Baking with Blondie

A while back, I was on Studio 5 whipping up a classic, traditional, family-style recipe. I felt like it was really fun because I was able to share a recipe that took zero effort or even a glance at a recipe to make. I think those are the best recipes! They're ones we've tried, tested a million times, and prepare for our families on a monthly, and sometimes weekly, basis.  Along with those stuffed shells  (thank you for all the emails and messages about how successful it was in your kitchens! It completely has made my life!!!), this pot roast dish is something I remember eating so many times throughout my childhood. My Mom would place the mighty roast in her large black roasting pan (the piece of roast was definitely much larger than the ones I buy - but she had many more mouths to feed), seasoned it up with salt and plenty of pepper, and I remember the strong smell of the infused-vinegars she's drizzle all over the meat. A few hours later, after church, we'd ...

Happy Friday, everyone! I know we usually stick to desserts on Friday here on Baking with Blondie, but I thought it would be fun to share a few details from my son's birthday party we had this month!  I usually only try to share ONLY food recipes here on my blog, because I'm a firm believer in blogging about one thing, and blogging the crap out of it. If I spread myself over several different categories, things tend to get muddy, categories get ignored or lose quality, and tend to not have the best of the best delivered to your screens, I think. I mean, if I was an expert on EVERYTHING, sure, I'd blog about everything! Kudos to you fine bloggers who blog about everything and a bag of chips! But I like food, make food, share food, eat food, so here we are with a food blog. :)  However, I love sharing a little bit from the parties I throw for my son's birthdays. I love him more than anything, and making his birthdays extra special while he's so very young...

Have you ever felt like your grocery bill is going NUTS? I had a couple weeks last month where I felt like I was bombing at life in the grocery department. I was spending way too much, and I couldn't figure out why my bill was creeping higher and higher past our allotted budget amount.  Well, if you took a look at how messy and unorganized my pantry and fridge were getting, it would have explained everything. It was such a mess, I didn't know what food I had, and what food I needed, so I was just buying everything for brand new recipes without even checking what I already had in the pantry/fridge.  I committed myself to an entire week of using up almost every. single. thing. I already had in the pantry. I cleaned it all out, super-cleaned out my fridge, and then made my grocery list from what I already had. It definitely forced me to be more creative in the recipe-creating department. And I'll tell you what...  It was pretty dang fun. 

Hello dear friends! It's been a few days, eh? Okay, more than a few. But I promise it was for a really good reason. My little family has been spending the week at Coronado beach in San Diego. It was the most relaxing week we've had in such a long time. Instead of blogging ahead, or checking in on the blogging & social media world incessantly, I did something I think everyone should do often:  I unplugged from it all.  I turned off my dang phone.  I ignored the hundreds of notifications I get on a daily basis.  I didn't check up on my favorite bloggers to see what amazing/fun/fabulous thing they were up to this week.  And something really awesome happened...

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was middle school, I had braces, dreamed of someday being a concert musician, and was trying to fudge my way through French class with Mrs. Hales. During middle school, I felt like we had zero freedom with what classes we could take, so I was more than a little cranky when we were required to take a sewing & food class.  I suck at sewing. I will super glue things together to this day if I have to.  The food part of the class, though? It was like a dream come true for me. I'd already learned so much about cooking and food by watching my Mom in the kitchen growing up, so I felt like I totally had this class down pat. Well, our first dish to make in "foods" was a simple fried rice dish. I thought it was lame and easy at first, but it ended up tasting so good after a full morning of boring-as-death classes. I was immediately hooked. It probably didn't taste all that awesome back then, but getting to cook food and ea...

Happy Monday, lovelies! I thought we could start off the week fresh with a bright, bold, and beautiful salad. We love to eat salads year-round, but I feel like spring and summer is when we get the best ingredients for salads like this one. This is one of my favorite salads on the planet. We had it at a family birthday gathering recently, and it seriously was all I could do to not  dive into the giant bowl of greens and berries right in front of me on the table. I did have three helpings, though, but with the giant baby belly bump present, people tend to ask less questions. :)  Instead of the usual berry-spinach classic salad combo, I added in some key ingredients that make this salad really pop on the plate. Each compliment the overall flavor and texture of the salad, and each would be perfect to serve alongside whatever you're having for dinner tonight. Lots of color, lots of flavor. Let's jump right in! 

If there's one thing I love the most about any holiday throughout the year, it's the best excuse in the world to make really fun treats like this one. Fun, EASY, treats, that is. They have to be a little easier in my family, because my assistant is a 4-year old. He loves to get involved in any way that he can - so much, in fact, one of his birthday gifts this year was a little apron and chef hat! He was always wearing my large one and would trip over it the whole time. Now, he has his own, and it's the cutest thing I've ever seen.  On St. Patrick's Day every year, we splurge and buy the "sugar cereal" that matches the holiday. Lucky Charms are always a perfect fit. Of course, we finish the box way too fast, and end up making ourselves sick with all those marshmallows, but it's totally worth it for this once-a-year celebration. This year, however, I wanted to do something a little different. We took my favorite Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie...

HUGE thanks again to Studio 5  KSL for having me on the show to make this recipe, and tell my story about it! If you'd like to watch the step-by-step video with me and the amazing host Brooke Walker, click here to watch the video. Full recipe below. 

Whenever my husband and I go out to dinner, which isn't all that often but certainly does happen, my husband will order something with fish in it 100% of the time. Why? I don't like fish. I don't make fish. I don't serve him fish. I suck at fish. Poor guy! I remember when we were living about 20 minutes outside of Washington, DC for the summer, we thought it would be fun to get some fish. Okay, Ryan thought it would be fun - we all know how I feel about this. We were much closer to the ocean than our usual Utah-land-locked self, so he thought we should find some crab or lobster somewhere while we were out there. We drove around and found a place with fresh lobster and crab - caught that very day! I didn't taste any, but from what he said, it was apparently amazing. It still smelled like a bowl of fish to me, but I was happy that he was happy.  On the table was a pile of cheddar biscuits. They were super-garlicy, but in a really delicious way; each one w...

At the end of every single month (and he does a mid-way check, too), my husband goes through our finances. He opens up our online bank statement, goes through every purchase that was made with our debit card, and places it into pre-designated categories on a spreadsheet. This spreadsheet has what I call the dreaded budget . It drives me insane sometimes, but it really saves us. Each month we can spend a certain amount of money in each category, and then the rest goes directly into savings for building our new home, health savings account for the new baby, and then law school student loans, of course.  I don't have a lot of control over some of the heavier bills like our rent, loan payments, etc, but I do have a huge influence over the groceries category. It's been a long process with that dreaded category. With a food blog, sometimes I feel like I want to try my recipes with the finest ingredients, instead of the generic brand version. Or maybe I'd like to buy much...

With St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, I always try my best to take a little extra time to make a special holiday cookie with my son before the holiday begins. Since this holiday is centered around all-things green, I thought it would be fun to take our traditional sugar cookie and put a fun twirly twist on the design. His almost four-year-old mind was completely blown when I started to slice the log into circle cookies, and too see his little face in wonder made all the layering and chilling time worth it! 

So, since the weather in Utah decided to go all ape crazy on our roadways, I decided it's best for us to just stay inside and stay cozy. I love days like this - thankfully we didn't have anything planned anyways. We just get to watch movies, read books, do puzzles, make a batch of cinnamon rolls, and call it a good old day of relaxation.  The best thing to do with a day like this is a giant pot of soup simmering away on the stove top. Even though there's snow outside, we still have a little springtime in our hearts, so I decided to make a soup using one of Spring's star ingredients - that beautiful veggie asparagus! 

Happy Monday, everyone! That weekend blew by way too fast - and the funny thing is that I think we mostly just sat around relaxing the whole time. Still, it sped by. It was a good break, though, from our usually jam-packed weekends. I think spending time with my little family is what I'd rather be doing than anything else on the planet, so it was a win-win in my book.  As the season presses on, mother nature in Utah continues to unleash her wrath of pent-up winter rage upon the valley. We had the most beautiful February I can remember in a long time (hitting the high 60's - unheard of here), and now we're back to the freezing temperatures and snow flurries. It's pretty gross, and makes me wish for that glimpse of Spring we just had again. I mean, I was posting Grilled Ginger Steak Tacos with Pineapple Pico de Gallo, and a couple amazing fresh broccoli salad recipes for crying out loud. I was ready for Spring, people! A silver lining, though, is that with all ...