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Black Forest Pound Cake
You know what a grown-up dessert is, don’t you? My desserts get that label simply when my kids won’t eat them – usually because they aren’t sweet enough, or they have nuts or unfamiliar ingredients. (Or booze, but that’s captain obvious, right?) This one is a grown-up dessert. The chocolate is dark, it’s rich but light, and the sweetness comes from the whipped cream and cherry sauce. My kids did the “we’re gonna act like we like this so we don’t hurt your feelings” face…
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Out and About: Road Trip to Omaha
This past week was a fun one for my little family. We opted for a stay-cation this year, and spent the week pretty close to home. We took our girls to Worlds of Fun, our local amusement park one day, spent a day lounging around and doing not much of anything, and then spent a couple of days road-tripping it. Destination: Omaha. Omaha is just about a 3-hour drive from our home near Kansas City, so it really made an ideal, quick road trip. Since…
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Maple Bacon Biscuits
I like to tell people that I don’t really like bacon. If we’re being honest thought, that’s really only half true. I DO like bacon, but I do NOT like chewy, gummy bacon. I like it verrrrrrry crispy. Otherwise, forget it. Know what else I like? Biscuits. So, you know -might was well combine them, right? Because then, you can put a nice fried egg and some cheese in the middle of it, and you’ll die and go to crispy bacon heaven. Every Sunday, we…
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Chocolate Sundae Cupcakes
I made these cupcakes for my daughter’s 5th birthday party. It was one of those family gatherings in the middle of the afternoon, not knowing how many were coming and how hungry my guests would be…and of course I over-did it. I did try a number of new recipes for the event and had some good success, so I will post them as I can! These are chocolate cupcakes with vanilla swiss buttercream frosting. I’d never had swiss buttercream before, but I’m so glad I tried…
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Fall Roundup
My head is literally swimming with pumpkin and apple recipes. I actually made a list of all of the fall baking I wanted to get up on Lemon Sugar before autumn slips away, and it’s kind of ridiculous. There are 42 items. How in the world will I ever narrow that down? I won’t. You all are going to gain 75 pounds before Thanksgiving. I apologize. Really. It’s funny, because I keep rationalizing to myself that pumpkin is a healthy baking alternative, so these recipes aren’t…
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Rigatoni with Creamy Marsala Sauce
I know, it’s surprising. Another pasta dish! This is a new one for us, but it sounded good tonight and we had all of the ingredients so we decided to try it out. This pasta is actually called “Rigatoni di Gregorio” but since I changed it a little, I’m not sure that it really qualifies as such anymore. We grilled the chicken instead of pan-frying it, and I added green olives in lieu of parsley, mostly because my girls won’t eat “green stuff” on their…
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Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes
You guys, what a week. What an up and down, crazy, emotional week. A week later, my heart is still raw and aching from the events in Newtown. Then, in a nearby town, two police officers lost their lives in the line of duty. And I sat at home, watching it all, with my young daughters (one of which is a 1st grader), and my police-officer husband. And I cried. A lot.
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Homemade Marshmallow Peeps
You’ve had Peeps candies, right? Is there anyone out there who hasn’t? I used to absolutely despise them when I was a kid. My mom loved them,so it was without fail that we always had a package or two (or five) in our Easter baskets – to me, they had a funky food-coloring taste and were always a little too squishy. Blech. But then, at some point, we (my siblings and I) discovered two things. One, that stale Peeps are way better than fresh Peeps. They get…
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Sour Cream Chocolate Cupcakes
For those of you who have followed this blog for any time at all, you know that I have a pretty snobby aversion to boxed cake mix and pretty much any and all convenience food. That’s not to say that I don’t still have my favorites (Rotel dip, Dean’s French Onion Dip, store-bought Hawaiian bread, etc.) but generally speaking I’m of the opinion that anything you can make from scratch is not only better for you, but it almost always tastes better. Way better. Once…
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Sausage & Egg Breakfast Casserole
The list of things I’ve heard approximately nine billion times today includes: “I’m bored. I’m hungry. Can we have hot chocolate now? Can we go outside yet? Where’s Daddy? Can we put our princess stickers on our wall yet? Can I go to Jordan’s house tomorrow? Can I have a treat? Will you paint my fingernails? Where are my tap shoes?” Welcome to my snow day. We got about ten inches of snow today, which means my boss was kind enough to allow us to…
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Loaded Baked Potato Dip
I am so happy that life has settled down a little bit, and that I finally have more time to spend in the kitchen. April, May and June this year were just insane. My niece was born, my brother got married, May was a blur of holidays, birthdays, graduations and my blog redesign, and June found me camped out at the ballfields and gymnastics studio almost every night of the week. I had some serious blogging and baking withdrawal happening! Since we were on the…
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Spicy Black Bean Veggie Burgers
I’m pretty sure I’m driving everyone in my life crazy right now. I’ve been on a meatless, vegetarian diet-kick for several weeks. I have my reasons, and I really don’t know where this new lifestyle will lead me. I’m not even sure if it is a lifestyle yet. Maybe it’s just a phase.
