Avocado Chicken Salad

Avocado Chicken Salad in a romaine lettuce wrap

Today my son turns 1 year old and I'm sitting here with so many mixed emotions. Proud of the little boy he is becoming, nostalgic to the moment he was born, sad that my last baby is growing up, and so happy that he has made my family feel so complete and filled my heart with more love than I thought was possible. 

BBQ Pulled Pork

Lip smackin' good y'all!

I don't know about you but I'm always looking for a good crockpot recipe. Honestly, sometimes I hardly have time to eat much less think about what to make for dinner. And in the summer when I'd rather be playing with my family outside, the last thing I really want to do is come inside to cook all night. I mean, I live in Wisconsin...I have to take advantage of summer when I can!!

Roasted Red Pepper Alfredo Pasta

Creamy. Delicious. Flavorful.

My friend Chelsea and I were having a girls night and we wanted to cook a fun dinner along with the fun butters we were making (she was making an apple bourbon butter and I made a pumpkin butter, both wonderful). Chelsea, an avid foodie and amazing cook herself, found this recipe and wanted to try it. So we went shopping together, bought all the ingredients, pulled out canning supplies out, and spent the whole afternoon/evening in the kitchen among good food and wine! Don't you just love nights like that?!

Warm Toasted Marshmallow S'mores Bars

Total. S'MORGASM!!

Since it has only been forever and a day since I last posted anything, I'd like to explain. I'm pregnant! Pregnancy works well for the eating portion of this blog however it does not work well for the writing and cooking portion. Pregnancy has made me exhausted and by the time dinner comes around the only thing I feel like making is a bowl of cereal. Now that I'm 25 weeks along I have more energy to cook however I'm usually not very hungry with the nasty heartburn I have (doesn't pregnancy sound like so much fun?!).

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!!!!