What’s not classy? Showing someone your c-section scar over Facetime.

What’s classy? THESE toasties. They are so delicious and would be great to serve at a shower or brunch or…ANYTIME.

Ingredients:

• block of softened cream cheese
• package of dry Italian seasoning mix
• 1/2 C mayo
• 1 cucumber, sliced  (see? it’s healthy!)
• 1 french baguette cut into rounds
• dried dill (or fresh if you roll that way)

*You could serve these on crackers instead of french bread.

Instructions:

1. Mix cream cheese, seasoning, and mayo.
2. Spread onto rounds of baguette.
3. Top with cucumber slices.
4. Adorn with dill and you’re DONE.

*claps hands*

Hubs and I are still doing the “Salad Challenge”, a New Year’s resolution he made a few years ago to get more good-for-you-stuff into our bodies. We’ve been keeping it up because frankly, it works for us. But for a few long weeks in my first trimester, I could barely stomach anything – especially a spinach salad. BLECH. Oh the guilt I felt that I stopped eating spinach when my growing baby needed it most…so I switched to spinach smoothies. Seriously, just try it. You’ll be surprised at what a treat it is!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 frozen banana, sliced
• 1/2 c yogurt (any type really – we like Chobani)
• a big wad of spinach
• just a little milk or juice to thin it out and make it easier to blend

**You can add-lib, anything really goes and the measurements are far from exact. Try with soy milk or add frozen berries (it might turn the smoothie an unappealing color, but it’ll still taste awesome!).

**This is a great way to use up those past-prime bananas too. I just slice them up and stick them in the freezer.

Instructions:

1. Blend everything together.
2. Drink right away, otherwise it’ll separate.
3. Feel smug about all of those vitamins you just ingested, obviously.

Hubs is known for his amazing breakfast skills and he just recently added pumpkin pancakes to his resume.

Recipe stolen from here, but we skip the nutmeg whip cream and serve it with maple syrup. Although homemade whip cream is something dreams are made of…so maybe you should do it up right?

Ingredients:

• 2 1/3 c Bisquick
• 2 1/2 Tbs white sugar
• 1/3 tsp cinnamon
• 1/3 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 c milk
• 1/3 c canned pumpkin (Hubs adds 1 Tbs extra)
• 1/4 c vegetable oil

Instructions:

1. Whisk dry ingredients together. The spices alone are drool worthy.
2. Beat together eggs, milk, pumpkin, and vegetable oil (the wet stuff, duh).
3. Add wet stuff to dry stuff and stir.
4. Cook in pan or on a griddle, using 1/4 c of batter per pancake. Wait until bubbly and golden around edges.
5. Serve with homemade whipped cream if you are fancy. It also pairs nicely with maple syrup. Hot COFFEE makes them even better.

Your Sunday mornings will never be the same!

Callie and I got together one evening to bake Christmas cookies. It was only the third time since meeting her over a year and a half ago that I’ve seen her in “citizen’s clothes” and she brought a recipe to share. It’s her Grandma’s and even though ginger snaps have never made my list as a favorite cookie, these are amazing. They are soft and chewy and not too spicy. These are on the list now!

*Do yourself a favor and double the recipe, plus add an extra dollop of molasses.

Ingredients:

• 1 c white sugar
• 3/4 c butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbs dark molasses
• 2 c flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• Hershey kisses, unwrapped obviously

Instructions:

1. You know, the usual.  Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Cream butter and sugar together. It’s off to a good start already!
3. Add in egg and molasses. Don’t eat the molasses plain. Blech.
4. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and add until blended.
5. Roll into balls and then roll them in a bowl of white sugar. *drools*
6. Bake for 10 minutes.
7. Add a chocolate kiss to the middle while the cookie is still warm and LET SET. Muster up some will power for goodness sake.
8. Serve with milk and love me forever.

Personally, I love the cookie without the chocolate kiss. Hubs prefers it with. Get crazy and make both if you’re feeling bipartisan.

I can assure you that these freeze well and are excellent to snack on in the middle of the night when the baby inside of you is up and ready to play.

It’s that time again.  Time for turkey, cranberry sauce and those heavenly, decadent, to-die-for sweet potatoes.  I swiped this recipe from my friend, Allrecipes.com.  For the original link, sans Candace commentary and modifications, click here.

Ingredients:

• duh, sweet potatoes (4-6) peeled and chopped into chunks
• 1 1/4 c butter (!!!)
• 1 1/4 c brown sugar
• 3 c mini marshmallows, divided
• a sprinkle of cinnamon
• a sprinkle of nutmeg

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 and grease a 9×13 baking dish.  Extra points if you grease it with butter!

2.  Fill a large pot with water and wait for it to boil.  Now would be a good time to eat the rest of the bag of mini marshmallows.

3.  Once boiling, add sweet potatoes in and boil for 15ish minutes.  You don’t want them to be as hard as kidney stones but you don’t want to them to be a soft as my squishy midsection is these days, if that makes sense.

4.  Drain sweet potatoes.

5.  Put them back in the hot pot, along with butter, brown sugar, half the marshmallows, and spices.  Let everything get all wonderful and gooey together.  You may want to mush up some of the sweet potatoes if the chunks are too big (meaning the ratio between actual sweet potato and bad-for-you stuff isn’t balanced).

6. Slide the whole batch into the greased pan and bake for 15 minutes.

7.  Top with the rest of the mini marshmallows and bake until golden brown (a few more minutes).

8.  Eat up because it’s the beta-carotine you’ve been desperately craving!

I’m sorry for inundating you with more recipes but this one is quick, festive and pairs very nicely with my all time favorite recipe, The Best Pumpkin Bread Ever.  I found it here while perusing Pinterest and decided it wouldn’t hurt to add a little spice to my life, you know?

Ingredients:

• 1 c + 3 Tbs powdered sugar
• 2 Tbs milk
• 1/4  tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 pinch ginger
• 1 pinch ground cloves

Instructions:

1.  Mix everything together.  If I can do this, you can too.

I got maaaaad props when I drizzled this glaze over the pumpkin bread and brought it to a party.  I love it when that happens.

Since this post needs a picture and I don’t have one of the actual glaze, here’s a pic of a pile of pumpkins.  Helpful, huh?

This is the twisted chili recipe that I promised you last month.  It’s smokey and spicy and meat-y.  Go forth and crockpot stuff!

Obviously, it was stolen from allrecipes.com because I would never be creative or daring enough to make this up on my own.

Ingredients (serves 8):

• 2 onions (we used wild ones from our garden!), chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced.  We’re so classy that we use the real stuff now!
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1lb of beef tenderloin (yuuum), but we’re lazy and just used extra ground beef
• 1 can diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 can/bottle of dark beer (!)
• 1 cup strongly brewed coffee (!)
• 2 (6oz) cans of tomato paste
• 1 (14oz) can of beef broth
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 1/2 Tbs chili powder
• 1 Tbs cumin seeds (we used ground and way less of it)
• 1 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder (!)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp cayenne
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 cans kidney beans
• 4 fresh hot chili peppers, seeded and chopped (optional)

Other throw ins: sweet corn and chopped green bell pepper.

Instructions:

1. Brown the meat with garlic, onions, and green peppers (if you added them).

2.  Throw everything into a crockpot on low for a few hours.  EASY, right?

3.  Serve with a dollop of sour cream on top and a side of cornbread!

Football season is here (Hubs told me so) and what better way to celebrate the big game by stuffing your face with this manly dip (that the ladies will like too)?  I snarfed this deliciousness down one night at Emily’s house and never looked back!

Ingredients:

Instructions:

1. Brown up the sausage.  Best not think too hard because sausage is kind of a disturbing thought.
2. In a mini crockpot (every good Minnesotan household has at least one of these), add the cream cheese, Rotelle tomatoes (juice and all), and sausage.
3. Wait until nice and bubbly.  THEN HAVE AT IT.

That’s it.  It’s easy to transport too!

Wouldn’t this be a great way to warm up after surviving a blizzard in Rocky Mountain National Park?

We’ll need to remember that for next time.  Brrrr.

HUBS LOVES THESE because his Mom used to make them when he was a young lad.  I usually whip up a batch when I’m trying to atone for past sins like running the car almost out of gas every time he needs to go somewhere and staining his clothes while doing laundry.  Works like a charm!

P.S.  These would be great to take hiking or camping – or just throw a batch in the freezer for fun later!

(Recipe swiped directly off the Hodgson Mill Unprocessed Wheat Bran box, duh.)

Ingredients:

Instructions:

1. Mix 1 c wheat bran (read: NOT all of the wheat bran, people.) with 1 c boiling water.  Set it aside.  It’ll look like dog barf, hooray!
2. Preheat the oven to 400 and sing ‘It’s gettin’ hot in here, so take off all yer clothes…’
3. In a separate bowl (say, the one that comes attached to your adorable Kitchen Aid mixer), cream butter and sugar together.  This also doubles a sugar scrub/lip balm so smear some on your smackers and lick off.
4. Combine the dry stuff: flour, baking soda and salt together in a little bowl and whisk.
5. Combine everything together: dog barf, creamed butter/sugar, dry ingredients, buttermilk, eggs AND RAISINS.
6. Spoon into baking cups.  The dough tastes like compost, so don’t bother eating any.
7. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes.  They are so good fresh out of the oven with coffee, pinky swear.

Why hello there, beautiful.

I caught a nasty cold/sore throat in early June.  Hubs took good care of his feverish, cranky, greasy (but very beautiful) bride by serving me loads of tea with honey and making delicious HOMEMADE chicken noodle soup.  And, he froze the leftovers so we can enjoy it for those days when I neglect to go grocery shopping (read: I never go grocery shopping because I hate it).

Original recipe swiped lovingly from here.

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbs butter
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 5 (14.5 oz) cans chicken broth
• 1 can canned cooked chicken (classy!)
• 3 cups egg noodles
• 1 generous cup sliced carrots
• 1/2 tspn dried basil
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Lay prostrate on the couch, whining about everything and then fall asleep just in time to get out of helping prep dinner.

2. While you’re napping, allow the Hubs to get started by melting butter over medium heat in a large pot.

3. Snort awake and watch him add onion and celery and cook until tender (5 min or one Youtube makeup tutorial).

4. Then, he adds chicken broth, chicken, noodles, carrots, and spices.  See how easy this is?

5. Lastly, let him bring the entire concoction to a boil.  Then reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes before serving.

I didn’t take a picture of the piping hot masterpiece, but I felt the same way about this soup as I did when I got that giftcard to Sephora from my MIL last Christmas.

Enjoy.  I did.