Vanilla Cookies

It's almost Valentine's Day! I think a holiday to celebrate love is wonderful. Whether it's love for a significant other, yourself, family members or your friends, it's always important to celebrate those close to you and let them know that you appreciate them.

Valentine's is knows for all of the sweets and sugar involved. These aren't an exception, but they are small, so it makes it easier to eat one or two instead of a sugar cookie. Sugar cookies are a typical holiday treat. Even though I like them once-in-a-while, it's nice to have a break sometimes. These vanilla cookies somewhat mimic a sugar cookie, but they are a little more crumbly and not as incredibly sweet. They're a favorite of mine and they are handed down from my Grandma.

Apple Pie

I hope that everyone is ready for Thanksgiving! It's one of my favorite holidays, and I love getting together with family. Apple pie is a staple at Thanksgiving dinners, and this recipe is so easy to make! You can easily buy pie dough or a pre-made pie crust to make this even more simple. Pies take time, so make sure you start a few hours before you need it to make sure it's ready. A lot of the time is chilling in the fridge, so it's not too bad. And the measuring isn't too bad either. Just make sure that you make the pie crust correctly, not too wet from the water, but not too crumbly and dry. A pie crust should be flaky.

Dulce de Leche Cutout Cookies

I wanted to make Halloween cookies, but I wanted to try something new! So, I thought I'd try one of my favorite cookies that my sister-in-law Sarah over at High Heels and Grills makes. When I was dating my husband (her brother) we drove from Utah to her house in Fort Collins, Colorado and she made these cookies for us, I fell in love with them! And then when we got married, she made a ton of desserts and these were definitely on the table for refreshments.

Shortbread is so delicate and crumbly, and I literally carved out the faces for these cookies with a toothpick! It took longer than I'd expect it to, so unless you have a lot of time on your hands, use a Linzer Cookie Cutter and it'll be way easier. You can find different holiday ones too, but probably not pumpkin faces ;).

You can find the original recipe here from my SIL's blog. I halved it so that we didn't have cookies coming out of our ears. Best recipe for baking for two!

Amazon Prime Favorite Kitchen Items

It's Prime Day! So I thought I would share with you some of my favorite kitchen essentials that are available on Amazon Prime. This post contains affiliate links meaning that I may receive a small commission from you clicking the links and purchasing from them. But, these items are ALL in my kitchen and my thoughts are completely truthful and my own opinions. I wouldn't share anything with you that I wouldn't use myself. Happy shopping! And remember that Prime Day ends tomorrow, it's only 1 1/2 days!

Pretty and Pink Cherry Chiffon Salad

This is the perfect salad to bring to a potluck or share with your family this Valentine's Day! It takes less than 10 minutes to make and everyone absolutely loves it!

We just had my younger brothers stay with us for the weekend and my eight-year-old brother thought it was great because of the marshmallows, you can always get kids to eat stuff with marshmallows haha! I had so much fun with them down here while my parents were at meetings in Las Vegas. We went swimming, hiking and made some pizza for National Pizza Day! And we watched movies and ate lots and lots of food. I wish that I didn't live over 3 hours away from them because whenever we leave it's not super fun. But, I get to see them the beginning of March, really looking forward to that! I loved sharing this dessert with them and it actually had quite a few leftovers, so you can definitely feed a lot of people with this dessert!

Caramel Popcorn

It's National Popcorn Day and I'm over here celebrating! I love love love popcorn! I can't believe how warm and dry the weather is out here in Southern Utah this year. It's kind of scary, so hopefully we'll get some moisture soon! As much as I love the movie theater, sometimes I just prefer sitting at home and watching a movie with some popcorn in my pajamas and fuzzy socks. I'm so much more comfortable and it's way cheaper too! But, I swear that my attention span is totally lost during a full-length movie unless I have something to munch on. And that's usually (okay, always) popcorn! I love the microwave stuff, picking up a bucket from the theater and bringing it home, or even air popped corn from home. But the special treat is the rarely-made caramel popcorn.


When we were first married and I discovered how good this stuff was, I made it a ton. Bad idea, surprisingly (not really) it's not that good for you. So now, we decided to make it a special treat when we want to indulge in the goodness of it. It's a sweet caramel sauce that is made perfection with the sweetened condensed milk. My in-laws make it and it's one of the best things ever! I'd say that it's part of the reason why I married my husband, but I actually never even had it until we were engaged. I'm pretty particular about food and if I haven't liked something before, I'm not very willing to try it. When I was younger, I had caramel popcorn but but it was more of a hard coating than this and I didn't like it. So, after they told me "caramel popcorn" I was pretty much thinking no way, but I took a little so I wouldn't be rude and I was hooked. Best stuff ever.

Taquitos

Taco Tuesday is one of my very favorite things to make. They always taste amazing because you can totally cater them to what you're feeling like that day! Well, I'll be honest and tell you that Michael is usually in charge of Taco Tuesday, so he always makes them...another reason why they're the best! There's such a hype about Taco Tuesday, I'm totally making up a new day later in the week: Taquito Thursday (or Friday or Saturday....I could seriously eat these things any day)!! Here's to more salsa and tortillas because they're the best things ever.

This is another slow cooker meal, so definitely a huge winner in my book! I found these from @motivationmindy on Instagram and she raves about them too. They honestly taste so good. I dip them in a little bit of ranch. Have you tried the Greek Yogurt Ranch before? I'm a huge fan, the calories aren't high and when eating it, it doesn't make you feel like you're eating something gross. I was kind of thinking the taquitos would taste a little funny because sometimes homemade things son't taste as good as restaurants in my opinion. But, I will never buy taquitos again, not frozen or from a restaurant because these are that dang good! They're perfect for weeknight dinners for something quick. I also love them on the weekends because I like to eat "fun foods" on the weekends for dinner. Pizza, taquitos, sandwiches, burgers, etc. are so good when you make them at home and I like to have a fun, relaxing dinner on the weekends after I've cleaned the house and just want to relax and hang out.

It's time for those Holiday parties! Here is a list of 22 recipes that will for sure be hits with everyone that you're with!

Cheese Ball

Who doesn't love cheese balls? This ranch cheese ball is so easy to make and everyone always loves it! I started making these in high school for my cheerleading team dinners and felt so proud of myself for not buying one haha. So, I thought it's about time I put my famous recipe up!

16 Sugar Cookies

These sugar cookies are so easy to make, don't need chilling, and taste amazing! And, this recipe only makes like 16-20 cookies. So it means I don't overload on cookies too much! Perfect for small get togethers, or any occasion where you want to decorate and eat but don't want too many.

The Best Navajo Tacos

Who doesn't love tacos?! They're completely catered to every single person because they can choose their own toppings, they could feed an army, and they taste amazing. When I was in high school, my cheer team always did a Navajo Taco fundraiser and it was one of my favorite thing ever, mostly because I'd get Navajo Tacos for dinner that night haha. One reason why I love these things is that they taste super fresh. Salsa, lettuce, olives, limes, whatever you want to put on them, you can! I LOVE olives, so I throw as many of those things on there as I can. And then I have to put some back to share with everyone else haha.
I'm in my last week of school for this semester and oh man, I'm so ready for it to be done! I only have 5 (FIVE!!) more things to do, including finals, for school and then I am done until the second week of January. I love December because 1) the break from school 2) my birthday month 3) our wedding anniversary 4) Christmas 5) I get to spend so much time with my family 6) Christmas lights 7) just the whole entire amazing spirit that's around during the Holidays. I can't get enough of it!

5 Best Autumn Soups

I love autumn and I'm not ashamed. Haha seriously though, it's probably my favorite season of them all. I can wear jackets and boots, and looser clothing that is way more comfortable than summer clothing. And I'm totally not a flip-flop girl so everything about this season is right up my alley. And the best part about it is that I can finally start bringing soup back to our meal plans. I try to stretch it out as long as possible, and when it's hotter outside than the soup simmering in the pot, I just know it's time to stop. But, I try to bring them back at the earliest moment that I can! These are some fall favorites that and a group of ladies and I have gotten together for everyone! Soup that everyone will be sure to love!

Zucchini Boats

Zucchini is one of my absolute favorite things to eat! I love the end of summer/beginning of fall because that's when we have tons of zucchini harvested and we can eat it any time we feel like it. Garden/farmers market zucchini is best for these boats because they're larger and easier to stuff, but these smaller ones from the grocery store work out just fine! 

I tried using ground turkey with these instead of ground beef, and I did not like it...the texture was different and taste wasn't good to me. My husband liked them, but I decided that I like the ground beef ones a ton better! I also didn't use the inside of the zucchini to mix in because I didn't think the seeds would mix very well. I liked adding the tomatoes into the recipe too!

Perfectly Autumn Pumpkin Bread

This is the pumpkin bread that I grew up on, and oh man, it’s amazing. The two loaves it makes wouldn’t last a day with us kids cutting it off piece by piece, loading butter on top of it (now I think how gross it is how much butter we put on there), and putting it in the microwave for 15 seconds while we cut another piece to eat before our warm piece. It was the best thing ever.

Now, I have to half the recipe or try and give some away because I know if this bread is sitting there, I could eat it all gone.

Slow Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup

Soup is my soul food. I could leave just that sentence as the only one besides the recipe on this post, and I think I’d totally get my point across. But, I won’t do that because I always have more words. But seriously, I love soup. Almost any restaurant that has soup that I like, that will be my order even though I’ll scan the whole menu seeing what I’d like and then I still order the soup no matter what. Probably my absolute favorite soup choice is Olive Garden’s all you can eat soup, salad, and breadsticks. Oh man, I love that stuff.

These egg noodles are a game changer. That’s one thing I have a hard time with soups is when using noodles, that they expand. That’s a no-go for me because I LOVE leftovers. So sometimes I cook the noodles in a separate pot with chicken broth and drain them and then just keep them in a separate container to store and just scoop into the rest of the soup when I’m ready to eat it. But, a lot of the time I forget stuff like that. But, chicken noodle soup is my favorite with egg noodles. They expand a little bit, but not nearly as much as regular pasta so they’re usually okay to leave in with the rest of the soup.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

It’s October!! So that means pumpkin EVERYTHING….right!? October is the beginning to my favorite three months of the whole entire year! I love Autumn and everything that it brings along with it. Even though it brought snow with it this year to Utah already and I think that was jumping the gun a bit there. I absolutely LOVE the chilly weather and the colorful falling leaves. I also love fall fashion: the sweaters, boots, scarves, jackets, everything!! Living in Southern Utah, it’s a bit warmer here than the rest of the state it feels like sometimes, and then it feels like it’s colder than the rest of the state from harsh winds at others haha I guess I should just be happy I’m not snowed in regularly. We enjoy hiking in Zion National Park and it’s pretty warm there in the summer, and we try to visit it more in the spring and fall since it’s cooler to hike and enjoy the weather during those times. We visited with family a couple weeks ago and hope to stop there at least one or two more times before it’s too cold to be enjoyable out there.

Back to School: Simple Snacks

September means that school is in full swing. From kindergarten to college, everyone in school needs a snack once-in-awhile, and these snacks will be winners! Some you can pack into a lunch box, and others are perfect for a warm after school snack. Fruit, pizza, popcorn, Chex, and oatmeal are favorites to all, and everyone will appreciate these great flavors! Five great in recipes all in one post. We hope that you enjoy them!

Simple Oatmeal Bars

These things are the best! Three simple ingredients and viola, they're done in 5 minutes. I like to add different things to my bars too. It makes them seem less plain, and you don't get sick of them that easily because there's always new flavors in them. Some things I like to add: chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit, or other grains.

So, here's how to do it! For every 1 1/2 cups of oats, add 1/2 cup peanut butter, and 3 Tbsp. honey. You can definitely add more honey, up to 1/2 cup, but we like the peanut butter to give most of the flavoring. Melt the peanut butter and honey on the stove and once melted, add oats. Mix until combined very well, and then add other ingredients once they're cooled off just a couple minutes. Flatten on am 8x8 pan that has a tin foil lining(if you're making more, use a 9x13 or cookie sheer). Let set in fridge for about an hour.

Basic Mini Cheesecakes

As I have said before, cheesecake is my absolute favorite dessert ever. I’d say chocolate, but my chocolate intake would be more than a dessert. So I call that more of a staple. That works...right?! My mom is a kindergarten teacher, mom of five, and one of the busiest people I know. I’ll never understand how she could teach full-time, run my brothers to sports practices, make dinner, watch me cheer and my sister play volleyball, get piano practiced and homework finished, and run other errands around town all while keeping the house clean. She is totally Wonder Woman. But, she always has some chocolate hidden in a jar in her classroom or in the toaster cupboard at home, and she taught me that helps the day go by a little bit smoother. So, I just have to keep it there in my life too! And of course, put it on top of these great cheesecakes.

I like to make flavored cheesecakes so much. I love trying new things and mixing new flavors together that I know I will always love because, cheesecake. But, sometimes you just need that classic flavor. One of the perks to a plain cheesecake is that you can add any toppings you would like to it. Perfect for a cheesecake bar or something like that. Some I’d recommend: fruit, nuts, chocolate, caramel, and candies.

Sunday Dinner Crockpot Roast and Potatoes

For as long as I can remember, at least one Sunday each month, walking into the house after church and getting a whiff of the best smell ever: roast beef, onion, and potatoes. I'd run to set the table and put the rolls in the oven. It was like my monthly version of Thanksgiving Dinner. I don't think anything can compare to a roast that has been slow cooking all day. I thought my mom was a magic cook (well I still think she is) to be able to make something that tasted so good. I'm glad that she's taught me her ways because living over 2 hours away, you can't drive home every Sunday for dinner, unfortunately. This roast is actually pretty simple. As much as I try to make this for two people, I don't think it will ever work out. I always end up filling it to the brim with food. It works because Sunday we eat around 2 p.m., have leftovers before dessert, and then more leftovers for lunch the nest day. So it actually ends up for about 3-4 meals for us, and we don't mind because we love this stuff.