Kids can bake, too! 10-year-old Eden shares her experience baking and decorating these indulgently delightful Devil's Food Cupcakes from scratch!
Hi! I'm Eden, and I am so excited to share a post with you! I am ten years old, and second oldest of my three siblings. Ever since I started reading Cupcake Diaries (my new favorite book series) by Coco Simon, I feel like I've been bitten by the baking bug. Mostly I've wanted to bake cupcakes.
[Read more...]
Hello, hello! I hope you all had a great Fourth of July weekend! I tell ya, we were exhausted Thursday evening! Celebrating our country is serious business!
I'm not sure what happened last week, but I didn't do any cooking, except for Tuesday night when I made breakfast for dinner...well, technically, Grace made breakfast for dinner. It's nice to have a teen who enjoys cooking, let me tell you that!
We finally got the landscaping barked over the weekend and it was so nice because the kids helped while Ruby napped and then Josh and I went out on our date night and enjoyed Happy Hour at Manzana (for you local peeps) and let me just tell you that the Citrus Honey BBQ Chicken Wings are so good, as is the Santa Fe Cornbread. Let me put it this way...I didn't want to share with Josh!
Chicken wings are one thing we want to experiment with making more of, yum! [Read more...]
This post originally appeared on Catz in October of 2014. To be honest, we made it in the fall, which meant that by the time the spring came around, we'd kind of forgotten about it! Chels remembered it a couple of weeks ago, and put it on the Weekly Menu. These buffalo chicken burgers are so good! I grilled the burgers and she made the blue cheese mayo (and, of course, we reshot the pictures). So, so good! Make them...and then put them into permanent rotation on your own summer menu! Also, a side note from the last paragraph of this post - being a bit more judicious about how long the patties were on the grill and especially where they were on the grill allowed me not to dry them out as much - and they got a nice glazed crust on them as well!
I have referred in the past to my obsession with all things Weber. It's a relatively recent one, born of my decision to return my recently purchased gas grill in favor of a traditional Weber kettle and the accompanying accessories. At any rate, one of the things Weber does for their "members," is send out weekly recipes to try on the grill. Generally, they look absolutely fantastic, and I've stashed away about thirty of them that I want to try. Our grilling season is pretty short here in the Pacific Northwest, but I did manage to sneak this one in at the end of September when the weather still allowed for it!
[Read more...]
Happy first week of July and week of celebration of American independence! I'm so excited for this week. While I'm not the biggest fireworks person (I know, there is something wrong with me - but they are always so loud!), I do love the excuse to eat good backyard bbq'd food, enjoy a day off, and now after reading Washington (Affiliate), I appreciate the meaning of this holiday so so much more now that I better understand the history behind it.
We finally had a Sunday at home without plans in the afternoon or evening and it was amazing what we were able to get done in a few hours while Ruby napped. The lawns got mowed, all the weeds in the front and backyard got pulled (now we really need to bark), we cleaned and pressure washed the front porch, and I got five loads of laundry done - not to mention the kids were bathed and we had bruschetta for dinner. While not entirely relaxing, it felt good to just be home and tackle some of the things that were getting a bit out of control around the house. [Read more...]
Busy family? This One Pan Spanish Rice Bake is for you. Other than the produce, it's a pantry meal, and it also comes together in a single pot!
Isn't it funny how you think when school is finally over for the year, you're going to have so much more time on your hands? Not true. I'm still trying to figure out how to stretch the day out so I can get as much done as possible. Which is ironic because I am actually very organized! I swear! I've got a plan for each day and a list that I cross off as I accomplish things, but this week, I'm running behind and I don't even know how it happened.
Maybe you're in the same boat as I am. I wake up at 5:30 every morning Monday - Friday so I have time to read and study the Bible and pray before I begin my "work day" (if you will). I always aim to get as much "blog related" stuff done as I can before the kids wake up so that I can spend the rest of the day with them and getting chores done and still have time to workout, make dinner, and if I'm lucky, read. I'll be honest, the reading is usually the last thing I'm able to fit into my day before I turn my light out...and it's not even every night. 
[Read more...]
Is the 4th of July really next week? Josh and I had to run into the store briefly today and pick up some steak for the Steak Street Tacos we were going to make for dinner and as we were pulling out of the parking lot, we saw a big tent setup on the grass...and we were puzzled as to why there was this big empty tent just sitting there. Then it dawned on us that it was for fireworks.
Every year it sneaks up on us. [Read more...]
Make it with fresh berries or frozen - either way, this blueberry coffee cake is an easy, slightly indulgent way to start any morning!
Josh's job has recently had a shift which is requiring him to travel at least once a week and for how long he's gone for varies depending on the needs of his clients. While it sucks to have him gone, I'm determined to make the most of it and I've been using dinner time as a chance to do a lot of recipe testing.
So, during dinner time we're playing with recipes. Grace is currently working on a macaroni and cheese recipe to share and I've been working on a bunch of new recipes for dinner, dessert, and I've got some seasonal ideas, too. One of the recipes I worked on while Josh was out of town a few weeks back was the Oven Baked Fried Chicken - and we love it if you haven't made it yet!
[Read more...]
I hope everyone had a nice weekend and Father's Day. We had beautiful weather over the weekend and while we were relatively busy, we still made an effort to slow down and relax. We even got in a short cat nap on Sunday, which was appreciated and needed!
Have I told you what the kids and I have been up to the last few weeks since school is out for summer? I'm choosing one big chore a week to tackle with them. The first week, we spent the afternoon cleaning and straightening out the garage (IT IS SO MUCH BETTER NOW!). Last week, the kids each took a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to all the door trims/doors and wiped them down. I don't do that nearly as often as I should, but it got done so much faster with all of us working together vs. just myself doing it. And this week, we're going to weed the front yard so we can get it ready to spread bark!
I'm even contemplating asking Josh to clean out my car over the weekend, but have the kids help him because the inside of my car is so messy and dirty...and to me, it makes sense to have them involved in cleaning it up since they helped create the mess and I drive them to ALL THE PLACES. I think it would be a nice way of serving the family - and I am actively looking for more ways for them to do that! [Read more...]
These delish easy chicken enchiladas originally appeared on Catz in Feb 2014. Well, maybe even earlier than that, but we'll never know! At any rate, we've been making them, in various guises, since our first year of marriage...which was in 2003! They've been rephotographed and the recipe has been tweaked, but they remain easy, yummy, and they never go out of style. Try 'em!
Annnoother Mexican dish for Mardi Gras! Ha! #sorrynotsorry. Maybe next year when Mardi Gras rolls around I'll surprise you with some creole cuisine. Until then, this is what ya get baby, so enjoy!
Actually, I'm really glad I fixed these enchiladas this week because seriously, I've got some mouth issues going on right now. I think my TMJ and wisdom teeth are out to get me because every time I open my mouth, pain. Every yawn, pain. I'm having to cut up my food into itty bitty tiny bites so that they aren't too big for me to eat. Yes, I'm saying I take big bites. Don't judge - you know you take extra big bites too when food is really good. 
[Read more...]
Summer is here, & cobbler goes hand in hand with summer memories! Try this berries & thyme cobbler recipe for a slightly earthier take on the classic!
You know how food can be tied to memories? Cobbler is one of those foods for me.
In the late July and August summer, my mom and I would take a short walk down the street from where we lived to where the wild blackberries grew on our country road. Armed with a couple of buckets or bowls and wearing clothes we didn't mind getting blackberry juice on, we set to work picking as many berries as we could so my mom could make cobbler. We'd then freeze the rest for later months when she would inevitably make us a surprise cobbler!
