March 2025 Recap

March is the best – my birthday, a rollercoaster of winter weather wrapping up with teases of spring. We’ve been reading a lot and have had so many visits from Toast, the neighborhood cat who loves us.

I started March with a girl scout cookie coffee

We had Chicken Parm Dip which was enough to be a meal on it’s own.

Baked Biscuits & Gravy was fun to shake up bfast for dinner.

Biscuits & Gravy Casserole - Baked

April (and spring) is the time for quick dinners so I hope to get a little creative – and school vacation should be fun.

The Big Kid:
He wrapped up basketball with a successful playoffs and just a short break before lacrosse started. We cannot get over how far he came ice skating this season. We were at the rink, the second rink was open, they could have sticks, and then an impromptu game came together which is his dream. Winter has been fun though he cannot wait for shorts season.

The Littler One:
She had her last gymnastics class and we loved seeing her tricks. Soccer starts soon and she’s ready. Some friends from her class go ice skating and it is fun to see her join them.

Goals for this upcoming year:
Year of replacements/upgrades! I got some new baking pans for my birthday
Restaurant Recreations – ehh
Special ingredient focus – nope, didn’t get to this one either.
More fish – I treated myself to chower and clam fritters at Track 15 in Providence.
What I’m reading – I read None of This is True for bookclub and flew through it. Next up was A Bit Much which breaths life into modern poetry, and Let Us Descend was tough but so well done.

1 Pan Biscuits & Gravy

This is so good – and agreeably not the most beautiful. It is comforting and comes together so quickly for some egg, puffy biscuits, sausage, and brown butter gravy. It would be cuter in small ramekins or muffin cups.

Biscuits & Gravy Casserole - Baked

1 Pan Biscuits & Gravy
Ingredients (serves 4-6):

~8 sausage links
1 tube biscuits
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup butter
1 cup milk
2/3 cup shredded cheese

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350-degrees.
Cook the sausage until cooked through.
Remove sausage from the pan and add in the butter cooking over medium heat until the butter begins to brown and smell nutty. Add in the flour and cook for a minute. Reduce heat to low and whisk in the milk. Chop the sausage and add it into the gravy. Cook for about 3 minutes.

Chop the biscuits into 4-6 pieces and drop into a greased 9×9 baking dish.
Whisk the eggs and pour over the biscuit pieces.

Spoon the gravy on top.

Cover and bake for 20 minutes. It will puff and bubble up.
Uncover, top with cheese, and bake for another 10 minutes.

Biscuits & Gravy Casserole - Baked

Serve and enjoy! It’s cheesy, saucy, and very savory.

Our little eaters wouldn’t pick for everything to be together so they tried it and there were some leftover sausages and some separate biscuits.

It stored well and was good leftover too!

Chicken Parmesan Dip

This dip was hot, cheesy, with juicy chicken in a fun format. We ate it as dinner with some caesar salad and bread dippers.

Chicken Parm Dip
Ingredients (serves 4-6)

~1 1/2 cups breaded chicken (or ~4 tenders)
1 1/4 cup tomato sauce
2/3 cup whipped cream cheese
~1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Directions:
Cook the chicken according to the package – mine went in the air fryer for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350-degrees and spray a baking dish with non-stick spray.
Mix 1 cup of the tomato sauce with the cream cheese and stir well. Spread onto the bottom of the baking dish. Chop the chicken and place that on top.

Add remaining plain tomato sauce, then sprinkle with mozzarella.

Bake for 15 minutes. Top with parmesan and Italian Seasoning and broil for another 5 minutes.
Serve with bread to dip/scoop.
Enjoy!

This was a win: 1 kid liked it and ate it as dip – the 2nd ate but didn’t seem like they’d request it. I’ll take it. I loved the pink sauce layer and bites of chicken with the bread.

Samoa Cookie Coffee

The Girl Scout Cookies know what’s up – the coconut/caramel/chocolate is perfect. I learned there are 2 cookie manufacturers so yours might be Samoa or might be Caramel Delights. Whatever you call it, these flavors went into coffee for a decadent sweet treat.

Samoa Cookie Coffee
Ingredients: (for 1 drink)

1 cup coffee
1/4 cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons caramel sauce
2 tablespoons chocolate sauce

Directions:
Add a tablespoon of the chocolate sauce into the hot coffee and stir well.
Rim the cup with caramel sauce and add a tablespoon of the caramel sauce into the cup and pour the coffee onto it.
Froth the coconut milk – either with an instant frother, frother wand, or warmed in a jar and shaken thoroughly. Pour the froth onto of the coffee.

Drizzle with remaining chocolate sauce. Enjoy!

This was delightful. The slight chocolate in the coffee with coconut milk and the caramel finish was so good – just like the addicting cookie.

I do not recall why we have so much caramel and chocolate sauce! The reduced fat coconut milk isn’t my favorite but we had it for a kids recipe from one of our picture books which didn’t happen. Put the leftovers to use to make coconut rice!

Apple Cheddar Biscuits

These delights were inspired by my last book – The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks. There was a toursity town of a former author with Star’s Hollow vibes, which centers around a bookshop who can only sell books of the era. Naturally the bookshop worker befriends the cafe worker who sells apple and cheddar biscuits. Voila! They seemed like they had to be huge and conger up the feeling of a coffee shop.

There’s such balance here – sharp white cheddar and crisp apple tip toes on the line of sweet and savory. They’re so good.

Apple & Cheddar Biscuits
Ingredients: (serves 6-8)

2 cups biscuit mix
5 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup white cheddar
1/3 apple (honey crisp or fuji apple) chopped
1 cup milk

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400-degrees.
Add biscuit mix to a bowl and shred in the butter and the cheese. Chop the apple and add that in.

Stir gently with a fork, then pour in half the milk and mix. Add in the rest of the milk and stir to combine.
Drop spoonfuls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or silicone mats.
Bake for about 8 minutes until fluffy and golden.

Let cool and enjoy!

The cheese flavor lightly spreads throughout. The apple adds some nice texture.