Hello Weekend!

                                                                via La Buena Vida

I wish I was having or attending a party like this tonight, but I am not.  However, at the very least a Margarita and some guacamole may have to happen this weekend. 

Sometimes I do so much thinking my brain hurts.  Lately, I have been thinking what do I want my life to look like?  Currently, most of my time is spent in a cubicle trying to make ends meet, but hopefully I will be able to work from home soon.  I don't want to get my hopes because they are only allowing 20% of the employees to work from home, but I am a bit hopeful.  This would give me some of freedom I so desperately want to pursue the things I really love to do.  Finger crossed!!

Elm Street Bakery - East Aurora

The Elm Street Bakery in East Aurora is amazing.  The baked goods are so fresh.  They often have gluten free options avialable.  The pastry in the picture is a strawberry-rhubarb pastry, delicious.  They offer a variety of fresh breads, scones, cakes, cupcakes and cookies too.  I love their molasses cookies.  On Saturdays they have cinnamon rolls, I guess am going to have to get their early to try one. 

What I really love is going for dinner or lunch.  Their salads are made from organic produce from local farms.  Their meat is also from local, organic or grass fed farms.  The pizza is made to order in wood burning pizza ovens and the crust amazing.  In addition, they also offer a nice selection beer and wine. 

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.

Clambake Season

I can't stop thinking about this Clambake I saw in Bon Appetit via SF Girl by the Bay.  Wouldn't it be fun to have a clambake this summer.  One of the things I miss most about Florida is the fresh seafood that was so readily available.  




This Martha Stewart stove top recipe looks really easy and delicious. 

Watch Martha and Ina host a clambake together, I so want to go to that party and sit at that table setting.




Click here for Ina Garten's recipe for Kitchen Clambake. 

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. 

Happy Easter!

This cake has got to be one of the most impressive cakes I have ever seen.  It's too pretty to eat.




I can't stop thinking about these cookies.  They are so cute and look delicious.  I'm not very good at cut outs or decorating cookies but for these I may try. 

St. Patrick's Day

For St. Patrick's Day, I finally got around to making this Shepard's Pie with cheddar mash potatoes.  It was pretty easy to make and everyone loved it.  It really was very tasty, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.  My Mother made a Bailey's Irish Cream Cake which was delicious but how can you go wrong with Bailey's Irish Cream? 

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!

 

Sunday's Supper

This Sunday I decided to try Smitten Kitchen's gnocchi, in my feeble attempt to imitate her talents. It tasted amazing and to my surprise it actually came out the way it was supposed to. However, for me I'm not sure it was worth the work. You have to bake the potatoes, grate them, make them into a dough and then boil them in water. The processes wasn't hard but it was time consuming. The tomato sauce was excellent and would be great as an everyday pasta sauce.

For dessert, I made Bakers Royale's Kit Kat Cheesecake Bars. Damn, these are good. Luckily it doesn't make a huge amount because they are hard to resist. I didn't bother with the white chocolate decorative touch because I didn't have any white chocolate. Also, next time I make them I may skip the chocolate ganache layer on top. You really don't need it and it just makes them extra rich but you never know because the boys loved the extra layer of chocolate.

My Weekend

I had one of those weekends were I accomplished a lot, i.e. painting and more painting.  However, it was good because I love that feeling you get when you actually finish something that you have been wanting to do for a very long time.  My kitchen is finally coming together, as much as it can on my extremely tight budget. 
I can't stop thinking about these Julia Child prints above from Pot + Pantry.  They would be perfect in my kitchen.  Also, I scored what I hope to be the most perfect chairs a girl could ask for from Restoration Hardware.  At $39.00 each I could not pass them up.



There was a little time for some baking for a special birthday.  I bought these large baking cups awhile ago from The Cupcake Social and I was surprised how much I liked them.  They are jumbo size so they do make big cupcakes but they fit in a regular cupcake pan, are so easy to use and come off the cupcakes really easy.  There is nothing worse then losing part of your cupcake in the bottom of the wrapper.

Weekend Food

Lately, I have had the urge to spend all day in the kitchen just cooking and baking away.  Maybe it is the result of the cold winter days, but this gnocchi in tomato broth keeps screaming my name, perhaps served with Salsa di Parmigiano and Francis Ford Coppola Cabernet Sauvignon.   


This winter salad on Studio Cuisine look delicious. 




Of course, I can't forget dessert, these Kitkat cheesecake bars look amazing.