I love the holiday season in general. I told Dustin the best part of marrying him is that I get to celebrate Christmas AND Hanukkah! In celebration of Hanukkah, I busted out my menorah and dreidel cookie cutters from Crate and Barrel to create some special cut out cookies for The Festival of Lights! These aren't the traditional sugar cookies...

I present to you the next installment of my holiday baking adventure... chocolate peppermint whoopie pies! My second attempt at making whoopie pies was much better than my first, that's for sure. I'm not sure where I went wrong last time because my batters looked quite similar (perhaps this time my usage of butter and shortening instead of all...

I love a good soup and sandwich combo. Tomato and grilled cheese is one of my favorites, but tomato soup is best left for when juicy, ripe tomatoes are in season. Instead, I made one of my favorite soups, butternut squash soup, which I thought would pair nicely with a cheddar and havarti panini. It did! I loved dipping my sandwich into my bowl...

In the fall and winter, I eat oatmeal almost everyday for lunch when I am by myself. It's healthy, quick to make, and warms me up on chilly days. I can also customize it in dozens of ways, so it's never quite the same, and I get to add a little bit of sugar or stevia, so my natural sweet tooth is satiated. However, lately my favorite version of...

Dustin and I don't post very many salad recipes. Occasionally, I'll have a really creative idea for a salad, but most of the time when we eat them, they are just a side dish to something more exciting. The one exception throughout our history together has been Caesar salad. Along with chicken tacos, chicken Caesar Salad was a weekly staple for...

After a year plus of dinner ideas where I literally had menus planned out a month in advance, I've hit a bit of a mental block. I think my mind has become fixated on all of the desserts I want to make. Desserts are one area where I will never run out of ideas. In fact, I could probably currently plan for an entire year's worth of desserts from...

I am planning on eating as much gingerbread as humanly possible this December— for breakfast, lunch, and dessert. Dustin would probably kill me if I served him something gingerbread for dinner! I love the flavor of gingerbread in waffles and pancakes, and have very fond memories of some delicious gingerbread pancakes from Kerbey Lane in...

French onion dip is one of those things you usually buy prepackaged for parties and get togethers, but the homemade version is so much better tasting and better for your heart. You can spend a good while standing over the stove caramelizing onions and shallots on the stove. Or you can roast them as we did when inspired by this recipe from Bon...

For my first holiday treat of the season, I knew I wanted to incorporate the flavor of ginger. It's not gingerbread time quite yet, so I sought out a recipe for gingersnaps. Soft gingersnaps because that's how I best like my cookies, and my taste testers will just have to learn to eat all of their cookies the way I want them. Not that anyone's...

Now that it's December, it is officially the holiday season! I'm not one of those people that like seeing Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving, but by the start of December, I am ready for gingerbread, peppermint, and eggnog! Both my Aunt Kathleen and my mom really like to decorate for the holiday, so I guess it's in my genes. As my...