bourbon brown sugar cupcakes

i have the best parents

ever.

period.

this week my dad came over on his own time to help justin finish up the final mudding, taping and sanding of the new Sheetrock in the mudroom. justin loathes this part of the project

my dad came to the rescue - he is simply the best

now we can move onto the finish work; you see, this has been an on going project for the past year

my dad knows how badly i wanted this project completed and knows how little extra time justin has on the one day a week he has off

my dad definitely deserves a super hero cape and these cupcakes

as some of you may know i bake cupcakes for those that i love- i wrote about it in one of my very first blog posts back in january of 2011- smbp was just a baby back then

so as a thank you to my dad i made these cupcakes for him

of course, made with an extra handful of love

roasted red pepper + kale pili pesto

do you remember early release days from school; weren't those the greatest?

friday was an early release day for me; originally i was suppose to take anna to the groomers

but our groomer was out sick on friday

so what was a girl to do with an extra 4 hours on a friday

make a pretty rad pesto- that's what

i am absolutely head over heals in love with this pesto

the taste, texture and color can't be beat

to top off my adventurous friday afternoon, i tossed my pesto with tofu noodles

after hearing the good, the bad & the ugly about these odd smelling noodles i decided to try them out for myself; after getting over the smell <insert gag noise>

 and preparing them according to the directions , they actually were pretty tasty

little coconut chocolate bars

here is a quickie for you

perfect for when you want something sweet in the quick

or have a cute boy coming over and you want to really impress him

by showing off your out of this world culinary skills but only have 15 minutes to spare

little coconut chocolate bars will give you the sweet fix you are looking for

and impress that cute boy

in just 15 minutes or less

how great is that?

maikate mushroom crostini

my love affair with bread continues

in the form of a crostini - little toasts

so cute

you can virtually put anything on a crostini and it would be good

and you look will look pretty fancy bringing a tray of crostini to your next get together

bread + veggies = love

or in this case

bread + maitake mushrooms = wow!

i LOVE finding new ingredients  - i have never seen maitake mushrooms before

sunflower had just happened to start carrying these new mushrooms

i was super excited; the pain au chocolate i was going to attempt to make this weekend went out the door, and in came the humble mushroom crostini

humble, however totally flavorful and fancy pants because its served on a crostini