Food
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Strawberry Lemon Bundt Cake
Lemon is one of my favorite flavors in desserts. Cakes, cookies, pies…I do not discriminate when it comes to lemon. When added with other fresh flavors such as strawberry or mint, it’s a flavor explosion. I knew I wanted to have these flavors for our Easter dinner dessert. When it comes to baking anything lemon, creating the lemon flavoring can be achieved in several ways. First fresh lemon juice and lemon zest is a quick and easy way. If lemons are in short supply or expensive, lemon extract or lemon oil can also be used for the full lemon flavor. To really pack the lemon flavor punch, combine lemon juice…
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Hostess Cup ‘Sheet’ Cake
Do you remember when Hostess went bankrupt and no one could get their tasty, completely unhealthy pastries? I.WAS.DEVASTATED! Hostess Cupcakes are my absolute favorite quick pastry. I knew I had to find those flavors in a homemade DIY edition…thus the Hostess Cup ‘Sheet’ Cake was born. This was out of laziness as well as desperation. While it is fun to eat a cupcake, I wasn’t about to make a bunch of cupcakes that required filling. I just cannot make those types of commitments to food. I knew I could easily add the same flavors to a sheet cake. Devil’s food cake, marshmallow flavored filling, chocolate ganache on top…these were my…
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Easiest Sticky Rice
Sticky rice is something that I could eat all day long! It’s also something that typically takes a day or two to perfect. Who has time, or the mental capacity to make rice the day before? I don’t! Well, if you are like me, then you will need this recipe in your life. When boiling any type of grain you typically use the 1:2 ratio. This works for white rice, brown rice, multigrain rice, quinoa, couscous…The 1:2 ration means that for every serving of grain you are going to boil, you need to add in double that in liquid. For example, if you are cooking 1 cup of rice then…
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Easy Instapot Scalloped Potatoes
I spent my high school years living in Western Idaho. While Idaho is the land of potatoes, I did not see my first potato field until my freshman year of college. A majority of the potato fields are in Southeastern Idaho. Still, my love of potatoes (in all forms) began LONG before I lived in the potato state…and to this day, French Fries are still at the top of my potato loving list. When potatoes and cheese are combined, though…that is a match made in heaven. So when I made scalloped potatoes a few weekends ago, my boys couldn’t get enough or stop thanking me for making them. While this…
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Soft Molasses Cookies
Molasses cookies are more popular in my little family than chocolate chip cookies. While I do have a couple of kiddos who are chocolate lovers, molasses cookies are definitely loved by all. The spices and flavors bring me to a younger time and back into my mom’s kitchen. My kid brother insisted we call them Gopher Bottom Cookies instead because molasses has a swear word in it. Then my dad would tell a dad joke that went something like this… A family moles were out for a walk and they came upon a hole. One went in to check it out, then another, and another. The last mole came out…
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Easy Monkey Bread
I’ve been told quite often, ‘I wish I could make cinnamon rolls, but I am too intimidated to try.’ The answer to that anxiety is monkey bread. If you have never heard of monkey bread, then let me tell you all about this tasty goodness. Monkey bread does not have bananas, or any other type of foods monkeys typically consume. It is called monkey bread because to eat it you pull it apart and it is so easy even a monkey could do it. It has all of the flavors of cinnamon rolls with a fraction of the prep or time. This is also a recipe that has only 5…
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Mexican Hot Chocolate Cake Pops
My absolute favorite hot chocolate flavor is Mexican Hot Chocolate. The juxtaposition of the chocolate with the cinnamon and a tiny bit of heat with cayenne pepper. Because of my not-so-secret love affair with these flavor combinations, I just knew I had to create a cake pop that paid homage to the tasty hot drink. Also…I somehow ended up with 50 million boxes of Red Hots in my pantry. Neither Matthew or I know exactly how I ended up with SO.MANY.BOXES of Red Hots. So when I was figuring out the details of these cake pops, I knew topping them with smashed Red Hots would provide the perfect heat for…
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Banana Walnut Bread
Bananas are a food that doesn’t last terribly long in this house. They are consumed quickly, on average we go through 3 bunches of bananas a week. It’s like I never feed these boys. With this social distancing going on, I may have stocked up on bananas more than usual, so this week I had enough to make a couple of loaves of banana walnut bread. There are many versions of banana bread, some use pecans, others add in chocolate chips. This good o’le version is definitely my favorite. While pecans are tasty, I prefer walnuts. I think this recipe is my favorite because it is relatively lactose-free with no…
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Almond Joy Chia Pudding
If my husband could replace me with an Almond Joy candy bar, I’m fairly certain he would. The combination of chocolate, coconut, and almond is just his jam. When I created the PB Chocolate Chia Pudding a while ago I knew I would have to figure out an Almond Joy version. I know the PB Chocolate version was a huge hit and tastes WAY more decadent than it actually is. So is this one, it ticks all of the tasty boxes and also is low in fat, carbs, and sugar. This is definitely a healthier, just as tasty alternative to the candy bar. Do you have a go-to chia pudding…
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Strawberry Freezer Jam-3 Ways
Growing up, my parents were big into canning, and my sister caught the bug. Me though, I don’t can. I purchase cans, and I gladly take jars of canned goods offered from my parents, but canning…NOPE. Freezer jam, on the other hand, is well…my jam. I love freezer jam, strawberry my being my favorite, just triple berry is great as well. This recipe will work for both. In the past, I made freezer jam with sugar, but I wanted to figure out how to make it healthier. In my attempts, I was able to create 3 variations, one with honey, one with agave nectar, and one with Swerve sweetener. Each…
