Happy Cyber Monday and week after Thanksgiving and official kick off to the Christmas season! I hope you all had a wonderful and delicious Thanksgiving Day with family and friends. I hope you were able to score some Black Friday deals and I hope that today's sales are fruitful for you if that's your jam.

I personally have no idea what I'm shopping for, so there's that! 😆

We're officially in the Christmas month (which for me starts as soon as Thanksgiving is over, not on December 1...) and get ready because we're going to be sharing holiday recipes all month long. Some of my favorite winter recipes will be showing up in this week's menu...and I'm excited because I've been waiting to cook them!

Here's what's cooking this week:

Happy mid-month of November...less than two weeks until Thanksgiving. What? How?! Are you getting prepared for it? Not I! Haha! We're hosting this year and I haven't thought about the menu at all, except that I think I am going to make this tart from Sally's Baking Addiction. Grace has a friend who will be staying with us for Thanksgiving (who is gluten-free) and this tart looks perfect!

I've got lots of family favorites this week on the menu. The kids are all about comfort food since the weather changed. What's your favorite comfort food? I naturally always gravitate towards tacos or pasta, like fettuccine Alfredo.

Here's what's cooking this week!

Happy last week AND first week of November! Officially in the holiday countdown as of Wednesday. Are you ready...because I AM NOT! But the weather, the stores, and the tv ads remind me that we are. This week we're taking the week off from school and I've been busy at home with tasks that desperately need my attention. 6-7 weeks of school and one week off. It's a good break for everyone, but I am reminded that those hours when I typically school easily get filled with something else. Funny how life does that.

Whether we're ready for it or not, the holidays are coming. How can we prepare our hearts for this beautiful season that so quickly gets overbooked and leaves us feeling anything but relaxed? Josh and I have been making time to read in the evenings. We also like to go to YouTube and put on one of those jazz cafe scenes where your screen turns into a coffee shop and you have relaxing music with a lovely scene. It really does seem to help quiet our souls in the evenings.

Here's what's on the menu this week:

I don't know if this was the case for you, but last week was...my mind is spinning. I can't even tell you what happened last week, but I can tell you what I made, because I was in the kitchen A LOT! I made sourdough bread, and then got really brave and made sourdough bagels - which were really good! I made my grandma's apple crisp, our bran muffins, and our granola. Yes, I was in the kitchen a lot and by the time Friday rolled around I was very much ready for a break! 😆

But new week and new recipes! Last week, we thought about how to make our home a haven, a safe place for our families. With all the world events that can shake our families, we want our homes to be a place that is consistent and loving. I love how food can help make home feel like a warm, comforting place.

This week, let's think about how food can be a gateway to conversations with our families. While chopping vegetables for dinner, let's invite our kids to do homework at the kitchen counter, or invite them to sit on the couch with some cinnamon sugar toast and tea. Chocolate and a glass of wine with your spouse after the kids go to bed?? It's funny the kind of conversations that you can have with the ones you love around the simple pleasures of food - not just eating food, but preparing it, too.

Here's what's on the menu this week!

Last week, I tried to write the weekly menu, but with the terrorist attacks in Israel, it was hard to focus on anything else. Writing a post, any post, last week felt trivial in the midst of the hour by hour news that was coming in over the weekend, so I focused on other things. I showed up for my kids, of course, but everything else was challenging. If you follow me on Instagram then you may have seen the stories shared.

This week - focus is still challenging. My grief and prayers are centered on the victims of the attacks in Israel and their families. A week in, the interviews and stories coming out of the region are heartbreaking (and occasionally inspiring). However, as a wife and mother (and a food blogger), I have an obligation to be a light in my home and in my community, and there is precious little I can do to directly assist at this point. We all have to eat, and the process of taking ingredients and cooking or baking something up in our homes can not only be therapeutic (there was some time spent baking this week!), but also be a source of comfort to our own loved ones. There's a reason the phrase "comfort food" exists and saying "the kitchen is the heart of the home" is so inviting.

This week, I invite you to make your home a haven for your family. That doesn't have to mean fancy meals or desserts. It could literally be opening up a box of funfetti cake mix and baking a cake with your kids. Or having a good smelling candle going while you read to your kids. Or enjoying a really delightful PB&J sandwich on the floor of your living room for a picnic dinner. (Why is PB&J so good anyway?)

Here's what's on the menu this week: