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Dark Chocolate Shortbread Tart
Is it me, or does this just scream Valentine’s Day? It’s decadent and indulgent, a dark chocolate custard atop a buttery, shortbread crust. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough – how about the heaping mound of sweet whipped cream right on top? I’m pretty sure this is why we have Valentine’s Day. So we can eat things like this. Let’s just have another look, shall we? I’m a big fan of a standard graham cracker crust, and even a good chocolate wafer crust – but…
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Easy Lemon Bars
I wish I would have snapped a picture of the sky today so I could show you, but take my word for it – it was gray. Not like pretty-hazy-snowy-gray, it was cold-damp-dreary-icky-gray. I’m so over winter, guys. I just want it to be February already, so I can say that “at least it’s February so that means it’s almost March which means it’s almost April and then things will finally warm up.” Sigh.
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Pumpkin BTS Cake
So, I don’t really care what you call this cake. Anytime you combine pumpkin, homemade whipped cream and caramel sauce? Uh-MAZE-balls. My last BTS cake has driven almost 120,000 visitors to Lemon Sugar, and is among one of my most requested desserts in my inner circle. Inner circle? That means my family. I don’t know why I called them my inner circle. I’m clearly not Miley Cyrus. I don’t have an “inner circle.” But if I did, I would totally feed them BTS cake. If…
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Homemade Pop Tarts
Yep, I went there. I’m not sure what it was about this recipe that appealed to me so much, but I think it was probably the nostalgia of it all – I’ve been eating Pop-Tarts since I was in elementary school, mostly I think because my Dad loves them. My favorites were always the chocolate, brown sugar and other candy-bar varieties, but Dad likes the cherry and strawberry, so Dad – these are for you. If you’ve ever looked at the nutritional information on the…
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No Bake Cheesecake in a Jar
Did you know I’m on Facebook? Click {here} to follow along! There are many wonderful things to be said about living in the middle of the country. I realize that to many of you, the Midwestern Plains are regarded as little more than “fly-over” states, but I’m perfectly happy to call it home. It’s lovely – peaceful and laid back, slow-paced and friendly. I love it. Except, perhaps, when it’s over 100 degrees outside for the umpteenth day in a row, and it’s hardly rained at…
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Snickerdoodle Muffins
So, I woke up this morning and completely forgot that it was my anniversary. I called my husband after I dropped the princess diva-queen off at school, and I didn’t even say Happy Anniversary or anything. But, neither did he…so clearly he forgot too, right? Then, I’m at work and my phone notification pings and I see that he posted some really nice words about me on Facebook. Whoops. So, of course I did what any loving wife would do – I immediately reciprocated and…
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Chocolate Dipped Cannoli Cups
I don’t like to leave my house on New Year’s Eve. I like to hunker down with my family, watch TV, eat some YUM food and make a cocktail or two with my husband. The thought of venturing out and dealing with crowds just doesn’t do it for me anymore – although I’m not sure it ever did. I love to pick a bunch of one-bite appetizers and desserts for our evening, and these cannoli cups will definitely be on the list this year. They…
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White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
My family and I took a quick little road-trip this week. It’s the week before my oldest daughter starts school, so we took advantage of the gorgeous and unseasonably mild weather and hit the road. I’ll post more about our trip this weekend in my Out and About Series, but we had a really, really good time. And even better – we were only in the car for about three hours at a time! Rather than relying on fast-food or gas station snacks along…
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A Rainbow Party
Last weekend we celebrated my daughter’s and niece’s 4th birthday with a Rainbow party. They’ve been talking about it forever, pretty much since the day after their Princess Party last year. We were a bit hurried, especially after we ate dinner because the weather was supposed to get bad, and everyone kind of left in a mad rush to beat the storms. As usual, I focused the decoration for the party around my dessert table. A simple white table cloth allowed the rainbow colors to…
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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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Soft Pretzels
I am in love with these. I want to marry them and buy a house on the beach with them, and grow old with them. They are soft, buttery, salty, chewy…completely conducive to and encouraging of addictive behaviors. Don’t even try to be well-behaved and take just “one bite” of these. I made the mistake of delivering these to some low-carb dieters and let’s just say they weren’t very happy with me. But, I make no apologies for these. They are quite possibly my favorite recipe…
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Coconut Streusel Muffins
If you follow my Facebook page, you know that I had a pretty rough week last week. Among other things, my husband and I have been planning a trip to Mexico for ages to celebrate several events…his birthday, our five year wedding anniversary (18 months late, but who’s counting?) and most importantly, 20 years together. We’ve been together since we were in junior high, so this is really quite the milestone for us. Well, a VERY long story short, we were turned away at the check-in…
