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It's 5:00 somewhere... am I right??  Today I'm participating in the link up party at  The Lovely Cupboard , where there is bound to be quite a few yummy cocktail recipes abound! After getting our new bar cart, I went wild at BevMo, so we are stocked to the gills with delicious holiday beverage accouterments.... everything from brandied cherries (these are just AMAZING in a manhattan), to flavored syrups, whiskey, vodka, mixers, and LOTS of champagne...  To keep things feeling festive, I've devised three holiday cocktails to perpetuate that warm feeling of holiday cheer (or is that warm feeling from taste-testing three different cocktails in the afternoon...) The hard part about this post wasn't coming up with three cocktails, but, actually limiting myself to just three!!  I had a little too much fun with this one! The first cocktail up, is the Rose "merry" and Cranberry Cooler ... ya like that name?? I, for one, LOVE mixing savory and sweet flavors, and the ro...

I guess our "Indian Summer" is officially over. The last week has been cool and crisp - you can see your breath in the mornings, the wind was howling all last night, and it was the first time in a while where we had to put an extra blanket on our bed...  Just like that, it's fall!   With the cool weather finally upon us, I decided to make soup.  Butternut squash soup to be exact, and it could not have been easier! I didn't use a specific recipe, and eyeballed pretty much everything, but it turned out amazing, and I pretty much guarentee that this is going to become one of our fall staples for supper this year. Here's how to make it... Ingredients:   - One large butternut squash   - Half of a yellow onion   - Three large cloves of garlic   - One low sodium carton of chicken stock   - Sprig of Sage   - Olive Oil   - Butter   - Half and Half   - Salt   - Pepper   - Cinnamon   - All Spice   - Chili Powder Recipe...

I'm in Portland this week for work, and after checking the weather online yesterday, I realized that that I would be going from 80 degrees and sunny to 50 degrees and rainy. I needed to get myself in the correct mental state for cool weather, stat. So I made pumpkin bread. I mean... you GUYS!  This plate, could not look more "Halloween" if I tried!! Aside from it looking like fall, and our house smelling like a haven of pumpkin spice, it is AMAZING.  Like unbelievably good, and soooo easy to make. It all started with this pin from Pinterest... The recipe said that all you needed was yellow cake mix, and canned pumpkin. Let me start by saying, I LOVE yellow cake.  In my heart, I KNEW, that this recipe could only end in success, since we were starting with the base of my favorite sweet treat in the world.  As I went along, I doctored the recipe a bit, and found that I needed (and wanted) a few additional ingrediants. As I was mixing, the batter was really REALLY dry, s...

Kris hates cake.  It kind of kills me since I LOVE cake.  I could eat yellow cake with chocoalte frosting every day and never get tired of it, but I can barely coerce him into a bite.  For years, I'd make him a cake for his birthday, and he'd pretend to be wowed by it, and push it around on his plate, and ultimately go get a bowl of ice cream.  This past year, I skipped the cake, and bought 4 different kinds of ice cream to make him an enormous banana split.  While he was happy as a clam, it wasn't the same... for me... birthdays need cake damn it! My new solution?   This cake.  This ICE CREAM cake that doesn't conjure up tacky images of Baskin-Robins' confections covered in power rangers, or ninja turtles, or whatever superhero show the kids are watching these days. Source Not only would it look beautiful on a cake tray with candles to blow out (it's not a birthday if you're not blowing out candles) but it's 90% ice cream... so it's a win win! I hav...