Thanksgiving Dishes

So normally Sundays are FOOD PREP SUNDAYS!!! However today isn't for a few reasons:

1. It's snowing and cold outside.
2. I'm red-wine hungover, and any of you who have experienced this know it's not a "let's get out and go grocery shopping!" kind of feeling.
3. My car died on Friday night, so I'm a bit lacking on the whole "transportation" thing.

So, instead, I'll update you on a few exciting new recipes I tried on.....

THANKSGIVING!!!!!

Basically the best and most delicious holiday ever, attempting to be 100% paleo and gluten-free that day I knew would be difficult. I was joining my friend Rachel and her family for the day, and knew there'd be all kinds of wonderful foods. And the way I look at it, if there's ever a day to proclaim "cheat day," Thanksgiving is it!

It was a pot-luck sort of Thanksgiving, so everyone brought a little something. I decided I'd try some new recipes I'd found online, and hope they would turn out as amazing as they looked.

First up!
Paleo Sweet Potato Casserole

This one I found here. Growing up, I'd never been a huge fan of sweet potato casserole, even the kind loaded up with marshmallows. My sister Karen had perfected such a recipe over the years, and in the last 2 or 3 years I've come to enjoy it. 

This recipe is different in that instead of using marshmallows as a topping, it uses a sweet pecan topping - pecans tossed with cinnamon, maple syrup, and coconut oil. YUM! Paleo-licious.

Casserole Ingredients:

• 4 large sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup canned coconut milk
• 1 TBSP coconut oil
• 1-2 TBSP maple syrup
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• juice of half an orange

Pecan Topping Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup chopped raw pecans
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 TBSP maple syrup
• 1 tsp melted coconut oil

Here's a few notes before we get started on the directions.

The picture on the blog showed the casserole in a round glass dish. I realized after I was halfway through my preparation that the only glass casserole dish I own is a rectangular one. This is fine, however the sheer surface area size meant I had to increase my pecan topping quite a bit. I didn't measure how much more I added, I just sort of threw in some more pecans and a dash of everything else and added it to the rest. No worries. Also, I had about a half a cop of raw pecans already, and when I went to the store, Hy-Vee was completely out of raw pecans. So I improvised a little - I bought full-sized honey roasted pecans. Why not? Crushed them on my own and all was delightful.

Next: for those of you, like me, who had previously never heard of "canned coconut milk," here's what you're looking for:

I actually had to call Delilah while I was at the store because I could not find this ANYWHERE. It ended up being in the Asian section of the Health Market. At the 156 & Maple HyVee, it was on the back-side of the gluten-free row. 

Alright. Back to the recipe. It should be noted that while I was cooking, I had on the Macy's Day Parade. I have never in my life watched more than maybe 20 minutes of the parade, and this year I was cooking all morning so I got to watch (aka listen to whilst running around my kitchen) the entire thing! It was actually pretty fun.

These are my cooking shoes. Mad support for those arches, yo.

Directions:
1. Peel and dice sweet potatoes into large chunks.

My peeler kinda sucks. And sweet potatoes are shaped funny. Hehehe 

How... appetizing?

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and preheat oven to 350 degrees.  (I recommend using something like a soup pot. Give yourself plenty of room to work with)
3. Add sweet potatoes to water & boil until fork-tender. ~10 minutes. Turn off heat.
4. Drain potatoes, then dump them back into the large pot w/ other ingredients.

Now we're really cookin'.

5. Using a hand mixer, blend until potatoes reach desired consistency and flavor. You may want to add a little more coconut milk, spices, or syrup based on your taste.

I am so glad Delilah made me buy a hand mixer 3 months ago. First use!

6. In a separate bowl, combine all topping ingredients & mix until pecans are well coated.

So pretty! So crunchy!

7. Dump sweet potatoes into an oven-safe dish and top with pecans.

Sorry it's blurry, the damn casserole wouldn't sit still for the picture.

8. Bake for about 15 minutes, until topping is browned. Serve warm. (I baked mine for about 20 minutes.)
9. Enjoy!! Yay!!!

This casserole was DELICIOUS! It was sweet, crunchy, and I had blended the potato mixture for a good long time so it was nice and smooth. It was excellent. I highly recommend this dish!

Next up!
Cranberry Upside Down Cakes
This recipe says it makes 8, I got 12. So.
I got this recipe here.
These little cakes are super sweet and delectable. A perfect small dessert!

Ingredients for cake:

• 2 1/2 cups almond flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1+1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground all spice
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup honey

Ingredients for cranberry layer:

• 1+1/2 cups fresh cranberries
• 1 TBSP freshly grated orange zest
• 1 TBSP freshly grated lemon zest
• 1/4 cup honey

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees & line your muffin tin. I used these awesome parchment paper cups. Or, you can just cut out squares of parchment paper and make your own!

Hello. I am here to make all your muffin/cupcake/other small cake dreams come true.

2. Combine flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and all spice in a bowl. In a separate bowl combine eggs, oil, and honey.

3. Combine all wet and dry ingredients and set aside.

4. Toss cranberries with orange zest, lemon zest, and honey. Arrange mixture into a single layer at the bottom of each muffin cup.

5. Top with cake batter and cover evenly.

These are like the ugly ducklings of foods. Looks gross now,  looks (and tastes) fantastic later.

6. Place pan into oven for 20-25 minutes or until tops are golden brown & fully cooked. 

7. Carefully remove from wrapping and turn upside down so cranberry layer is on top.
8. Top with a dollop of your favorite whipped topping and sprinkle of cinnamon.

9. Enjoy!

I totally cheated and used Reddi-Whip. But just like barely a drop on each cake. But look how awesome!!

So festive! Try not to lick your screen.

Here's how they look without the topping:

Like I said before, these cakes are SWEET. I couldn't eat more than one (right away, that is, I mean, c'mon). But this is definitely another recipe I would highly recommend to everyone!!

I was cooking both of these AND another loaf of gluten-free banana bread all at the same time that morning. So, when I was done, my kitchen was a DISASTER. But it was like, I was sorta proud of it, you know? 

Don't worry mom, I cleaned everything up before I left!

Thanksgiving was an awesome success at Rachel's house. They smoked the turkey, had ham, one of the people brought a sweet potato casserole as well, but hers had bacon in it and so while mine was sweet, hers was savory and so it worked out perfectly. There was green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, rolls, like 15 pies, apple crisp.... I'm drooling a little bit right now.

Anyway, I think that'll about do it for today. I've got a few other things I've tried but nothing exciting, so it can wait. Right now, it's time for some Sons of Anarchy on Netflix. And maybe a nap. :) 

Oh hey there, blog! Long time no see.

***NOTE*** I wrote this post on Nov 14. For whatever stupid technical computer reasons I couldn't upload photos until tonight (Nov 27). Sorry it's old. I'll post a new one ASAP! Promise!!

So October is over and we're already halfway through November. Holy crap!!

Sorry about my lengthy absence! I spent a week in Vegas at the end of October for my beautiful, life-long friend Katie's wedding. She and her now-HUSBAND (that sounds so weird!) have lived in Vegas for years. The wedding week was pefect. We spent some time staying at Katie's house with them, and a couple nights at a hotel. (By "we" I mean Delilah, her fiance David, Jesse and her b/f Will.)

Katie and I recreate a 20-year old classic

Delilah, Jesse, and some equally awesome person

During the week, Delilah and I accepted there would be some serious food-cheating. Alcohol, penis-shaped cake pops (a bachelorette-party must in my book), and some wicked good tapas at this amaizng place called Firefly on Paradise. Soooo.... we started the week off well, and our breakfasts were always clean and delicious. 

Tuesday night, Katie and I went grocery shopping before Delilah got to town. We picked up ingredients to make Clean Eating Lemon Zucchini Chicken (recipe to the left!). Katie, Oscar (her now hubby) and I had a great dinner, and had plenty of leftovers for Delilah when she got to town.

Katie has this magical amazing food slicer known as a Mandoline (I kept calling it a Magellan, which I feel is cooler). Have you seen these things? They are brilliant!!

Fear not, I am here to help.

See that little thing that looks like an air hockey piece? That's what you're supposed to use to protect your hands when the vegetable you're holding gets sliced so much that you're getting dangerously close to the blades.

Here's what I did:
*slicing zucchini super fast*
"YOU GUYS THIS THING IS AWESO--"
*slices straight up through my fingernail and into my finger which starts bleeding a lot*
"-AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

So. That was fun.

Hey girl that's a nice manicu-WHAT THE HELL

Lesson learned: own a Mandoline, call it a Magellan, and USE THE FINGER PROTECTOR FOR GODS SAKE. I spent the rest of the week awkwardly in bandaids and having to tape rubber glove pieces over my finger so I could shower, because (TMI warning) the blade literally cut THROUGH my fingertnail and into the skin underneath. I was messed up. Thank goodness Katie's mom is a doctor, so Katie has gotten very good at first aid throughout her life. She patched me up and Oscar kept my attention so I didn't faint. Hooray!!

Moving on. This is a food blog, not a gruesome finger-slicing blog!

We had some amazing food this week. I won't spend forever going through each individual day because this post would be 19 pages long.  So here's the highlights.

At a local Thai place - chicken satay. YUM.

Because it wouldn't be a bachelorette party without penis-shaped cake pops.

Instagram-aproved. Tapas from Firefly on Paradise.

And Jesse's bf Will Ryan Gosling with flan. Yeah.

As you can see, there was SOME cheating. But all in all, we did well. I only had a few glasses of wine and some beer throughout the week. The food I ordered was meat and vegetable based, although I admit I did have a few pieces of bread at the 107 Lounge at the top of the Stratosphere, because we got it with some kind of amazing cheese fondue or something and it was AMAZING. Like I mentioned earlier, breakfast every day was eggs scrambled with fresh tomatoes from Delilah's garden, nitrate-free organic bacon, and coffee. I must say, I NEED A KEURIG IN MY LIFE.

The whole week was wonderful and perfect. :)

Tipsy backseat bachelorette party selfie!

Since then? I flew back on a Monday, took the next day off work, and kind of ate really random, minimal things the rest of the week. I hadn't gone grocery shopping yet. (Lazy and jetlagged!) Lunch and dinner that week was pathetic, a mix of hummus and black bean/quinoa chips, random Lara Bars, stovetop steaks, and Udi's frozen gluten-free pizza.

I finally went shopping the following Sunday and spent four hours cooking. I was listening to a book on tape, and got so wrapped up in that ("The Innocent" by Harlan Coben....SO GOOD) that I forgot to take pictures. But honestly, I only made meals I was already extremely familiar with and have already posted about. I just wanted to have REAL FOOD in my life again, so I made the following:

1. Chicken Salad w/ Grapes
2. Spaghetti Squash Bake
3. Lemon Zucchini Chicken
4. Stuffed Bell Peppers

I have been doing a different thing with the stuffed peppers recipe. Instead of actually stuffing whole peppers and cooking them in the oven, I've been just cutting up the peppers into small pieces and sauteing them in a tiny bit of olive oil, then mixing the pieces up with the beef mixture. This is a little less time consuming and makes for a very easy-to-pack lunch for workdays.

not beautiful, but tasty.

.
.
.

What else?

OH YES THE GLUTEN-FREE GALA!!!

(Sorry, it's been so long since I've posted I forget what all has happened, food-wise!)

So before Vegas, Delilah stopped in Omaha (crazy woman DROVE from Iowa to Vegas!) and we went to HyVee simply so she could introduce me to a tasty gluten-free beer known as O'Mission Lager (IT'S AWESOME BUY IT NOW).

However, we walked in and they were having a GLUTEN-FREE GALA!!!!

No, seriously! There were tables set up with free samples, and gift bags, and you could sign up to win more free stuff. Delilah won stuff! I just ate stuff. :)

Come for gluten-free beer, leave with ALL THE GLUTEN-FREE GOODNESS.

duh, winning

This was so unbelievable. We met a woman who makes Cracked brand Nut Butter, in various flavors. I tried one flavor called Cookie Dough and IT WAS THE MOST DELIGHTFUL THING EVER. So naturally I bought some. Not cheap, but so worth it. She suggested a fantastic recipe, which I tried, and of course didn't take pictures of:

Cracked Nut Butter - flavor of your choice
Bananas - peeled and frozen
Almond Milk
(I think that was all - I'm actually not at home right now but I'll check when I get home)

Mix all together in a food processor until you create an ice-cream like consistency.
SO TASTY. It was a little thinner than normal ice cream, but the effect was the same: Happy taste buds!

Another thing I saw and bought without sampling (they were out of samples, and now I know why) is a brand of gluten-free bread mix: Breads from Anna. I bought banana bread and pumpkin bread.

I am not ashamed to say that I ate the entire loaf of banana bread in like 3 days. All you do is mix together 3 eggs, coconut oil, and nuts (optional). Then stir in the bread mix, and bake for an hour.

Both loaves were perfect. Just the right crumble of the crust, warm and moist inside. I took the pumpkin bread loaf to a party at a friend's house and it was a huge hit!!

NOT MUSHY-CROCK-POT-DISASTER BREAD

ACTUALLY DELICIOUS AND FANTASTIC

AND STICKY.

Okay, that's gonna do it for now! I'm sorry this post is so dis-jointed, but I'm actually sitting in the backseat of my sister's car as we travel back home. I've got my internet through my personal hotspot on my phone, but it's not the greatest connection. I'm in the backseat because a furry little dog didn't want to sit in the back seat by herself and so I had spent the first hour of the drive holding her on my lap in the front passenger seat. :)

But I bought her an owl sweater, so, she's cute and gets to do what she wants.

Alright kiddos, have an excellent night! I'll have some new recipes to post next time, I promise. I found some really tasty-looking paleo Thanksgiving side dishes and I still have other gluten-free desserts I still need to try making!

I haven't forgotten about you!

Hey everyone! I know it's been a while since I posted. I actually have a new post written; I typed it up on Thursday, but apparently my internet is refusing to connect to my iPhoto, so I can't upload any pics.

And you know me, a blog without pics is just BORING.

So, stick around, I've got stuff to tell ya!
(And cross your fingers that my computer stops being stupid sometime soon!)

From Meh to AMAZING

Hey friends!

I've been super off-track with my daily specific meals. I haven't made a LOT of new recipes so I didn't have a whole lot to update on. Sorry y'all!

To start things off, a few random things I want to get out there into the food-world.

First of all, my new favorite "lazy morning" breakfast. When I've got time in the morning and feel like having more than a smoothie!

Fried eggs, turkey sausage patties, and coffee with Simply Bliss natural creamer!

Emily has better skillets than I do.

YUMMY.

Second, in the HyVee Health Market, there are some chocolate bars. I bought this when I was first shopping with Delilah and forgot I had it. Now just because you can find it in the Health Market doesn't make it "HEALTHY!" Still a good amount of calories per serving, but a few tiny pieces was a nice little "cheat" snack one evening when I was craving some chocolate!

Orange + Choclate = omggggg *drool

Third, I am now obsessed with making fillet in the skillet. When I wrote about this last time, I forgot to mention the following: When you've got about two minutes left for the steak to cook, throw in about a tablespoon of butter (Organic Valley Pasture Butter, that is). It gives the steak that je ne sais quoi to help make it perfect. 

*kisses tips of fingers like a badass french chef*

Moving on!!

I did try 3 new recipes last week! Two were awesome, one didn't turn out at all like I was hoping. Boo!

Ready? Here we go!

Let's start with the worst, go to the one that was delicious and wielded a weeks worth of leftovers, and end with the most delicious and amazing desert ever. Sound good? Great.

DISCLAIMER: These are some expensive-ass recipes. I say that because they involve large amounts of healthy ingredients, and health food (as we all know) is much more expensive than regular food. I'm talking about using coconut oil, *real* maple syrup, almond butter, almond flour... this stuff isn't cheap. Especially the desert - this is probably the most expensive recipe to date I've made. But I'm telling you, it is so, SO worth it.

Okay.

These first two recipes are both from a book my friend and co-worker Erin loaned me called Paleo Slow Cooking: Gluten Free Recipes Made Simple by Chrissy Gower. Like, could there be a more perfect book?? Paleo, Gluten-Free, and I can throw shit into a bowl and it cooks itself?! YES PLEASE. 

First recipe: SLOW COOKER BANANA BREAD. 

Now, I say it turned out bad, and I don't know why. I'm not giving up on this recipe, because banana bread is basically the best invention ever known and I miss it. Let's get to it:

Ingredients:

• 4 small, ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons melted coconut oil
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 3 tablespoons coconut milk
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups almond flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:

• In a large mixing bowl, mash the four bananas with fork.

I tried doing that with a fork, and it sucked. So I got out my potato masher and it was way more fun, and it looked hilarious.

hehehe

these bananas shall be mine and i shall call them my squishy.

• Add the melted coconut oil to the bowl.

If you've never used coconut oil before, you should be aware that it's not a liquid like olive oil. It's thick, but melts quickly. Measure it out into a small bowl and microwave for like 15 seconds. 

• Stir in the honey, vanilla, coconut milk, and eggs. Mix well.

Support local brands!

Eggs, Milk, Honey, Vanilla

• Add the flour and baking soda. The mixture will be thin, like pancake batter.

I'm sorry. I forgot to take a picture of the batter. Because at this point, I had everything stirred together, except for baking soda. Because I realized that I didn't have any baking soda. ANYWHERE IN MY APARTMENT. I was distraught. Everything else was mixed together. I thought, "Can I get by without it?" I know what you're thinking: "Well damn, Laura, you said the recipe sucked, did you make it without baking soda? That's probably why." Well guess what, cynical reader, NO! I left my mixing bowl on the counter and ran to HyVee. It sat for maybe 1/2 hour, 40 minutes tops. So anyway, I came home, threw in the teaspoon of baking soda, and continued on. So let's continue on!

• Line your slow cooker with parchment paper. 
• Pour the banana mixture into the slow cooker, and cook on low for 2 hours.
• When the bread is done, you can remove it by lifting the parchment paper out and cutting on a cutting board, or leave it in the slow cooker on a warm setting and enjoy it directly from the slow cooker.

Now, here's what happened to me.

After 2 hours I checked the bread. It was cooked well around the outer edges, but basically a watery mush on the inside. 

It's difficult to tell from the picture, but it genuinely wasn't cooked even a little bit on the inside. So, I left it in the cooker for another hour and a half. Checked it again, same thing. Still a mushy mess. But the outsides were almost burnt, so I took it out. 

see how gushy? is gushy a word?

I was very disappointed. The crust parts tasted okay, but the inside was just so gross looking. So, I placed it all in a baking pan and threw it in the oven for about 20 minutes to see if that would help. It didn't. 

I ended up cutting off the crust parts and throwing away the insides. I kept the crust parts in tupperware but was so disconcerned about how un-cooked the insides were, knowing there were eggs in the mix, that I ended up only eating a few bites of the whole thing. Sad!

So, what went wrong? I'm genuinely asking your opinion here. Was it that I left the mixture sitting while I had to go to the store? Because otherwise I followed the recipe to a T. Help!

Okay! Next recipe:

SLOW COOKER TORTILLA-LESS CHICKEN SOUP

This is another recipe from the Paleo slow-cooker recipe book. This one is fantastic!! Makes a ton of food, so it's great for parties, or if you're single and lame like me, great for lots of leftovers!

Ingredients:

• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 4 celery stalks, chopped
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 jalepeno pepper, diced (I left this out as I am a wuss when it comes to spicy foods)
• 16 ounces chicken broth
• (1) 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes w/ green chiles (I could only find 10 oz cans so I used 1 1/2 cans)
• (1) 28-ounce can enchilada sauce (I used mild, but use whatever you like for your spiciness preference!)
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 cup coconut milk

Directions:

• In a medium-size pan, saute the onion, celery, and carrots in the olive oil until onions are translucent (3-5 minutes over medium heat)
• Place sauteed veggies in the slow cooker
• Rinse & trim the chicken breast (if necessary) and add to the slow cooker.
• Add remaining ingredients, stir, cover, and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

It's that easy!!! I LOVE SLOW COOKER RECIPES!!

A few of my notes: I forgot to buy full carrots. Luckily I had some baby carrots, so I just cut up a handful of those. Yay!

I always forget how easily cooked meat will fall apart after cooking all day in a slow cooker. So if you're like me and you think that putting full chicken breasts into a slow cooker is stupid, just don't worry. It's fine. They will shred so easily and beautifully and deliciously. 

Mine cooked for 9 hours. I turned on the slow cooker at 9:30am right before I left for work, and turned it off about 6:30 after I got home. And p.s. my apartment smelled delicious when I got home!! I took the lid off the slow cooker, used a large wooden fork to hold the chicken breasts in place, and then shredded them with a regular fork. Once the meat was shredded, I stirred everything up. So delicious.

Hi, I'm here to make your belly happy.

Lastly, once I had a serving in a bowl and was enjoying it, I found it was still just a tiny spicy for my liking (I seriously am a wuss). So I decided to throw in a little bit of shredded mozzarella cheese, and that just made everything pretty perfect all around. 

This recipe was great. Once the dish has cooled enough, you can put it into tupperware and keep in the fridge for leftovers. Yay!! I also found that crunching up some HyVee brand Black Bean & Quinoa tortilla chips gave it a little extra yumminess. 

Okay everyone.

It's time.

Are you ready for the greatest dessert recipe ever?

I mean, it's really freaking good.

Even Olivia is licking her lips.

BROWNIES I WANT THEM

Here we go.

Cinnamon Salted Caramel Brownies

YUP. Oh, and BTW? THEY'RE VEGAN AND GLUTEN FREE. 

SHUT UP SHUT UP I KNOW.

Okay. I feel like I hit the jackpot when I was just scrolling through Buzzfeed (one of my favorite websites ever) and I found an article that had like almost 50 gluten-free and vegan BAKING recipes that were catered towards fall-themes. So lots of pumpkin and apple type deliciousness. YEAH. Now, not all of them were paleo, but SO MANY OF THEM were awesome and I saved a ton of them. So be ready to see a lot of great recipes coming in the next few months.

This one came from a website called BakerBettie. God Bless this recipe.

Ingredients:

for the salted caramel sauce:

• 1 cup almond butter
• 1 1/4 cup pure ("real") maple syrup
• 3/4 cup solid coconut oil
• 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

for the brownies

• 1 1/2 cups of salted caramel sauce (from above)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (i bought regular cocoa powder and it was fine)
• 2 cups sifted almond flour

Organic Maple Syrup, Justin's brand Almond butter, Red Mill Almond Flour,
Vanilla Extract, Organic Coconut Oil, Cinnamon, Salt, Cocoa Powder.
Everything you need for your impending tastebud explosion.

Directions (PREPARE TO GET STICKY):

• In a large mixing bowl, combine cocoa powder and almond flour.

chocolate and vanilla, swirl, swirl
(anyone get that netflix original series reference? please?)

• Put all ingredients for the salted caramel sauce into a food processor or high-speed blender.

don't be scared.

• Blend on high for two minutes, scraping the sides down periodically. *DON'T SKIP ON BLENDING FOR THIS LONG.* Blending for this long will create the sticky caramel-like sauce!

omg its caramel. i made caramel. I MADE CARAMEL. I AM CARAMEL GODDESS.

• Pour 1 1/2 cups of the salted caramel sauce into the flour/cocoa mixture and stir until well combined.

omg omg omg omg it's gonna be so good i can tell omg

• Spread the mixture evenly into a lightly oiled parchment paper-lined 8x8 pan.

My pan is 9x9. I'm a rebel.

• Bake at 360 degrees for 12-15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. 

I think I ended up baking it for about 20 minutes total. Whatever. Like I said: Rebel.

• Drizzle warm salted caramel sauce over the top of the brownies. 

Earlier, I poured any remaining sauce from the food processor to a measuring cup. I now put the cup into the microwave for about 15 seconds to warm it up enough to pour. It smelled like heaven.

• Allow to cool in the pan.
• Enjoy!

MAGIC.
DELICIOUS HEAVENLY TASTEBUD-EXPLODING MAGIC.

And, with that, my friends, YOU ARE WELCOME. Seriously. Make this.

I'm making these brownies again a week from today for a Halloween party I'm going to and I can't wait. I love sharing these awesome recipes with my friends. It's so fun to get to share the excitement!!!

I've been writing this post while watching today's Husker game. We're up 44-7 with like a minute to go in the game. My pup is in her Husker jersey snuggled up by my side, and I've got some fun shopping planned for later. So far, it's been a pretty great Saturday. :) I hope you're having as good of a day as I am.

Also, I've added the basic recipes for the Slow Cooker Tortilla-Less Chicken Soup and the Cinnamon Salted Caramel Brownies to the link list over to the left, for easier reading and printing! I'm not going to add the banana bread recipe there yet until I have a chance to try it again. But that's it for today! 

Love!