'Tis that time of year again... when I take a weekend out of my so busy life and dedicate a few days to creating edible gifts to express my love and appreciation for those close to me. This year made a set of four flavored salts:

- Pomogranete
- Vanilla
- Sriricha
- Lemon Lavendar

I also handmade cards to send with these small tokens of affection. Unfortunately, I was so busy drying salt that I forgot to take pictures of the process. I am out of practice on the food blogging front. I've been a busy bee outside of the kitschen! However, the whole thing is pretty simple. Take some salt, add the flavor you want into it and (if needed) dry it out in the oven. The times when you need to dry out the salt mixture is when you add a liquid (duh!!!). Making vanilla salt is similar to making vanilla sugar... take a bean, split, scrape and mix. No drying required. When drying the other salts I pre-heated the oven to 350, spread the mixture on a baking sheet and then turned off the oven once I placed the salt inside. It usually takes less than 10 minutes in the oven but, be sure to check because you don't want your salt mixture to burn!

On the home front I tried to keep things simple. I decided to make the no knead sticky buns I made a year or so ago. I am happy to report my continued attempts to use yeast has resulted in improvement in making bread! Also, this basic dough is a gift that keeps on giving! You can find the recipe here.

First up... sticky buns! I pre-made the dough and let it sit in the fridge for a day. Then the afternoon before Christmas day I rolled out the dough and prepped the buns into a pan. This way on Christmas morning I could pull them out of the fridge to rise while we opened presents.

To bring some balance to this decadent treat I pulled out my inherited cast iron skillet and made a frittata!






I had some left over dough so I took it and made some mini-loaves of cinnamon swirl bread.





Next up for me is using my new spherical cake pan to make a pinata cake stuffed with candy! My prior attempt failed b/c I over filled the pans. Also, on my wish list is this message cookie cutter set. Happy new year and happy cooking!

So how does one really know when it's fall? Well, this year I learned fall is marked by the re-release of Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte. Or at least that's what their campaign led me to believe. Seriously folks... what is up with the pumpkin craze? I like a gourd just as much as the next lady but we all do realize most of these pumpkin drinks and foods don't include actual pumpkin. Just the spice... Right?

All that said, I did fall for it again this year. I spied some pumpkin spice body butter at Trader Joe's and thought, "I want to smell like pie." Bought it. I also got myself some of their frozen pumpkin waffles. Sadly, I have not been as happy with that purchase as the former. I keep trying to get my nephew to eat them. But, as I am his Aunt he's been spoiled and doesn't enjoy frozen waffles as much as other 10 year old kid. He just looks at me, "Ummm... where's the griddle? I want more of those cinnamon roll pancakes you made 2 week ago."

Sometimes I think I need to lay off the carbs and refined sugar. But then a recipe like this falls into my lap! Suddenly, all that attempt to be more disciplined disappears. I know it's been a while but I have been busy! Post BaByQ I took a mini-vacay with some friends up North for the 4th. Before I knew it fall was calling and school began again. I took the ghosts of summers past and used them in this recipe for a s'more bundt cake.

Yes, that's right. All the flavors of a campfire baked into a cake with a hole in the middle!!!!

I found this recipe over on thecakeblog.com and it liked the idea of adding crushed graham crackers into the cake batter. Also, can you say oats?! Who doesn't like a little oatmeal in the fall? I did a little more tweeking and just used regular old powdered sugar glaze instead of topping it with a thinned out marshmallow fluff.

And it was good! I think I ended up eating maybe 2 pieces out of the whole cake. My mom and gramps wouldn't even wait for it to cool enough to glaze. They wanted to taste test while it was still warm. That food close-up is from a day later when I went to get a piece and realized it was almost gone!

Another year... another birthday for my gramps. This year he turned the big 90!!! Almost a century old. My PaPa started from the bottom and is now livin' on top. It amazes me to think he's seen so many changes, from indoor plumbing to Skype! It is because of him I have the Lotto app on my phone! He might not like being on the computer (what he said about using Skype) but he does love it's convenience. Initially he was adamant about not having a party. But, when you turn 90 decades young people gonna turn up and do it big. In the end it was just family but, my family is BIG...the final headcount was 57 people!

As usual I was in charge of baking the cake. I started looking up recipes and decided to do a tea flavored cake. My gramps loves a cuppa tea- specifically Black tea with citrus. So I did some research (thanks Google) and found out the BEST way to infuse tea flavor is to steep it into the butter. But, if you use a recipe with milk you can also steep the tea in milk. BUT, the catch is to make it concentrated. So double up on those tea bags buddy! As the plan for this non-party changed and more people from both sides of the Mason Dixie line RSVPed we figure one double decker 9 inch cake couldn't cut it. So I put that cake batter into muffin tins and made cupcakes instead. Then I called Sam's an order a full sheet cake.

I also made my two favorite non-alcoholic summertime drinks: vanilla lemonade and ginger limeade. A simple syrup is this crafty mofos best friend! How do I make it? Simple a 1:1 ratio of sugar and water. Add flavor (ginger slices, lemon/lime rind, vanilla bean, etc.) and set it on the stove at medium low heat. Let that sucker simmer for about 20 minutes. Boom! Flavored sugar water LITERALLY!!!

But we cannot live on baked goods and citrus drinks alone. This meant it was time for tapas/appetizers/horsedevous. As you may no I never ever do anything nice and easy... I like to do it nice and complex! So I took some in season ingredients and some old flavor favorites of my PaPa and but a twist on them.

• corn and zucchini fritters with jalepeno infused cream dip
• black eyed pea dip
• baked ravioli squares with marinara dipping sauce

My apologies folks... I didn't do this spread justice with photojournalism. I was too busy having a not-party party to take a bunch of foodie pictures. There was so much family and a lot of gossiping catching up to do!

It's a baby.... It's a baby shower... It's a dual birthday party... It's a BBQ?! The dynamic duo residing in Chicagoland is preggers. This lively couple also just happens to have near identical birthdates (52 hour difference, which when you consider all the dames and blokes they could have vowed to love forever is pretty short). As everyone knows I LOVE a themed party. So when my friend asked me to help plan her combo dual birthdays and baby shower I did my best Ryan Lochte impression and responded, "Hells Jeah!"

LOGISTICS

 We used Paperless Post for the invites which turned out great! You get to customize your invitations and they have tons of cute letterpress looking virtual designs to choose from. Also it's environmentally friendly because no paper (duh!) and you can send out reminders and updates automatically.

My friends wanted to have a BBQ type party... outdoors, good food, grilled meats and cold drinks. So I went to my local party store (the best dollar store ever) and got some basic flair. A themed party HAS to have flair right? Flair can't always be bad... We took a bit of a retro stance. I bought paper products decorated with old school BBQ grills and red gingham table cloths. I also had some left over paper lanterns from a previous party along with some mini-bubble bottles and flag bunting. In the invite I used the pun "Let's get shaded," so I bought some of those tacky Kanye West vented sunglasses and a cookie cutter that looks like shades.

Although part of the reason for having this shin dig was to welcome the baby into their community of friends and family the parents-to-be weren't about lots of baby shower games. I was allowed to do one baby-centric activity. We set up a design your own onesie/bib station. I also had the grandpa-to-be hang some rope between the trees. The decorated onesies would be hung on the "laundry line" and become part of the decor.

FOOD

• cheese baked olives
• deviled eggs
• chicken salad crustini
• gazpacho shooters

Sides

• sweet potato potato salad (with aioli, cumin and green onions)
• vinegar based cole slaw

Main Course

• BBQ pulled pork
• grilled meats (burgers, brats, hot dogs, etc.)

Dessert

• summer fruit crumble
• coconut carrot cake
• sugar cookies

Drinks

• relatively well stocked bar
• orange dreamcicle fizzy water
• vanilla lemonade
• micro brews

 Favor

• BaByQ spice rub (brown sugar, cumin, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper & chili powder)

SUNDAY FUNDAY

The Sunday after the BaByQ got off to a slow start for me... The parents-to-be and their family invited me to brunch but I couldn't drag myself out of bed in time. They went to brunch and I met them out in the south loop. I stopped at the Logan Square farmer's market on the way there for an iced coffee and a chocolate croissant. Voila- walking breakfast! Afterwards we went to the Field Museum to check out the Lascaux Cave Paintings exhibit. It was great family fun. I am always amazed by what museum curators can do. I also saw some other things while there...





Of course since I was in Chicago I also got around to doing one of my favorite things... exploring the city through new food and drink locations. Another friend couple of mine are actually from Chicago so they are totally cool city kids and know all the insider places. They have a friend who is the brewer for a relatively new brewery in Lincoln Park called Atlas.



Loved it! This greedy girl ate and drank her fill. Some of the things I liked? Nerdy movie references used for naming beers!




Fun interpretations of hot food items presented as classic American fare.




I scored big time with a great food deal. A recommendation on Yelp was to try the mussels. You can get a half order of mussels for $8. The kicker? A half order is 1/2 a pound of mussels AND it comes with fries! I got the sausage mussels which were like a play on gumbo: spicy tomato sauce, rice, andouille sausage and mussels.



All and all the evening was a success and a great way to top off a fun weekend.  It was full of two of my favorite things: