Disclosure: Contains referral link. Read full disclosure policy. My success rate with making sugar cutout cookies is 0%.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  Zip.  No successes ever.  It isn’t from a lack of trying – I’ve just never been able to master it.  So I’ve kind of given up.  It’s a simple thing to go to the Read more

When my in laws come up to visit for the day, they often treat us to lunch or dinner.  One of our favorite things to eat are chicken wings from Buffalo Wild Wings.  They don’t have one in their city and they just really enjoy it.  And we really enjoy it.  And our boys really Read more

I love my jelly roll pan.  Or half sheet pan.  Whatever you want to call it!  Before I started staying at home instead of going to an office every day, I used to bake treats for my co-workers every so often.  And, then eventually my husband’s co-workers.  So when I baked, I found myself baking bigger batches of cookies.  Or doubling recipes to make 2 9×13 pans of bars.  Eventually, I succumbed and bought a jelly roll pan and started finding recipes that were made just for that size.  All of a sudden, making treats for a few dozen people was easy.

This is one of those recipes.  They’re Monster Cookie Bars as they have hearty oatmeal, creamy peanut butter, melty M&Ms, and yummy chocolate chips.  AND they don’t have flour in them!  So those that are looking to be Gluten-free, these could easily qualify as long as you made sure to get gluten-free oatmeal. Read More…

OH MY STARS!  I married a cocoa-loving man.  I’m not really sure that I knew that when we married, but I did shortly after that.  The first winter that we were married, we happened to go grocery shopping together.  (Probably only one of maybe three times we’ve done that.  That must be something that only newly married people do.)  We got to the cocoa mix aisle and he started studying all the choices.

Studying them.  Not kidding.  He started debating the pros and cons of the various choices and eventually landed on a few to buy.  I had no idea that I had married a cocoa-lover.  But, really, there could be worse habits, you know?

A few years after that, I stumbled onto this homemade cocoa mix in a Hy-Vee magazine.  It was delicious!  My husband quickly dubbed it the “Best Cocoa That I’ve Ever Had”.  We ended up making a few tweaks to make it even better (to us) and that new concoction has become the “Best Cocoa In The World”.  As soon as he suspects that the weather is getting colder or that snow is on it’s way, he makes sure we have the supplies to make this mix.  We make a huge batch, keep it in a glass jar and just enjoy it all season long. Read More…

Do you remember the “S’mores” scene from The Sandlot?  I mean, it’s a classic!  (Well, for people my age anyway.)  If you’re not familiar with it, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlddDZkkxCc Who doesn’t love s’mores?  I love a good campfire.  Putting a marshmallow on a metal stick, finding out the right distance from the fire to Read more

Ahhh…chili.  Such fond memories of it. Football season is drawing to a close.  High school football is done.  College football is done.  The NFL is in playoffs.  I don’t know why I associate football and chili together.  I have images in my head of big football parties and a whole vat of chili on the Read more

Have you read the story about the gal who lost 125 pounds by using the Instant Pot?  Now, she did a lot of other stuff too – it wasn’t ONLY about the Instant Pot, but the main takeaway is that the Instant Pot made it significantly easier for her to cook at home instead of Read more

Years ago (at least a couple of decades ago now), my grandma used to hand out homemade popcorn balls to Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween night.  She’d probably spend a good portion of her day making them.  She’d wrap them individually and include her name and address on them.  Most of her trick-or-treaters were from her neighborhood Read more

Breakfast is usually the same few things around our house: usually bagels, cereal, or pancakes.  (God bless my husband for being our own Pancake Man on Saturdays!)  But every once in a while, I like to serve something different.  On birthdays.  Or holidays.  Or vacation days.  When there’s something out of the ordinary going on Read more