Cooking with Kye: Ground Turkey Larb

It's Thursday!  And Kauyer (aka Kye) gave us a fantastic recipe from her stash!

Ok, it's my personal request that all of you try this out.  Kauyer (cow-yer), my old roommate, used to cook for me and Mrs Garden Gnome so I can personally vouch for her mad skills.  I'm adding the ingredients to my grocery list asap, especially since it fits right in with my goal to clean up my diet and eat healthier.  Plus, anything with lemongrass is an absolute win.

Ground Turkey Larb on From Blah to Ta-Daa

Mr. Kauyer taste-tested for us :)

Wordless Wednesday: Belated Merry Christmas from Rory

Forget Oprah - These are MY Favorite Things

Finally!  Sara pens her own Blah post!

Lonnnngggggg time no write, right?  I've finally stepped back up to the plate and contributed to the Blah blog.  Amazing, but total truth!  This week, we're posting our kitchen wish lists, and I thought I'd venture off on my own a wee bit.  There aren't a whole lot of things I need for my kitchen.  I mean, sure, I do need a new set of skillets, but mine should hold out for another year (or at least until I can throw a set onto a wedding gift registry, lol), so new pans aren't really on my radar.  So isntead, I thought I'd list a few of the things in my kitchen that make me happy.  Not all are gadgety (as evident by the gratuitous cookie photo above), but all do make my life better.

Favorites in My Kitchen on From Blah to Ta-Daa

I do have a few photos to post to catch you up on me, and hey, surprise! - we're flying to Oregon tomorrow to spend Christmas with my family!  Stuff like that :)  Hopefully, I'll be able to snatch a computer to post some blogs while I'm away (sidenote:  anyone have luck using Blogger's editor on the iPad browser?).   Happy Thursday to you all!!

This mug pretty much just screams me and my style :)

Cooking with Susan: Spinach Lentil Soup

It's fa-reeeezing here (wind chill of 1 degree, anyone?), so when Susan sent me this recipe to post, I wanted to eat my monitor.  Dear heavens, it looks so, so good!  And hearty and filling and all that good stuff you want when your tank top, long sleeve, wool sweater, and thick coat layers just won't shake the chills out of your body.

Spinach Lentil Soup on From Blah to Ta-Daa

Thank you, Susan, for helping a girl out :)  I've got one more guest post to share with you in a couple of weeks, and then I'm back to guinea-pigging recipes here at home.

Cooking with Sara: Peanut Butter Balls




You get a double-dose of Cooking this week :)  Really, I just wanted to be sure to get this recipe into your grubby little paws before the holidays zipped on by.  These are seriously too easy to taste this yummy.  Seriously.  Who knew that peanut butter and powdered sugar would be a match made in heaven? 

And an added perk is that they're both dairy free and gluten free (completely vegan if you use dark chocolate for dipping).  We're going to pretend that they're also calorie free :)

Best Friends Peanut Butter Balls on From Blah to Ta-Daa

Cooking with Sara: Coconut Macaroons

It's Thursday!  Which means it's my day to cook for the food blog!

As promised, here is the link for this recipe!

Coconut Macaroons on From Blah to Ta-Da

These little treats are pretty easy to throw together, but taste amazing.  (They're also gluten-free if you're of that nature.)  Definitely include the lemon zest in the recipe; it adds another level of yum. I'm so, so glad that Marnie convinced me to keep it in.

Tomorrow I'll be posting the recipe from our Peanut Butter Balls.... :)

Christmas Baking 2010

You know you want our glasses.

So, right before Thanksgiving, my friend Marnie came all the way from San Diego to visit me!  This was a major hurrah because I hadn't seen her since the move way back in February, and we've been fairly inseparable for 7 years now.  We've been doing annual Christmas baking for the past few years, and lucky me - she flew in so that we could continue our tradition.  Hurrah hurrah hurrah!

This year, we made our famous Almond Roca, the Jam Cookies (which Bo insists on calling "Jam Good Cookies!"), our Peanut Butter Balls, and a new recipe - Coconut Macaroons.  And then we bagged everything up to share with friends, family, and neighbors.  Whew!  I'm honestly tired just thinking about it, haha.  But, really, I think we must be getting skillz or something, because the whole to-do went way quicker this year.  Or maybe we just didn't make enough? :)

The Peanut Butter Balls.

Which are actually loaded with roasted almonds.
And then dipped in Dove chocolate.
We don't play.

Ghost Marnie!
Actually, I was playing with the settings on my fancy camera and
she was doing something or other, and came out looking all see-through.

The Coconut Macaroons!!
I'm posting the recipe for these babies next Thursday!

 

...because our glasses match our aprons ;)

Cooking with Mandy: Hot Sausage Bread

It's Thursday! That means it was my Mandy's day to cook for the food blog!

'Mornin!  Long time, no blog!  We had two sets of friends visiting us (with one day between them) plus Thanksgiving plus a huge Sarandipity Sweets order, so once again, time got away from me.  Such is life.  But, I do have piles and piles of photos to post for you.  Marnie and I went on a fun little trip to Cabbage Patch Kids HQ (yes!) and we did our annual Christmas baking, so you can count on lots of cute and delicious photos from our adventures.  We also learned a new craft project from Bo that begs to be shared because it's just so cool. 

But all those photos will have to wait for another day, because...Because!  Right now, I'm posting a recipe from yet another incredibly generous pal!

Hot Sausage Bread on From Blah to Ta-Daa!

Here's the scoop:  Mandy and I went to high school together.  Like Devon, from last week's recipe, she graduated a year after me.  But the thing is, our high school is so small that we pretty much knew everyone in every grade.  How small, you ask?  There were 65 people in my graduating class, that's how small.  Yes, so when I joke about being from the sticks or about being a small-town girl, I'm not exaggerating even a smidge.  But back to Mandy - I remember her and her twin, Mindy, as tiny girls with long blonde hair, and to be honest, I couldn't ever tell them apart.  Both of them are all grown up now and authors, which I find incredibly inspiring.  Mandy's books are on Amazon here; you should definitely go check them out!

Thank you, Mandy, for stepping in to help a girl out!!!