Honey Cookie Butter Cookies

It's my absolute favorite time of the year! This past week in SoCal has been refreshingly cooler, and I might have dressed Elena and Emilio in warmer clothes maybe more than once this past week. I have some cute warm outfits that I want them to wear before they outgrow them. Although this weekend may be another hot one - I'm crossing my fingers hoping that Fall weather is here to stay for the rest of the season. I have already started working on my October bucket list and this hot weather spells disaster for everything on it. Pretty, pretty please with a big fat pumpkin on top - Fall weather, please come back and don't leave us.

On my October bucket list, I wanted to bake cookies...like lots of them. I have been pinning Pumpkin recipes like crazy but enjoying my Pumpkin M&Ms for the meanwhile. This summer kept me busy with ice cream and s'mores and other sweet treats, but I have been itching to bake cookies. I had originally wanted to make peanut butter cookies but I had less than a cup of peanut butter left. On the bright side I had an unopened jar of cookie butter that was screaming at me "USE ME" instead.

Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies

We are already midway through September and I'm hoping that Fall weather will magically happen. I have already enjoyed my first PSL on ice (that's Starbucks code for Pumpkin Spice Latte) because in SoCal our temps are still resembling summer beach days. Eric is in football happy mode for the next 3 months, and my kiddos have their Packers jerseys and Chargers gear, too.  More importantly, I have already bought E&E's Halloween costumes and scouring my recipes for everything pumpkin. It's definitely my happiest time/season of the year!

September is also Childhood Cancer Awareness month and OXO is getting ready for their annual program benefiting Cookies for Kids' Cancer. For every stickered item sold, they will donate 25 cents in support of pediatric cancer research as part of its $100,000 pledge to Cookies for Kids' Cancer. Be on the lookout for specially marked OXO products at participating retailers.  For my blog post about brownies, OXO will donate $100. I'm very honored to be working with OXO for such a wonderful cause.

Baked Cranberry, Apple and Walnut Oatmeal

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day because it's the one meal that I don't mind eating for breakfast, lunch or dinner. This Baked Cranberry, Apple, and Walnut Oatmeal can be served for breakfast, lunch, dinner or even dessert, too.

I have been a longtime reader of Prevention RD, and I couldn't be happier when I found out that she was writing a cookbook! Nicole is a dear sweet food blogging friend of mine and I had met her at a food blogger conference back in 2011 (I'm 3.5 months pregnant with Elena here). In the picture below, everyone (except me) got to meet Tyler Florence, or got an autograph with him or picture with him. I had settled for taking a picture of him from 3 feet away, and more importantly later on I got his better half - his backside with my partner in crime, Nikki.

L to R: Jessica, Nicole, Jessica, Nikki, me and Joelen (at bottom)

Nicole's cookbook couldn't have arrived at a better time for myself. Currently, I'm struggling with my weight post-pregnancy and I really want to lose that extra baby weight that is still lingering on. I have not been able to wear my pre-pregnancy clothes since 2011 (2 years in row being pregnant does that!). Before the kids, I was a regular at the gym, took spin class like it was my job and maintained my weight through healthy eating. Obviously my body needed time after my c-section to recover and although I'm a nursing mommy I did not want to start any crazy fad diets after Emilio was born. More importantly, I'm trying to cook meals that are Elena friendly and she does not like to eat boring bland food. This past week, I started my morning walks with the kids and watching my calorie intake and monitoring my calories on MyFitnessPal.

Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Roasted Red Cherries

As promised in my last cherry post, here is another recipe that I was totally excited to share with all of you from my 10 pound cherry challenge. I have had my eye on this recipe for quite some time (two years) since I have had gotten Jeni's ice cream book. July was National Ice Cream month, and I couldn't help to continue the celebration into the month of August. There's always more room for ice cream, right? 

Best-Ever Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie

Oh geez did July just disappear on me? How the heck did that happen?  I have been really enjoying time at home with my two little ones. Some days are really easy with them, Emilio will eat, sleep, poop and repeat this routine several times throughout the day. Elena on the other hand, she will eat, play, eat, poop, sleep, play, play, eat, and sleep. Then some days are hard because it's just a tad different routine with her, but I have been managing to spend quality one on one time with her when Emilio is down for his nap. 

The other day I managed to rock both of the kids to sleep at the same time for their afternoon naps, and I totally felt like supermom. I really wanted to take a nap as well and cuddle with both of my babies at the same time. Yet, I felt the sweet urge to bake something scrumptious and baked a batch of my freezer stash of the best chewy chocolate chip cookies ever. I'm totally guilty of not sharing this recipe for awhile now because they disappear fast and don't last enough for me to take a food photo. They are that GOOD.

Homemade Hostess Cupcakes

Do you remember the moment when you came to the realization that you were an adult? Or when you realized that you were too old to be a kid anymore.

Last year when I finally became a mother, I felt the pangs of adulthood smack me in the face when I realized I was responsible for the life of another human being. That is some scary stuff, but at the same time, it's been really exciting and rewarding to teach my kids things as well. Right now we are working on teaching Elena simple words like "Mami" "Papi" "thank you" and "brother." Eric and I have talked about Elena's and Emilio's first day of pre-school, and who will tutor them in math or English when they have homework, and what sports they will play in. We laughed about Emilio and all the girls that Elena will beat up on and vice versa, too. I have really felt like an adult now talking about all the things we want to teach our children and the things we want to do with them.

Brown-Butter Toffee Blondies

Happy last Friday of the month of May! I have been slowly working my way back in the kitchen and been trying to figure out the rhythm while juggling a newborn and a toddler!

This month has been an absolute blur to me, and I have been loving my precious time at home with my two sweet kiddos. I still cannot believe that I have two children now in the matter of two years. Eric and I feel very lucky to have our dynamic duo of Elena and Emilio. Nowadays whenever I am with Elena, she has transformed to such a big girl when compared to my tiny Emilio. You easily forget how small they once were and how much one year can transform a precious child.

One of my biggest pregnancy cravings that I had with Emilio were brownies. I swear I drove Eric mad with the countless brownie recipes that I had baked up because I was searching for the perfect soft, gooey, fudgey brownie. I still have a couple brownie recipes that I'm dying to make but post-pregnancy I have been craving the complete opposite of a brownie. The blondie!

Tiramisu

There are a few desserts that my husband and I typically like to always order whenever we dine out at restaurants. There's the sinfully gooey pizookie (giant cookie cooked in a mini pizza pan), a warm slice of apple pie (ala mode is a must for me), or the creamy and indulgent cheesecake (because making a regular size one at home would require fat buffet pants for the rest of the month). My personal favorite is the ever so decadent tiramisu, an Italian classic dessert that is a coffee lover's dream come true. However, Eric isn't a fan of chocolate desserts, so it's a rare occasion if I can indulge in tiramisu.

I had a sudden craving to make it myself when I saw that my food bloggy girlfriend, Eva, had Tiramisu on her baking bucket list. I don't have a cooking or baking bucket list written down but just a running backlog of recipes in my head that I always want to cook or bake up. It's the desire to complete food challenges to feel a sense of accomplishment and mainly to figure out if homemade desserts taste better at home versus the restaurants, too. And it's always fun to collaborate with my food bloggy community whenever I can especially before my hands will be busy with a newborn. (We have less than a month left until my due date!)

Sweet Tea Cupcakes for Nikki's Virtual Baby Shower

Happy Virtual Baby Shower day to my dear sweet friend, Nikki, from Seeded at the Table!

I absolutely love my wonderful and supportive food blogging community and when my friends, Jessica and Kelsey, invited a group of food, craft and life bloggers to create something in the theme of "Sweet Southern Boy" - I couldn't resist! Nikki like myself is expecting her second child this coming May, and we're both expecting boys! Her son, Judah, is an absolute gem and I know he's going to be one fantastic big brother. It's just too bad that we live 1700 miles apart because I would love playdates with our kiddos. Elena would go gaga crazy for her foodie (boy) friends.

Nikki and I had initially met online through our food blogging and officially (in real life) at the FoodBuzz Festival in 2011. We had clicked right from the start, and I have nothing but admiration, respect and love for Nikki. She is super-friendly, full of spirit and energy, loving and an absolute sweetheart. I remember rooting and screaming my head off for Nikki at the FoodBuzz Awards because she was nominated for the Best Family Food Blog. Although she didn't win, she will always be a winner in my book.

Strawberry Meyer Lemon Cream Pie

Do you know what day it is today? It's March 14, otherwise known as Pi Day not to be confused with National Pie Day, which is celebrated on January 23. Yes, I'm totally math geeking out today because I'm celebrating a Greek symbol  “π” which is used in mathematics to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter which is approximately 3.14159. My inner math nerd finally remembered to celebrate this day with a sweet piece of homemade pie and it's like an episode of Lost, where I corresponded the numbers to something meaningful...i.e. Pi day!

I'm no stranger in making homemade pies, and one of my absolute favorite pie to bake is apple pie. However, I wanted something simple enough to prepare and wanted to use two of my favorite seasonal ingredients - strawberries and Meyer lemons. With this second pregnancy, I have been eating bowls of mixed berries- strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries like it's my job. Plus, we have an abundant amount of Meyer Lemons that are fully ripe to use (if any of my local friends want any - please come over and take a basket). With a quick search on Pinterest, I found this gorgeous Strawberry Meyer Lemon Creme Pie and knew it was the one I had to make because I had most of the ingredients at hand.

Apple Pie Muffins

Breakfast during the week is one of the easiest meals that I love to prepare for myself. Most often, I have two breakfasts - the first one early in the morning before Elena's morning bottle and maybe 2 hours later of something with a little more substance. Typically it's oatmeal, a bowl of cereal or just a glass of orange juice and later on maybe eggs with toast or warmed tortillas with nutella and fresh fruit (it's one of my fave unhealthy breakfasts).

Luckily for my husband, he gets something as well for breakfast. I pack his breakfast the night before so he has something to munch on while working away at his desk. Most typically it's a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or oatmeal and whenever I get the chance - I love baking up my favorite batch of banana blueberry walnut bread. It's always a treat when I can bake up a batch of breakfast muffins and I knew that these apple pie muffins would make for a sweet surprise. Plus, it was something that I wanted for breakfast, too.

Blueberry Cornmeal Butter Cake

Happy Friday and happy first day of March!

It seems that I'm a creature of habit right now. I have been enjoying a mix of fresh berries for breakfast/lunch/snack and sometimes over my dessert. I always know it's Elena's afternoon feeding time when I start watching my episode-athon of Sex and the City. I have been slathering a bit of Elena's lavender bedtime lotion at night because I love the way it smells on her, and it totally helps me fall asleep, too. Plus, right now in my kitchen I can't stop cooking from Deb's cookbook, whenever I have been menu planning - there are several recipes that I seem to gravitate to cooking or baking.

One sweet treat that my husband loves to enjoy is anything with blueberries. Eric loves huge blueberry muffins whenever we are at a bakery, or peanut butter and blueberry jelly sandwiches for breakfast and he even enjoys the occasional blueberry bagel egg sandwich. He's definitely a sweet and savory kinda guy. I couldn't resist making this blueberry cornmeal butter cake for him because it looked absolutely scrumptious.

Gooey Cinnamon Squares

Is it Friday already? I can't believe it's the last Friday of February and March is practically around the corner.  Eric and I finally started talking details about Elena's 1st year birthday and baptism plans, and it's high time to start prepping for her big day. Next week she will be turning ten months, and I will have 2 months until her birthday. YIKES! My sweet baby is growing up soooo fast and before I know it her little brother will be here as well. Double YIKES!

One of my many sweet cravings with this second pregnancy has been plenty of cinnamon sugar. I am in love with cinnamon toast, warm tortillas with butter and cinnamon sugar, snickerdoodles, fresh fruit with cinnamon sugar on top and coffee (on the rare occasions that I do drink it) with whipped cream and cinnamon on top. These gooey cinnamon squares are a perfect bite of cinnamon sugar heaven. It's a cross between a gooey cake and snickerdoodle cookies into one decadent treat. Shamefully, I may have already made this dessert twice before posting this recipe. It's that good. I do plan on having these on the menu for Elena's birthday or any upcoming big events beforehand, too.

Kahlua Cappuccino-Fudge Cheesecake

No matter how you look at it birthdays are wonderful milestones in your life.

It's funny when I was younger like in my kiddo days, I absolutely loved birthdays. The silly excuse to eat cake, have an awesome party all in your honor and the insane amount of presents from your friends and family. Nowadays, my view on birthdays are "UGH, I'm getting old!" or "OMG, it's here again - another year has past?" Birthdays shouldn't be painful reminders of how old you are, but they should make you appreciate the simple and positive things that happened in the past year. The birth of my beautiful daughter, saying goodbye to the working world and becoming a stay at home mommy, and enjoying the love of my family and friends. Birthdays are your very own personal holiday, and that never gets old.

One of my favorite birthday celebrations is baking up my birthday cake. Some may think that this is silly that I bake up my own birthday cake, and that maybe I should buy a cake. Or maybe have my husband, bake me a cake - that might happen later down the road. I really love the baking challenge of finding my birthday cake and creating and enjoying it. It's my own private birthday relaxation and celebration all rolled into one special cake.

Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies

Valentine's Day is right around the corner and it's not a typical holiday that Eric and I usually celebrate. We don't need a day to tell each other that we love each other, when we do that every day of the year. ;-) Plus, we are too busy celebrating my birthday which is in a couple of days. I already got a sweet early birthday gift of a much needed pre-natal massage. It was absolutely perfect and what made it even more perfect, the masseuse came to my house for the appointment. LOVE!

Carrot Cake Bread

Hello February! I love this month for so many reasons.

Superbowl is this upcoming weekend. I absolutely love the entertaining side of Superbowl, the fantastic foods, half-time show and the funny commercials. Plus, the main reason is because my birthday is in a week and we sorta celebrate it all month long. I'm really looking forward to my mom coming up and spending some time with Elena and us.

More importantly, grandma is babysitting so Eric and I can have a date night out for my birthday. Last month we had our first date night out without Elena, and it was probably harder for me than Elena. It took forever to get Elena to be trained on the bottle because she was a breastfed baby. I have slowly weaned her completely on the bottle, but this mama isn't ready to give up nursing Elena just yet. I haven't had any problems being pregnant and nursing, but it's time to give my body a break before cupcake arrives. He will need his milk supply, too!

Whole Lemon Bars

True story:

January is official start date of citrus season at our house and our lovely Meyer lemon and Valencia oranges are at full capacity right now. This past week I took my morning workout outside and plucked a huge bucket of oranges and lemons off the trees. While picking the oranges from the tree, I heard a woman's voice from behind my house asking if she could have some oranges. (There's street parking for the apartments that are located behind my house.) I said sure, here let me give you some and then I proceeded to hand her maybe about 15 to 20 oranges. She was happily delighted that I was giving her some free fruit, and I didn't care because I had already picked a bucket. Then I said wait, let me go get you a bag to carry them all. She was like you're too kind and asked me if I liked avocados. I said oh my goodness- for the past week I have been eating avocados and toast like it's my best friend - it's one of my pregnancy cravings right now. She offered to bring me a bag of avocados for my generosity, and I said that sounds like a sweet deal. I thanked her and couldn't believe my luck for being outside at the right moment.

Caramel Apple Crumb Bars

I can't believe that Christmas is only 6 days away. Are you still out shopping or enjoying the holidays with your family? Thankfully, I don't have much Christmas shopping to do because Eric and I are playing it low-key this year. We bought Elena one activity toy where she can place the shapes in the box and that's the only present from us that we have under our Christmas tree. She got a ton of presents from both her grandmas' and her aunts that she is trying to open already. Plus, we had bought her big gift of a new car seat, Diono Radian RXT because she had outgrown her infant carrier.

Eric and I also decided to pay it forward this year to those who might need it more, and sponsored a family from a friend's church. We bought presents for the kids and gift cards for the family. Honestly, having Elena in our lives gives us so much perspective and being pregnant again makes me feel really lucky especially after the recent Newtown events. There is not much that we need and it's the simple joys of being a parent that make us feel rich.

When I can, I love to spoil my husband with his favorite foods because he has been the best husband, father and partner that I could ever ask for. Recently, we had an abundance of apples in the house because I have been prepping buckets of homemade baby applesauce for Elena. I had some extra apples to spare for these Caramel Apple Crumb bars that I have had my eye on for awhile. Besides, Eric is a fanatic for apple pie and cupcake (and I) wanted something apple-y sweet, too. It was a win-win situation because this dessert was perfect for my Bestie's birthday meal, too. This is almost like apple pie in but in bar form topped with an oat crumb mixture and oozing with caramel.

Caramel Apple Crumb Bars
Adapted from Annie's Eats
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Reese's Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Happy Friday!

Every year I tell myself that I need to get better about buying candy for Halloween. The ratio to kids to candy leftover is always off. We didn't take Elena trick or treating but passed out candies instead. We had about 4 or 5 groups of kids visit us on Halloween and we were left with half a bucket of candy. Secretly, I had purposely bought a large bag of Reese's Peanut Cups because I wanted to eat a one or few. Not a problem right?

Luckily, I also wanted something extra sweet and something to use up the leftover candy before I ate them all to myself. This decadent and candy-licious cheesecake came together as a matter of chance because I had Oreo cookies leftover from my batch of Slutty Brownies. You can easily use graham crackers for the crust, but where's the chocolate fun in that? This dessert would be ideal for all you peanut butter and chocolate fans and an extra bonus to those cheesecake lovers...it's one spectacular dessert that is absolutely amazing.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups + Cheesecake = AWESOMEness.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cheesecake
Adapted from Gimme Some Oven
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Best Brownies Ever aka Slutty Brownies

I am so deliriously happy that today is Friday.

It has been one of the longest weeks that I have experienced as a mommy. My husband has been away all week long at a work conference in Texas and Elena and I are so looking forward to having him back home. The awesome upside to being single mom for the week: I had the entire King bed to myself. I ate whatever I wanted for dinner like something simple like cereal or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Plus, I got to watch plenty of sappy and over dramatic teenage drama like Dawson's Creek. I remember watching this show during my early college years and I don't think I ever finished watching the show.

The horrible downside to being a single mom for a week: missing the extra helping hand especially when Elena was throwing a temper tantrum. I gave her peas for dinner last night, and she threw the biggest hissy fit. She absolutely hated it, and it probably seemed like forever to her when I was prepping a new bowl of food. Eric would have been there to entertain there, coo her worries away or made sure she liked her peas.