That post title sounds a little loaded when you consider I just got back from a cruise and am about to go to Mexico, but try not to throw anything at me, k? Holidays can be an extra stressful for a million reasons, so I’m a firm believer in taking advantage of alone time or even just being a little selfish. Between scouring the whole mall/internet for the perfect gift, wrapping up end-of-year projects at work, and traveling alongside snot-nosed strangers on airplanes, you deserve it!  Everyone relaxes differently and treats themselves differently, but here’s how I unwound this week.  The pictures are less than stellar because I just used my cell phone and left Josh (who normally takes the photos!) at home. First, my sister came up from my...

Long time no chat! Things have been a little hectic around these parts, mainly with the amount of traveling we’ve been doing. We always take a trip around Thanksgiving (this year a cruise to St Thomas and St Maarten!), but this year it was extra long and coming right after some remodeling and a job change, so all of my motivation has been funneled into other things. I’ll get back into the swing of things a little bit, even if it’s just motivated by having a couple of posts to get to with my favorite brands, before I have a little more traveling to do. Anyone else thing traveling is incredibly exhausting even when you’re having a blast? My first motivation to get back into the kitchen after our cruise...

By posting this recipe I am entering a recipe contest sponsored by siggi’s yogurt and am eligible to win prizes associated with the contest. I was not compensated for my time. I received free product for the purposes of recipe development. This is oddly embarrassing, but I have no idea when I’m supposed to drink eggnog. Is it a Thanksgiving thing? Christmas thing? Winter solstice? No idea! All I know is that I’m obsessed and can’t resist buying a couple dozen carton or two every year. The only problem with that is the store bought stuff isn’t the best for you, but tghe homemade can take a while. And I’m always a little paranoid about eggs being cooked sufficiently. When I heard about siggis, I knew I wanted to make...

Despite the lack of Halloween recipes on here, it’s actually my favorite holiday. Getting to dress up as someone/something else and just be extra frivolous for the night with handfuls of candy is just my jam. I can barely remember my costumes from when I was little, but the last few years I’ve been making my own costumes and letting the Halloween spirit take over most of October. With everything else going on, I haven’t quite started my costume yet and it’s totally freaking me out.  Aside from cutting apart a few foam crafting balls today, I’ve actually done basically nothing but buy the supplies. I’ve been channeling all of my creative energy (well, my energy in general) into making dinner. Mostly, nothing even that impressive. The other night, I...

Cabbage soup is not something that I ever expected to crave. I remember making big batches of it in high school and eating it because it was crazy low in calories (Weight Watchers zero point soup, if you’re familiar), not because it was crazy delicious. In fact, I pretty much hated cabbage and everything to do with it. Maybe it’s because I warmed myself up to the idea with Mexican Cabbage Soup (which is delicious and made in a slow cooker — I highly recommend it!), but the strangest thing happened to me last week.  I started to crave a big bowl of cabbage-y goodness.  My new office neighbor made a big batch and was bringing some in for lunch every day, so I just kept smelling it and smelling...

Wednesday October 21st, 8:23 pm. Just saw the largest spider ever observed in recorded history. Because we have a catch-and-release policy for spiders — the spiders don’t know they’re trespassing, right? — Josh just spent a solid 15 minutes trying to wrangle it into a cup. And by cup, I mean takeout container from the Thai restaurant down the road because the spider was that freaking big. So let’s apply some spider/cookie logic. This spider is roughly cookie sized and has 8 legs to grab cookies with, so it’d probably eat 8 cookies if given the chance. All in all, I’d say we rescued 8 cookies from certain spider contamination an deserve to celebrate by eating 4 each. Does my math check out? I made these for the Recipe Redux‘s monthly theme: nuts.  Can we...