Last week I was hit with a horrendous case of the common cold that left me sniffling, sneezing and hacking for days on end. Monday, I was fine. Tuesday, I was a little congested. But by Wednesday, I was a mess and had to call in sick. I think my co-workers were secretly gracious because besides being contagious, they were able to get a break from listening to me sneeze and blow my nose every 5 minutes.

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Trevor and I have a real addiction for peanut butter. We make our own on a semi-regular basis and if you check out my blog archives, you may notice that I have over a dozen peanut butter recipes. There wasn’t a lot of PB goodness in the kitchen when I was a growing up, so I’d like to think that this is just me making up for lost time. So when Food Blogger’s of Canada and Hershey’s Canada were looking for bloggers to take part in the #DoYouSpoon campaign promoting Reese Chocolate Spread, I jumped at the chance. Peanut butter and chocolate? Count me in!

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It’s been pretty quiet here on the baking front. Even though we have air conditioning, our desire to eat anything flour or sugar-based has reached an all-time low. But if you shift through my archives, you’ll notice that this happens every summer. With the weather being as nice as it is, I tend to spend less time in the kitchen and more time outside. It’s not a bad thing, but I like to acknowledge it because the summer season is so short and we need to all get outside and enjoy it while it’s still here. Pretty soon we’ll be swapping our iced coffees for pumpkin spiced lattes and pulling our boots and winter coats out of storage. Ugh.

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There is nothing worse than a tease. Especially a warm weather tease.

Case in point: I have five zucchini plants, a spinach plant, a lettuce plant, and a rosemary plant crowded in large, over-sized pots on our living room floor. All lined up against the window like prisoners on death row, fighting for valuable sunlight, day in and day out, as the sun passes by our south facing windows. I haven’t been able to put them back out on the balcony since last Saturday before the weather dropped and the wind decided it was back with a vengeance. My poor little plants look a little cooped up and after this long winter, I know exactly how they feel.

It’s partially my fault because I definitely started my indoor seeds too early. I blame it on my excitement because this summer we finally have a (small) piece of outdoor space. In my ignorance, I also didn’t think that all five zucchini seeds would take and now I’m staring down at five plants covered in little buds. If all five plants flower and produce fruit, I may be in trouble. If that’s the case, be prepared for a lot of zucchini recipes this summer.

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The post Almond Meal Oatmeal Raisin Cookies appeared first on She Bakes Here.

If I had to pick something that puts me in the holiday spirit, I would have to say it’s my Grandma’s Christmas shortbread cookies. These bad boys are buttery, crumbly and the specks of red and green maraschino cherries just put me in the holiday spirit. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if you bottled up Christmas in a cookie, this would be it. Every December, like clockwork, I look forward to consuming my weight in these cookies. This year Trevor and I are spending our holidays in Toronto, so I knew that if I wanted to get my annual fill, I needed to make these cookies on my own.

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There are some days where you just feel like you’re on top of the world. You wake up early, the sun is shining, your hair decides to cooperate, and there’s an extra bounce in your step. You arrive to work on time, go shopping during your lunch break and after work you come home and have a fabulous supper with a well-deserved glass of red wine.

You wish everyday could be like this.

Then there are the other days. You are late for work because of sleeping in and your umbrella turns inside out in the rain/wind, making it look like you decided to swim to work in your clothes. You forget your lunch at home, the congested traffic makes getting home a nightmare and you burn you and your significant other’s supper. When you reach for the bottle of red wine, you find it empty, so you decide to turn in even though it’s only 8pm.

I haven’t personally had that bad of a day, but we’ve all been there. You try to take on the world and it ends up pushing you right down again. What’s a person to do?

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The word of the day is almonds.

And cupcakes.

Sweet almond cupcakes. Doesn’t that name just roll off your tongue?

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Does anyone else watch the TV show Portlandia? One particular sketch was in my head while making these.

“Put a bird on it!”

Except this time, it was more like “put an almond on it.”

Yeah, we love that show.

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Besides my parents occasionally using this blog as a means of checking up on me (Hi Mom!), I’m never sure who else comes here on a regular basis. I get lots of page hits on individual posts, such as my experience taking the Michael’s cake decorating course last spring or a recipe that sounds intriguing (my dairy free blueberry oatmeal muffins has been consistently the most popular).

Therefore, I’m never sure when I should talk about the other, non-baking events that happen in my life. I know that its the personal aspects of a blog is what makes it interesting and keep readers intrigued, but I’m never sure on what level I should be sharing things. Obviously, you have to be careful and I’m not interesting in sharing tons of personal stuff with the internet. At one time, it was dangerous to put a picture of yourself online and now with Facebook and Twitter, its almost the norm. I even remember when my parents were too afraid to use online banking when it first became available and now its the fastest, easiest way to pay our bills.

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The post Easy Baked Apples with Honey, Cinnamon and Almonds appeared first on She Bakes Here.

When it comes to naming recipes, how do you figure out which words come first? I must have stared at the title of this entry for 10 minutes straight, trying to piece together the words apple, cinnamon, almonds, and scones. Would it be better if almonds came first? Where does cinnamon fit in all of this? Apples were the highlight ingredients, so does it come first or second? Naming recipes shouldn’t be this complicated.

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