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Friday Five

Friday Five: Peppermint Edition

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Just as fall is filled with pumpkin goodies, holiday time is filled with all things peppermint. I love peppermint. Who doesn’t? So I devote this week’s Friday Five to my favorite peppermint treats.

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1) Trader Joe’s Minty Mallows: For a few years now, these have been my favorite holiday treat. As soon as they hit the shelves, I am bringing home multiple boxes. The combination of the minty marshmallow and the rich dark chocolate is addictive. They also make a good topper on a cup of hot cocoa.

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2) Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint JoJos: As with pumpkin stuff, TJ’s is the best for peppermint things. These cookies are Eric’s favorite and man, they are so, so delicious. The perfect combination of cookie and filling and chocolate and minty pieces.

3) Peppermint Hot Cocoa: I love hot cocoa during the winter, but peppermint hot chocolate around the holidays is the best. I don’t buy prepackage peppermint cocoa — I just use a candy cane as a stir in regular hot chocolate and it gives just the right amount of minty flavor. Mmmm.

4) Peppermint Bark: Chocolate with flecks of peppermint candy? Sign me up. I love the homemade version, but this year we’ve stocked up on quite a bit of the Ghirardelli kind. I prefer the milk chocolate kind while Eric is all about the dark chocolate.

5) White Christmas Tea: This is a bit more subtle peppermint than the others (and the only one without chocolate I noticed). Stash’s White Christmas Tea is a blend of peppermint, white tea and ginger and it is fabulous. It’s great after a meal or right before bed. It has really been adding to my festive holiday mood as of late.

What treats do you like having around the holidays?

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Friday Five

Friday Five: #foodpornfriday 2.0

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Hello! It is time for another #foodpornfriday. Right now I am mostly likely in a Thanksgiving-induced state of bliss. So I want to share some of my bliss with you through delicious food pictures.

Disclaimer: All of these recipes are from Cooking Light. They all look totally amazing, right? I was reading the most recent issue the other night and found myself pinning so many recipes. Delicious looking food made lighter? I’m game. I’ve made a few Cooking Light recipes before and they have all turned out great. Hopefully I’ll be making these sooner rather than later.

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Chickpea and Sausage Minestrone. It has been so cold and dreary here the past few days all I want to make is soup. This looks so good and so hearty. Get in my belly.

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Couscous with Winter Vegetables. I would eat this as a main but you could definitely serve this as a side. I might try this out with farro instead of couscous because  I am a wild and crazy kid.

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Garlicky Turnip Fries. I think I’d try this out with parsnips instead of a turnips (I mean, a root vegetable is a root vegetable, am I right?). I tried to make parsnip fries once and they were OK. I think if I used my fancy new mandolin to cut the fries, I’d have much better luck.

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Smashed Potatoes with Goat Cheese. I feel like this really doesn’t need much of an explanation. GOAT CHEESE PEOPLE.

oh-vanilla-bean-baked-custard-lVanilla Bean Baked Custard. I had to include a dessert in this post. And I just love vanilla anything. This uses my trusty vanilla bean paste I mentioned a week or so ago. Must try this one out soon.

Friday Five

Friday Five: #foodpornfriday

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Do you ever have one of those weeks where you blink and it’s Friday? And you know don’t where all the time went? Well that was me this week. Between our mini vacation and three packed days of work upon our return, Friday sort of snuck up on my. But I am going to make it up to you by sharing some pictures of amazing food porn. You’re welcome. I’m thinking about instituting #foodpornfriday, in the same vein as #throwbackthursday. Let me know your thoughts. UPDATE: It appears #foodpornfriday is already a thing. Drat. Oh well. I’ll gladly hop on the bandwagon.

dessert-cranberry-cobbler-018-med109000_vertCranberry cobbler. This would make a great Thanksgiving dessert (if you wanted to break from traditional pies). Recipe here from my go to girl, Martha Stewart.

MG_9256Grilled sourdough with herbed ricotta and marinated tomatoes. From Simply Delicious.

8483208657_5fd8fdef68Skillet Baked Stuffed Rigatoni from Heather Cristo. I have been eyeing this recipe for months. I might have a date with my cast iron skillet soon.

1205_edf_quiche_vertGoat cheese quiche with a hash brown crust, again from Martha Stewart. I made this last year for Christmas brunch with my brother and his wife and it was bananas awesome. You used an entire log of goat cheese. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Needless to say I am looking for an opportunity to make it again.

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Nutella baklava from Epicurean Mom. Excuse me while I go eat a spoonful of nutella…

Friday Five

Friday Five

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1) I am a chronic snacker. I feel like I purposely eat smaller meals so I won’t feel as guilty that I snack as much as I do. One of my favorite go-to nighttime snacks is microwave “baked” apples. I love me some baked apples all warm and cinnamony-y, but who wants to go to all that effort for a nighttime snack? I make them in the microwave. Slice up an apple (I find granny smiths work best), drizzle with a bit of honey, add a sprinkle of cinnamon. Microwave for 45 second to a minute until the apples are tender. Enjoy. If you are really feeling sassy, top with some whipped cream.

2) As a transplanted Southern, I love me some grits. Specifically cheese grits. I have never been able to replicate the richness of cheese grits I get at restaurants — until just this week.

Shrimp and grits
Shrimp and grits

The grits in this shrimp and grits were fantastic. Best part? I used this recipe from Cooking Light, so now I can make them all the time and not feel super guilty about it.

3) For as much as I like cooking, there are just some weeks when I don’t feel all that enthused about making dinner. That’s how I was this week. I blame daylight saving time. It’s dark at like 5:30 pm. It makes me want to sit on the couch. But luckily, I always have some sort of lazy dinner idea in my back pocket. One night we had these kale and white bean ravioli. Last night we had pumpkin pancakes for dinner. I don’t hate it.

4) I went to the allergist this week to get tested. While I found out I am allergic to cats (which is problematic seeing as we have one) I was SO thankful that I am not allergic to any food. I always feel for people who can’t have shellfish or nuts. Yes, food is so important to me that being allergic to something would be tragic.

5) Eric and I are heading to Miami this weekend for a little mini-break. Needless to say, I’ve very excited to lay out on South Beach.

travel-blog-miami-beach-950x635Of course I am also excited about eating. We made reservations for dinner at Local House for Sunday. And we’re definitely going to get some Cuban food and stone crab (hopefully from Joe’s). If you want to keep up on everything we are eating, be sure to follow me on Instagram.

Happy weekend everyone!