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Fried Pickles with Spicy Ranch
You know when you get a craving and it just won’t go away? Yep, you guessed it. I’ve been craving fried pickles for about six months now. I’m not really sure why. I don’t really crave fried foods, ever…but something about warm, battered pickles dipped in cool ranch dressing just does it for me, I guess. I’m just exuding classiness, aren’t I?
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Broccoli Cheese Soup
Life has been a whirlwind in our household lately. With my oldest starting Kindergarten and all of the activities that go with it, my busy time of year at work, my husband’s insane work schedule, and nailing down our erratic daycare needs, we just don’t have a lot of normal family time lately. It will be a rare occasion in the next six weeks when we’re all home together at the same time. I’m determined to make sure we can enjoy a family dinnertime together as often as possible,…
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A Pantry Makeover with Organized Living™ (Part 1: Before)
Ok. I feel like I need to make excuses and be defensive about my pantry for a minute. First of all, yes, the picture above is my pantry. This is what my pantry looked like the day after my daughter’s Rainbow Party just a few weeks ago. I’m not proud. I have an awesome pantry, which was a requirement when we built our house five years ago. In fact, we even made it bigger than the plans originally called for because it wasn’t quite big…
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Tiramisu Cake
“What is tiramisu?” “You’ll find out.”“Well, what is it?”“You’ll see.” “Some woman is gonna want me to do it to her, and I’m not gonna know what it is!” Name that movie. Easy, right? Sleepless in Seattle – one of my all-time favorites. There are many reasons I love that movie, but mostly because I love Seattle, I love Tom Hanks, and I love Meg Ryan…plus, there’s nothing wrong with a good love story. I’m sure there aren’t many of you out there who haven’t…
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Boo-tiful Ghost Cake
I’m a scaredy-cat, generally speaking. Well, not generally speaking, specifically speaking. I can fake my way through a lot of scary situations, but deep down, I’m a bona-fide scaredy-cat. I could list all of the things that I’m scared of, but that would be the longest blog post ever. Unfortunately, and against my best intentions, I’m afraid I’ve passed some of my tendencies toward irrational fears along to my girls. My youngest is afraid of “creepy things.” And with Halloween right around the corner, everything…
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Homemade Hamburger Buns
Yes, I realize you can buy hamburger buns at the grocery store for, like, 79 cents. Yes, I realize that this takes far more effort and time than picking up a bag of easy, quick, cheap and adequately-tasty hamburger buns off the store shelves. But. These are worth it. Yes, store-bought hamburger buns are just fine. But why spend all of that time making the perfect burger just to eat it on a tiny, flimsy mass-produced bun? I promise that your effort will make your hamburgers taste even…
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Castello Moments: A Roundup of Recipes
Last week I shared a recipe with you, for Cheesy Potato Gratin, made with Castello’s Hirten Cheese. Many of my fellow bloggers also participated in this recipe development program, which was sponsored by Honest Cooking Magazine and Castello Cheese. After browsing their submissions, I wanted to be sure to share them all with you as well, because these seriously talented cooks came up with some fabulous recipes. Take a few minutes and check them out. Hope you find yourself as inspired as I did –…
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Pumpkin Crumb Cake
So yeah, this is another pumpkin cake. And yeah, I thought I had sworn off pumpkin recipes for at least a week or two, but as it turns out I was pretty much completely wrong. Pumpkin does that to you. It has magical powers. Did you know I met someone last week who said they didn’t like pumpkin? And I was like, “REALLY?!?!?” And they were like, well, I’ve never really tried it. And then I was like, “Oh.” And then there was an awkward…
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Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes
I’m grumpy today. I don’t really have a good reason to be, we’re leaving for a family vacation in exactly 22 hours. It’s a much-needed vacation, especially after the past several whirlwind weeks – it will be nice to just relax for a few days. Oh, did I mention that we’re road-tripping it? With two little girls? Maybe relax isn’t the right word. Today, I started making lists of all of the things I needed to do, remember and pack before we leave. The lists…
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Turtle Cupcakes
So, first things first, what do you think of the new look here at Lemon Sugar? I’ve been working tirelessly with Cory at Zesty Blog Consulting for months now, trying to make my ideas come to life. I have to say that Cory has done a great job, and I would highly recommend his work to any of you working on a blog or website. He’s patient, quick and can make just about anything happen! There are a few changes to the blog as you can…
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Cheesy Garlic Biscuits
So, I have a confession to make. I don’t care for seafood. Admittedly, I have had a bite or two off my husband’s plates over the years that didn’t make me gag, but generally speaking, I can’t do fish – cooked or raw, shell or not – it’s not happening. For this reason, growing up in the Midwest has proven to be to my advantage – I have a lot of other protein options and a good steak is far more prevalent than any seafood…
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A Spa Party & Funfetti Cupcakes
Welcome to the most disorganized party I’ve ever, ever put together. Good news is, it worked. The girls had a great time and they don’t know that I threw it all together in just a few hours. Bad news is, I knew. I could’ve done so much more with this awesome concept, but I just didn’t have the time. You may have seen my daughter’s 8th birthday party here last week, and this week, we followed up with her “friend” party. My Lindsey friend owns an…