Puffins

My little baker helping to add the chocolate chips.....

....or eat the chocolate chips!

Not sure if you've heard of "puffins" yet. They are basically a pancake baked as a muffin. Sometimes you just want a delicious muffin but don't have the mix to make it with...enter the Puffin. They are great for dunking in syrup like a pancake or just eating straight from the muffin tin! As you can see, this is also a kid approved meal. I would like to try them plain or with fruit in them instead of chocolate chips next time. 

Cherry Chocolate Cake

Looking for an easy dessert?! Look no further my friends! This cherry chocolate cake is just a few ingredients turned into a moist and delicious cake dotted throughout with delicious cherries. When I went to college my mom put a handful of my favorite recipes into a small recipe book and this was one of those recipes. This recipe is perfect for a few reasons:

Christmas 2012

NOTE: I started this post back in January and am just not getting around to posting. Can you say LAZY!!

I realize I am a bit late on getting this posted. I am going with the excuse that January is my busiest month of the year and I'm exhausted 99.8% of the time and knew this post would be a bigger undertaking. As Christmas tradition in our household goes, on Christmas day we basically put out some appetizers and just eat all day. Not a bad tradition if I may say! We typically stick to the usuals, velveeta dip, salsa/cream cheese dip, black olive dip, cold shrimp and cocktail sauce, taco dip (anyone sense this "dip" theme here), meatballs, little wienies, and our baked pumpernickel breads. This year we shook it up and made less food (boo) and different foods (yay)! Here is the lineup:

Homemade Spinach Gnocchi

The sad truth to this post is that I have no clue how to make gnocchi. This was just such a delicious dish that I HAD to show off. My brother made this yummy spinach gnocchi for us when my mom and sister came to visit. This is a spinach gnocchi with a shallot and tomato light cream sauce. DIVINE! I think the sauce was so tasty we literally took spoonfuls after all the gnocchi was gone. I'll try to wrangle up the recipe and post it on here sometime. If you are not a gnocchi fan, you need to make (or have someone make for you) homemade gnocchi, it really is delicious!! Thanks Biggies!

Roasted Veggie Wraps with Goat Cheese Spread



The players aka what's inside

 While it may still feel like winter here in Wisconsin, I know that swimsuit season is fast approaching. On April 1st I started a DietBet on DietBet.com. Basically every person that joins the DietBet game contributes $X and whoever loses 4% of their body weight in 4 weeks splits the pot. I'm about 60% of the way there and have about 10 days left. That said...I've been forced to eat healthy (and by forced I mean I'm too damn stubborn to lose even $1 in a bet)!

Reece's Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes



Don't you want to lick the screen?!

For how much I love cupcakes you'd think I'd post more pictures of them, right?! Unfotunately, I love them SO much I usually eat them before I can get a good picture. I'm pretty boring when it comes to making cupcakes. I'll make a chocolate cake (from a box) with my basic vanilla buttercream frosting. Last fall I wanted to treat some very special ladies I work with and thank them with cupcakes for all the hard work they do for me and my colleagues. I ventured out of my comfort zone and made Reece's Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes. WOWZA! These.were.awesome!!!!

Stuffed Peppers

As 2013 hit, Kurt and I decided we really want to start taking better care of ourselves. As you can see from the blog, I'm a BIG fan of comfort food (like, big big BIG fan). Unfortunately for our waistline, comfort food is not very healthy and does not aid in staying in shape. I've made a big push lately to eat healthier foods and try to use fresh ingredients.

Amped Up Goat Cheese & Asparagus Pizza

My best friend Suki lives in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in Minnesota. One glorious weekend I was able to get away, sans husband and child, and pay a visit to said BFF. It was glorious!! We went out to eat at nice restaurants, we slept in (me only until 8am of course), leisurely got ready, and even went dancing! Not to mention it was my bestie's 30th birthday!!!

Copycat Olive Garden's Pasta Fagioli Soup

This has to be my favorite soup at Olive Garden, hands down. As an avid Pinterest user, I saw this on Pinterest as a crockpot soup and knew it was going in the rotation. I was able to put everything in the crockpot before I left for work and by the time we got home, I just threw the (store bought) breadsticks in the oven and 15 minutes later we were eating a healthy and DELICIOUS meal! If you like soup and crockpot cooking, MAKE THIS!