White Chicken Chili + Prescribe Nutrition

You guys, this week has been like whoa. Two shoots, a baby shower, four batches of chocolate cupcakes, and everyone on spring break. Bouncing between stay at home mom, work at home mom, and work away from home mom has got me in a perpetual game of catch up. I am so glad that I have nothing on the schedule next week, because I need to get back in balance. 

I haven't been great about updating the blog regularly, but hopefully you're following Stir & Scribble's adventures on Instagram? The last couple of months have been a fun journey into eating a more whole foods based diet. If you've been a follower for very long - you might have noticed that I've had many false starts and stops at feeding my family a less processed diet. This time though I've had help. 

In February, I signed up for a program with Prescribe Nutrition. Prescribe Nutrition is a team of incredible woman with one incredible goal - to get you to give up a 'diet' in favor of eating real whole food. There programs are designed to shake you free from the standard American diet in a fun, approachable way with a ton of support and community. I loved my Prescribe experience so much that I shared my story over on their blog this week - you can read all about my disdain for diets here.

This weekend I'm jumping into another program with the Prescribe Nutrition team - Prescribe Balance. Prescribe Balance is perfectly timed to kick off spring. Twenty days of digging deeper into eating whole foods, getting some exercise, and daily cleaning rituals with the goal of getting everything back in balance.  I couldn't need it more right now - care to join me? Use the code 'stirandscribble' for 20% off! There's still plenty of time to sign up!

White Chicken Chili
serves 6 to 8
recipe courtesy Prescribe Nutrition

This Chili is one of the recipes from Prescribe Balance and a great example of whole foods meets comfort food that is typical of the Prescribe Nutrition team. We scaled back the spice for Ella and served it with a ton of lime and avocado. Its the perfect Sunday supper (and great for lunch leftovers).

1 tablespoon coconut oil or ghee
1 large white onion, peeled and chopped
1 poblano, pepper, seeded and chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped*
1 anaheim pepper, seeded and chopped
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 1⁄2 teaspoons ground chili powder*
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon sea salt, divided
4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
32 oz (4 cups) organic veggie or chicken broth
2 (14.5-ounce) cans white beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups (about 2 lbs) cooked, shredded chicken**
Juice and zest of 1 lime, + extra lime wedges for garnish
1⁄2 cup full fat coconut milk
1⁄4 cup chopped cilantro leaves + extra for garnish

*only include if you prefer some extra spice in your chili!

Heat the oil in a large heavy bottom pan or dutch oven over medium heat until hot. Add the onions, peppers, cumin, coriander, chili powder, paprika and 1⁄2 teaspoon of the salt. Cook until the vegetables have softened, about 5-6 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté for another minute.

Pour in the broth. Add 1 can of the beans and, using a potato masher (or a handheld blender), mash the beans in the pot, creating a thicker texture.

Stir in the remaining beans, shredded chicken, lime juice and zest and bring to a boil. If you prefer a chili with more broth, add 1 - 2 cups of water. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in the coconut milk and keep on a low simmer for 5 minutes.

Serve immediately with additional lime wedges and cilantro.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies for Lactation

Brace yourselves friends, I'm going to talk about breast feeding again. Just over three years ago I shared my choice to stop breastfeeding Ella when she was just 7 weeks. At the time, it felt like such a hard heavy decision and disappointment, but now that she's basically a grown up (as in she turned three last week) it seems so silly to have cried over breast milk. 

I was exclaiming to a friend recently how different the second baby experience has been than the first, to which the friend replied "Of course, its different. You're a whole other person than you were 3 years ago!" Duh. Being a mom to Ella prepared me to be a mom for Emmett. My breastfeeding experience with Emmett has also been tremendously easier. 

One thing I learned between Ella and Emmett is that there is a whole list of foods that are actually reported to increase a mother's milk supply naturally. Galactagogues are foods that naturally promote breast milk production. While little scientific data exists, anecdotal evidence suggests that consuming food such as fennel, chickpeas, or papaya will help breast feeding mothers. Oats and other whole grains and beer are also reported to have the same affect. 

There's a small niche of food companies working to full fill the needs of nursing mother's and I actually stumbled upon the idea of lactation cookies through Amazon (which has saved me too many times during these "new mom of two" times). I tried a few pre-made cookies as well as some mixes for "milk maker" cookies cookies. Whether they actually worked or there was just a placebo affect - I decided to create my own cookies.

These 'lactation' cookies are a hack of my favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Oats are regularly prescribed to nursing mamas for milk supply. Flaxseed meal and brewer's yeast are added for the same reason and both were easily found at my local Whole Foods Market (you can also order both on Amazon). I've decreased the chocolate (which can some times upset tiny tummies) and messed with the sugar ratio a bit. 

I wasn't even planning to share this recipe, but this is seriously the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe I have ever had. The edges are crisp but the rest of the cookie is pleasantly chewy, there's just the right amount of cinnamon and chocolate. And here's the thing - you can't taste the flaxseed or brewer's yeast - so unless you tell them no one would ever know that this cookie helps with lactation. 

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies for Lactation 
Makes 3 dozen cookies

These cookies are designed to help breast feeding mamas increase their milk supply. They will not introduce lactation in Dads, kiddos or neighbors - so feel free to share. If you just want to enjoy these as the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies - omit the brewer's yeast but leave the flaxseed meal and be sure to refrigerate the dough as directed below.

1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons flaxseed meal
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup brewer's yeast
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup mini chocolate chips

Combine the water and flax seed meal in a small bowl and set aside. Beat together the butter and sugars in until lightened and fluffy. Add the water-flax mixture, eggs, and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Add the flour, brewer's yeast, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon and stir to combine.  Finally add the oats and chocolate chips and stir to incorporate.

Scoop the dough into 2 tablespoon sized rounds and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake 12 cookies at a time on parchment lined sheet pans for 8 to12 minutes. The edges should be golden brown and the middles should look slightly damp still - cool for 2 minutes on the pan. Then remove to a cooling rack.

Coconut Pecan Toffee & Coconut Caramel Sauce

There will be cake. It may take me a few weeks to share the recipe with you, but I promise there will be cake. Consider these your warm-up recipes - a rich Coconut Pecan Toffee and a Coconut Caramel Sauce with no dairy! Also tips for toasting nuts and coconut. 

I've been a little MIA here and on social media and even a little bit in real life. We've been traveling and working, preparing for a kitchen update and for bringing home a new baby in mere weeks. Weeks, you guys! I'm completely unprepared for a new baby and blogging seemed like reasonable enough procrastination from putting the crib back together.

Truthfully, I'm not sure that I will get back to blogging here regularly until next year at least, or honestly  ever. I have no idea what having two kids, working freelance, and still being a normal human will look like so I'm only promising you cake at this point. A one-bowl-rich-and-moist-chocolate cake, no less. Let's call it Denial Chocolate Cake.

I've been sitting on these recipes for a while, because they didn't seem appropriate for the spring or summer. The weather in the South has finally decided to be fall, which has me ready to bake, carve pumpkins, and find some new boots - basically any fall activity that helps me avoid putting the crib together or crying over tiny baby socks.

Coconut Pecan Toffee
Makes 8 ounces toffee – enough for garnishing one 9-inch cake, plus extra for nibbling

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 cup water

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature 

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup toasted pecans
½ cup toasted coconut flakes


Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Set aside.

Combine the sugar, corn syrup, salt, and water in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepan. Stir until sugar is dissolved and bring to a boilAttach a candy thermometer to the pot and continue cooking until temperature reaches 300 degrees F.

Remove saucepan from heat and quickly stir in butter, vanilla, and baking soda. Immediately add the coconut and pecans.

Pour onto prepared baking sheet and use a silicone spatula to spread the mixture into a thin even rectangle.

Cool completely on a cooling rack.  Snap the brittle into pieces and store in an airtight container at room temperature. Brittle can be made up to a week before assembling the cake.

Coconut Caramel Sauce 

Makes 3 cups filling – enough for 1 triple layer cake

2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup water

1 tablespoon corn syrup

1 cup full fat coconut milk, at room temperature  

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

½ teaspoon kosher salt 

optional additions

½ cup toasted coconut flakes, finely chopped 

½ cup toasted pecans, finely chopped

Combine the sugar, water, and, corn syrup in a heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepan. Attach a candy thermometer and cook over medium heat, without stirring, until the mixture turns golden amber and reaches 320 degrees F.  

Immediately remove from the heat and add the coconut milk, vanilla extract and salt and stir carefully. Return to medium heat and cook until the mixture reaches 230 degrees F. Pour the caramel into a heat-proof bowl and cool for 20 minutes. Fold in the coconut and pecans and cool completely. The finished sauce can be made up to a week in advance – store in the refrigerator in an airtight container and bring to room temperature before assembling the cake. 

Toasted Coconut Flakes
Makes 12 ounces toasted coconut –enough for the Coconut Pecan Caramel Filling, the Coconut Pecan Brittle and garnishing the finished cake

1 12-ounce bag unsweetened coconut flakes

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the coconut into an even layer on a baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes. Stir the coconut and bake an additional 2 to 3 minutes or until golden. Remove from the oven and cool completely on the baking sheet. Store in an airtight container. Coconut can be toasted up to 2 weeks ahead of assembling the cake.

Toasted Pecans
Makes 1 pound toasted nuts – enough for the Coconut Pecan Caramel Sauce and Coconut Pecan Brittle

1 pound whole pecans

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the pecans into an even layer on a baking sheet and bake for 8 minutes. Stir the nuts and bake an additional 2 to 5 minutes or until the nuts are fragrant and just begin to brown. Remove nuts from the baking sheet to cool completely before chopping or storing. Store pecans in an airtight container. Pecans can be toasted up to 2 weeks ahead of assembling the cake. 

Baked Falafel with Simple Yogurt Dressing

There is a lot of cooking in my kitchen for other people - steak for my husband, a whole series for my daughter, BBQ for my in-laws. This Baked Falafel is just for me. I could eat meatless hearty salads for every meal and I love greek food. The hubby will pass on tomatoes and olives and our little darling is only really interested in strawberries and cheese toast these days. 

Luckily - I'm the only cook in the house and everyone just has to deal with my whims. Just kidding, being a wife and mom just means I need meals that 1. I love and 2. I can adapt for my sweet finicky family. This Baked Falafel is good like that. My husband will eat these in a pita pocket without the tomatoes and olives and with very little yogurt sauce. Ella will have her sauce on the side, actually she'll have everything separate, please. Me? I love to eat these guys on a big bed of lettuce with lots of feta, lots of ripe tomatoes, and lots of stinky olives. The falafel and Simple Yogurt dressing also make a pretty hearty appetizer with some sliced cucumbers. 

Like most of the recipes I share here - these Baked Falafel are adaptable and forgiving. Out of cornmeal? Use all-purpose flour. Hate mint? Just chop up some parsley. The yogurt sauce can handle some red wine vinegar instead of the lemon (because 9 times out of 10 -  I forgot to buy the lemon). 

Baked Falafel 

makes 24 small falafel patties, 4-6 servings 

2 (16 ounces) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed 

1 small onion or shallot, grated 

1 clove garlic, minced 

1/3 cup cornmeal

1/4 cup finely chopped minced herbs - I like thyme, oregano and mint but parsley is a good neutral 

1 teaspoon smoked paprika 

1 teaspoon kosher salt 

olive oil 

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. 

Mash together the chickpeas, onion, garlic, cornmeal, herbs, paprika and salt with a potato masher in a large bowl until most of the chickpeas are smashed and the mixture holds together when pressed. You can also pulse the mixture in a food processor 10-15 times until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs and also holds together when pressed. 

Coat a baking sheet with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Scoop the chickpea mixture into 2 tablespoon sized balls (I like a small fisher for this) and flatten slightly. 

Bake for 12 minutes, flip and bake for another 12 to 15 minutes or until crisp. Serve with Simple Yogurt Dressing, pita bread, feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives. 

Simple Yogurt Dressing 

makes about 1 cup dressing

1 cup greek yogurt 

1 tablespoon lemon juice 

1 tablespoons finely chopped fresh herbs - such as chives and mint

1 teaspoon kosher salt 

Mix together yogurt, lemon juice, herbs, and salt. Let the mixture sit for at least 30 minutes before serving. 

Psst. This is how I set up the components of a greek salad for Ella. She is 1000% guaranteed to eat the bread, yogurt sauce, and cucumbers. Every once in a great while she will eat the tomatoes and the feta too - so I keep trying.

Baked Oatmeal Donuts with Maple Glaze

I'm sort of sorry I'm bring you these Baked Oatmeal Donuts on a Monday. Sort of. I'm also not sorry for finding another way to force help my family to eat oatmeal. You might not be able to wait until next weekend to make these. 

I've been battling my grandmother's cake donut recipe for about the last year and a half. When she passed away her donut recipe went with her and the few notes that are left haven't yield that taste memory for me. After another fail last month - I needed a donut win. Also because my grandmother's donuts are fried - I wanted something sort of nutritious. 

By substituting the white flour in a typical baked donut recipe for whole wheat flour and oat flour these donuts are higher in fiber and so more filling. I might even consider an unglazed one an acceptable weekday breakfast. Okay, on a Monday I might consider a glazed one an acceptable breakfast. 

Around here we can't eat oatmeal without brown sugar or maple syrup - so I've included brown sugar in the donut and maple syrup in the glaze. You can easily find a donut pan at your local kitchenware store or online. 

Oatmeal Baked Donuts with Maple Glaze 

makes 12 donuts  

butter or oil for the pan 

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour 

3/4 cup oat flour* 

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder 

1 teaspoon kosher salt 

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg 

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 

3/4 cup milk

2 large eggs 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

maple glaze 

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons maple syrup 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste 

pinch of salt 

Heat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a donut pan and set aside. 

Whisk together the flour, oat flour, baking powder, and spices in a large bowl. In another small bowl, beat together the milk, eggs, and vanilla extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. 

Move the batter to a gallon sized zip-top bag. Cut a small corner off the bag and use it the bag to pipe the batter into the donut pan. Fill each cavity about 3/4 full. Bake for 8 to minutes of until the donuts are golden and spring back when touched. remove from the oven and remove from the pan to a cooling rack immediately. Re-grease and fill the pan until all of the batter is used. Cool the donuts completely before glazing. 

For the glaze: Whisk together the powdered sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla until smooth. Dip the donuts in the glaze and return to the cooling rack - let the glaze set for 30 minutes before devouring. 

*Make your own by buzzing rolled oats in the food processor or clean coffee grinder - 3/4 cup whole oats will yield just enough oat flour for this recipe. 

Barley, Apple, Feta, and Pomegranate Salad

      

This Barley, Apple, Feta and Pomegranate Salad is the epitome of a Mama's lunch. It can be thrnow together quickly, keeps well for a good long while, and can be eaten straight from fridge or at room temperature - you know, in case you get pulled away from it by a work phone call or a crying toddler. 

Ok, so maybe you're not a Mama - but you are a busy working gal or guy and having a healthy lunch during the work week is a challenge. This Barley, Apple, Feta, and Pomegranate salad is for you too. 

Summer Succotash Panzanella

Succotash is a dish I've been making all summer long - I'm not quite sure why I haven't shared this recipe sooner. Except that  I couldn't really tell you what a succotash is. Besides that is an incredibly delicious and easy summer meal. 

Smarter Supper | Roasted Tomato Sauce

I’m eating tomato toast as I write this, not because I love tomato toast but, more or less because I had a craving for toast and there are so many damn tomatoes in our kitchen right now.  I wanted to have a lovely little garden but at a plant sale this spring I got a little crazy and bought 16 tomato plants.  I clearly had no idea how many tomatoes would come from 16 plants and the rainiest year I’ve seen in Georgia yet. 

Chickpea Burgers + Crispy Carrot Fries

The battle of my pantry has begun! So far I've actually managed to add things to my freezer (whole wheat pancakes and these burgers) while also using both pantry and fridge items up in the process. I'm seeing more pantry room already! 

Thirsty Thursday: Clementine Hot Toddy

Winter is this|close to being over and wouldn't you know it, last week I had my first sick session of the year. Snotty nose, sore throat, congestion, headache - the whole damn shebang. But you know, I took the whole thing in stride, by creating a cocktail that I will now promote as a cure all as to excuse my day drinking. 

Grilled Bruschetta

I'm having a fit of wants this week and wishing for inspirations and talent to miraculously be mine. 

I know that strength comes in working through the wanting, in putting my head down and forging ahead. Still I want. I want to write you clever recipes and shoot beautiful photographs. But I know that even after almost 5 years doing what I do, I am still new to this career and even newer to photography and to blogging. Its hard not to look at all the other lovely sites out there and feel like I am not enough, like this space is not enough. 

Donut Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze

Let's agree on two things: if it is not fried dough, call it a donut, not a doughnut and this motherhood thing is not for the faint of heart. The first, I just made up and the latter I am slowly learning.

I'm typing frantically, hoping that Ella sleeps twenty more minutes so I can finish this post and clean the toilets. You probably shouldn't mention toilets on a food blog. Also, you probably shouldn't talk about poopy diapers while you're at lunch with a bunch of lovely ladies, but its kinda par for the course today. All of this to say, that this time in my life is full of emotions. Emotions and complete craziness.

Some days I wish Ella would just learning how to walk/talk/use the toilet already. And then, in the same day, I will cry because she's almost getting too long to lay in my lap anymore and the elephant pajamas with the ruffles on the butt don't fit. I feel guilt for leaving her to work, obligated to work so I can give her everything. And in twelve years she will absolutely hate me, and five or so after that she'll leave completely.

My mom came to visit recently, and I am reminded and glad for the way our relationship has grown. It got me thinking a lot about the lineage of mother's before me. In fits of daydreaming and tired-mind wandering, I remember my mom's mother. Her house cast a sepia tone on everything in the summers I spent there. She kept a small garden and her cellar was lined with canned beans and carrots. Two freezers below the house kept blueberries we picked, popsicles, cool-whip, and bags of her cake donuts.

I wasn't one of those cooks who was taught at my grandmother's hip. I begrudgedly picked snap peas and peeled the toothy thread from the back steps of her little house on the corner. She always always took me blueberry picking under the guise that it was something I loved. I do now, but I was easily bored with it as a kid. Now I wish I had paid more attention to her in the kitchen. She made the very best cake donuts. My father loved them so much that she continued to make them for him long after my parents divorced. She made them every time I came to visit until her arthritis bothered her too much and then she'd ask a friend to make them for me. I never learned to make them from her before she passed.

On a trip home last fall I got to look through her recipes and found two notes regarding the infamous donuts. Neither is quite right, I'm sure something is missing. Now I'm sure the secret ingredient was her well word hands and heart. She too knew motherhood is not for the weak.

Donut Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze

serves 10-12

Inspired by my grandmother's cake donuts that were flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg and deep fat fried, this cake requires a few extra steps than most cakes; I promise its worth it.

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature, plus 2 tablespoons for the pan
2 cups sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for the pan
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extra
1 cup whole milk

For the glaze:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup half and half
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
Sprinkles, optional but highly highly recommended

Heat the oven to 350˚F and rub a large bundt pan with two tablespoons butter. Make sure to cover the pan well to prevent sticking later. Next coat the pan with 2 tablespoons of sugar: it easiest to do this by dumping the sugar into the pan, covering the pan with plastic wrap and shaking the whole pan until it well coated, remove the plastic wrap and tap out any excess sugar.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a medium bowl.

Cream together the butter and sugar in a stand mixer on medium-high, until lighted, 3-4 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium and add the eggs one at a time, making sure each is incorporated before adding the next. Stir in the vanilla.

Add one third of the flour mixture and stir in at medium speed. Stop scrap down the work bowl and add half of the milk. Repeat, ending with the last third of the flour mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake 45 minutes to an hour, until the cake is set and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes in the pan, then remove and cool completely before glazing.

For the glaze: Combine the butter, milk, and vanilla in a small saucepan and bring just to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from the heat and toss in the chocolate. Leave the chocolate alone for 2 minutes and then whisk until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and whisk, whisk, whisk until smooth. Pour over the cooled cake, sprinkle on your sprinkles and set for 30 minutes before slicing.

I suggest serving this cake with hot coffee and some good belly laughs.

More Donut Cravings? Check out:
Emma's Donut Cake
Luisa's Donut Cake 
Deb's Cinnamon Brown Butter Breakfast Puffs

Chocolate Strawberry Shortcakes

Who doesn't love strawberry shortcake? You've probably had every incarnation under the sun of this dessert - with true shortcakes, with sponge cake, maybe even with pound cake. But have you ever had it with chocolate biscuits? 

Vanilla Roasted Strawberries

Keep it simple. That's what spring and summer cooking is for. Little ripe berries don't need a lot of fuss, so I won't muck them up with word upon words. Here are the only two things I feel compelled to say:

Heaven must smell like roasted strawberries. 

And roasting berries is pretty much like making instant sauce with absolutely no work. 

{Cook the Book}: Marshmallow Madness

{I'm so excited to finally be sharing a regular feature I've been wanting to create for months - welcome to 'Cook the Book'! Each month I'll be feature a favorite new (or classic) cookbook and giving a copy away! I've created a pinterest board of my favorites - feel free to follow along.}

Shauna Sever was quite right to open her new book Marshmallow Madness!: Dozens of Puffalicious Recipes with an antidote about folk's disbelief that a marshmallow is something anyone can make. The day her book arrived my brother actually declared: "You can't make marshmallows!", this led to a deep discuss about how really, you can make or grow all edibles, if your just willing to try.

Pimento Cheese Deviled Eggs

Pimento cheese is my hero, but you already knew that. I don't like deviled eggs which might surprise y'all given how much I love an egg in any form.  The textures and flavors are always weird to me - I'd rather just have a hard cooked egg.

Baked Eggs

Easter is my favorite holiday.

It has nothing to do with the sweet pastels and welcoming of spring, I'm in it for the chocolate bunnies and the jelly beans. Oh, and I absolutely love eggs!

Somehow I almost completely forgot about Easter this year. I'd been doodling ideas of bringing you eggs dyed with kitchen staples, but alas, here we are on the eve of Easter weekend and I am without dyed eggs.

Maybe you are too? That's awesome! Because it gives us a chance to celebrate the egg for being perfectly beautiful without some silly dye. There's less mess! And we don't have to buy one of those egg dyeing kits or spend hours cooking down beets for naturally dyed eggs.

Twix-moa

TWIX - MOA!

Hmm, okay, so how can I explain this to you? 

A Twix-moa is like the love child of a Twix and a Girl Scout Samoa cookie. Or maybe it is a candy bar dressed up like a cookie. It might also be a cookie transformed into a candy bar. 

A Sweet Pop

Life has a wicked sense of humor.

When we try to make plans, life makes others. Just as we think we've figured out the new plan, life throws another curveball our way. This is both the brightly beautiful and the deeply troubling thing about life.

{Thirsty Thursday}: Fuzzy Peach

A peck of peaches is becoming my new summer tradition. Lured in by cute roadside farms or beauties at a berry farm, I enthusiastically pick the prettiest peck to bring home. A peck is between 12 and 20 pounds. I didn't know that last summer, but somehow that fact slipped my mind as I payed for and carried home another twenty this year.