FROM LAWRENCE, WITH LOVE

Don’t these look just divine?  When I first saw these in the new Simply Sweet Cookbook from The Pampered Chef, I was immediately drawn to them and began to reminisce about my days as a Girl Scout.  We consumed many, many S’Mores in our day and usually, someone’s marshmallow would become a flaming ball of molten sugar as some point.  Some people liked them extra crispy, but I preferred to have mine just barely golden brown and melty.  That makes a perfect S’More in my opinion.

Just the thought of these made my mouth water.  How could you go wrong combining Oreos and cheesecake?  These were awesome little bites of goodness, I just wish they were a little less time consuming to make.  You have to break apart all of the tiny Oreos and place them in the mini muffin tin without letting them fall over.  After all that work, I just wanted some cheesecake and they definitely satisfied that craving. I made these for my Open House as well and they were a hit

These were like the ultimate strawberry shortcakes. I love that the bottom of the cupcakes have a pretzel crust and that there is sour cream in the batter for the cupcakes. The pretzel cruse adds just a slight bit of saltiness to the sweetness of the cupcake and filling. I also love that the recipe utilizes strawberry ice cream topping. These were pretty awesome and I had lots of good reviews. I will definitely be making them again. You can find the recipe HERE. #cupcake

This is the other recipe I made for the Weight Watchers Open House on February 27th.  These were amazing!  They’re not as pretty as they were originally because I fell and dropped them in the parking lot on the way home, but they still look alright. The cream is made from strawberry low fat yogurt and Cool Whip.  Awesome! For the recipe, go HERE. #berries #cream #dessert

Josh was reading an article in the New York Times about a month ago about this county in Alabama where the women make this amazing cake that has 12+ layers to it.  He sent me the article and told me that I should think about making it for an upcoming function.  By that time I’d already decided what I was going to take to all the family Christmas celebrations, but I didn’t have any plans for New Years, so I decided that was as good a time as any.  We didn’t have big plans for

We had several Christmas celebrations with family this year.  Our first stop, on December 19th was my cousin and her husband’s house in Mission.  Here’s the dessert spread: Grandma ordered a couple of pies from the Brandon Woods (Retirement Complex she lives in) bakery.  This one is a raisin pie.  I’ve never seen so many raisins crammed into one pie in my life.  It was super sweet – almost too much, if that’s possible. The other pie she ordered was blueberry and it was very g

Now that I’m finally caught up with vacation posts, it’s time to move on to the holidays.  This was my favorite dessert from the holidays.  Josh’s cousin even called it the best dessert she’s ever had.  I would have to think about it for a bit, but I think she’s right.  This thing was AMAZING!  It doesn’t look super-impressive in these photos because I didn’t take any photos after we cut into it, but take my word for it.  You’re missing out if you don’t go make this RIGHT NOW

Oh wow!  You have no idea how good these were!!!  This is the first Pampered Chef recipe that I tried before my first cooking show and they were a hit.  I wanted to be sure that I didn’t run into any problems with the recipe before I had to make it in front of a bunch of people and it turned out perfectly.  Josh and I each sampled it and then I took the entire rest of the batch to Bryan and Umut.  We can’t have this sort of thing in the house or it will all be gone before we

These were another batch of cookies that I made for the same package to send to Iraq, and like the chocolate peanut butter cookies, they came back in crumbles.  Before I packaged them though, they were awesome!  Of course, I don’t have the recipe to share, but I would imagine that a quick Google of "Lemon Sugar Cookies" would turn up any number of good recipes for you. #cookies #dessert #lemon

These are some cookies that I made to send to one of my best friends, who just happens to be stationed in Iraq right now.  He’s coming home (to Denver) in a couple of weeks for 2 weeks of R&R, and will then be returning to Iraq for another 5 months of duty.  He’ll be coming back to the United States just in time for my wedding in May and I’m excited that he will be able to be there. Unfortunately, these cookies never made it to him.  Apparently, the USPS decided that my packa

This beauty was the cake that I made this year for my mom’s birthday.  Making it is very easy and it had fewer calories than the traditional way to make a boxed cake.  I used a can of diet lemon-lime soda instead of what the box tells you to use then baked it according to the directions on the box. For the frosting, I used a tub of Fat Free Whipped Topping (think Cool Whip) and a package of sugar-free strawberry jello mix.  I added a layer of frosting and strawberries in betw

I was pleasantly surprised last week when the wonderful people at POM contacted me to see if I might be interested in trying their awesome Pomegranate juice and blogging about what I thought about it.  This is the first time someone has contacted me to get my feedback on a product and I was so excited to receive a full case of these bottles a couple of days later.  Let me tell you, they’re not messing around when they want you to try their product.  I’ve tried POM before, but

This was great.  I only wish it had been a little bit easier, then people would be able to enjoy it coming from my kitchen more often.  Unfortunately, this recipe is reduced to fit 6-inch pans, and I don’t know about you, but I definitely didn’t have any 6-inch pans.  Fortunately, Michael’s Arts & Crafts store here in Lawrence has every kind of pan imaginable, so they were my saving grace (since no other store in Lawrence carries 6-inch cake pans).  I made this cake for Umut’

This cake is heavenly.  Seriously, I had people tell me that it’s the best cake that they’ve ever had and I can’t say that I disagree with them.  It was incredible. I originally got the recipe from the Whole Foods website while I was looking for organic recipes to make for an Earth Day party that Bryan and Umut had the weekend after Earth Day.  I had wanted to find a recipe that I could use local ingredients for, but since it’s still very early in the growing season here in K

The next stop on our food radar was the Doughnut Plant.  I had been waiting to try this place for months and the day had finally arrived.  Unfortunately, the weather on Day 2 was pretty miserable, but we braved the Subways, rain and cold and arrived at the Doughnut Plant a little wet, but ready for some doughnutty goodness.  We have seen several shows highlighting the Doughnut Plant on the Food Network and Travel Channel and have wanted to try their amazing doughnuts for quit

Ingredients 2 boxes white cake mix 24 oz of clear diet soda (2 cans, ginger ale and sprite work well) gel food coloring 16 oz whipped topping 2 oz instant fat-free sugar-free pudding mix (2 smallish boxes) Preparation Mix the cake mix with the soda according to regular instructions on box. It will be lumpy afterward. Again, you can use any white cake recipe you want, this is just how I do it. Measure the total volume (by my estimate, 64 oz), then divide by 6 an