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Pumpkin Bagels & Whipped Pumpkin Cream Cheese
Story time! Once upon a time, I bought my very first pumpkin bagel with pumpkin schmear at my local bagel shop. I loved it so much that I went back at lunchtime and bought another one. I tried to go back after work for another one but the bagel shop closed at 3pm so I had to wait until the next morning. On the third day (yes, THIRD day) of this behavior, the cashier said to me, “Wow, you must really love these bagels.” I think I…
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Caramel Bread Pudding with Creamy Caramel Sauce
By now you know that I am a serious planner and organizer. I plan all of my meals for the week before I head to the grocery store, including recipes that will show up here at Lemon Sugar. While I’m always eager to share my new ideas with all of you, sometimes it’s much harder to plan meals for my family. I’m always fighting the urge to stick to my tried-and-true rotation of 6-8 dinner options, mostly because they work for us and our schedule.…
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Cream Puffs (Pâte à Choux)
This is one of those recipes that I stumbled upon and automatically thought would be incredibly difficult and way out of my realm. But, once I really took time to read the recipe I found it was really very simple. Choux pastry is used to make cream puffs, eclairs and profiteroles. It’s a very light, dry pastry and usually offset by some sort of decadent cream-type filling. I used the traditional pastry cream to fill these and topped them with a liberal dollop of dark…
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Reuben Sliders with Homemade Thousand Island
I’m pretty excited to share this recipe with you. It’s a good one. I love sandwiches, and I especially love warm, ooey-gooey slider sandwiches. And I really love a good Reuben. This is like, the nexus of the sandwich universe. Or something. My family isn’t doing our annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner until next week sometime, so I know that tomorrow (on the actual holiday) I will want something corn-beefy to tide me over until next week when we can celebrate. Since there is an…
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Grandma’s Dinner Rolls
The other day I was cleaning one of the storage rooms in our basement and I came upon a basket of items I kept when we cleaned out my Grandma G’s house for the final time. I found a rosary, a couple of candy dishes, an old soapstone jewelry box she always kept on her dresser, and a blue apron that read “RUTHIE,” her first name. It immediately brought a smile to my face, and best of all, it still (9 years later) smells like her…
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Black Tie Cupcakes
This cupcake was a creation of mine that was born out of the need to clean out my pantry. I had several almost-empty boxes, bags and bottles of pantry items, and their replacements were crowding things. So, what to do but make some goodies? I didn’t really have an excuse for these except that Mom made Sunday dinner and my brother and his girlfriend were going to be there – which means more people to eat and fewer leftovers! I knew I needed to…
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Mini Chocolate Chip Pancake Muffins
Well, today I have a second grader. And today, I am torn between being sad and being proud, wanting time to slow down and the eagerness to watch my baby girl grow up. Last night we took her supplies up to the school and met her teacher, and I let her show me around “her” school, introduce me to the librarian, show me her music classroom, her computer lab, the nurse’s office – I waited patiently as she stopped to visit with friends in the…
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Banana Bread Cupcakes
Bananas wasting away in my fruit bowl + Marscapone cheese and walnuts in the fridge = DELISH concoction by yours truly. I love banana bread, but my girls eat bananas like they’re going out of style, so we never have any left to make treats with. This week, however, they left me with nearly a full bunch of bananas to play with. YAY! Furthermore, my husband has training tomorrow so he has lots of hungry guys to feed these to. Bonus. These are wonderful muffins. …
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Smith Island Cake
Sometimes, I love long, time-consuming recipes that I can work on a little bit at a time over the course of a day or two. I tend to over-book myself sometimes, so I frequently find myself baking against a deadline – which is fine and definitely keeps me on task – but occasionally, it’s nice to bake at a slow, leisurely pace. This is the perfect cake for a long day of baking. While I could have done the whole thing in a couple of…
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Almond Snowball Cookies
I’m back! It’s been a long couple of weeks, starting with my daughter’s 7th birthday party, then Thanksgiving, then a week of refreshing the look here at Lemon Sugar. Throw in a couple of cases of bronchitis and let’s just say I haven’t had much time to spend in the kitchen.
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Apple Pie
I’ve mentioned before that I was practically raised on pie. Every holiday (and sometimes just Sunday Dinner) during my childhood involved at least two pies, but more like five or six, of every variety you could possibly dream of. My favorite summertime pie is apple…mmm…warm apple pie with cold vanilla ice cream. Heaven on a plate! My mom makes the best apple pie I’ve ever had, but when I ask her how she makes it she says, “Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that.” …
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Black & White Monster Cookies
So, tonight we all got home really late because our lives are insane right now. I was all set to pull the “rotisserie chicken and vegetables” thing for dinner when my pitifully hayfevered-up seven year old begged me for mashed potatoes and gravy to eat with her chicken. She sounds so itchy and miserable that I couldn’t possibly say no to her, so there I was at 730pm whipping up a batch of mashed potatoes, all in the name of motherhood guilt or something. Yes,…
