Mini Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Nutella
February 5, 2010 by Andrea 
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Filed under Dessert, Featured
Nutella lovers around the world, it’s time to celebrate World Nutella Day! The brainchild of Sara Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso, World Nutella Day started in 2007 and gave fans of the delicious chocolate hazelnut concoction a chance to share their devotion in whatever form seemed fit, whether spread on toast, crepes, rice crispy treats, put it in a king cake, or just licked off a spoon (my personal favorite). Read more
Moroccan Chicken Soup
February 1, 2010 by Andrea Print This Post
Filed under Featured, Poultry, Soups & Stews
I had one last butternut squash in the kitchen waiting to be used and this soup had been calling my name for a while. The flavor is warm and inviting, perfect for a cold wintry day, and the soup is easy to put together and easy on the budget using widely available ingredients. The recipe comes from one of my favorite everyday cookbooks, The Essential EatingWell Cookbook, which is full of healthy and mostly easy-to-prepare meals. Read more
Popcorn with Brown Butter, Rosemary, and Lemon
January 29, 2010 by Andrea Print This Post
Filed under Appetizers, Featured, Grow Your Own
Popcorn has always been one of my favorite snacks, and as a child I got excited when my dad brought out the vintage hammered Club Aluminum pot and poured in some kernels. Sometimes we had butter on top, but mostly we ate it with a simple sprinkling of salt or occasionally seasoned salt. I don’t think my parents have that old pot anymore, but as I reminisce about all the popcorn we ate together, I wish they still had it. Read more
Weekend Gardening: A Cheap and Easy Way to Compost
January 23, 2010 by Andrea Print This Post
Filed under Gardening
If you peruse garden sites and catalogs, you’ll find an abundance of products to help you compost, and frankly the prices can be pretty ridiculous. In our opinion, $200 or more for a compost bin plus another $40 for a pretty crock to store your kitchen scraps until you have time to take them out to the compost bin hardly makes composting worth it, so we MacGyvered a simple and relatively inexpensive solution for composting using plastic storage bins available at any home improvement center. Read more
Mexican Spiced Butternut Squash Soup with Beans and Corn
January 21, 2010 by Andrea Print This Post
Filed under Featured, Soups & Stews
Michael isn’t a huge fan of butternut squash, but if you browse my archives you’ll see that I have quite a few butternut squash recipes. You might even think I am torturing my poor husband with all the butternut squash, but really I’m not. The sweetness of butternut squash just doesn’t appeal to him, so I try to find ways to spice it up and make it savory. Every once in a while another of my butternut squash soup experiments catches him by surprise and he’ll say he likes it and asks me to make it again. This soup is one those. Read more
At The Martha Stewart Show
January 18, 2010 by Andrea Print This Post
Filed under Featured, Musings..., Travel
The alarm went off at 6 am, but I really didn’t need it as I’d hardly slept a wink. I was too excited and my body clock went off at 5 am, though I managed to coax myself into a few more minutes of sleep. Breakfast was just a glass of milk, not enough to fill me up but just enough to stave off the hunger pangs and last minute dashes to the ladies room.
My new dress shoes felt comfortable enough until I started briskly walking the streets of New York City, then I began to wish I had worn my nice fuzzy LL Bean Comfort Mocs instead. They aren’t nearly as cute but so much more comfortable and warm. My toes were freezing as I stood in line outside the studio building and grew numb as the wait stretched on. Read more
