Day

My niece wants to be a princess. She wants to dress up in a pink gown with glass slippers and dance with the prince of her dreams. Every time she tells me this, I tell her that I would rather dress up in a long black dress and walk in the gloomy forest. That makes her cry and I always get blamed by my brother and my sister-in-law. Is it my fault that I’m not the girly type whose dream is to become a princess? Plus, Cinderella’s gown is not pink; it’s bluish white.

I do believe in fairytales, I am a writer after all. But I just love teasing her because her face gets all scrunched up and she looks really cute. I never meant to make her cry all the time. I just wasn’t aware how serious she was about her dreams. I promise I am trying to stop teasing her all the time now. I am a really wonderful aunt after all who will support her regardless of how impossible her dreams are (for now). But really, I’d rather just munch on these zebra stacks that look like they came straight from a fairytale book than to dress in a pink gown! Go check out this recipe!

Photo and recipe courtesy of Mr. Food.

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Quick Tip: Serve with a cup of coffee or a cup of your favorite tea.

Boy oh boy, this winter weather sure is giving me the blues.

How about all of you? I’m not talking to you lucky people who live in tropical climates. I’m jealous of you haha! Honestly, though, I’m glad that I live in a state that has the four seasons. I love the fall. I think fall is my favorite time of the year with the changing colors of the leaves and fresh, crisp air. What is your favorite season? Most people tend to say summer but I think summer would be my second favorite season followed by winter and then spring.

One amazing thing about the summer months is the ability to have a garden or at least find fresh produce at roadside stands. I live in Pennsylvania and we have plenty of Amish and Mennonite roadside produce stands. You can’t get fresher than that! Anyway, I long for the day I can grab me some crunchy asparagus.

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Quick Tip: Spritz your baking pan with coconut oil before baking.

Every lady should know how to cook at least one proper dish, at least that’s what our moms always tell us. Amanda, one of my cousins, doesn’t know how to cook. She’s just so bad at it that we all feel hopeless for her – including herself. She couldn’t even cook a perfect sunny side up. I swear that she can also burn water, that’s how hopeless she is with a stove. But Amanda is a very persistent girl who goes after what she wants and she wants to have a specialty dish. And after searching for so long, she finally found something that she is able to do without even a small kitchen disaster. And they taste good too!

This recipe is discovered by one of her friends. It’s an easy recipe that teaches anyone how to bake Danish cups. It only has four ingredients and is perfect for anyone who is not exactly a master chef. Amanda, despite a little protest on her part, allows us to share the recipe her friend found over at Mr. Food. Well, it’s not like it’s a secret. It’s a food blog! But here you go. And to you who are as hopeless as she is, may the odds be ever in your favor!

Photo and recipe courtesy of Mr. Food.

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Quick Tip: Serve with a steaming cup of coffee.

Whatever do you do in sleepovers? When I was a teen, every time we had a sleepover my friends and I did nothing but gossip about those girls we hated in school (come on, admit it, you did it too). We never had a “makeover sleepover”. My friends were like me; we were not the type to wear heels and skirts in high school – we were the jeans and shirts type of girls. We also listened to music (90’s boybands were the best! I had the biggest crush on Nick Carter) and played video games (I was so good at Super Mario Brothers).

Now that we’re all full grown up adults, our sleepovers are different. We still talk about a lot of things and people; but instead of talking about them childishly like we did before, we’re more mature about it now and talk about the facts more instead of the hear-say. But what I love the most is that whenever my friends sleepover (we’re never too old for that), we invade my kitchen and cook or bake together. Our recent bonding session was for this recipe called chocolate rollups. Go check out the recipe for these chocolatey treats!

Photo and recipe courtesy of Mr. Food.

USE THE RED NEXT PAGE LINK BELOW FOR THE RECIPE AND INGREDIENTS.

Quick Tip: Serve with coffee or tea.

Do you also have that one friend who is so pessimistic, you always want to slap her on the back of her head to wake her up? I mean okay, life is a rollercoaster ride, but it’s not all doom and gloom! Life has its fun moments, too. It’s just that we think about the negative ones a lot because they hurt us in a way that positive ones never will.

In my circle of friends, that description perfectly describes Tina. I’m not sure what happened to her because we’ve all met her parents and they’re the funniest and most optimistic people we’ve ever met. Tina just thinks about the negative things all the time even though there’s a huge potential for success. It’s her attitude that’s actually causing her to fail. She hasn’t even tried yet and she always thinks she’ll lose. There’s one thing she’s positive about though—her version of Texas Sticky Buns that really taste so good you cant’ see anything negative on it! Well, that is until we hear her gloomy voice say, “I wish luck will stick with me like these sticky buns”. Y’all shouldn’t listen to her and just enjoy this recipe about Texas Sticky Buns.

Photo and recipe courtesy of Mr. Food.

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Quick Tip: Serve with coffee or tea.

There is always that moment when you’re just talking to someone and then suddenly you see something and voila—you’re brought back to an incident that happened years ago. This happened to me a few days ago when I was having dinner at a friend’s house. A memory was triggered by food (of all things, food!) and it made me melancholic for the rest of the night. I was enjoying my plate of baked ziti and garlic bread when one of my friends joined me on the couch. She was eating a sort of muffin that looked quite familiar yet I couldn’t seem to be able to place it. It was only when she allowed me to take a bite that I remembered something.

When I was a kid, there was this weird boy in class who was so quiet everyone thought he didn’t speak. He was new in school that year so he didn’t have any friends and no one wanted to talk to him. One of my friends finally approached him. She came back with a muffin in hand and told us the boy didn’t want to be bothered. The boy gave the muffin to her thinking she just wanted his lunch. It tasted like salmon. The boy could have been our friend, but we never had a chance to make him one. He left school a month later and we never heard from him again. We’ve been wondering about him ever since.

Photo and recipe courtesy of Betty Crocker.

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Quick Tip: You can modify the ingredients based on your preferences.

I first tasted baked salmon at the first birthday of the son of my former boss. I was skeptical aft first because it smelled so strong I felt like it was going to swallow me whole. I was glad I did have a taste, though. It was one of the best dishes I have ever tasted. This baked salmon had lots of garlic on it (which explained the super strong smell), but there was also cheese in there that balanced the somewhat spicy taste of garlic. It was also topped with roasted nuts that gave it a kick and a hint of that nutty flavor. I wasn’t able to ask for the recipe back then, so I’ve been searching for something similar ever since.

This recipe that I found over at Betty Crocker tastes far different from my first baked salmon. But it tastes really good in its own way and I am pretty sure that it will have your mouth water in no time. It has a multitude of flavors going on in there and it’s quite healthy too with all the vegetables included in the dish. You will thank Betty Crocker for this Mediterranean style recipe, I’m sure of that.

Photo and recipe courtesy of Betty Crocker.

USE THE RED NEXT PAGE LINK BELOW FOR THE RECIPE AND INGREDIENTS.

Quick Tip: If lima beans are frozen in solid block, microwave on High about 1 minute or just long enough to break beans apart.