Bear with me. It’s another Valentine’s post! But this time with chocolate. And cake. And ganache – with Four Roses bourbon in it! I hope you can get behind this.

Now originally for this post, I made the above cupcakes. Which are pretty and fanciful and cute and all. But the flavor of these cupcakes were terrible. They were too dry and tasted almost bitter and was a total failure. I ended up throwing them away because I couldn’t bare the taste …

Valentine’s Day is just on the horizon. It’s peeking over your shoulder! Instead of doing a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day this year, why not try making something a little more homespun for your sweetie? Today I’m sharing a little recipe that I created using Driscoll’s Strawberries and I’m really excited about them because they turned out way better than I thought they would!

Peanut Butter Pie Stuffed Strawberries.
Doesn’t that sound MAGICAL? 
It totally is. 

I knew I wanted to do some …

I received another opportunity to work with NestFresh Eggs in conjunction with National Egg Month this month! National Egg Month is around to help educate folks and raise awareness for choosing healthy eggs and including them into your diet. Did you know that NestFresh eggs are certified cage free – but what the heck does that mean? Certified Cage Free means the little hens get to roam around and feel like free little birds instead of cooped up in close …

It’s amazing how many foodie related “holidays” there are. For instance, today is National Blueberry Pancakes Day and I wonder, is there a Cheetos day, or is it only recipes? And also, why only blueberry pancakes today? Is there an apple cinnamon pancake day, too? Or a dutch baby pancake day? I’m sure Google could answer all of these questions for me but I think it’s best to just let them drift into the void and wonder, like when we …

If you’ve ever been to a Filipino party or get together, then I’m certain you’ve had lumpia. These golden fried sticks of goodness are incredibly hard to resist and never last for too long at any party. For Christmas I got my mom to show me how to make her homemade lumpia once and for all (ie: I wrote it down this time). She doesn’t really measure so I had to watch her carefully and take notes. 

First you have to …

I meant to post this last week but instead of writing on New Year’s Day we sat around in our PJ’s and played video games. And then I had to work on Friday. #thestruggleisreal

On New Year’s Eve I went shopping for groceries in Carmel Mountain Ranch. It was cloudy, dark, and drizzly and at about 12PM we reached a high of 45 degrees. What in the what?! I know for someone who doesn’t live in San Diego this might seem …

This weekend I did a ton of baking! I made cracker candy again (this year with a new flavor: white Chocolate with lime zest and salt!), lemon ricotta cookies and these babies: peanut butter cup cookies.

They might be my new favorite cookie. They have peanut butter cookies WITH a Reese’s mini peanut butter cup INSIDE. This is magic, I tell you.

I like these more than peanut butter blossoms and plain old peanut butter cookies. Having that extra bit of chocolate/peanut …

This year was my first year participating in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap! I don’t get to do a ton of cookie swaps but I sure do love giving away cookies. I was able to “practice” on a potential Christmas cookie this year. I really wanted to make a shaped cookie – but NOT do sugar cookies – and finally decided on doing some shortbread.

More specifically: Lemon Ginger Shortbread!

The cookies have a ground up pecans mixed into the flour …