Holiday

Blackberry Champagne Margarita

So it’s been kind of a crazy week. I think I spent maybe 16 hours in my office — the rest of the time I was either running around attending different sessions at a conference or learning how to take control of my career as an empowered female lawyer. It was all very cool, and I learned a ton, but man…I’m tired. Thank God it’s Friday. Dan and I have been on green-thumb kick lately, so I was really looking forward to coming home today and getting elbow deep in soil and green things. The balcony looks a little worse for the wear now, but I successfully re-potted the lemon tree and the big (nameless) tree on the left. I even planted a...

Happy Easter, everyone! This is going to be a super short post because I’m supposed to hide Easter eggs for my friend Emily in a little bit and I’m running kind of late. Sundays are not conducive for getting things done. So, why am I playing the Easter Bunny for Emily? Because she has awesome parents who send her candy and cash-filled eggs every year and ask her friends to hide them around her apartment for a fun, grown-up Easter egg hunt. They send her one egg for every year she’s been alive, and pack a little bag of treats for the Easter Bunny too. Isn’t that the greatest tradition ever? (Laying around like this all morning is why I’ve gotten nothing done…) Anyway,...

You know, I had big plans for my Valentine’s Day post. I was going to poach lobster tails for dinner and make Mini Red Velvet Trifles for dessert. Sounds delicious right? Yeah…problem was, I couldn’t find cake flour at the grocery store, and by the time dinner rolled around I was feeling too lazy and sluggish to poach anything. I did attempt to make a batch of Red Wine Truffles, but those were a complete failure. The alcohol in the chocolate batter made it almost impossible for the mixture to chill/firm up, so I ended up with a tray of ugly, sticky, vaguely spherical blobs that tasted great but were so not camera-ready. Sigh. In a fit of desperation, I ripped open a pack...

Hi guys! Hope everyone had a fun and food-filled Christmas. Mine was pretty awesome. Dan and I went up to Massachusetts to spend the holidays with his family and between the two back-to-back holiday parties, the generalized excitement over our engagement, the many many bottles of wine, the mountains of presents, and the groaning tables loaded down with delicious food, it was pretty much impossible not to have a fantastic time. Speaking of groaning tables…Dan’s family really knows how to cook! I’ve enjoyed his mom’s cooking many times before, but never on such a grand scale. We ate so well — honey BBQ wings, stuffed mushrooms, racks of lamb, baked halibut, broccoli & cheese, green beans, perfectly cooked prime rib, roasted potatoes, Christmas cookies, truffles,...

I think I am one of the few people in America who doesn’t like popcorn. But honestly, no matter how much butter and salt you put on the stuff, it still tastes like styrofoam. Styrofoam that gets stuck in your teeth and turns your mouth into a salt lick. Yuck. I’ll tell you what I can’t get enough of though — caramel corn. Caramel makes everything taste good, and it transforms boring, styrofoam-y popcorn into sweet, crunchy kernels of awesomeness that no one can resist. I dare you to try eating just a few pieces — betcha can’t do it! Caramel corn is seriously addicting. I’m making a huge batch for my parents’ Christmas party this year, and I have a feeling the guests...

On the 10th day of Christmas, I ran out of eggs. I had planned to make gingerbread whoopie pies and/or egg nog cupcakes, but the no-egg situation proved devastating to my plans. Luckily a quick Google search revealed a number of fun egg-free dessert ideas, including a few eggless mug cakes. So, I quickly scrapped my original plans, cobbled together a few different recipes, and came up with something delicious, easy, and totally egg-free: Gingerbread Mug Cake. It’s kind of mind-blowing, but from start to finish this cake took only 5 minutes to cook, and all I needed was a mug, some basic ingredients, and a microwave. And before you say that nothing delicious can possibly be produced with such ease, let me assure...

On the 9th day of Christmas…our friends Amy and Brad invited us over for a holiday/cookie-decorating party. They throw the best parties with the most delicious and deceptively lethal cocktails, so there was no way that Dan and I were going to miss out on this one! Plus, they asked me to make the cookies for decorating, so…just call me Tina the Cookie Elf. I was originally supposed to make sugar cookies and gingerbread men for the party, but between truffle-making and oil-infusing, I didn’t have time to start baking until Saturday morning. And, the problem with both sugar cookies and gingerbread men is that you’ve got to chill the dough and then roll it out over and over again so that you can individually...

I’m really excited about Christmas this year. We’re going up to see Dan’s family again, which is always fun, but even more exciting — the cousins are doing a Kris Kringle gift swap! The only other time I’ve been part of a gift swap/Secret Santa exchange was freshman year of college, and I remember it being a lot of fun. There’s something really exhilarating about sneaking around behind someone’s back, gathering data and trying to figure out what they want for Christmas… The only problem with being Secret Santa for Dan’s cousins is that I don’t know all of them that well. Over the years I’ve tended to have more interactions with some than others – nothing personal, just a timing/geography thing. And, wouldn’t you know...

When I was a kid, the holidays were all about “receiving” — gifts from my parents, gifts from my relatives, gifts from Santa…Nothing made me happier than seeing the stack of presents under our Christmas tree get bigger with each wave of guests that came by. Ah, childhood…Luckily, as I’ve gotten older and started having money of my own to buy stuff, I’ve discovered the joys of giving. Because I love shopping, I’m usually a big fan of store-bought gifts. But lately I’ve started to warm up to the idea of homemade presents. They’re a great cost-saving measure for anyone who’s in a tight spot financially, they’re thoughtful and personal, and they’re usually at least partially re-usable and eco-friendly. I’m not craftsy enough to...

For this month’s Improv Cooking Challenge, the two key ingredients are egg nog and cranberries. I was planning to make egg nog cupcakes with a cranberry-based buttercream, but…I ran out of sugar. I know. A good food blogger never runs out of staples like sugar/butter/flour, but somehow it happened. And it was tragic. But, while I didn’t have sugar, I did have eggs, milk, cream, spices, rum, and a whole lot of cranberries. So I decided to just throw creativity to the wind and just make good ol’ fashioned, rummy egg nog. To stay within the guidelines of the challenge, I infused my rum with cranberries, blended the rum-soaked berries into a boozy puree, and added both to my ‘nog. It was delicious. The first...

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Holiday

Blackberry Champagne Margarita

Carrot Cake Whoopie Pies

Raspberry Cream Cake…and a Giveaway!

Kahlua Cake Trifles

Caramel Corn

Gingerbread Mug Cake (Egg-less)

Christmas Sugar Cookies

DIY Infused Olive Oils

Oreo Truffles

Cranberry Egg Nog

Blogs I Love

Cool Sites