Livin' the Dream in Lima

It might seem like I always cook beautifully delicious meals and desserts for my Business Man... that he must be the luckiest man in the world to live in this household. (Well, he is, but not due to the food. He's lucky because he gets to live with me!) The beauty of writing a blog is that I get to choose  what goes on the blog. So what if I only choose to post the recipes that are deliciously successful? So, I thought I'd go back through the pictures & recipes that  didn't  make it on the blog this year... at least we can all have a good laugh? First up is a peanut butter-caramel corn ... for which I had high hopes. I was in charge of bringing snacks to Bible study that night, and thought that peanut butter-caramel corn would be just perfect. Until the peanut butter-caramel mixture got all crunchy and wouldn't spread over the popcorn. Huge clumps of peanut butter amidst random popcorn pieces. Gross. I was lucky we had a brownie mix in the cabinet. ...

We are officially back in the Bean Town and I am soaking up these last few days of break before heading back to school next week. Today I had the luxury of an early morning run with a friend followed by a mid-morning nap (while said friend had to go off to work... bwahaha.) I spent the morning on the couch with my Today Show friends while attempting to write lesson plans... which is not the most efficient way to write lesson plans, but much more fun. I actually surprised my Business Man and got some housework done this afternoon - clean sheets on our bed and the guest bed, clean dishes, and a reorganization of some kitchen cabinets. Progress! And now I bring to you a recipe for hummus. Hummus is a delicious dip made up of ground chickpeas, tahini (sesame seed paste), garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and other spices. Hummus is yummus! And yes, I'm a dork. This recipe serves a double purpose. First of all, it's a fabulous appetizer that would be perfect served at a Ne...

Christmas 2011 was an absolute blast! We celebrated four  Christmases in less than 24 hours...  let's just say I was a bit tired last night. Christmas Eve was celebrated at my grandma's house with all the cousins, Christmas morning with my parents, Christmas lunch with my Business Man's immediate family, then Christmas evening with my Business Man's extended family. Lots of family, lots of food, lots of fun.  Funny story of the day :  We were opening stockings with my mom & dad. (Yes, we are 23 & 24 and still receive stockings. From both sets of parents. Don't judge.)  My dad was opening his stocking, and Santa had given him a bottle of Monical's Sweet & Tart dressing. Sweet, right? Except it seemed to be leaking everywhere. He opened the lid to check the seal, but the seal didn't look like it had been punctured. However, there was still dressing seeping out the edges. (I bet you can see where this is going.) One of the best sal...

We arrived home just in time for dinner last night... so good to see our families! And the Monical's pizza was delicious as always. My mom & I decided to tackle some baking today in preparation for Christmas. (What else is new? :-P) You'd think fifteen types of cookies would be enough. Nope, not for us. We decided on a Red Velvet Cake Roll to take to my grandma's tonight for dessert, and a couple coffee cakes for the morning. And this Creme de Menthe Cake which is a Christmas tradition. I've never made a cake roll before, so I was looking forward to a new experience. It was actually quite simple! (As long as you follow the directions.) The cake part is a red velvet sponge cake. The eggs are beaten for a good 5 minutes until they're light and fluffy; then the rest of the ingredients are added. The cake is baked in a jelly roll pan that has been greased, lined with wax paper, greased again, and flour. You don't want the cake to stick. That wo...

Ahhh.... Christmas break has begun. How wonderful.  I took advantage of the break to get in a long run this morning. (I am most likely going to run another full this spring, so I'm trying to keep my base pretty strong.) One of my running friends needed to get in 20 this weekend (she's running Disney!), and I agreed to run 14-15 miles with her. Except we wouldn't be in town this weekend, so that meant we had to do it today . And she had to work at 8:30am.  14.5 miles in, thank you very much. Haven't run that far since last  spring! So yes, I got up at 5:15am on Christmas break to get a run in. It's not that crazy considering she had to wake up at 4:00am to get the first five miles in! Yikes! We had a great run... I might actually be looking forward to my marathon training long runs now that I have people to run them with! In other news, the past couple days have been such a whirlwind! We've been very busy with a few holiday parties, last-minute gift...

This past weekend, one of my good friends from college, Kristi, came down to the Bean Town with her daughter Cora. We hadn't seen each other in 10 (!) months, so it was a wonderful  weekend of catching up and hanging out. Back in college we always used to bake and/or cook together, so naturally we had to spend some time in the kitchen together. Hello, cookies! On Saturday, we had a Bake-a-palooza to make cookies for cookie tins & trays... and ended up making 15 varieties. Over 700 cookies! It was intense. So intense that we had to compile a plan. We made a variety of cookies from this year's 12 Days of Christmas Cookies and last year's 25 Days of Christmas Cookies. Yum. Funny story :  I actually wrote this list out on Thursday night... and then took it to school with me on Friday. And then I left it at school and almost freaked out. But then I remembered that I had taken a picture of it, so it was fine. Haha ! Once we had everything baked, we...

So, last Saturday I ran a Jingle Bell Run 5km.  Despite my nagging cold, and despite the 17*F temps. Oh yeah... it was a great day for a race. (Never mind that my feet were entirely  numb the entire  race. Pleasant.) Originally, I had high hopes of breaking 19:00 for this race, but with my cold, I kinda put that on the back-burner. Plus, it was a super small race - only 168 people, and I wasn't sure how accurate the course was. (Does anybody else get paranoid about accurate courses? I'm always paranoid they're not really long enough so if I PR it won't count!) It was the strangest race... because of my cold and the cold temps, I felt very out of it. I was in a daze of sorts. The horn went off, and the race began, and I just started running, fast. It felt fast, but not that fast.  I couldn't judge my effort very well because it was so cold! It was just a strange feeling, running and not being able to feel your feet at all.  I went through the suppos...

It's the final day of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookie Challenge, and I'm going out with a bang!  Ever since moving to the 'Buckeye' state, my love for all things chocolate and peanut butter has only increased. Case in point: Butterfinger cupcakes , peanut blossoms , Reese's cupcakes , homemade Take Five bars , peanut butter cup cake pops , puppy chow cookies . I knew these cookies would be no exception, considering they start out with a a pile of these: Heaven on a plate. This cookie starts with a chocolate-peanut butter dough, and is loaded with chopped peanut butter cups. Perfectly chocolatey and perfectly peanut buttery, these cookies are almost over-the-top. Key word: almost .  They also come together really quickly! I think I had the batch made from start to finish in less than 45 minutes. A perfect last minute treat, as long as you keep a stock of Reese's cups in your pantry. (And who doesn't?) In other (exciting) news... I was feat...

I'll admit it, I've never really loved sugar cookies. Take me to a bakery case full of cookies, and I'll always go for the chocolate. Every time. However, fancy schmancy sugar cookies with royal icing have always intrigued me. "How do they get that icing so perfect?" I was determined to try it myself. I did some research online, and found a great tutorial at Annie's Eats. If you're going to try it, you should definitely check out her site; she explains a lot of little tips & tricks that will help you succeed. But really? It wasn't that hard! It just takes a lot of patience. And kind of a lot of dishes. (But just find someone like my Business Man, who cleaned up after me all night. Best husband ever.) First, you start out with the sugar cookies. (Duh.) And these are delicious. Usually I don't love sugar cookies because they're too plain, too bland. These have just a hint of almond flavoring and a wonderful texture. Once...