I love butternut squash but I do not like opening them. Delicata squash to the rescue. The outer skin of butternut squash is so thick and they’re so rock-hard that even slicing it in half is much easier said than done. I feel like I could easily lose a limb with the machete-sized knife I need to use in order to hack through it and I have to wind-up as if I am swinging my knife like a baseball bat at home plate, just to enable my knife to initially pierce the concrete-like exterior....

So how about making a pan of Rocky Road brownies right before he leaves for his next work trip? Leaving me, myself, and I with a pan of brownies to enjoy all by myself? On second thought, this was not such a good idea. Nevermind the fact that these come from Eating Well magazine… me and a pan of brownies left alone are not to be trusted. Good thing my sister is coming to help me finish these off....

We went for a walk this morning to get a few more outdoor pictures of Sage in the wild, since, you know, on a normal walk we don’t usually bring a huge DSLR camera, and both Bjork and I just couldn’t stop laughing about what a weird life this is that we get to share our dog with the internet as a very small and just-for-fun part of our “job....

I posted last month about the wonderful horseradish mustard I received in my Foodzie tasting box And this month Woody’s Herb Sea Salt arrived. What’s a girl to make with some herb sea salt? Some ideas… Lemon & Dill Roasted Potato Sticks Cheezy Veggie Bake Roasted Sweet Potato Fries Coconut & Olive Oil Roasted “French Fries” “Spicy Doritos” Cheezy Dip Hummus Or from my post yesterday, “Cheater’s” Guacamole It sounds like there are lots of guac fans in the house!...

Thanksgiving Week will only get more hectic with each passing day and Scott, Skylar, and I are leaving next week. So it was Monday or….2012. I’m glad we drank coffee and shot the breeze for an hour or so And then it was off to Target to return a bag. I bought it in the hopes of using it to transport my Macbook and camera. For $30 bucks the Target bag was a nice find, and would have saved me quite a bit compared to many other bags I’ve seen, but after I got it home and tried to put my items in it, there was no way were they going to fit....

Baked Salmon with Sweet Chili Sauce The spicy-sweet chili glazed salmon is loaded with so many layers of incredible flavors thanks to a sweet chili sauce, an Asian chili garlic sauce which adds some heat and garlic, Dijon mustard, and honey. It’s a flavor bomb powerhouse that gives the salmon fabulous flavor and it’s as easy drizzling 4 key ingredients over the salmon. The salmon is very lightly crisped on the outside and rarer on the inside because a softer and really tender center is how I enjoy my salmon the most....

I love turtle anything. Gooey caramel contrasted with crunchy pecans and decadent chocolate is a combination I can’t resist! Put that in poke cake form and you’ve got yourself a mega hit. This turtle chocolate poke cake is one of the best cakes I’ve ever made and we absolutely loved it. Poke cakes get their name because after baking you poke holes in the cake and drizzle in a sweetly satisfying mixture usually consisting of sweetened condensed milk and caramel sauce, but it can vary....

I got all eight pieces for two bucks. Apparently the only thing you can get for a quarter anymore is a old dirty fork, and I’m thinking they will be perfect in photos with some dark wood. Or with this I love the spoons. Especially the one in the middle with the open spaces in the handle. It reminds me of something my grandma would have used to stir her coffee....

Apple Cranberry Salad Recipe Say hello to the flavors of fall in this fast, easy, and healthy dried cranberry salad that’s loaded with textures galore. There are sweet honey crisp apples, chewy orange-flavored dried cranberries, salty blue cheese, and crunchy candied pecans made with Fisher Pecan Halves. The apple cider vinegar salad dressing comes together in 30 seconds in the blender. It’s a tart-and-sweet blend of dried cranberries, apple cider vinegar, honey, and olive oil....

Looking for more 30-Minute Meals? Try my Air Fryer Pizza, Taco Salad, or Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas! Why I love this recipe: Homemade Sauce: It has the perfect sauce/beef ratio that is packed with flavor. Adaptable: There are so many ways to vary this recipe (see below) by adding veggies, switching the meat, etc.Kid Friendly: My kids love this recipe (even when I add veggies) and it makes for a relaxing and fun family dinner....

The sound of our toilet flushing is sweet music to my ears! There are few occasions in a person’s life that warrant a photo of a toilet for a post image, and this is one of them. Next up, the fridge. Then, washing machine. And after that, internet. Unfortunately, the 3-5 day timeline for getting WiFi has morphed into something like a 3-5 week timeline. Alrighty then. Needless to say, we’re finding new ways to have fun in our refrigeraterless, internetless, and washingmachineless life....

comment icon 1437 more comments The hallmark flavors of gingerbread are molasses and ginger, so once we’ve got those going on in all the right proportions, who says that gingerbread cookies can’t be a textural wonder of soft and chewy and crackly and tender-buttery-crisp all in one glorious bite? 2021 is the year to reinvent “gingerbread” into a cookie that we really, truly love. (Or, maybe gingerbread muffins? Love those too....

Regular burgers, cheeseburgers, bacon cheeseburgers, barbeque burgers with onion rings, bacon cheeseburgers with fried eggs on top… I’ll take one of each with a side of fries. Because it’s Friday. Oh, and how about those weird burgers they have at hole-in-the-wall burger joints, like the ones with peanut butter? Have you had one of those? And then you think they’re gonna make you gag and you’ll never be able to look at that place the same way again, but they’re actually, like, kinda good, and you end up coming back every weekend for the rest of time?...

When longtime reader and blogger, J of SemplicementeJ, wrote to tell me she makes Venezuelan Red Pepper Jelly but doesn’t bother with canning, I got very excited. I asked her permission to share her recipe because it’s not on her site. She combines 1 red pepper, 1/2 cup of vinegar, and 1 cup of sugar on the stovetop and lets it simmer until it’s reduced by half. Jelly, without canning?...

Not so much with this food. But more with life stuff. I’ve been cramming all kinds of things in before our trip. We leave in less than a week! I am so excited. But there’s so much to do beforehand. I addressed out 50 of our 2011 Holiday Cards to my nearest and dearest. It was a card-stuffing assembly line: card stuffed into envelope, lick, find the address from my computer files, address the envelop, apply return address label, apply stamp....

Frosted Texas Sheet Cake Brownies Texas sheet cakes are something I rarely make because I never ‘need’ an enormous chocolate cake laying around. Enter: an 8-inch pan of ultra fudgy brownies topped with Texas sheet cake frosting — which is a boiled cocoa powder frosting — and I’ve got the best of both worlds. I can fulfill my chocolate fix with a manageable pan size. The brownies are an easy, one-bowl, no-mixer recipe that’s as fast as using a boxed mix and they turn out fudgy with zero cakiness....

Homemade French Silk Pie Recipe I’ve wanted to make a French Silk Pie for ages but kept putting it off. I’m glad I finally made it because it turned out to be one of the best pies I’ve ever eaten. I’m not really even a pie girl. In 5 years of blogging mostly about desserts, I have just a few pie recipes. But I have fond memories of being in high school and college and going to Baker’s Square for study sessions....

Want the recipe? It’s my Lemon Butter Dijon Chicken Skillet cooked in pan #1 below Whether I’m whipping up my Garlic Butter Chicken on a weeknight – this recipe takes only 15 minutes and is a family FAVORITE! Or my Broccoli Cheese Soup, and trust me, it’s better than Panera and the house smells so good – these pieces of cookware never fail me! When shopping for cookware, you want to find products that last, are of high quality, and aren’t priced out of your budget....

comment icon 234 more comments I first made these when we were in the Philippines, when it was a struggle to just keep butter solid for 2 seconds on the counter, and they were absolutely incredible. I had no idea how or why, but they just WORKED. And they blew my mind in the way only a perfect chocolate chip cookie really can. But then every once in a while, they didn’t work....

To save this meal plan (and even swap our some of the recipes), add it to your recipe collection, click here Did you know you can SAVE your favorite recipes and ANY of my meal plans? Simply create an account (it’s free)! Print Shopping List We’ve been sharing 5-day weekly meal plans for many years now and are are so excited to introduce these budget meal plans, as well as vegetarian, low carb, and other seasonal meal plans!...