup.

25 Tomato Recipes

Happy Monday! 

Wowsers, did this weekend fly by or what? I just can't even, I don't know where it went. I'll start with my doctor's appointment on Friday morning-

So, that appointment... It was first thing in the morning, 8 am. I was the surgeon's first patient of the day. Now, most of the surgeons I've seen, they start by asking me questions and conclude by giving me an exam. And truth be told, the exams are usually quite gentle. Painless. This surgeon started the appointment by giving me an exam. Somehow he managed to locate the exact evil spots on my back. Not only did he locate it/them, but he pressed insanely hard into them.

Chicken Yakitori

It's that time of year again!

The weather is getting warm. Our days have been in 70's and 80's this whole week. Our forecast shows nary a night under 40º. It's those days when the sun is beating down on your shoulders and you have an ice cold beer in your hand that grilling is just... the best.

I mean, who wants to stand over a hot stove when the weather has just begun to break? I don't. The garden is just starting to grow and flowers are in bloom. If I can sit outside in a lawn chair and flip dinner every once in while, oh yeah, I'm gonna do it. 

Recipe Redux: Banana Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting

Ugh, I have been the worst blogger this month. I'm at 6 (now 7) posts for the month. I feel like I'm still on vacation. I usually post 3 times a week, but I've been averaging about 2 this month. I'm trying not to get too worked up over this, it is what it is. I've been spending a lot of time outside since I returned from my break, getting the garden ready and planting flowers. We added another raised bed to our garden this year. Year by year, the garden gets a little bigger than the year before. Obviously, the bigger the garden gets, the more time it needs. I'm feeling that this year. 

Got Bees?

Yesterday was the day! 

The hubby left the house at 5:30 am yesterday morning, to pick up one of his co-workers and drive west to Morehead, KY to get our bees. He was home by 11 am with a big box of what seemed like a million bees. The hum could be heard from quite a distance away. I was fascinated.

Naan Pizzas with Chicken, Asparagus, & Egg

Yes. You want this. Right now. For breakfast. For lunch today. For dinner tonight. Eat it for every meal! One bite and you'll be in love :-)

I love flatbread pizza. Does it get any easier? I love homemade pizza dough just as much as the next person, but there's something to be said about a meal that's ready in minutes vs. a meal you had to plan all day. And these pizzas really did take just minutes. I used leftover rotisserie chicken, because, hello, it's me. I seem to always have rotisserie chicken in my fridge. Pair chicken with leftover roasted asparagus from the night before, and pretty much the only work you will have to do will be making a couple of sunny-up eggs.

3 Solid Recipes from 2015 That Never Made The Blog

Ok friends. Over my break, I cleaned up the innards of the blog. Mainly, I went through the posts I hadn't published yet to see what I had. There were a few recipes I knew I had (the 3 below) and a couple I'd forgotten about (the last 5). All the photos for these recipes were taken with my old lens. I've finally come to conclusion that I'm done with all those old photos. Some of the recipes were over a year old! I decided that if I hadn't posted them in the first 365 days that I'd finished the pictures, that I never was. A few of the recipes were solid, delicious and share-worthy. A few were what I finally deduced as "worthless". Recipe that would need to be completely reworked, therefore needing completely new pictures. So, to get rid of anything having to do with the old camera lens, I'm going to share the 3 recipes that were really quite tasty and deserving of a repeat. 

Here we go!

Blackberry-Swirled Peach Pops

Chicken Bacon Orzo Soup

Here in Kentucky, winter is about to give what I suspect is its last gasp. I even woke up to a dusting of snow this morning. Judging from the future forecast though it looks like after this next week, the weather will break. No more nights in the 30's with the fear of frost. Days in the high 60's, low 70's. The garden will flourish. Our privacy fence of densely populated trees at the edge of our property (which lose their greenery every winter) will fill out with leaves again. And chicken soup that warms the soul will lose just a smidgen of its appeal. 

Mini Butterscotch Banana Puddings

Ok. You all know how I can get into ruts? Here's a big one:

I haven't published a banana recipe since April 18, 2014. That was my Chocolate Oat Smoothies. Well, I guess technically it was my Banana Split Truffles on October 8, 2014, but I don't really count those. There's no actual banana in them! So, it's been a loooooooong time since we've talked banana.

How does that happen? I'm not sure. It's kind of like how I fell off the Asian wagon in 2015 and only posted 2 recipes. This banana-drought might be worse though, since I didn't post a single banana recipe last year. We are going to remedy that today with this quick, easy, kid-friendly, and delicious dessert!

March Musings: 2016

Holy April Batman!

Wow. My break went super-duper fast. Gone in the blink of an eye. I needed it badly. Truth be told, my expectations surrounding my back injury have really sent me straight through the ringer, and right back again. Back in January, I thought I'd be running by April. The timeline has not gone that smoothly in reality, and I'm in a bit of a holding pattern. I have no news to share on that front, and that's the problem. Right now, it feels like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and that's been a hard thing to accept.