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Happy Friday, everyone!  I don’t know about you, but it’s been a looooong week for me and I’m ready for the weekend.  I say long week, but it wasn’t bad.  In fact, the sweet people over at Bob’s Red Mill were kind enough to send over some products for me to try and giveaway to a lucky reader.  The next four blog posts are each going to feature one of these items and the contest will end shortly after the last post.  Though all of the recipes may not be gluten free and vegan, all of the items in the giveaway are! Enter in the Rafflecopter below, open to residents of the United States. The first item I dove into was hazelnut flour.  I’ve been obsessed with hazelnuts for a...

Last chance to enter the Theo Chocolate giveaway!  And because I like to spoil you all, there’s another giveaway coming up starting Friday.  Great way to start off the summer, right?  My favorite part about summer (and pretty much any other time of year) is the seasonal foods.  Top of my list?  Strawberry shortcake!  It’s so fresh and tasty – the quality of summer strawberries really shines through! Josh and I rarely have heated debates, but we definitely get into a yelling match whenever I make strawberry shortcake.  In his mind, strawberry shortcake should be served over angel food cake.  I always thought that was the less-good, cheater version and other than loving each component, I hate the combination.  My favorite way is a slightly dry biscuit with extra, extra...

For as lazy my last weekend was, this one was 3 times as busy.  Between my friend’s bridal shower (and preparing for the bridal shower) and another friend’s going away party the same day, I never got to sit down on Saturday, after staying up late on Friday night.  Everything was a lot of fun, but all day Sunday I just wanted to bond with my couch and cuddle my cats. Remember how I’m a terrible impulse shopper.  While I was buying a million pounds of sprinkles, I also just had to buy an ice pop mold.  I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I had to have it.  After I finished inhaling my coconut curry Theo chocolate bar (Giving some away here!), I...

First off, if you missed Wednesday’s post, be sure to go back and enter to win some seriously delicious chocolate!  We’re quickly approaching the time of year when I get too lazy/hot to cook.  Okay, maybe there are times year round when I’m too lazy to cook, but when it gets warm I can’t be bothered to do much of anything.  Enter the slow cooker.  I’m sure everyone is aware of the amazing powers of the slow cooker, so I won’t try to sell you on it.  Just throw everything in and come back later for a tasty dinner. I find it hard to define a #1 favorite food, so I’ll just say that tacos are always in the top three.  One of my mantras is “Always say yes to...

I hope everyone had a safe long weekend, especially now that we’re coming into summer.  My weekend was extra long and extra happy – mostly because when I got home from work on Thursday I had a package waiting for me!  Getting something other than bills in the mail is incredibly exciting.  Getting a box of chocolate in the mail is extra exciting.  The good people over at Theo Chocolate  sent me an assortment to try out and one lucky blog reader will get some of their own in this week’s giveaway! I took a tour of their factory last summer (excuse the quality of the photo, this was taken on a cell phone) and fell in love with their chocolate.  You get to see the whole process and sample...

The first long weekend of the summer season is upon us!  I took today off to make my weekend a little extra long.  One of the best things about summer? Corn on the cob.  I love to eat it boiled, grilled, oven roasted, pretty much any way I can get it.  It’s been raining like crazy, so grilled was out of the question.  Humidity = enormous hair, so I didn’t want to boil a bit pot of water while it was already raining.  I decided oven roasting was my best bet.  Once I had the corn in the oven, I had to figure out what I wanted to do with it. After I made couscous last week, it’s been all I want to make for dinner.  It just cooks so...

If you put lemon in something, I immediately want to eat it.  It’s a character flaw, and I’m working on it. Just kidding, I would never ever try to remove anything lemon from my life.  Lemon bars, lemon pies, lemon cookies – I love them all.  In fact, I keep a large stash of lemons in my kitchen so I’m never deprived of those sour beauties. Speaking of character flaws, I’m the worst kind of impulse buyer.  I try my best to never go into stores alone, but unfortunately, last week I went into a craft store alone and somehow ended up in the baking section.  After so much debate and rationalization, I bought a huge tub of sprinkles, among other things.  Once I got home, I took one look...

Growing up, I was always excited for brunches because it meant my mom would make “egg stuff”.  I didn’t know it at the time (okay, or until about a year ago) that this stuff had a name, strata.  It’s layers of cheesy, eggy goodness, day old bread and my mom even covered it all in butter.  I’ve made it a couple times, but I’m always striving to make it a little healthier. Eggs are something I don’t buy often.  I use them very infrequently and it’s hard for me to use a full dozen before they go bad.  They’re easy enough to swap out of most recipes, so I don’t miss them unless I’m craving actual eggs.  A woman I work with (hi, Tina!) surprised me with some eggs from...

Woah.  Those banana bread cookies from Wednesday?  They’ve gotten more views faster than anything else I’ve posted.  Glad to know what you guys like!  If you missed that recipe, go check it out.  I’ll wait… Back now? Good.  I’ve noticed that my posts have gotten a little sweet heavy lately.  Two kinds of cookies in the last two weeks, muffins, apple pie egg rolls – do you guys even think I eat real food?  It doesn’t look like it. Sometimes, I DO forget to eat real food.  And then I discover piles of veggies in my fridge that need to be used now.  And then I find food in my pantry that I don’t remember buying.  Given all the pantry challenges I’ve seen lately, I’m definitely not alone with this...

I’ve clearly been making a lot of cookies lately.  I made my whole grain chocolate chip cookies a couple dozen times over the last two weeks plus some cookies for my mom for Mother’s day… and apparently I wasn’t done just yet.  When I got home from work and saw some extra brown bananas, I started craving banana bread pretty hard.  My loaf pan was dirty (not even sure how, I haven’t used that thing in a while!) but I already had mashed up the bananas at that point, so I decided to change course and make some extra soft, cakey cookies. Oh yes  Very cakey cookies.  These cookies are so so so soft.  Pillows of cakey goodness.  (Sorry, I think I’m a little obsessed with the texture!) Like drops...