Blackberry Nectarine Lush

Happy Monday everyone!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing Easter. I know we did! The hubby and I headed out to his sister's house to have dinner with the family. It also happened to be my mother-in-law's birthday, so we had quite the Easter celebration. We had it all. A turkey and a ham. Two pasta salads. A big chocolatey, butterfinger-y birthday cake. Kids hopped up on way too much sugar... You know, the normal Easter fare 😂

Homemade Oreos

Today is my little brother's birthday (Happy Birthday Bro!), so I thought it fitting to post the cookie that he chose for his birthday treat this year. Technically, he chose "dipped Oreos" but one first needs Oreos in order to dip. He did mention that the Oreo's didn't have to be homemade, he just wanted different flavors of dipped cookies. The hubby said asking me to send commercial Oreo's was like asking Gordon Ramsey to send a Big Mac. I snorted in derision and told him I was probably more like Guy Fieri sending take-out from a diner, drive-in, or dive he visited. In the end, I opted to make the Oreo's before dipping them. 

Top 16 Recipes of 2016

Ah, long time, no see everyone!

Yes, it's the 2nd to last day of our Oregon trip and I've finally found a few moments to write. It has been Busy with a capitol B! We've been going non-stop, but man, it has been fun. I'll save pictures for when I do my Oregon or December wrap-up but we've basically been on what I like to call a "Food and Drink Tour" of Oregon. Seriously! We've travelled to Southern Oregon to dine at a couple of places in Ashland. We've stopped at a restaurant in Eugene. We've traveled to Portland to visit family and wine-taste with friends. There was a boozy breakfast in Albany. We saw "Holiday Office Party" in Corvallis. Drove the backroads through Independence. Had a wine-and-hor-dourves night with some of my biggest blog fans (Hello Glaeser family!) I can safely say I've seen the entire I-5 corridor of Oregon on this visit 😁

Cinnamon Pumpkin Cookies

Sheesh, you guys. I knew last week was going to be crazy, with the holiday and all, but not nearly as hectic as it was. I feel like I've had 2 seconds to myself in the last 7 days or so. Besides hosting Thanksgiving at our house, I had the funky cold from Hades, we had a water leak the day before the holiday, I had more MRI's done, and finally, the hubby got the new iPhone he's been dreaming of after we drove 256 miles to get it. Needless to say, it's been cray-cray around here. 

Update:

Cold is gone. Yippee! 

Water leak was fixed and Thanksgiving prep was finished. Thank goodness.

MRI's were completed. They weren't fun, but they are done. I loathe whoever created those detestable machines.

The hubby loves his new phone 😁

Alpine Strawberry Mascarpone Tart

Ok, so I posted 3 casseroles/oven bakes in a row...

Easy Tortellini Bake

Pumpkin Spinach Lasagna Rolls

Untraditional Green Bean Casserole

It's time for dessert! 😋

25 Cake & Cupcake Recipes

Oh, Saturday morning. How I love thee. I woke up rather lazily today, with one well-behaved chihuahua at my side and a not-so-well-behaved one deciding to sit on my chest and lick my face. Face Licker had decided it was time to get up. Face Licker being Mariota, that is 😂 

I shuffled my way to the Keurig and made a cup of coffee, admiring the view out the window whilst the coffee brewed. It rained last night, which makes me happy. That saves an hour of yard work. I also noted the bird feeders were quite full. It never fails that there is lull in bird activity every summer. The hawks have been staking out the yard fairly aggressively which every year has meant the birds leave for a little while. They'll be back. But that was another chore that didn't need to be done. 

It was a great morning. All I had to do was fill the bee waterers with fresh water and pick some strawberries. I honestly thought the strawberries would be spent by now, but they are really showing no signs of stopping. I'm thinking I'm going to be picking fresh berries every day until the first frost. Which, of course, is fine by me. 

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

You know what I just realized this morning when I opened the blog?

I haven't posted a dessert recipe since June 20! Remember Copy-Cat Girl Scout Tagalongs? Yeah, that was my last recipe to satisfy sweet tooth's (teeth? I don't know about that one 😁). Let's remedy that!

Copy-Cat Girl Scout Tagalongs

Holy moly. One post last week? I meant to do better you guys. I really did. Can I just say that I feel like I haven't had a moment to breathe since Friday? It's been hectic around these parts. Granted, Friday was spent hanging out with a girlfriend, so that hectic-ness was chosen. I was up at dawn baking cookies on Saturday to take to the hubby's family reunion. Dawn is my normal blogging time, so Saturday was out although I had intended to publish on that day. I figured there was always Sunday.

Homemade Cinnamon Ice Cream

+ Cinnamon Ice Cream Whisky Shooters!

My goodness, friends. That weekend? A blur. Is it over already? Where did it go? I feel like I've been going non-stop since Friday.

I know I say that every weekend, but this weekend was something else! What happened this weekend? Here goes!

Friday- The hubby and I had to drive to Columbus to meet with a neurosurgeon about my back. We got a speeding ticket on the way up. We cursed the holiday weekend and powered on to meet with the doctor. I really liked the doctor I met with, he was very professional and a lot of his patients are athletes. After studying my MRI, he's not sure if the problem is with my joint or with the actual disc. He agreed injections into the joint were the best place to start, or at least the least invasive choice. Twas' a good appointment and the hubby and I headed for home. We grabbed some sushi from Kroger, scarfed it down, and headed out to visit with the hubby's family. A little too much red wine was enjoyed, and we returned home around midnight.

Lemony Lemon Cupcakes

Pen... and paper.

Cookies... and milk.

Socks... and shoes.

Peanut butter... and jelly.

Lighting... and thunder.

Spring... and LEMON!

I'm not sure why but when I think of spring foods, I think of lemons. I don't know what it is, March hits and all the sudden I want lemon bars stuffed with sweet homemade lemon curd. Ice-cold lemonades flavored with fragrant berries and aromatic mint. Moist, delicious lemon cakes slathered with a delectably tart and creamy frosting... 

Yes, yes, and YES!

Soft & Chewy Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

aka The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies ever!

I told you they were coming. Let's kick off May recipes with a bang! A little chew. Lots of chocolate. And just the tiniest, tastiest smattering of salt. These cookies will rock your world!

I'm not kidding. These are famous at the hubby's work. In fact, when their Spring project started at his office, people who'd been there before and had these cookies requested them. People had heard about them. This tickles me to no end!

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. 

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

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!

Vanilla Quick Bread

There is a strategic reason I'm posting this bread today. I'm posting it today because it is, officially, the perfect vehicle for my Blackberry-Nectarine Preserves. The two go hand-in-hand like chips and dip, or bacon and eggs. Although, I must confess, this bread is a great companion for pretty much any fruit spread. I slathered some Raspberry Jam on it, and my taste buds were equally pleased. Perfect for breakfast to serve alongside coffee, or a light dessert if you want to add some pudding and whip cream to the mix. Yummmmmm....

Cookies & Cream Cupcakes (Red Velvet Style)

You guys might recognize these cupcakes. These perfect-for-Valentine's-Day cupcakes are indeed the same cupcakes that gave me fits. The first run was a disaster, this particular batch slid off the cooling rack, and I lost my cool multiple times. Anyone out there who thinks food blogging is glamorous because of all the pretty pictures, beware. There's a multitude of hair-pulling, slipper-throwing, fist-shaking, and oh-so-ugly pictures that come with the territory.

And there was plenty of all that during the making of these cupcakes.

Mini Strawberry Swirl Cheesecakes

Yesterday I had a food bloggers melt down.

It happens occasionally. More often than I'd like to admit, actually. I mean, what else can you do when the project you've been working on since 8 that morning completely unravels at 5 pm, and you are home alone to react however you want to? 

You throw your temper tantrum. Then you move on with life.

25 Fruity Recipes

Hello from snowy Kentucky!

Actually, not so snowy now. Yesterday it got up to 50º and much of the snow has melted, much to my relief and those Chihuahuas. I opened the living room windows this morning and was shocked to see that at least 3 inches of snow melted overnight. This has to make my birds happy. The homestead has been overrun the last couple of days, complete with birds that never come to the feeders or yard. I had a large flock of starlings pass through yesterday, and a few days ago a foursome of Eastern Meadowlarks foraged the yard. Us birders get the biggest kick out of seeing new birds in our yards. 

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Happy Birthday to me!

Yep, this was my birthday cake. And let me tell you, this is a dessert worthy of the name "cake". It was decadent. It was dreamy. It made my tastebuds do a happy dance. Then, it made me realize I had to get it out of the house. Stat. 

Did I get it out of the house? Not so much.

Chocolate-Mint Bark

Let's continue CookieFest 2015!

Still on vacation here in Illinois. As much as I love my dogs (because I love them to the moon and back, ya know) there is something to be said for simply waking up, making a cup of coffee, and enjoying the view of a lake. No shoving tired feet into boots, tired arms into coats. No checking the property for neighborhood dogs or the stray deer. No pack of vicious Chihuahuas barking at such a decibel you'd think we starved them by their urgent need for food.

Of course, I start to miss all those things after a couple of days. But man, for a couple of days, I do enjoy the "me" time. And speaking of "me" time, you'll have plenty of that if you decide to make this simple minty candy over say, Spritz cookies. I'm serious, this takes all of 5 minutes to make. And it's sooooo yummy!