Sharpie Easter Eggs

If you click over to Pinterest about now, you will likely see a whole lot of fun and beautiful Easter Eggs.

All the eggs make my diy heart go pitter patter, and yet, I still absolutely love dissolving those little tablets in vinegar each year and letting my boys go nuts!

Last year, I started making a few unique Easter Eggs on my own a few weeks before Easter, just for fun!

Tater Tot Egg Bake

Today's recipe originally appeared an a guest post back in December.  This egg bake is so fantastic (especially scrumptious because it uses tater tots instead of hashbrowns), that I wanted to share it here as well.

This is one of those recipes that you can very easily make your own.  In place of the turkey sausage you could use pork sausage or even bacon – or better yet – a mix of the two!

I threw in some sautéed mushrooms and spinach because that’s what I had on hand.  But you can really use anything you’d like – maybe bell peppers and onions?  Broccoli and carrots?  The possibilities are endless.

I whipped up this egg bake on a weeknight for an easy brinner, but it would also be lovely on Easter morning, greeting sleepy little eyes as seek out their Easter Baskets!

BLT Salad

Who likes BLTs?

A sandwich comprised of mostly bacon?  Heck yeah.

But I don’t make BLTs often because, of course, there are not the healthiest of sandwiches.  So this time, I decided to shake things up a bit and make an indulgent BLT salad.

I love the BLT salad because it has all of the yummy BLT flavors, but a lot more L, so it’s a whole lot healthier than that delicious sandwich!

To take this salad to the next level, I also decided to make some bacon croutons!  Indulgent?  Yes!  Healthy?  Yes!  This is the BLT for me!

60 Second Peanut Butter Cup Sauce: SRS

Hey there Surprise Recipe Swappers! 

I can’t believe SRS is already in its third month!

This March, I had the pleasure of whipping up a recipe from Domesblissity.  Domesblissity is written by Anne, a stay at home mom of two from Australia.

I just love that Anne describes herself as Blissfully Domesticated! 

I also love that she just made a Neverland Pirates Cake for her kids when I just did the same for my son in January!

I also couldn’t just choose one recipe from Anne’s blog.  I also made this.

But more on that on Saturday – you’ll just have to come back here for the details!

For today, I made the incredibly delicious 60 Second Peanut Butter Cup Sauce.

If you are a chocolate & peanut butter freak like I am, this is the perfect ice cream topping for you!  Seriously amazing!  I fully admit to eating a couple spoonfuls (sans ice cream) as I put it away.  Then after it chilled, I made the rest into truffles.  They did not last the weekend.

Thank you, Anne for a fantastic recipe!

Chicago Style Pizza {Recipe Redo}

I don’t do a whole lot of recipe redo’s on my blog. 

Sure, those early posts have pretty poor pictures, and the writing isn’t as succinct, but it’s a part of my history, of my cooking journey.

When I do decide to share a recipe redo, it’s because I’ve remade the recipe over and over since the initial posting and realized that changes need to be made.

In this case, the original recipe was delicious, but monstrously huge, with way to much dough.  The redo uses half of the same dough recipe.  I also used a completely different sauce that I think complements the deep dish pizza better than its predecessor. 

This recipe is still a favorite in our household!  I hope you all like the update!

Recipe Notes:

*You can substitute 8 oz fresh, sliced button or Portobello mushrooms for the canned mushrooms.  Just sauté them for about 5 minutes before adding the spinach.

*Substitute any of your favorite (cooked & drained) pizza toppings for the mushroom & spinach mixture!

Irish Breakfast Shot

Last fall, my brothers, my husband and I went out to an Irish pub in my hometown.  After, ahem, several drinks it was decided that we all need to have a breakfast shot. 

It was delicious though completely ludicrous to see a round of shots coming toward our table garnished with sausages.  Ever since then, I knew I would be making these shots for St. Patrick’s Day. 

Enjoy.  (It’s ok to giggle a little when you see that sausage.)

Lucky Leprechaun Book & Polish Swap

This month I decided to participate in my first ever book & nail polish swap!   I’ve seen a lot of swaps since I started blogging (food swaps, craft swaps, favorite things swaps etc), but I’ve never felt inclined to participate.  But since joining GoodReads in January and rediscovering my love for reading, I decided to join up on The Lucky Leprechaun Book & Polish Swap and have someone else choose a book for me!

That someone was Stephanie from Life According to Steph!  Wanna see what she sent??

Ta-da!

Golden Cream Shots (Mini Guinness Floats)

After I made Drunken Irish Stew, I had just a bit of Guinness left over.  Rather than just drink it, I decided to whip of some mini floats!

You can certainly make these into full sized ice cream floats, but the mini are fun when you have just a splash of Guinness left over from cooking or when you are serving a large crowd!

Epic Grilled Cheese: SRC

Okay.

I totally just made a grilled cheese for Secret Recipe Club.

I know!  It seems so lame!  But this sandwich is so amazing!

This month, I was assigned Jennifer’s blog, Jenny’s Cookbook.  Jennifer is a Mommy of two (but girls as opposed to my boys) and a self professed cheeseaholic and chocoholic – sound like my kind of girl!

Jennifer has so many fabulous recipes on her blog, including these crispy baked fries that I also made!

Click here for that recipe.

But onto that life altering grilled cheese…

I make a lot of grilled sandwiches and I have never once thought to sprinkle garlic onto the outside.  Yeah, it’s like garlic toast grilled cheese.  It’s amazing! 

I loved this twist on a classic so much that I actually made it twice this week – once with avocado added in and once without.  It was absolutely fabulous both ways!

I don’t think I’ll ever make a plain grilled cheese again!

Thank you, Jennifer, for revolutionizing my grilled cheese!

30x30...One Year Later

      

One year ago today, I set out to make 30 recipes before I turned 30.

Well, today is my birthday and I am so happy to say that I accomplished my goal and successfully created all thirty of those dishes this past year!  It was a very fun challenge and I am so happy that I was able to finish on time! 

So click below and share my 30x30 journey!  And don’t forget to keep checking that 30x30 tab above!  I’m still going to have some bucket list recipes.

I’m slowly adding recipes to my list, but now there’s no deadline!

     1.           Apple Pie

2.         Bagels 

3.         Baked Brie (Savory) 

4.         Biscotti

5.          Bread Bowls

6.         Brownies from Scratch

7.          Buttermilk Biscuits 

8.         Carrot Cake

9.         Chocolate Lava Cake

10.    Dessert Crepes

11.      Egg Drop Soup

12.     English Muffins

13.     Fancy Easter Eggs

14.     French Onion Soup

15.     Grandma’s Caramel Rolls

16.     Grandma’s Chicken& Noodles 

17.     Grandma’s Garlic Sour Cream Twists

18.    Homemade Pasta 

19.     Homemade Tortillas 

20.   Knoephla Soup 

21.     Mom’s Fudge Jumbles 

22.   Omelets

23.   Oven Baked Ham & Cheese Sandwiches

24.   Peppermint Patties

25.    Pesto (Traditional)

26.   Pitas

27.    Potato Bread

28.   Pretzels

29.   Salsa

30.   Snickerdoodles

Garlic Sour Cream Twists

Well, here it is.

This recipe is the last of my 30x30 recipes!  And just in time, too! 

This is another wonderful Grandma recipe and it has a fun story to go along with it!

You see, several years ago, my grandma wanted to make her sour cream twists.  Sour cream twists are a sweet pastry that is usually covered in frosting (I’ve never made them, but I enjoy them every Easter!)

But, when Grandma went to the refrigerator to take out her sour cream, she realized that she had picked up sour cream with chives by mistake!  Not to be discouraged, Grandma worked with what she had and came up with a whole new savory sour cream twist!  In fact, she even submitted the recipe to a cooking magazine and was published!

So thank you, Grandma, for another delicious and inventive recipe!

Grandma's Caramel Rolls

There’s nothing that reminds me more of my grandma’s house than the smell of caramel rolls baking in the oven.

The aroma instantly transports me back to laughter filled days, sitting at grandma’s dining room table, eating ooey gooey caramel rolls.

Grandma still makes her caramel rolls, but I live too far away to visit often so we usually meet in the middle at my parents’ house.  

But everything comes full circle.

When she moved out of the home I remember from my childhood, her beautiful antique dining room table came to my house.  And after I mastered Grandma’s bread recipe, I realized that it was time to make here caramel rolls, too… 

…but not without a few phone calls to grandma to make sure I got it just right!

Aren’t family recipes just the best?

Spinach & Portobello Quesadillas

I always love a quick meatless meal, especially for lunch.

I absolutely adore the flavor profile of the quesadillas!  The pepper jack cheese elevates the simple flavors of the mushrooms and spinach creating flavorful and filling vegetarian meal!

These quesadillas would also be fabulous with Chipotle Sour Cream Dip, but on this occasion, I went with a simpler, but still tasty version with sour cream with chives and hot sauce!

Drunken Irish Stew

Many beef stew recipes call for some sort of booze to enhance the depth of flavor.  You have some that call for red wine and others that call for beer.

But this stew call for both red wine and beer.  More specifically red wine & Guinness, thus the “Irish” in the title.  And let me tell you – this was one awesome stew – though that could just be the left over Guinness and wine talking!