Nothing says the holidays like a house decked out in decorations and Christmas music on full blast. But then the holidays are over and it all abruptly goes back into hiding—unless you’re my family and it’s Valentine’s Day before the last Christmas decoration is put away. However, this DIY Winter Wreath is here for you until the first day of spring—or until Memorial Day. When I get inspired to do…
Not sure if I’m sick of food from Thanksgiving, but I’ve had no interest in 1. cooking and 2. eating. The ‘no-eating’ part pairs nicely with margaritas—sarcasm! The only pomegranate margaritas we have are frozen, and I have no desire to wake up my son with the blender. It felt like I needed to throw together a holiday cocktail that wasn’t frozen. That’s how these cinnamon-spiced pomegranate margaritas were born.…
Thanksgiving is upon us and most of us will enjoy turkey, a bunch of savory side dishes, and pie. I think I love next-day Thanksgiving food more than day-of. I love chilled apple or pumpkin pie for breakfast, turkey sandwiches layered with sides for lunch, and constant snacking on Brussels sprouts, greens, and butternut squash, and other sides all day. But soon the leftovers are no more and the feeling…
On one of my parents’ visits, we made them Ina’s skillet roast chicken, rice and beans, and this butternut squash. To be honest, this was my first time roasting any squash. I like squash, but Fatima doesn’t, so we’ve just stayed away. However, we welcomed squash back in our lives so we could feed it to our son. At least, I’ll have someone to share my butternut squash with. When…
This past summer’s Food Network magazine was on point. Not only did we find the blueberry basil iced tea, but we found this everything snap peas recipe. One may ask, what is the “everything” in everything snap peas? It’s everything seasoning like what you’d find on an everything bagel! Trader Joes has an “everything but the bagel” seasoning and it’s fantastic! Snap and sugar snap peas are frequent sides at…
When we were in Vegas for Céline Dion last spring, we had breakfast at a really cute place in the Mirage called Pantry. This place was so good, we ate there twice. I had chicken and waffles, Fatima had French toast, and we shared a side of smash browns. The smash browns were exactly what we needed at breakfast. Our flight the night before had been delayed and we landed…
Five Favorite Things two days in a row?? Yes! Usually, our Five Favorite Things posts are recaps of the month. However, we’re going to switch it up and tell you about what we’re looking forward to throughout the month in addition to other things we love! In terms of food, we’re going to come down from our sugar high of October and get back to comfort food. Thanksgiving is going to…
Happy Halloween! Trick or Treating or staying inside? We’ve had our share of Halloween family fun over these last few weekends. Mercury goes into retrograde today, so that’s the only sign I need to stay inside. Luckily, it will be out of retrograde by the time we get to Thanksgiving, phew! When I got off the train, there were so many kids trick or treating. It’s our first Halloween in…
When Fatima saw this black chocolate cake in the October issue of Food Network Magazine, she said, “oh my gosh, we need to make this.” I looked at the ingredients and figured out where to get black cocoa powder. Black cocoa powder is not as easy to find as I thought. Living in New York City, there are specialty bake shops everywhere. However, only one shop had this in stock,…
I love apple cider donuts. Usually, by now I’ve had at least a dozen however, I’ve had zero. I haven’t been able to get up to some of our favorite spots in Westchester and I haven’t found a local spot that sells quality apple cider donuts. When I saw BonAppetit tweet about their ‘best’ apple cider donuts, I knew I had to make them myself. They were delicious. However, I…
When we bought pumpkins a few weeks ago, I was too eager to wait to carve them. I had been looking up various ways to preserve pumpkins, so I thought I’d try a few pumpkin carving and preserving methods since we had a while before Halloween. Ideally, you should wait to carve pumpkins a few days before Halloween or when you want them to look their best; a day before…
This year, we did not know what to do for our Halloween costumes. We had a shortlist of ideas. However, when we were in Marshalls, we saw this lion costume and had to let Liam try it on. He just stood there, looking at us and then ran off. This tiny human was running around Marshalls in this lion costume. That’s when I was sold. He. Is. THE CUTEST. Lion.…
When it comes to decorating cookies, I am no artist. However, in the last year, I’ve been learning how to decorate and work with royal icing. It started last year when I made my first batch of Halloween sugar cookies. I didn’t realize how long the icing would take to set and I was impatient about photographing my first royal icing experience. Right after I snapped this photo, I moved…
OK. Like, OMG. Ummm. When we made the ginger-spiced icebox cake, we started on a path down a rabbit hole of different icebox cake varieties. That cake will always be my favorite. The level of spice was perfect. It tasted like Christmas. However, this pumpkin spice icebox cake may have just dethroned the ginger cake. There are so many reasons to love fall: pumpkins, leaves, the weather, apple picking, and…
The first few weekends of fall are some of my favorite times of the season. No matter how hot or cold it is outside, we start decorating on the first weekend of Fall. I usually bake a loaf of pumpkin bread, apple pie, sweet potato pie, or pumpkin pie. However, the first thing we do is light up all the fall-scented candles. There’s nothing that gets us into the fall…
My favorite time to drink hot cocoa is after a day playing in the snow. Yes, I jumped a whole season, but just read me out. A cup of hot cocoa felt like the perfect reward after a long day in the bitter cold. I’ve been so anxious for cooler weather, and after today’s chilly day, a cup of pumpkin spice hot cocoa was the perfect ending. After a big…