Caprese Stuffed Chicken Breast with Balsamic Reduction

I am in love with Penzey's Mexican Vanilla, truly.  All of their vanilla is high quality, but of course I had to go and fall in love with the one variety you can't buy through their website!  Every time I get within driving distance of a Penzey's retail location I make sure to stock up.

This last December, while on our road trip, my sister-in-law and I made our Penzey's pilgrimage and she introduced me to the aptly placed store next door in Arlington, TX- Bella Vita Gourmet Olive Oil and Balsamics.

I never thought a store could be as dangerous to my pocket book as Penzey's- and I was wrong.  Oh, so wrong.

Date Night Meals: Salmon with Sriracha Cream Sauce

I've pinned a few recipes for Salmon with Sriracha Cream Sauce on Pinterest and I've been meaning to make it for quite a while now.  I finally got around to pulling up the recipe the other day and I noticed something- sweetened condensed milk.

Ugh.  Don't get me wrong, I certainly cook desserts with it from time to time, but WHY?  Why on God's green Earth would you choose to adulterate a delicious piece of salmon with condensed milk of all things?

Just no.

I thought for sure this was just a one-off fluke recipe, so I started googling...over and over again I saw sweetened condensed milk on the ingredient list for sriracha cream sauce!

Grandma Martin's Brownies

My mom makes absolutely amazing brownies.  Like of the "nom nom nom" variety.  

Fudgy, yummy, goodness.

 Did you know brownies are actually better when they've cooled?  I mean, straight out of the oven they're ok...but their magic doesn't fully develop until they've been left to cool a bit.

I had a really hard time with that concept as a kid :-)

Honestly, to this day- given a couple glasses of wine and somewhat lowered level of self control- I could TOTALLY polish off more than a few of those babies.

Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Remember that ground chicken in my freezer I've been working my way through?  This recipe marks the last of it!  Don't get me wrong, I really do love cooking with ground chicken...I just had soooo much of it!

I love Asian food and I've been looking for some lighter recipes to fit into my husband's new-found desire to shed a few pounds.  I threw this together for dinner last night, and- if I do say so myself- it turned out wonderfully.  Tasty, light, fresh, flavorful...this one would be super-easy to adapt with other veggies you have on hand, or even to turn into some kind of Asian soft taco if you don't feel like sticking with the lettuce wrap concept.  Personally, I like how light and fresh the lettuce wraps are but sometimes nothing beats a hearty tortilla full of goodness :-)

Homemade French Bread

I've mentioned before that I absolutely love baking bread- it's probably one of my favorite things to make.  Sandwich breads, quick breads, artisan breads, rolls, biscuits.

One thing I often leave to the store?  French bread.  There's just something magic about French bread that I've never really attempted to capture at home- until today, that is.

Let me just tell you- I don't know why I waited so long.  It's seriously one of the easiest yeast breads I've ever made in my life!  AND it turned out perfectly- chewy, crusty goodness outside and soft, yeasty goodness inside.  Absolute perfection.  This recipe comes from Jill at The Prairie Homestead, and its wonderful.

Did I mention it only takes 4 ingredients if you don't count the water?

Super Snacks for the Super Bowl: Grilled Bacon Jalapeño Wraps

I love a good jalapeño popper, of pretty much any variety.  They're a little addictive, aren't they?  Or is that just me....?

I've made these before on the grill and they were wonderful, full of that outdoorsy grilled flavor.

But it's January.

And it's cold.

And I wanted these before my husband could get home to do the grilling anyway :-)

So what's a girl to do when she wants grilled jalapeño poppers without the grill?  Pull out my trusty grill pan, of course!  It's not quite the same, but close enough, and certainly comes through in a pinch.

Would these have been better grilled outside?  Yep, no doubt- but don't let that fool you, these are crazy good and so simple to make!

Tastes Like Summer: Strawberry Lemonade Cookies

Pinterest is awesome, isn't it?  So many ideas to get the wheels spinning.  I have literally thousands of pins of amazing things I want to make/eat/buy, most of which I'll never get around to.

Then you come across The Pin.

The one you know must be made- and soon.

Strawberry Lemonade Cookies were one of those pins, and I'm so glad I came across them.

I'd heard of cake mix cookies before, and to be honest..well, I can be a bit of a recipe snob.  I take very few shortcuts- cake mixes in general have no place in my pantry.  But these cookies were so PRETTY and delicious sounding!

Half Strawberry, half lemon, drizzled with icing...

Essentially you just make a dough out of the cake mixes rather than batter by using less liquid than the mix calls for.  Roll the lemon and strawberry doughs together, coat in powdered sugar, and bake.