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Sweet Cherry Salsa
There are some things on this planet that were just meant to be together. Peanut butter and jelly. Wasabi and soy sauce. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Sweet cherry salsa and salty tortilla chips. Sweet. Cherry. Salsa. It’s sweet. It makes me happy. And with salty, crispy tortilla chips? Holy cow you guys. This recipe came my way via my lovely sister-in-law. She’s like, the queen of dips. And parties. She throws the best family parties and she makes the best dips. AND, she actually…
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Chocolate Covered Strawberry Ice Cream
So, relevant but irrelevant: last week I cleaned out my refrigerator. Like, REALLY cleaned it out. I took everything out, scrubbed it, sanitized it, threw away, organized, and made everything pretty and bright. In my cleaning frenzy, I uncovered four pounds of strawberries that we purchased the weekend before at the Farmer’s Market. The strawberries were clinging to life, on the edge of questionable, so I chopped them up and was racking my brain for strawberry recipes. I made a strawberry cake (that recipe is…
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Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes & A Bridal Shower
Last weekend my sisters and I hosted a bridal shower for my soon-to-be sister-in-law, Abbey. Since it was a late afternoon, Sunday shower with impending bad weather, we kept the menu light and desserts simple. The theme was “From Miss to Mrs” and it turned out to be an adorable celebration!
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Salted Caramel Apple Slab Pie
You guys, I’m coming up on my four-year blogging anniversary. It was four years ago that I was planning my daughter’s fifth birthday party and had only just discovered food blogs myself. Pinterest wasn’t really even a thing then. Neither was Instagram. In fact, it wasn’t until I was a year in to this whole blogging thing that I even had a Facebook page for Lemon Sugar, and now we’re going strong with over 28,000 friends. Love. It. To commemorate the big day, I’ve…
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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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Mickey Mouse Party
My little nephew turned one year old yesterday. He’s just the cutest, cuddliest, happiest kid ever. He’s the result of my {Lemon Drop Cupcakes} from a year ago, the first time we experimented with the secret lemon-juice-theory recipe. Who knows if it worked, or if this little guy was just ready to come into the world, but I can’t imagine my life without my favorite bald-headed monster. My sister hosted a big Mickey Mouse party and we all had a great time. I thought you…
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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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Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Chocolate. Strawberry. Swiss Meringue Buttercream. Heaven. Have you ever had Swiss Meringue Buttercream? It’s amazeballs. It’s silky, buttery and not too sweet. This particular frosting tastes like strawberry ice cream. I’m telling you, it’s fabulous. Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC) starts with eggwhites and sugar heated on the stovetop, and then whipped into a stiff meringue before adding butter and flavoring. It has a reputation for being difficult and finicky, but really I’ve never had any trouble with it. Once you add the butter to the…
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Double Chocolate Cupcakes
This year, Halloween snuck up on me. One minute it was my birthday and mid-September, the next minute I realized I had less than a week to come up with costumes for the girls. I had the best intentions this year, too – I was going to make them both really cute tulle-ghost costumes, order white leotards and buy white tights – it was going to be adorable. Instead, I recycled a bumblebee costume for my youngest and bought my oldest a tacky, chintzy mermaid-princess…
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Cinnamon Rolls
Ahhh…cinnamon rolls. I’m not sure that there’s anything better than a really good cinnamon roll, but in my opinion a good one is really hard to find, and a good recipe is even harder to find. My biggest problem with most cinnamon roll recipes is that the bread part of the roll is usually bland, and the only cinnamon flavor you get comes from the filling itself. This recipe, however, has cinnamon in the dough itself, so the bread is flavorful too. But, if I’m…
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Tiny Chocolate Tortes
Ok, so I have a confession to make. While cleaning up after hosting brunch this morning for Mother’s Day, I may have picked up one of these babies with my bare hands, plopped a big helping of fresh whipped cream on top and shoved almost the whole thing in my mouth. It took less than ten seconds, but it was undoubtedly ten of the best seconds of my life. These are fantastic. You should probably drop everything you’re doing and go make these, right now.…
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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…