Now that the whirlwind of the holidays has ended, I am able to focus on blogging and baking once again. As the first bake of the new year, I decided to make something out of an Ina Garten cookbook. After looking over her recipe index, I decided that a fall/winter fruit dessert would be the perfect choice. So, Pear, Apple, and Cranberry Crisp!
Continue reading “First Bake of 2022!”
2021 was a great year for me — and for the blog! This year, the blog reached over 230 posts and it received over 5000 views! I can’t thank my readers enough for supporting me and stopping by. When I started blogging I heard that it does take time for you to gain your footing and find your place online. It wasn’t until recently that I started feeling like my blog was starting to take off.
As the first full year of my blogging journey comes to a close, I thought we could look back on things over the last twelve months.
Continue reading “2021 Year in Review and 2022 Plans”
As I alluded to last week, I spent a good portion of my weekend in NYC. Our first stop was Brooklyn where we spent the afternoon with two other couples playing board games, consuming yummy brunch bites, and the cookies I made for the occasion.
After that, my boyfriend and I made the trek up to the Bronx so we could see the NY Botanical Gardens Train Show and NYBG GLOW event. This is something that I never knew I wanted to do…in fact, I didn’t even know the Train Show was a thing. I’ve heard about the Gardens before, but never went. Come to find out, the Train Show is kind of a big draw for New Yorkers and those of us in the suburbs alike.
Sunday was movie day. We met up with yet another couple to watch the new West Side Story movie and I highly recommend it. The movie blew me away and I have no complaints. Afterwards, the four of us went to dinner at a restaurant near the movie theater. The food was mediocre, but the company was wonderful.
While I was driving home from the dinner, it hit me. This was the first time in nearly two years where my weekend was this busy. Everyone I had socialized with was vaccinated and boosted so we all decided we would be as safe as we could be. It was definitely nice to relive the “old times” before the modern plague. Hopefully one day, we can get back to doing this more regularly.
This week my workplace is having its annual Holiday Party. We are fortunate enough to have it catered but some of us are still bringing desserts or appetizers. Obviously, I am bringing a dessert. I decided on the original Banana Pudding recipe from the Magnolia Bakery Handbook. I realized that I haven’t made the basic version yet, just some variations on the original. Plus, this dessert is somewhat easy to make and it looks stunning when done!
Though the banana pudding does not require any true “baking,” this weekend I’ll be making and decorating sugar cookies. Pics to come!
Over the weekend, there was not much baking going on. In fact, I didn’t bake anything. However, on Sunday evening I decided to use up the egg yolks I had leftover from the failed Caramel Meringue Buttercream recipe to make lemon curd. I haven’t done anything with the curd yet. To be honest, I didn’t even taste it after it chilled.
This weekend, I will be visiting NYC with my partner. We’re stopping Brooklyn to visit some of his friends before we make the trek up to the Bronx to see the Botanical Gardens’ train show. We will be having brunch and I’ve been asked to bring some cookies for us to share. So, I’m combing through recipes on Sally’s Baking Addiction to decide what I’ll bring.
Stay tuned next week for how the weekend turned out and what cookies I decided to make!
To be honest, I can’t even remember the last time I cooked for my family on a Friday night and blogged about it. During the colder months, I was doing it pretty consistently. There was good reason: I was (slowly) making my way through Ina Garten’s recipes. As life started to return to “normal” when the warm weather came, I started doing more and was spending less time at home, thus I was cooking less.
Continue reading “Friday Night Cooking Plans”
A couple of weekends ago, my partner and I finally put an idea of ours into action. We would try our hand at making our own vanilla extract. This is something both of us wanted to do for a while, but life always caused delays to it actually happening.
We were first inspired to do this separately, getting the idea from different chefs. He is a fan of Claire Saffitz’s YouTube channel and I became obsessed with a TV chef on Discovery+ who also uses her own vanilla extract. Additionally, I first stumbled on this idea from one of Ina Garten cookbooks where she details the steps to making one’s own bottle of vanilla.
Continue reading “Kitchen Experiments: Making Vanilla Extract”
This month has been a weird one for me, blogging-wise. Shortly after beginning my foray into cooking all Ree Drummond’s recipes, I started to lose interest for some reason. I can’t really put my finger on why it happened. But, I just accepted it and kind of went with the feeling, hoping for the interest to return one day.
Continue reading “A Plan for the Future”
Last weekend was full of baking! It began with the Harvest Apple Cupcakes which were a big hit! However, the baking bug was not satiated, so I had the urge to make cookies. Plus, what else is there to do on a gloomy fall Sunday afternoon?
I knew cookies would be far less time consuming than something like cupcakes. Plus, leftovers are much easier to transport since they can be easily packaged and I wouldn’t have to worry about frosting getting messed up. So, thumbing through the MBC, I decided on the Cracked Sugar Cookies.
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery 13 – Cracked Sugar Cookies”
Sometimes you just have a strong desire to just eat “bad” food. “Bad” as in not-that-great-for-you food. Well, that hankering happened for me over the weekend. I was in the mood for macaroni and cheese. It had been months since the last time I had a good, baked mac & cheese. Luckily for me this desire also came with the ability to make another Pioneer Woman recipe. This recipe also came from my favorite cookbook of hers: Recipes From an Accidental Country Girl, her first one.
Continue reading “PW Recipe 5 – Macaroni and Cheese”
Every year my family plants a garden in the spring and in the late summer and into the early fall we reap the harvest. Tomatoes of various sizes, eggplants, peppers, zucchini, string beans, cucumbers, the list could go on. While many of our plants are very prolific (this year, especially, the cherry tomatoes), our zucchini plants this year did not do as well as usual. While we still were able to eat some home-grown summer squash, the numbers were far fewer than in years past.
One day, our fridge was overloaded with some large zucchinis, so I figured it’d be a good idea to whip up some zucchini bread. You know, kind of like April 2020 when everyone had those bananas that were beginning to turn brown and the whole world started baking banana bread.
I was a little hesitant to try Ree’s zucchini recipe. After all, I love the one that we use in our family from my grandmother. So, PW had big shoes to fill! And guess what? It did!
This recipe came together quickly and the bread baked beautifully. I also like that it makes two loaves. It was smart on Ree’s part. The first loaf didn’t last very long so it was good that we had a second one to eat through. The bread was super moist and flavorful — the addition of cinnamon really makes the flavors pop.
This is definitely a recipe I will be making again!
I have some progress pics below…
