Scalloped Potatoes & Ham

Scalloped Potatoes & Ham is my favorite way to use leftover Easter ham!

It's a little before Easter, but I thought it best to be prepared for the eventuality of leftover ham.  As if Baked Ham Sliders weren't enough!

Do I have the recipe for you!

For this recipe, I have a yummy, creamy potato casserole, but without the cream or the canned soup!

Cocoa Fudge Cake #PartyLikeAMadMan

*Disclosure: I received complimentary copy of the The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook for participating in this event.  All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post may contain affiliate links.

Are you a Mad Men fan?

With the premiere of the final season coming up on April 5^th, I’ve partnered with The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook to Party Like a Mad Man!

I’ve channeled my inner 1960’s housewife, donned some pearls and a beehive ‘do, and got to work creating a Mad Men inspired dinner, sure to please any guest!

My Mad Men inspired meal starts off with an appetizer of Deviled Eggs (with just a dash of sriracha for a modern spicy twist!)  Next comes the salad course, with a delightful tossed salad (though a traditional Caesar is delicious if you have no fear of anchovies and raw egg yolks.)

Chocolate Topped Peppermint Cheesecake #FifteenCheesecakes

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Today I’m joining in a fun cheesecake event!

Myself and 15 other bloggers lots of other bloggers (we’re in a celebrating mood!) are all celebrating Camilla’s (from Culinary Adventures with Camilla) 15^th Wedding Anniversary!

It’s always so inspiring to see people celebrating a milestone marriage and sticking it out through thick and thin!

When they got married, Camilla & her husband served cheesecake instead of the traditional wedding cake and that is why we’re sharing cheesecakes today!

Brownies

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Dude had spring break this week, so he spent some more time in the kitchen!  Today he decided to whip up some brownies from scratch (something I’ve only done once before!!)

This recipe for brownies touts whole wheat flour (which he happily added himself) with a slightly drier, more cake-like texture.

Now here’s Dude:

Blueberry Pie

It’s the first day of spring!!!  The sun is shining, the snow is melting, the birds are singing….ahhhh.

Don’t blueberries make you think of spring?

Once I start seeing fresh blueberries in the stores, I know spring is right around the corner.

Challah

Ok.  Before we go any further, I’m Catholic, not Jewish.  But Catholicism does have its root in Judaism (Jesus was a Jew, after all), so I wanted to try my hand at a traditional Challah Bread this Easter.  My mom also makes an amazing overnight French Toast with Challah every Easter, so I wanted to help out by bringing the bread, instead of having to track down somewhere to buy some.

Thin Mint Pie #PiDay

Happy Pi Day!!

This one is super exciting because the date matches the first 8 digits of pi!  Wow!

3.1415926

I had planned to have this post go live at

3-14-15 at 9:26 am 
but then, I decided to join in on Terri's (from Love and Confections) Pi Day event and 9:26 would've been a bit too late to post!

Actually, I had it go up at 5:26 am my time...so it was 9:26 somewhere, right?

Wait…is my geek showing?

Ok, ok, the pie.

Chocolate and mint is one of my very favorite flavor combinations.  This lovely pie has both flavors perfectly balanced to mimic my favorite girl scout cookie: Thin Mints!!

Plus is green for St. Patrick’s day later this week!

Perfection!

Pan Broiled Steaks with Whiskey Sauce #FoodNFlix

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It’s Food ‘n Flix time!

If you’re new here, Food ‘n Flix is a super fun club wherein participants watch the movie of the month and then cook something inspired by the film (and anyone can participate!)

This month’s movie was the John Wayne Classic, The Quiet Man hosted by Joanne from What’s on theList?

I’ll start off by saying that Hubs was super excited for this one.  Everyone in his family is a huge John Wayne fan.  Me?  I just haven’t seen that many John Wayne movies.  So when this one was not a cowboy film and instead took place in Ireland, I was quite confused!  And also I was being super dense and didn’t connect Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day until the movie was half over…duh.

So obviously the inspiration had to be Irish!

During the movie, I noticed a whole lot of meat and potatoes…and beer!

Falafel Burgers #SecretRecipeClub

It’s March Secret Recipe ClubTime!  In SRC, members are secretly assigned another participating blogger and then whip up something delicious from their recipe archives.

This month, I was assigned Corey’s blog, Learning Patience.  Corey is a world traveler, loves food, and loves to run.

I love being assigned bloggers who have been part of SRC for a long time.  It’s like bumping in to an old friend…in fact, Corey had my blog a year and a half ago and totally made one of my recipes better!  You should definitely check it out!

Rainbow Pasta

I have another super fun St. Patrick’s Day recipe today!  Well, it’s actually just rainbows…could you totally see this at a rainbow or color themed children’s birthday party?  It would be so fun!

The pasta is actually much easier to dye than it looks.  You just cook the pasta, divide it into bags and add some food coloring!  I highly recommend using gel food colorings for the most vibrant colors.  Gel food coloring is usually found at craft stores or in the craft/wedding area at Wal-mart. See the Amazon links below for my favorite food colorings.  Note that the links are affiliate links.  

I found the directions at Tablespoon and didn't change a thing!

After the photo, I tossed the pasta with some butter and parmesan to make our family favorite: Parmesan Noodles and added some Lemon Herb Chicken & a veggies as a side.  It was a huge hit!

Lucky Leprechaun Pancakes

St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner.  While I never really celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I always do enjoy an excuse to make cookies and drink green beer and make fun pancakes for the kids!

I was inspired by these pancakes from Steph’s Bite by Bite.  For the face, I used my absolute favorite multigrain pancakes.  Now for the hat, you can choose to add a bit of green food dye to half of the multigrain pancake batter, or for natural coloring and spinachy goodness, make some Popeye’s green pancakes (or stir some pureed spinach into half of the multigrain batter!)

Then it’s all about the details!  The eyes are sliced bananas with chocolate chips with a mandarin orange beard.  Then the hat band is a little bit of Nutella with a mini M&M buckle!  And let’s not forget the bacon rainbow and the tater tot gold!

This is a super fun brinner that the kids will certainly enjoy!

Chili Tots

You know that moment when you know there’s just going to be absolutely nothing healthy about your meal?

This is it.

I’d like to tell you that this was set out for a group for the Super Bowl or something like that.  But nope.  It was just my dinner.

I first had chili tots at my in-laws and my mind was blown!  It was like chili fries, but even better, because tots are small and fries are long and unwieldy.  I like my junk food easy to eat.