Baked Gnocchi with Taleggio and Pancetta

I have been so bored with cooking lately.  Weeknights are so hectic during the summer that I feel like I haven't had time to cook let alone cook anything good. Then I saw this recipe on the William and Sonoma blog and thought I need to try this and I'm so glad I did.  It was very good and super easy. It's going to go in my recipe file especially for the winter months.

http://blog.williams-sonoma.com/baked-gnocchi-with-taleggio-pancetta-sage/

Salted Cookie Butter Chocolate Bark

My 16 year old was gifted a lot of Trader Joe's Cookie Butter for his birthday. Since he will never be able to eat it all, I decided to make this salted chocolate bark from Wine and Glue. It's actually really good and easy just don't forget the salt it helps cut down on the sweetness. 

http://www.wineandglue.com/2013/11/salted-chocolate-bark.html

S'Mores Bars

I can't get enough of these S'more's Bars and apparently neither can my family. 

 

I usually double this recipe and put it in a 9 x 13 baking dish.  Trust me no matter how many you make it will never seem like enough. 

 

Ingredients:
1 stick butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups of semi sweet chocolate chips
3 cups miniature marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.

Beat melted butter and sugar together until well-blended. Add the egg and vanilla extract; mix well. In another bowl, combine the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture to butter mixture, mixing until blended. Press half of the prepared dough into the prepared pan and bake 15 minutes.

Arrange chocolate chips over baked layer and sprinkle with miniature marshmallows. Top with the remaining dough and bake 10-15 minutes. Cool completely and cut into bars. Makes 16 servings.

S'mores Cake

First off, I apologize for the horrible quality of these pictures. I would blame my phone but we all know the iPhone can take pretty great pictures if the user knows what she is doing. 

My family decided at the last minute to get together for Memorial Day, which was a nice surprise except that I was put in charge of dessert, since it was last minute I decided to use what I had on hand.  I made this chocolate cake using my favorite chocolate cake recipe, and added marshmallow fluff in between the two layers.  For the frosting I used this S’mores frosting from Betty Crocker just to keep it simple. 

The cake came out pretty good however next time I better keep it in the refrigerator.  The marshmallow fluff kind of began to melt and ooze out of the cake, which wasn’t pretty, but it still tasted delicious. 

Sunday Sauce- Tomato sauce with Onion and Butter

I love making this sauce from Smitten Kitchen on Sunday's because I never really know when the kids will be home.  It's easy to make but it taste so decadent.  It has so much flavor given the fact the ingredients are so simple, canned tomatoes (preferably San Marzano), butter and onion, that's it.  Basically, you simmer this for about 45 minutes, discard the onions and mash the tomatoes up.   I use my Smart Stick to make the sauce very smooth.  This would even be great served almost like a soup with a grilled cheese.  You don't really need Parmesan cheese but it does make a nice extra.  If you are like my kids you skip the Parmesan and throw on a dollop of Chevre.  We have been trying to cut back on our meat consumption and this recipe has become a regular fixture in our home. 

 

From Smitten Kitchen

 

Clean Eating Recipes for the Weekend

Parmesan Broth with Lemon, Chicken and Spinach 



Chopped Salad with Broccoli, Egg and Radicchio 

Salmon with Quinoa and Parsley Vinaigrette

 

 

Nutty Warm Brussels Sprouts Salad

Good Morning Sunday

I love baking on Sunday mornings, it's just nice to have fresh baked goods for the week.  This Fall we have been enjoying way too much pumpkin bread, but it's so good.   My boys also love chocolate chocolate chip muffins from Wegman's at $1.25 a piece, so I decided tried Nigella Lawson's super easy recipe.  These muffins are delicious and this way I can save little money too.  I added the chocolate chips on top but the melted into the muffin next time I will add them a little later into the cooking process.

Weekend Food Ideas

This couscous salad from Shutterbean looks so delicious and fresh that it immediately made my must make this weekend list.  Enjoy Happy Weekend!

15

My oldest son turned 15 this past weekend and I honestly can not believe how fast the time has gone. 

I know I may be a bit bias but he really is turning into an incredible man, I could not be more proud of him. He is wise beyond his years and he so kind.  I am blessed.  

I had these pictures printed up at Staples.  I got the idea from Annie at Most Lovely Things, who got the idea from Paula of Two Ellie.  Aren't they a great?  They are super cheap, I think I paid about $12.00 for all 4 of these, plus they would be great for a graduation party or my Mother's 70th birthday coming up.  I think I may have went a bit overboard though, maybe next time I wont get them quite so big.

Clayton doesn't like cake, damn kid, so he requested cookies and ice cream sandwiches, which everyone seemed to enjoy.  When I make cookies I always use The Barefoot Contessa's recipes, I made chocolate chunk cookies and chocolate-chocolate chunk cookies but I used regular chocolate chunks instead of white chocolate.  I have been making these cookies for about 10 years and in my opinion, these cookies are the best. 

A Few of My Favorite Things...

I can't stop thinking about this desk and chair set.  I keep picturing my boys playing Mindcraft studying here, its so cute and so reasonable.

This Chicken Francese by Skinnytaste looks amazing.  I'm thinking this may our dinner Sunday night, they will never know its low fat/ low calorie. 




I am having some serious craft room envy and I'm not even that crafty.  I love how organized this room looks, everything seems to have a place.  Plus there is plenty of space to get some serious crafting done.  



The Pleated Poppy via House of Turquoise




This weekend I plan on rounding up ideas for my deck.  I love the look of this deck, all the potted plants are so pretty.  I like the idea of a lamp but not sure how that would really hold up in the elements.  Here, in Western New York, it would just blow away.  I really hope we have a lovely spring this year so I can actually spend some time on the deck. 



I love this bedroom designed by Emily Henderson.  I love the pops of color and art gallery wall.  How cute is that old phone?   Someday I will be brave enough to tackle my own gallery wall.

My Favorite Pizza

Whenever the boys have friends over they want to order pizza but I hate take out pizza. I just can't seem to find any pizza around here that I really enjoy. So I always end up making it. It taste so much better it is worth the effort. I usually use Tyler Florence's pizza dough recipe but any will work. I just add olive oil, tomatoes, mozzarella, Parmesan and a few spices, whatever I have on hand.  We also eat this meal when we are trying to cut back on meat.

Barefoot Contessa's Salted Caramel Brownies

I was watching Ina Garten Saturday morning and she was making these unbelievable caramel salted brownies. They looked so good, I have a severe weakness for the salty/sweet combo, that after watching, I gathered all the ingredients and went to work. These brownies are so amazing that we not only ate them for dessert Saturday night, we ate them for breakfast Sunday morning too. These are to tempting have in the house.

                                                                 Ina's

                                                       
Mine, maybe I over did it on the caramel sauce?  Plus I only had Coffee Caramel Sauce on hand and man was it good. 

St. Patrick's Day Desserts

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I'm thinking about a special St. Patrick's Day dessert to make this weekend and I have narrowed it down to one of these or maybe two of these.  They all look so delicious. 



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I think these Irish Car Bomb Cheesecakes or Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes below, made by Bakers Royale are on my must make list. 
A dessert made with Guiness, Baileys and Whiskey, how can you go wrong?



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A Few Things on Friday

I enjoyed this article about Happy People, so very true isn't it?

I hope to watch this documentary with the boys this weekend. 

I'm dreaming about this tote along with everyone else out there, it just screams summer.

 

I love this one too and so reasonable you could buy two.  Everlane is seriously doing something right.  I bought one of their backpacks for my sister for Christmas.  She loved it and we were both really pleased with the quality, amazing stuff. 

 

 

 

I'm thinking of this Sheppard's Pie for St. Patrick's Day.  Yum!

 

 

I'm kind of obsessed with lighting lately.  Lighting is so important to a room's design but it remains one of the hardest things for me to figure out.  What a great resource Room RX is for reasonable lighting sources.  Bye, bye boob lights!

 

 

Have a great weekend!