egg nog macarons + cookie swap

I had my first macaron about a month ago at Kate Spade's opening party here in KC, and it blew me away.  Macarons are not the dry, airy, meringue-looking cookie they appear to be.

orange-scented russian teacakes + foodiecrush

There's a new magazine in town!  Have you seen it?  It's published by the lovely Heidi of foodiecrush.  She publishes regular blog posts in addition to this scrumptious online magazine.

I'd recommend taking a peek when you have plenty of time and a full stomach.

Once you get to page 46, you might see a familiar face.

Yep, that's me!  I'm sharing my family's traditional holiday cookie.

chicken pot pie 3 ways

You can do this.

And you know you want to.

Rotisserie chicken and frozen puff pastry take chicken pot pie from Sunday supper to everyday meal.

And the comfort food factor?  Off the charts.

holiday cards from minted

Since I don't have your address, here's your holiday card from me:

The Stallion and I hope you have a merry holiday season and a bright new year.  Thank you for reading, emailing, tweeting, facebooking, commenting, and supporting us day-in and day-out.  We love you.

So, have you ordered holiday cards yet?  I'm pretty darn excited about it because this is our first one.

If you haven't, I must share with you my absolute favorite place to order any sort of invitation, personalized stationary, customized card -

minted.com

I'll tell you my favorite things about them:

1. They're fast.
2. They have impeccable customer service.
3. You can customize any design online, before ordering, to see what it will look like.
4. They provide designers with a platform to jumpstart a business.
5. You can customize beyond your wildest dreams.  We sent them a color number for our wedding invitations and they took the design we liked and totally customized it to our wedding palette.  

They're rockstars.

And, as one of my friends, you can get $25 off your order.

And, as one of your friends, it'll give me $25 back if you order something.  Guess I'll have to use that for birth announcements.

KIDDING.

love ya - happy holidays!

ck.

birthday cake batter cinnamon rolls

I always spend a lot of time thinking about how I can make birthdays special, and it gets tougher and tougher every year.  And, of course, I tend to spend a lot of that time thinking about the food.

Birthdays kick off with breakfast.  These sweet babies are infused with cake batter flavor and rainbow sprinkles throughout for a birthday spin on a breakfast favorite.

Thanksgiving Menu

For all of you fellow procrastinators out there still trying to decide what your Thanksgiving menu will consist of, allow me to give you one.

If I were hosting Thanksgiving dinner, I think this is what I would make.

Well, it's what would be on my list today.  It would more than likely change over the next 3 days (yes, I would be continuously editing up until Thanksgiving day).

First and foremost, people need to eat something before 3 or 4 pm.  You may be in the kitchen nibbling all day, but that's not going to keep everyone else at bay.  I'd make some of these amazing Bleu Cheese Stuffed Figs from Spoon Fork Bacon (I have got one heckuva blog crush on these ladies right now).

Kate Spade + MACARONS

photo by eric linebarger

A few weeks ago, I attended the Kate Spade Kansas City grand opening party.  Hosted by Meg Biram of mimi+meg, it was a vibrant, swanky affair.

Routine.

WARNING:  I didn't plan on this turning into an essay.  It just happened.  Oops.
________________________________________________________________________

You might have noticed posts from me have been pretty scarce lately.

If you're new, you have no idea what I'm talking about.  Take a look around!  Some of my favorites are the posts about our destination wedding, our engagement, and french toast and bacon cupcakes.


So, here's what I've been up to:

Tuscan White Bean & Kale Soup with Pork

• This is the first food photo I've taken post-Helène workshop.  It may even be the first one I've taken post-Todd & Diane demo, too.

I hope you all can see improvement.  I sure can.

A-n-y-wayyyyy...

I fell in love with smoked paprika when I made this soup.  Yes, you may substitute plain paprika, but you'll regret it for the rest of your life.  Spring for the $6 bottle of spice.  It is worth. every. penny.

Our Weekend

 Friday, 5:37am at Fusion Fitness [Fusion Mix class]

Friday, 8:38am at Homer's Coffee House [ready for KU vs. KSU]