Springtime in Memphis

Memphis is beautiful in the spring.  There are so many colors and things are changing so quickly.  It's exciting to see the first daffodils peaking up out of the ground with a promise of bright colorful bouquets to come.  

Chocolate Truffle Cookies

I've never really been much of a cookie baker.  Cookies have always seemed more time consuming because you have to scoop each one out onto a cookie sheet and you can only bake a few sheets at a time.  Sometimes they spread out too much and are too thin.  Then there's always the problem with such a short baking time that my cookies are always either overdone and too crispy or not done enough.  So I don't make cookies very often, even though I really like to eat them.  Every once in a while, I get a hankering for cookies and quite often my hankering includes chocolate too.  Luckily, I found this recipe for Chocolate Truffle Cookies that soothes my inner cookie monster and turn out beautifully too.

Cinnamon Buns

There is nothing more comforting than a nice, warm cinnamon bun on a chilly morning.  Although they take some time, cinnamon buns are always worth the work.  There's a recipe from King Arthur Flour called Ridiculously Easy No-Knead Sticky Buns that is pretty easy and turned out to be very yummy.

This recipe makes 3 batches of cinnamon buns. At first I thought that sounded like too many, but I gave a pan away to my sister and after finishing off one pan, I was glad I had one to spare.

Pumpkin Scones

Pumpkin is one of my favorite flavors.  I consider it a flavor because I'm not much of a fan of it as a food by itself, but used in baked goods it is so very yummy... pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies and pumpkin scones.  Although it's a Fall food, you don't have to wait until the leaves start to turn to pick up a can of pumpkin puree and make these Harvest Pumpkin Scones from King Arthur Flour.

Love and Cheesecake

Happy Valentine's Day!  Instead of making reservations to go out to eat somewhere, we decided to stay home and make a tasty meal ourselves.  For our Valentine's dinner we had ribeye steaks, baked potatoes, green beans, cheesy flatbread, and cheesecake for dessert.

I haven't made a cheesecake in a long while, so I searched online for a recipe to use and found one for Sour Cream Cheesecake from Cooking Light that I adapted.

Snow Day

It's a snow day!  Yesterday the University closed early due to the snow and remained closed today, which was a very nice break in the work week.  Here's the view from my house yesterday afternoon.  We ended up with about 4 inches, pretty impressive for Memphis.

Today the sun is shining and everything is glistening and white.  Jonathan and I went for a walk around the neighborhood and I noticed that there were no snowmen.  After the last snowfall there were lots of snowmen in our neighborhood.  Just about every other house displayed signs of playing in the snow.  I guess this is a one-snow-a-year-kind-of-town.  

 

 

What to do on a snowy day home from work?  Bake!  Today's recipe is Sweet Potato Bread with Flaxseed and Honey from Cooking Light. 

No-Knead Garlic Cheese Flatbread

One of my favorite sites for bread recipes is King Arthur Four.  The recipes on this site are very reliable and so far everything I've attempted from there has turned out well.  Their No-Knead Garlic Cheese Flatbread is wonderful.  I've made it several times and it has become one of my husband's favorites.  It's a good thing it's so easy! 

Baby Time

After a nice long break, I've returned to my blog and freshened up the page a bit.  Maybe the new design will help me to stay dedicated to writing on a regular basis.  I didn't do as much baking this winter as I would have liked, but I do have a few recipes to share that I will post in the next few days. 

I'm looking forward to warmer weather.  Although, gardening this spring may be more of a challenge with my ever expanding belly.  Actually, everything seems to be more of a challenge with the belly and all that comes with it, but we are so excited about the baby girl we will be welcoming home sometime in May!