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No Bake Peanut Butter Cheesecake
As the minutes start to dwindle on my four-day holiday weekend, I have to admit that I’m not ready quite yet to get back into the swing of things. Tomorrow it’s back to work, the girls start two-nights-a-week dance class, and suddenly the first signs of fall are all around us. Now, don’t get me wrong – I love fall, but I don’t love winter. Fall is a bit of a double-edged sword. Love it, but dread it because cold weather is right around the…
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Homemade Ricotta Cheese
My youngest brother is getting married in the spring. In preparation for the Groom’s family duties, my Mom, sisters and I are beginning the process of scoping out locations for their rehearsal dinner. Last night, while pouring over menus, venues and prices, I came across my favorite Italian restaurant, Lidia’s. I love that place. Everything is made from scratch with fresh ingredients – from their bread to their pasta to their marinara and ricotta cheese…and that’s exactly the reason their food tastes so much better.…
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Easy (Like, Really Easy) Cheese Danish
I’ve made exactly eleventy-bazillion things in the past couple of weeks that my darling children absolutely refuse to eat. Now, some of the dishes – Coconut Curry Lentils over Jasmin Rice, and Bruschetta with Avocado and Garlic Tomato Salsa, and even a couple of new varieties of Hummus – ok, I can understand those might be a little much for their young taste palates. But seriously, if I have to make one more peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a dinner time alternative, I might…
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Chocolate & Coconut Cream Cupcakes
My days as a morning person are numbered. Every year about this time, when the overnight temperature starts to drop and it’s still dark in the morning when I get out of bed – that’s about the time I that stop jumping up eager to face the day. My girls are the same way, it seems. My mornings are slowly shifting from wide-eyed, happy, smiling little girls to grumpy, piddling, sleepy-heads who have to be prodded along every step of the way. By the time we…
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Funfetti Cake Batter Fudge
Shhh… Do you hear that? Silence. It’s 9pm on a Friday night, my girls are in bed, my husband is at work and I am watching the season finale of Revenge for the bazillionth time. I made myself a big glass of sweet tea, grabbed my favorite fuzzy afghan and set up camp on my couch. I’m not baking like a crazy person, I’m not making lists of last-minute things I need to do for an upcoming event, and I’m not even stressing about my…
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Share-It Saturday: Week 5
Is it just me or did that week fly by? I guess it was a short week with the holiday on Monday, but even still I feel like I was just sorting through last week’s Share-It Saturday submissions – which, by the way were fantastic! As always it was difficult to choose my favorites, and this week, the sweet treats won. With fall right around the corner, I was immediately drawn to the Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts from What’s Cooking In The Burbs. Have you…
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Milk & Cookies Cupcakes
Let me tell you a little bit about my weekends. First of all, my husband works on the weekends. While his shift varies, he’s usually out of the house most of the day on Saturdays and Sundays. This means that all housework, discipline, errands and social events are all on me. And, that’s totally fine, it’s what I signed up for and I’m perfectly ok with it. We make it work, and most weekends are full of more fun activities than chores, anyway. But occasionally,…
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Pink Velvet Cupcakes
This is my second attempt at pink velvet cupcakes. The first was bad, so very bad. I don’t understand, because that particular recipe gets rave reviews everywhere, but to me it tasted like a blueberry muffin, sans blueberries. It was just kind of blah. They were like little, pink, blueberry-less muffins. Kind of sad little things. So after going back to the drawing board and searching for an ingredient list with more flavors, I settled on this one from a Taste of Home cookbook. I…
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Pico de Gallo
Happy Cinco de Mayo! Since the hubs and I are in serious diet mode right now in preparation for our upcoming trip to MEXICO, we won’t be getting celebrating with food this year. We’ll save our margaritas and guacamole for our trip, but I still wanted to share one of my favorite Cinco de Mayo recipes with you today. This recipe makes me happy. For one, it’s healthy. (Ok, it’s healthy if you eat it with a spoon. Dipping a whole bag of chips in it…
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Honey & Vanilla Bean Cupcakes
Whoa. Hello there, ginormous picture! I’m trying something a bit different. I had this thought occur to me a few days ago that maybe my photos were too small for the design of my blog. And then, I became a bit obsessive about it, and couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I made them bigger. Quite a lot bigger, actually. And now they look enormous and I don’t know if I like it. So, I’m going to live with it for a few days and…
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Tuna & Noodles from Scratch
So, I don’t eat seafood. I’ve tried. I’ve really, really tried. There are a few swimming-things that I’ve taste-tested over the years that I didn’t absolutely detest, but I’d never order them for myself. Well, maybe, possibly a crab cake. But honestly, I’ll only eat it if my husband orders it – if it’s up to me, I can always find a more appetizing appetizer on the menu. I have done everything I can to ensure that my girls don’t have the same aversions to…
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Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
It’s official. Pumpkin season is here. I’m ready. I always try to hold off on the fall flavors until after my birthday, which is just a few days away, but I couldn’t help it. The time has come and now I’m all about autumn. I’ve actually made these muffins a few times before but never blogged them, but I couldn’t hold out on you anymore. These. Are. Fabulous. The muffins are the perfect blend of cinnamon and nutmeg, the pumpkin puree keeps them super-moist, and…
