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…
We somehow managed to survive without a microwave for three years. When we moved into our old apartment, it wasn’t until two weeks later that we discovered we didn’t have a microwave. We’ve never been big microwave people, so it wasn’t a huge issue. However, it meant no microwavable popcorn. In our last month at that place, we finally made popcorn on the stove. It was glorious. Since then, we’ve been…
One of my go-to comfort foods is steak and cheese. It’s the best hearty meal to have for dinner on a cold night. As we flipped through Cravings: Hungry for More, we came across this Philly French Dip Sandwiches recipe. The picture of the sandwiches in the cookbook looked so yummy we had to try them! What is French dip anyway? According to Food & Wine, it’s not even French! Who invented it is still up…
A while ago, Fatima and I were watching something (I can’t remember if it was a movie or TV show) and a little girl got a Barbie cake. Fatima’s eyes lit up and said, “Oh I’ve always wanted a Barbie cake. One of my sisters got one when we were growing up and I was so jealous.” So when thinking about what kind of cake I should make her for…
Thirty, flirty, and sleep-deprived. This week, Fatima and I say goodbye to our twenties and enter a new decade. I can’t say I’m not apprehensive about turning 30, but age is just a number, right? Fatima’s been wanting to try out grapefruit margaritas, so we’re celebrating this week with a whole tray of them. I don’t enjoy grapefruit on its own, however, Fatima said she’d snack on grapefruit sprinkled with…
Every year on my birthday, I think about what kind of cake to celebrate with. Sometimes it’s a Magnolia hummingbird cake or one from scratch, or it’s a slice from a restaurant, or it’s a classic vanilla sponge with chocolate frosting. However, most of the time, I’m baking it from scratch. I love a homemade cake. No frills, classic. But it’s my 30th birthday, so I wanted to try something…
Hayden passed away two months ago. In his fourteen years, he brought so much joy to my family. I will miss him dearly, but I have so many memories of our time together. To remember him, I made a few of these framed paw prints. The loss of a pet is painful. I don’t think I was able to grieve his loss until these last few weeks. I’d think about…
For someone who has only about 8 months of solids under his belt, our son is quite the picky eater. He has his favorites, but he does not like to have the same thing too often. Anything with consistency or on a schedule and it won’t work for him. However, we can always count on these overnight oats as a favorite. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,…