Baking with Blondie

Yes. Yes times a thousand. I tried out this recipe today and it didn't disappoint one bit. I'm usually a little wary of making meals that include mushrooms (Ryan's not a fan unless they're stuffed with cream cheese and sausage or something). But I think this soup will go over well with him.  Pinterest is such a good tool. I've found I don't even google recipes anymore - I just head to my Pinterest page, and search it up. Thanks to that ritual of mine, I this recipe came into our kitchen this week. I tastes really wonderful with little crackers, and I'm sure just the same with toasted bread. You probably don't even have to serve this with a salad with all that spinach included, eh? Plus, I used chicken tortellini to get in our protein - I'm sure you could go meatless, as well, and go with the cheese-filled tortellini if that tickles your fancy.  ----- Creamy Slow Cooker Tortellini Soup Recipe originally Pinned from My Favor

<div align="center"><a href="http://bakingwithblondie.blogspot.com/" title="Baking with Blondie"><img src="http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/w418/bakingwblondie/button.png" alt="Baking with Blondie" style="border:none;" /></a></div> By a reader's request, I have officially made a button for Baking with Blondie! If you want it on your blog's sidebar for easy access to my blog, just add the HTML code (below the image above) as an HTML widget to your blogger ''Layout'' page. Spread the Blondie love! 

I just had to bring these back. Ryan kept asking me each week if I was ever going to make these again. After all the recipe guinea pig torture I put him through, I thought I should probably oblige.  Soooo glad I did. I had forgotten how utterly juicy these burgers are (no pun intended). I absolutely love the warm flavor the seasonings bring to the beef, and ciabatta bread has always been on top of my list (especially when it's toasted). Also, another thing this recipe has going for it is that one of my favorite sandwiches at Subway is their Meatball Marinara. I'm a complete sucker for it. With my craving for a burger + Subway Meatball Marinara obsession + husband's ever-needing desire for Meatball Melties.... I think it was just about dang time we make 'em again. ---- Meatball Melties adapted from Rachel Ray 1 1/2 pounds ground beef   2/3 cup Italian breadcrumbs   1/4 cup finely dried parsley   1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese 1 egg, lightly beat

The weather around here has it's own special way of reaching the high 70's, then dropping like a rock to the low 40's. Even though it made my run a bit less pleasant this morning, I don't really mind the change. I knew I had a delicious recipe for soup to try, and couldn't wait any longer! Fresh basil is so heavenly. I want to be one of those people with a beautiful garden full of fresh herbs. I'd fill it with lots and lots of cilantro, rosemary, Italian parsley, and basil (for starters). For now, I'm going to have to just stick with my summer plans of filling my window with these fresh herbs in little pots. How easy would that be to just take some scissors for a little snippity snip whenever you needed fresh herbs in the kitchen? Much better than a trip to the grocery store, me thinks. This soup is pretty simple. Okay, extremely simple. Alright - PAINFULLY simple. It's worth it, however, to splurge a little on the marinara sauce. I purchased Mez

I'm a big fan of 'all-in-one-bite' desserts. These fit that bill perfectly. In each bite, you get a healthy dose of strawberry, a creamy dose of cheesecake, and a tasty texture from the graham cracker crumbs. Plus, it honestly took 15 minutes to make these, start to finish. I can't believe how addicting they are, too. I've made these before - I brought them to Thanksgiving this past year. However, I cursed the little strawberries the whole time I was making them. I didn't have a melon-baller. I had to carve out each individual strawberry with a knife.... and that took ages. We received a gift card a month later at Christmas for Bed, Bath & Beyond and guess what item I headed straight towards? Yep. The melon-baller. And we've been best friends ever since. ----- Strawberry Cheesecake Bites 1 pound large strawberries 8oz. block cream cheese – soft 3 – 4 tablespoons powdered sugar (depends on how sweet you want the filling) 1 teaspoon vanilla

Ryan and I are still counting down the days until peaches are back in season.... I know... we're a ways off. I really love making fruity little drinks (non-alcoholic, of course), and we became utterly addicted to my Roasted Peach Lemonade recipe last year. Ryan's parents have a wonderful peach tree in their backyard, and they'd send up a couple bag-fulls of beautifully ripe peaches every so often. So many peaches! Luckily we found the peach lemonade recipe to use them all up. Now, this recipe has absolutely no peaches in it, but it's just as tasty, nonetheless (plus it soothes our wanting taste buds until peach season comes around). The creamy coconut milk was a perfect compliment to the sweetened strawberries. (You can also use fresh strawberries - they're on sale this week). I've seen these Lava Flows pinned on several Pinterest boards I follow, and wondered if anyone had actually tried it yet. Lucky for us, Ryan handpicked this recipe for us this w

I know it's warming up a bit outside, and the hard-core soup season is practically over.... but this soup was so light and tasty, I couldn't resist making it yesterday for dinner. The creamed corn creates such an excellent flavor undertone to the whole soup, and the surprising zing of the sesame seed oil is so addicting, it's hard to not think about having another bowl-full before you even finish the one your working on. The broth was divine. Another excellent plus: I made this soup in 30 minutes. No joke. Oh, dear corn. What history we have together. While I was growing up, I remember my Mom would serving corn pretty frequently. My Grandma and Grandpa have a giant garden, and they'd fill it mostly with corn. Obviously the two of them couldn't eat it all on their own. So around harvest time, the family would come together, shuck that corn for hours and hours, cook it up, slice the corn off the cob, and bag it for everyone's freezers. I think it's safe to

I've been to dreamy mini-cupcake heaven and back today making these. Ever since I was little, my all-time favorite cake has been Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I think I can pinpoint this love of mine to pure nostalgia. When my family was still pretty young, we'd hook up our boat (which seemed completely humongous to us 3-12 year olds at the time) and make the long trip to beautiful Lake Powell. My Mom fed us almost every night from the dutch oven - including dessert. It was then was when I was introduced to Pineapple Upside Cake for the first time. The fluffy and moist yellow cake smothered with brown sugar-soaked warm pineapple and maraschino cherries melted in my mouth. Since then, no other cake can come in at a close second in my eyes. Tonight the ladies are having a little get-together, and have been asked to bring cupcakes! I, of course, went straight to the store to buy the never-failing Pineapple Supreme Pillsbury cake mix. I was surprised to not see it anywhere on

Mexican food + Noodles. How strange. Strangely awesome, I say! The first time I saw this combination on Pinterest I was very curious. I'd never really tried the two components in the same dish, but I couldn't just throw the idea out altogether. (You never know what awesomeness awaits - or what disaster approaches). Thankfully, this recipe is the former. We tried this recipe this afternoon, and Ryan (once again) gave it the 'husband approved' stamp right on the forehead. They came out great! What an odd, trendy little dish this turned out to be. We had already had beef this week, so instead of using ground beef as the recipe suggests, I used shredded chicken. I was craving cilantro and olives while stuffing the shells - I think next time we'll have both on hand to sprinkle on top after these little lovers come out of the oven. The only other time I've tried working with shells is while stuffing them with a light ricotta mixture for manicotti (my Mom

Yep. It actually works. You know how you pin tens or hundreds of those "clever/need to do this/didn't know this/why didn't I know this" kinds of ideas on Pinterest? Ever try them out? Did they actually work? Here's one less one to wonder about. I put this Pin to the test: After slicing up your green onions, save the white ends, submerge them in water, place in a sunny window, and watch them replenish themselves . This picture was taken one week after I dunked those little white nasties in water. And look what happened! I felt like I was in my own little mini-mythbusters episode. I never have to buy green onions again.

  Okay, I admit it. I'm completely addicted to cooking in muffin pans. It's just really easy to throw down some refrigerator dough and fill it with savory goodness. This recipe is no exception, and it's beyond delicious! We gobbled these up with some fresh pineapple and salad for lunch this afternoon. Rewind to this past Sunday - we made another one of my muffin tin recipes ( Meatball Sliders - one of Ryan's favorites), and I had about a dozen Italian meatballs left over. I'm a huge believer in using leftovers for an entirely new meal, so instead of buying ground beef for this new recipe, I cooked up the meatballs, pulsated the heck outta them in my little lover, and added them right in with my chopped onions. Bam. Leftovers transformed. ----- Cowboy Cups 1 medium onion, chopped finely About 1 lb ground beef  (we snuck by with half, so use whatever matches your meat preference) 2 cans/packages of refrigerated biscuit dough (we love Pillsbury,

Source So we've seen this recipe bouncing around on Pinterest for a while, and I thought we'd give it a try. I'm making so many of my pinned recipes, that I'm now having to actively pin more (always a plus, I mean, who doesn't love Pinning?) I love how much I've learned from the recipes I've completed so far, and love to hear when a reader has tried them along with me! You guys are the best! This week I've tried a couple new recipes. My friend Natalie's beyond-tasty Lasagna Soup (to be featured on here sometime over the next couple weeks) and of course, this yummy Crispy Cheddar Chicken. I think it's kind of hilarious how this whole "recipe blog" thing works out. First of all, I pinned the recipe. I go to the recipe on their blog, then the recipe source is from another blog. I click on that blog, then the recipe source is linked to another website, so I head on over to that website (so turns out the original recipe source is fro

Sugar-free devil's food cake mini cupcakes with cream cheese frosting Yep. It was our little man's very first birthday party. I decided to base our theme on the very adorable "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" children's book by Eric Carle. It was such a wonderful afternoon with family, and there were plenty of tasty treats to be had! Thank heavens for Pinterest, as well. The Birthday boy's cake! Sugar-free devil's food cake with sugar-free frosting. All frosted and ready for him to stuff in his little baby face.  Strawberry & cream cheese Cake Pops with white chocolate frosting Invitations    Caterpillar Food party favors  My third attempt at covering a fondant cake. Second attempt using gum paste. The gum paste dried out quicker than expected, but I think the fruit still looked like fruit, eh? Table before the punch and fruit dips arrived, and before we sliced up the fruit.  Caterpillar mobile using Chinese lan