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!

Apple Crisp

Sorry that it's not a great picture, we dug in before I could snap a good shot!

There are SO many things that I love about fall. The leaves turn beautiful colors, it's jeans and t-shirt weather, my birthday is in the fall, and APPLES GALORE!! As much as I love apples, I've never made an apple crisp before. I was having my brothers over for a casual dinner and wanted a yummy dessert to leave them with. As you know, I'm all for simple so I thought I'd try an apple crisp for the first time.

Biggies' Penne a la Vodka

This pasta is freaking YUM! My lil brother Biggies introduced it to me and Kurt probably 4 years ago. At the time he was planning on becoming a chef so we'd invite him to dinner, buy the groceries he needed, and he'd make us a delicious meal (all while completely destroying my kitchen with dirty dishes!!)! Pretty good deal if you ask me. The first time my brother made this he just did the pasta itself and made an unbelievable pork tenderloin to go with it. Since Kurt and I live on a bit of a budget we usually add chicken to the dish instead. Now, as many times as I've tried to replicate my brother's dish, it just never tastes as good as his does. I can only chalk that up to the fact that he probably left an ingredient out so that I've got to keep inviting him over for dinner! 

Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti

If you haven't been hiding under a rock you've heard of Pinterest, aka heroin for adult women! This recipe has circulated Pinterest once or twice and every time I see it come through I'd think, that looks SO good! Finally I had a night where I knew I wanted a pasta dish (wait, isn't that every night?!) however I didn't feel like the same old thing and that is when I remembered this gem. I had all the ingredients, as you probably do too, and whipped it up with the help of my sous chef, Riglee.