Mayhem in the Kitchen!

Vegetarian Mexican Salad (or Cowboy Caviar Dip)

I’ve mentioned before that we moved into a new house last summer. Overall, I love everything inch of the new place – the location, the size, the interior, the exterior. I do, however, have one major complaint, and that is the lack of a sunny spot for a proper vegetable garden!Over the years I’ve grown…

Betty Crocker’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (#10)

We’ve had SIX new families move into our neighborhood in the last month or so. This may be a record! Normally I’d try to get welcome baskets out to them in a timely manner (is it really a great welcome if it comes 3 months after they move in?), but the weather was hot, sticky,…

Brown Butter Fudge

Every year at Christmastime, my dad makes incredible fudge. It is SO good. Like, “sure I just ate a half dozen cookies AND a full 3 course meal, but there’s always room for fudge!” good. It has become his specialty, to the extent that at holiday time and work potlucks, it is a given that…

Giant Cupcake Smash Cake and First Birthday Party

If you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed that my beautiful niece (aka my birthday buddy) just turned one! My sister-in-law and I continued our tradition and baked a cake together to mark the occasion. We waffled on the theme a little. At first we wanted to do strawberries in honor of the…

Soft Extra-Large Lemon Cookies

As part of a double birthday at the office, I made two types of cookies based on the requests of “something lemony” and “something chocolatey” – these lovely lemon (like that alliteration? Me too.) cookies were the something lemony, and they were a huge huge HUGE hit! Until now, the only lemon cookies I had…

Extra-Large Double Chocolate Cookies

I’m not sure what has changed at our company in the last few years, but apparently double birthdays are a regular thing now! This time I made two types of large and chewy cookies based on the requests of “something chocolatey” and “something lemony” For the “something chocolatey” I made these HUGE Double Chocolate Cookies….

Amish Drop Sugar Cookies

Last weekend my husband had the guests of his best friend’s bachelor party meet at our house before heading out for the evening. Happy hostess that I am, I just had to make them something to nosh on! I had plans to do something elaborate, but once we were 2 hours away from party time,…

Superhero Birthday Cake

My sister-in-law and I have a tradition of baking cakes for my nephew’s birthday. This year, life took over and she had to sit this one out. She suggested we could just buy a cake, but I couldn’t let that happen! Initially my nephew requested a chocolate cake with lemon and strawberry and I said…

#SoMe2 Link Party

I’m thrilled to announce that I’m the blogger of the week on the #SoMe2 Social Media Tuesday Link Party! If you blog and want to grow your social media following, or perhaps just network with other bloggers, this link party is a must-join! For you non-bloggers, it’s also a fun way to find new…

Chocolate Cake Roll

When I made my first cake roll for Easter, I failed to get it rolled as tightly as I would’ve liked. I had extra pattern batter left over, so I figured I might as well try again. For the second cake, I made a chocolate sponge cake, applied a more elaborate decoration (again inspired by…

Devil’s Food Cake with Amaretto Frosting

One of my husband’s close friends is part of a technology start-up, so he’s constantly traveling for work. As you might imagine, that means that staying in touch can sometimes get tough. Oh, AND his Instagram never fails to be full of infuriatingly exotic locales, so I’m always wayyy too envious of him. 😉 On…

Broiled Grapefruit

Ohhh how I love grapefruit! For a good six months of the year, eating one is my first order of business when I get to the office. Personally, I peel them like an orange, but I think when most people think about how to serve grapefruit, they tend to go the traditional route – cut…

Alton Brown’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (Chocolate Chip Cookie #9)

Hey, it’s me, Leesha, your favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie Specialist, back again with a batch of, you guessed it, Chocolate Chip Cookies! But not just any Chocolate Chip Cookies – these are super chewy, almost like those guilty-pleasure store-bought ones. Once again, the occasion for these was delivering a welcome basket to new neighbors. This…

Apricot Goat Cheese Spread

Is anyone else as obsessed as I am with the fancy goat cheese spreads at Whole Foods? They are soooo stinkin’ delicious! I love that you get sweet, salty, and spicy all in one bite. My only complaint is that they have a hefty price tag to match. This afternoon I came across a great…

The Trifle formerly known as Black Forest Bundt Cake (How to salvage a broken cake!)

Earlier this week a coworker requested cronuts for his birthday, and while I really wanted to oblige, there simply weren’t enough hours left in the day to get it done. Oh, also, my husband has been asking me to make him croissants for months, so making cronuts for someone else probably wouldn’t have gone over…