Baking with Blondie

We are serious bread, cracker, and chip-dunkers.  When there's a steaming bowl of soup on the table, you know darn well there's going to be a pile of one of those three on the table somewhere. I just can't get enough of the way soft bread soaks up the broth, or the way crackers and tortilla chips add the perfect amount of crunchy contrast to each bite. With this soup, especially, I don't think we even had spoons on the table.

We might as well just face it.  We're soup-addicts.  Year-round soup addicts.  I feel a lot less sheepish about sharing whatever soup recipe we've tried and loved during the Fall/Winter weather because, quite frankly, those seasons seems a little more apropos to a steaming hot bowl of soup. Doesn't mean we haven't been sneaking a bowl of soup here and there during Spring/Summer! We just can't get enough! Now we have a huge stockpile of soup recipes that we have tried and adored, and with the weather cooling down to a crisp level, its time to open the flood gates and start cycling them through our menu more often. This one was pretty high on our list, and became a favorite the first time we tried it. 

If any of you are as naive as I am, I was a little confused when I saw margherita when I spotted this gem. My non-drinking-because-I'm-thoroughly-Mormon self went straight to thinking this was a margarita-infused dish, and thus ending my desire to try it. I mean, unless it was virgin (which I have had, and fell in love with completely). Then I looked through the ingredients, and realized the embarrassing size of my blonde moment (margarita vs margherita), and quickly fell in love with the fresh ingredients this recipe uses. I made it only a couple days later.  Don't make my same mistake.  I mean, yikes.  Good heavens.  And they pay me to have a food blog.  At least I can blame it on my Blondie title, eh? 

A while ago, I posted my cutting board on  Instagram with a whole slew of beautiful ingredients straight from our garden (minus the garlic & onions - haven't tried growing them yet). I wish we could eat straight from our garden all year long. There's such a rewarding feeling that comes along with slicing up your very own tomatoes, carrots, and other beautiful vegetables from my own garden, and tossing them into dinner for my family. It's something I dream of throughout the frigid winter months, and promising springtime. Now that's it's Fall, we get to roll in all the bounty our garden has produced! This soup has been made several times, and uses up a ton of fresh tomatoes, basil, and carrots. 

I remember when I was a teenager in my parent's house, and my Mom would always (most of the time, anyway) buy those really soft bakery style lofthouse cookies from the bakery at the supermarket on grocery day. They were always perfectly round and were frosted and sprinkled to perfection. They were also the softest cookies I'd ever had, and it was always super tricky to talk myself into only eating one... they were just too good for well, their own good!  Fast forward a few (ehem) 10-something years, and I still crave those cookies. I never buy them, though, because I seriously can't trust myself with them...  Unfortunately, if you're familiar with the oven and a recipe, you can easily talk yourself right back into eating them - after you smell them baking in YOUR oven! And transforming them into a Fall celebration by incorporating pumpkin spices, cloves, and 100% pumpkin puree...  ... you have yourself a dang good cookie to stuff your face with shar

Yet another zucchini recipe birthed in my mission to use up whatever zucchini we're able to snag from the garden. I know my son and husband hate zucchini, but I have been on fiery quest to find a way to get them to eat it. Let's just say... this was was right on target! They were close enough to chicken nuggets to convince them to even try it, and that in my book is a win, my friends. 

I've been wanting to make homemade peanut butter cups for some time now. That sweet & creamy peanut butter filling and the way that soft chocolate melts all over my hands is something I am borderline addicted to. Around Christmas, Halloween, and Easter, peanut butter cups are a must  at our house. Never, though, have I had the guts to make them at home... let alone shove a giant slice of Fall right into the filling... 

I know we're all probably getting super sick of zucchini. I know I was, but I had a pile of zucchini in the kitchen to eat from the garden, and was completely determined to not waste any of it. Sound familiar?  Turns out, my husband and son hate zucchini with a fiery passion. I ended up eating zucchini noodles on almost a daily basis to try to deplete the stockpile of zucchini on our kitchen counter. Unfortunately, I still had about three giant ones I needed to eat, and they wouldn't fit inside my veggie-noddle maker. So I knew I needed to roll up my sleeves, and get this zucchini thing done asap - and in a way my husband and son would actually try. This was by far the easiest one of the three brand new recipes I want to share with you. And when I say easy, that's probably the hugest understatement of the year. This was RIDICULOUSLY easy, especially if you have a rice cooker.

I've made pumpkin cinnamon rolls before, but never have I spiraled the cinnamon roll until it turned into a giant pumpkin cinnamon roll cake! I mean, holy smokes! It was amazing, and it's going to be pretty hard to not spiral my cinnamon rolls into a giant cake after tasting this beauty. 

Guys. I love tacos. When I was a little girl and they asked me at school what my favorite food was, I always said either olives  or tacos.  Things haven't really changed since.  This obsession of mine with tacos has led me to many recipes. I crave tacos pretty much all the time, and we're not supposed to go out to eat unless it's for something special, so this leaves my little family with homemade tacos on the menu pretty often. Instead of making the same 'ol tacos each week, I like to switch things up. Some of the recipes we've tried have been awesome, and some... not so awesome. I want a taco that's easy to make, but packs each bite with dripping flavor. This recipe, my friends, is one you're going to want to slap on the menu asap. 

I'm not usually one who jumps forward with seasons. If you know me well, you know I loathe anything a couple months early (especially Christmas - wait until after Thanksgiving, you crazies!) So when you see pumpkin filling up my blog from now until Thanksgiving, know that I waited until September to share :) September, for me, is the beginning of one of my favorite seasons: Fall!  I love pumpkin in desserts. I love mixing it with different flavors and textures. This weekend I used up three cans of pumpkin - THREE. Talk about an early overdose of Fall's star ingredient! It was worth it, and I can't wait to share the recipes with you. These muffins were a perfect place to start.  The first was for my husband's Sunday School class (a bunch of teenagers - for some reason they listen better when he brings treats). I send treats with him every once-in-a-while, and wanted to make them something special this past weekend (they had fulfilled a spiritual challenge he