Browsing CategoryIn the Kitchen

Truly being in the kitchen with me is an adventure. Ordinary? I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to decide! Messy? Probably more likely! I’m not your typical chef, whipping up a delicious storm with little mess & mishaps. Ask my friends – or my husband. Flour dustings, egg splats, & flying spatulas. Not to mention I have a knack for getting hurt in the kitchen. In all this, I LOVE being in the kitchen & am often left laughing at the small catastrophes I get myself into. I love to forget about recipes (and the measuring cup) and come up with my own thing or play around with the recipes I do have. I truly am thankful for the recipes that have been meticulously passed down over the generations & the convenience in which we can find yummy recipes online, but I’m also likely to take my family (& you) on some new adventures too. So join me in the kitchen…if you dare!

Spiced White Chocolate Chip Raisin Oatmeal Cookies

Michigan rainy days = the feeling of needing to bake cookies (fortunately I don’t give in every time 🙂 )! A few weeks ago I discovered this recipe on a cozy, rainy day when I only had a few spare ingredients in the house. I threw them together, and the result was cookies that I couldn’t stop eating (for real!) – with the perfect oatmeal flavor, spice, and mix of white chocolate chips and raisins. These aren’t quite like typical oatmeal cookies. They have a lot less oatmeal, to just add a touch of that oatmeal cookie flavor but with…

Easy-Peasy Noodle Dinner

If you are just getting home today and have no idea what to make. Stop. Look in your cupboards for some noodles (most any kind will do). Open your freezer and grab a bag of frozen veggies (peas preferably). Brown some ground meat, add seasonings and a touch of olive oil, and voila; you have a one pot, well-rounded dinner ready to go for you and your family! I love making an easy one pot meal for dinner, especially when it tastes so good! I make this meal (or one of many variations of it) at least a couple of times…

Chocolate Pumpkin Protein Balls

I can’t even believe it is September! No wonder I’m starting to get the itch to buy all sorts of different squashes and make pumpkin everything! To kick off the fall season, and FINALLY, get back into blogging (hopefully!), I’ll pass along a recipe for delicious fall flavors packed into little chocolately protein energy balls! Use these for an afternoon pick-me-up, a pre or post workout energy source, or a healthy snack for you and your kiddos when you head for the apple orchard. I adapted this recipe from the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Energy Balls recipe to make Clean Food Crush’s energy balls…

5 Steps to an Easier Week and a Better Shopping Day

What is grocery shopping like for you?! I think that all of us can find grocery shopping just a bit crazy at times, especially with children and a full schedule. Getting to the store, through the store, and back home while staying sane is a quite an accomplishment. For me, even with one little man, grocery shopping has become a much bigger ordeal. There have been many times that Oakley has begun exercising his lungs with loud cries in the middle of the grocery store, many other times that I pick him up to discover he has wet or pooped…

A Full Spice Cabinet: 15 Seasonings To Start With

My husband and I recently moved from a small one-bedroom apartment to a two-bedroom to make room for our little boy coming in the spring (his arrival is becoming even more of a reality!). To my mom’s surprise, as she helped me move my kitchen over to the new place, she found my spice cupboard full to overflowing. Yes, that’s me! I love seasonings; I wouldn’t be able to live without them, and I use them quite generously in my cooking and baking. I love having variety in my cupboard as well – to be able to try out that…