• Almond Joy Cupcakes

    I’m pretty sure I told you in a recent post that we’ve cleaned up our eating habits in our household since the beginning of the year.  Nothing crazy, but just a renewed focus on eating healthy, real food and avoiding processed, chemical-ly food.  We don’t do diets, because we’ve learned over the years that they just don’t work. I really don’t have much trouble passing up all of the goodies that I bake anyway, a taste or two will usually suit me just fine.  But…

  • Summer Corn & Bacon Chowder

    I’m a soup person.  I love it, and I can eat it year ’round – yes, even when it’s 103 degrees outside.  (Which is good because it was PRECISELY 103 degrees outside when I made this yesterday!) There’s something about this particular recipe thought that really doesn’t feel like a soup – or a chowder – but feels lighter and screams summertime.  The combo of the fresh sweet corn with potatoes and bacon is a marriage made in heaven, so I was particularly excited to team…

  • 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…

  • No-Crack Cheesecake

    Best cheesecake ever.  It doesn’t crack.  It’s crumbly but not dry.  It has a THICK, buttery graham cracker crust. It’s the best. The end. Seriously. So. good. I don’t have a lot of words about this.  I’ve made cheesecake a number of times, but I’ve never shared my go-to recipe with you all, which frankly seems like a crime against humanity.  Or against lemon-sugarers, at least.

  • Cream Cheese Lemon Bars

    I have been eyeing* this recipe on Pinterest for a couple of months now.  I think it called to me because it reminds me of a bakery-type lemon bar, which I love.  Well, I usually love them.  I don’t like the ones that taste like egg yolk.  Have you had those before?  Ugh.  They almost give lemon bars a bad name, but if you have a really good one, you’ll forever be in search of another really good one.  Or maybe that’s just me… So,…

  • Kumquat-Orange Cardamom Bars

    Hi everyone!  Once again, I’m super-lucky to have a fantastic guest poster grace the pages of Lemon Sugar!  Everyone, meet  Samantha from The Little Ferraro Kitchen.  I’ve been following along with Samantha’s blog for quite a few months now.  I love to watch her posts on Instagram, because she never EVER fails to make me hungry!  Her recently revamped website is bright and fun to read, so I suggest you head right on over there and spend some time getting to know her!  While you are…

  • 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…

  • Easy Hot Fudge Sauce

    A lot of memories from my childhood are centered around food.  I think that’s normal for a lot of people (right?) but I’d go so far as to say that 90% of my memories contain food somehow.  Perhaps that’s because I’m the oldest of five kids, so mealtimes were always massive undertakings, but nonetheless, food conjures up a lot of nostalgia. For instance, my parents used to load all five kids into the minivan once a month for a trip to the grocery store.  We’d…

  • Hearts of Palm Street Tacos

    So, guys.  Gals.  Friends.  We need to talk. This taco is LIFE.  CHANGING. I’m not one to be overly dramatic (haha…no, seriously) about food, but holy-fried-middle-of-a-palm-tree-leaf, this is a tasty, tasty taco. Uh, yeah.  The guts of this taco are totally fried palm tree leaves.  Wikipedia says so.  Well, if we’re being technical, they’re actually the inner core of certain types of palm tree leaves, but either way, I had no idea that they were even a thing.  Especially an edible thing. PS, they’re also called…

  • American Kitchen Stories

    There’s just something magical about the kitchen.  Since following GE Appliances‘ Our American Kitchen stories, I’ve been really aware of how important the kitchen is in the American family life.  Just tonight, my extended family (all 20 of us) were jammed into my parent’s kitchen for Sunday dinner.  This morning, my girls woke me up begging for our Sunday morning waffle breakfast.  Last night, my girlfriends and I gathered in a friend’s new kitchen over appetizers and cocktails.

  • Cookie Dough Brownie Cake | www.lemon-sugar.com

    Cookie Dough Brownie Cake

    You know when you make an awesome dessert, take it to your Mom’s house for Sunday dinner, and only eat a tiny piece because you’re too full from dinner to eat more?   And then you find yourself sitting on the couch at 9pm wishing you brought a piece home with you? I’m there. I ALWAYS do that.  I’m all like, “Nah, I don’t need a big piece of cake, I’m good with one little bite.”  And then at 9pm I’m trying to figure out…

  • Spiced Cranberry Apple Butter

    Who still has cranberries left from the holidays?  Anyone besides me?  I always stock up and freeze what I’m not going to use, because I firmly believe that cranberries aren’t just a winter fruit.  It drives me crazy that you can’t find them year round, so when I see ’em, I buy ’em. Our CSA has been overly generous with our apple deliveries lately too – so much so that we haven’t been able to eat them all quickly enough.  We eat them like crazy…