15th Blogaversary!

15 years strong! This was a year of a lot of pizzas that are not blogged, many burrito-ish wraps, and a bunch of refreshed posts from back in the day. >10 years definitely comes across as back in the day in terms of photos/light/and more wordy posts. Now, for my self-proclaimed superlatives:

Most photogenic: this Passionfruit Bubbly Cocktail

Most likely to be repeated: I made this Chicken Parmesan Dip that is delightful as a dip or as a whole meal

Best hand-held: hands down (haha) this Chopped Chicken Caesar Salad Sub was better than the restaurant. Theirs was an explosion and was not at all hand held. I like mine better!

Most surprising:
Chicken, Bacon, Ranch Chili was a hit yet also being a gamble with everything in one dish!

What’s next: January starts a new role in my same department, on another team so I’m looking forward to that. Dinner times aren’t as much as a frenzy as the kids get bigger but while we still can manage schedules. We’re enjoying the kids discovering foods and bringing that to the menu – empanadas were a recent new one. They’re not scared of new things and when we can get away from talking too much about it, they often go for it and it’s fine, even if it isn’t a favorite – butternut squash sauce on tortellini went from a few mentions of “I wish these were with butter” to everyone eating all of theirs. They’re so good at eating out at restaurants which is so so fun.

Goals for from this past year:
Year of replacements/upgrades! I was glad I did it, though I skipped a few.
Restaurant Recreations – These were so fun. I might just keep it in mind as a tool for meal ideas.
Special ingredient focus – this might have required more brainpower and inspiration than I have.
More fish – this did not happen that often. I want it to, but then forget.
What I’m reading – I’ve read 44 books and will likely end the calendar year ~50. I have a handful of 5 start favs this year and to pick just one: All You Have to Do Is Call by Kerri Maher or The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters are two of my stand-outs.

Goals for next year: I usually start with a bunch and see what sticks!
Year of new pizzas! I think I want to push for more variety in where we get it, or taking the whole family out for it. Maybe some will be homemade though we already make pizza at least once a month – maybe it’s time to tap into my very long list of topping ideas.
Side dish emphasis  – These are not my strength and sometimes become an after thought.
Soups & salad – I would be happy focusing on some more of these.
More drinks – cocktails, smoothies, fancy coffee
What I’m reading – I will probably estimate reading ~50 books next year too


Autumn Chicken Salad Restaurant Recreation

Finally a restaurant recreation! A local produce market/deli counter shares interesting or unusual orders on their Instagram stories that they have the manager try. I saw a chicken salad one that had so much going on, which is precisely my sandwich style. It was chicken salad, with cranberries, cheddar, bacon, apples, and honey mustard on an onion roll. I made a few tweaks but loved it nonetheless.

This is incredible and I don’t know why I haven’t put sharp cheddar on a chicken salad sandwich…plus the apples and cranberries are so fall. I couldn’t find the video to refresh my memory (of course) for a few details! I did skip the bacon as I felt it already had plenty happening here and it might get lost.

Autumn Chicken Salad Loaded Sandwich
Ingredients: (serves ~3)

1 chicken breast, fully cooked
1/4 cup mayo
1/4 cup cranberries
onion rolls
1-2 cups arugula
1 small apple
~3 slices of sharp white cheddar
2-3 tablespoons honey mustard

Directions:
Mix up the chicken salad with shredded chicken, mayo, salt/pepper, and cranberries.
Assemble your sandwiches on the onion rolls with a smear of mayo if desired, a bed of arugula, apple slices, chicken salad, and cheese.

Drizzle on the honey mustard.
Enjoy!

This is incredible. I love the chew of the dried cranberries and some sweet and tang from the honey mustard. The apples are great as slices or chopped into the chicken salad. The cheese might be a star here. We had garlic and herb cheddar and that was delightful.

October 2025 Recap

October is one of my favs to finally feel fall in the air and so many fun things. We picked apples and the kids dressed up for Halloween several times already before the actual holiday.

I made a Street Corn Burrito with brown rice, white beans, Mexican corn, greens, and corn chips!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls got a refresh from 2016 and the TikTok way of baking them in cream cannot be beat.

We devoured this Caramel Apple Chex Mix with peanuts, dried apples, and caramel chips!

November’s darkness means we need to hunker down with some comfort food and maybe add some some soup to the menu. We’re dog sitting and have a few more lined up.

The Big Kid:
5th grade homework is no joke. It doesn’t take him long at all, but it is definitely more substantial. He is having fun in hockey and lacrosse clinics. He decided it’s hockey, not basketball for him. We love seeing him bike around and meet up with the neighborhood.

The Littler One:
She’s an all-star speller, which she did not get from me. She looooves field hockey and wished it wasn’t ending but with that end brings her back to dance class.

Goals for this upcoming year:
Year of replacements/upgrades! I kind of skipped this month.
Restaurant Recreations –
Special ingredient focus – T saw Frito Chili Pie on the back of the package and wanted to have it – he loved it!
More fish – we did our tried and true, fish tacos.
What I’m reading – I read The Last Ferry Out which was entertaining enough, and then I was blown away by All You Have to Do is Call which was one of my top books of the year, for bookclub we read The Cliffs and I can’t wait to talk about it.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

{originally published in 2016 and updated in 2025}

November calls for pumpkin foods! This was super fast…unless you were to make your own cinnamon roll dough. If you’re likely do that then you can just skip past this. If a bfast with only a few ingredients is up your ally then, you’re in the right place!! Welcome. Grab some coffee. Snuggle up.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients (serves ~4)
Cinnamon rolls with icing, tube
1/2 cup heavy cream or half & half
3/4 cup pumpkin
1/3 cup cream cheese
3/4 cup pumpkin
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375-degrees (according to your cinnamon roll packaging).
Mix together the pumpkin, cream cheese, and pumpkin pie spice.

Spoon into a plastic bag into one of the corners. Snip off the tip and squeeze down. Squirt into the cinnamon rolls nudging the point to get the filling really into the cinnamon roll. Spray a baking pan with non-stick spray and add the filled rolls in.

Snip the corner of the zip-top bag to pipe it into the rolls, or onto the rolls. The lazy-man method is to force some into each roll with more on top. The thorough method is to unroll each one, pipe some in and roll it back up.

Place the rolls into a baking dish sprayed with non-stick spray and pour in the cream.
Bake according to the rolls packaging. Mine needed ~17 minutes.

These are so good! The cream is the only method we use anymore. It is game changing to have the most gooey cinnamon rolls that are soft and fluffy, not crunchy.

Caramel Apple Chex Mix

Chewy caramel pairs nicely with crunchy apples for this sweet treat. It is the easiest way to eat these beloved flavors.

Caramel Apple Chex Mix
Ingredients:

8 cups of rice chex cereal
11 oz package salted caramel chips (or butterscotch)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
8 oz caramel bits
1 teaspoon apple pie spice or pumpkin pie spice
1 cup salted & roasted peanuts
1 cup freeze dried apples

Directions:
Melt chips over a double boiler, or in the microwave in 20 second intervals.
Pour over half of the chex and stir well. Pour into a zip-top bag and add half the powdered sugar and cinnamon. Shake to coat well.
Melt caramel over a double boiler, or in the microwave in 20 second intervals.
Pour over half of the chex and stir well. Pour into a zip-top bag and add half the powdered sugar and pie spice. Shake to coat well.
Add in the apples and peanuts.

Stir well. Enjoy!

The caramel makes it it chewy and the salted caramel “chocolate” mix was so sweet. The nuts provide needed balance. Pretzels would be nice in here for some salt. I wondered what the fam would think and we stood around eating about 1/2 of it.