Seakettle

While you may be up to your elbows in flour, I doubt this is the holiday cookie recipe you've been looking for! But hey, if we can have Christmas in July, maybe we can bring a little July to Christmas? [...]

Greg and I are hosting Thanksgiving in our tiny apartment today, and we'll be enjoying this layered pumpkin cheesecake topped with chocolate acorns for dessert! Greg is working on the turkey as I write, and a butternut squash galette and a pumpkin "stuffed with everything good" will both be making appearances, as well. [...]

On a recent trip to Portland, Greg and I visited a tea tasting room with my brother and his wife. It was a great experience — I consume crazy amounts of tea, but am woefully ignorant of the nuances of the historically-significant beverage. It was fun to taste them side by side and ask the server about her tips and recommendations. Meanwhile, my sister-in-law purchased a box of pink sea-glass-like candy from the front of the shop. Even though my dessert table was already fully-stocked and I was buried in nautical projects, I couldn’t resist googling sea glass candy to see what I’d find. [...]

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I'm always on the hunt for simple foods and decorations that can be customized for any situation, and these Jell-O letters fit the bill "purrfectly." [...]

I jumped on the Pinterest basketball cake bandwagon and made this cute dessert for my father-in-law's birthday. I baked peanut butter brownies for the base, instead of a more typical cake, to complement the Reese's Pieces flavors. [...]

I love happy hour. Happy hour and brunch. I'm not sure why I prefer to eat and drink at non-standard meal times, but it just feels so special. [...]

As soon as I read "frozen yogurt in a food processor," I was off to check my frozen berry supply. This summer full of cheap strawberries has kept both our fridge and freezer stocked, so we enjoyed our first batch of ice-cream-maker-free frozen yogurt that very night. Which is just ridiculous, really, because we have an ice cream maker and it's incredibly easy and we love it. But this approach was novel, I had the ingredients on hand, and I was intrigued by using nonfat yogurt. [...]

A few of my girlfriends recently had a going-away tea party for our sweet friend, Kelley. I made these USA cookies with hearts to mark where we and she will be living for the next few years. Too far away! [...]

I'm hardly an expert on mousse — my most vivid memories of it include repeatedly sampling it at Notre Dame's dining hall's "fancy" dinners on the nights of home football games. Even though I kept trying it, I was always disappointed. My husband, completely independent of me, had the exact same experience. (We also independently concluded that ND's (south) dining hall serves the only pizza *anywhere* that we don't like. It's strange, really, because the Notre Dame dining halls are generally fantastic.) [...]