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Thumb Print Cookies
One holiday baked good I remember my mom making often was the thumb print cookie. She would vary in the jam flavors from year to year, but the dough and technique was always the same. Whenever I make thumb print cookies, I always think of the first time my mom taught me how to make them. I was not an easy child to convince to learn the art of cooking and baking. I just wanted to eat the food, I didn’t want to put forth the work. Little did I know how much I would later enjoy the culinary arts. This year I knew I needed to recreate the thumb…
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Hot Cocoa Dip
With all of the baking, sometimes I just want to make something that requires less than 5 ingredients and doesn’t take any baking at all. With all of the holiday parties, it can become tiring having to provide a treat to share. This dip was developed out of desperation and tiredness of baking. Sometimes the best ideas come from desperation. This dip doesn’t need to be limited to the holidays, and for that matter, it is a tasty treat to have year round. It can be served with graham crackers, Nilla Wafers, but personally I think it is most tasty with fruit. Strawberries, blackberries, and apple slices are some of…
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Valentine’s Berry and Chocolate Shortbread
I know I’ve mentioned before that I have a few roommates (aka: children) who aren’t too keen on chocolate. So when I was trying to come up with a list of tasty Valentine’s desserts, I decided I would need to throw some in that contain berries. This is one such recipe. The best part about this recipe is that you can change it to your heart’s desire. You can use strawberry, raspberry, blueberry jam, or even orange marmalade. My family is mostly partial to strawberry and raspberry jams. If you decide to use orange marmalade, white chocolate chips would be amazing with it instead of semi-sweet chocolate chips. What is…
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Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
Being the mother to 4 boys, we go through bananas like the apocalypse is tomorrow. It is a rare occasion when we have overly ripe bananas that I can use to create banana bread or muffins. Goob especially loves bananas, having one for breakfast has become a ritual for him. His whole day is thrown off if he doesn’t start with a banana. By some miracle, last week I had 3 overly ripe bananas I needed to do something with. I also had some sour cream that needed to be used up. I remembered that sour cream in other baked goods causes the texture to be fluffy and light. That…
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Raspberry Sweet Rolls
I’ve been playing around with variations of my Better Than Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls. I know, why fix it if it isn’t broken…but sometimes a girl wants something different. This last week I decided to try my hand at making a raspberry filling. This filling was full of flavor and a nice fall addition to the cinnamon roll family. Do you have an amazing cinnamon roll variation? I am toying with the idea of doing a Nutella sweet roll next. Do you have any suggestions? Hope y’all are having an amazing day.
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Autumn Fruit Salsa
One of my favorite past-times is visiting my grandparent’s strawberry farm/orchard in Oregon and helping eat pick strawberries, cherries, apricots and all things yummy and sweet. For a long, while I refused to eat strawberries that had been washed, I would only eat dirty strawberries right off the bush. My love of fruit has been passed along to my children, so keeping it around long enough to actually do something with it, other than consuming it, is rather rare. BUT…every once in a while, I am able to throw together what I like to call fruit salsa. My favorite is the ripe fruit around this time of year, peaches, apricots,…
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Easy Homemade Smoothie Bowls
A recent food trend has been acai bowls or smoothie bowls. They are super yummy and filling. Most often they are also packed with vitamins and minerals and very heart-healthy. The place that is close to my house is one of my most favorite places to treat myself to…but, one bowl is $9 and for that much, I can make my whole family their own smoothie bowls at home. While it is super convenient to have someone else make one for you, I do enjoy creating them at home where I can control the ingredients. The key to smoothie bowls is to make sure the thickness of the puree is…
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Mango Pineapple Salsa Fresco
Mr. Man would do just about anything for fresh pineapple. If I have a fresh pineapple and need it for a recipe, I have to chop it up and prepare it before he knows what I’ve done. Otherwise, it disappears faster than a fart in a fan factory. So when I decided to refine my pineapple mango salsa recipe, I had to do it while he was at work. Don’t worry, I shared the end results with him…and he loved it. I loved it…no, cooking, a lot of chopping. AND…it’s heart healthy, dairy-free, gluten-free, paleo, whole 30, vegetarian…you name it…well except keto. This recipe is definitely now in our regular…
