Cookies, Dessert, Holidays, Snacks, Sweet, Winter

pistachio snowball cookies

One thing I always associate with Christmas is almond extract. More specifically, almond extract flavoring some old fashioned spritz cookies that my mom would make with her awesomely vintage cookie press. Have you ever seen one of these things? They’re pretty rad. Of course you can buy newer, less sturdy options, but my mom’s was the real deal with all metal parts. It belonged to my grandma when my mom was just a little kid in St. Louis.

Every Christmas season, my mom would grab the cookie press from its ragged cardboard box and she and my sisters and I would make red and green spritz cookies flavored with almond extract. Even if we halved the batch, it’d still make what seemed like a mountain of cookies! We’d be snacking on green Christmas trees and red (well, pink) wreaths well into the new year.

While those spritz cookies hold a nostalgic place in my heart, I think it’s high time I graduated to a more sophisticated sort of Christmas cookie. Enter the pistachio snowball cookie!

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AmandaDecember 14, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Candy, Cookies, Dessert, Holidays, Snacks, Sweet, Winter

crunchy little peppermint meringues

What do you think of when you think of Christmas time? I think of my mom’s homemade cranberry bread, twinkly little lights around the windows, Mickey’s Christmas Carol on TV, and Nat King Cole singing “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”.

I also think of all things peppermint. There’s no better time of the year to break out the peppermint extract! Any other time of year, and you’ll just look like a weirdo. Since it’s December, you’re safe for the time being.

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AmandaDecember 11, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Candy, Dessert, Holidays, Snacks, Sweet, Winter

minty chocolate puppy chow

I think it was during a classroom Christmas party in the 3rd grade, that I first ate puppy chow.

No, not that kind of puppy chow! I mean the kind usually made with Chex cereal, chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar!

Its a really tasty snack that only seems to pop up around Christmas time, and when I first heard of it as a wee little kid, I was ultimately confused. I thought that this kid in my class had actually brought in dog food to share with the class. Silly me!

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AmandaDecember 7, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Dessert, Fall, Sweet

s’mores creme brulee

I love s’mores. You might remember those little s’mores bars? They were impossible to stop eating.

This s’mores creme brulee was pretty much as good as those s’mores bars. It’s amazing! I made a version of this about 7 or 8 years ago and I always wanted to revisit it.

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AmandaNovember 30, 2013September 17, 2015Leave a comment

Dessert, Fall, Fruit, Snacks, Sweet, Winter

caramel pears

Pears are better than apples.

There, I said it. I’ve never been a huge fan of apples, they always smell better than they taste, to me. I do enjoy a few varieties that I’ll snack on if the rare mood strikes (Pink Lady, Honeycrisp), but I’d rather eat a pear than an apple, any day of the week. That’s why I decided to create a new cool-weather staple: enter the caramel-dipped pear!

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AmandaNovember 23, 2013September 13, 20152 Comments

Dinner, Fall, Holidays, Lunch, Main Dish, Savory, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Winter

perfect pumpkin lasagna

Let’s talk a little bit about pumpkin, shall we?

Pumpkin is good. It’s good in pie, it’s good in savory dishes, it’s good in soups, it’s even good in coffee as Starbucks would have you believe. Carving pumpkins is awesome, too.

How about pumpkin in lasagna? No, that’s not a typo. “But wait,” you say, “lasagna is supposed to have meat and tomatoes and lots of cheese! How can you fit pumpkin into all that?” Well, dear reader, I encourage you to branch out from your usual ideas of lasagna, cause this stuff is damn good.

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AmandaNovember 9, 2013September 13, 20153 Comments

Uncategorized

bring back the ‘stache!

As you lovely readers know, my dad Rick was diagnosed with stage 3 testicular cancer back in July of this year. Almost two weeks ago, he underwent an RPLND surgery to remove the remnants of the cancerous lymph nodes and tumors in his abdomen after completing three rounds of chemo. It’s currently No-Shave November and my dad is on the road to recovery, and growing … Continue reading bring back the ‘stache!

AmandaNovember 3, 2013January 1, 2015Leave a comment

Breakfast, Fall, Sweet, Winter

pumpkin pie oatmeal with cranberry crunch

The arrival of cool fall weather means a few different things to me. One, it means an end to the dreadfully hot Phoenix summers, and two, it means that I can once again eat things like hot oatmeal for breakfast without sweating over the bowl!

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AmandaOctober 26, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Dinner, Fall, Holidays, Main Dish, Meat, Vegetables

jack-o-lantern stuffed peppers

Isn’t Halloween one of the best parts of being a kid? It’s like that old Seinfeld bit, “What is this? What did you say? What did you say about giving out candy? Who’s giving out candy? Everyone that we know is just giving out candy?!”

Going trick-or-treating as a kid was one of my favorite times of the year. My mom would help me and my sisters touch up our costumes after wearing them at school all day, and when the sun started to go down, we’d pile into our neighbor Eric’s mom’s van and go through our neighborhoods in search of glorious, free candy! Armed with plastic pumpkin buckets and green glow sticks around our necks, we’d get out of the van every so often and get candy from a few streets worth of houses before getting back in and repeating it down the next few streets. You dress up, and people give you free candy. What a time to be alive!

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AmandaOctober 19, 2013September 13, 2015Leave a comment

Breads, Dinner, Lunch, Main Dish, Savory, Sides, Snacks, Vegetables

olive focaccia with tomatoes + onion

If there’s one thing I haven’t truly mastered in the kitchen, it’s homemade bread. I just haven’t made all that much of it. I can hold my own with pizza dough and no-knead bread, and I did make some damn good challah once, but that’s sort of the extent of my bread-making experience.