Beef and Asparagus Stir Fry
We had some asparagus leftover in our fridge and I just had to do something exciting with it. Alex has been requesting stir fry for several weeks so I thought I’d use the asparagus to make just that. This was actually a very easy recipe to make. I had dinner ready in under an 45 minutes from start to finish and that included the marinate time for the beef.The beef is best if you marinate it overnight to give it a full flavor. If you don’t have time though, you can just quickly marinate it for 15-30 minutes. I don’t often have steak on hand so I used a chuck roast for this recipe. Just make sure the beef is very thinly sliced especially if you use a roast or some other typically tough cut of meat.This recipe really doesn’t smell the best when you’re making it. Alex wasn’t very excited to have it for dinner since it was pretty stinky, however when he finally did sit down to eat it he said it was actually incredible! The flavors blend nicely together, especially the beef and asparagus. Don’t let the smell fool you, it is way better than is smells![amd-yrecipe-recipe:195]Source: Adapted from Ang Sarap
Alex has been requesting different Chinese dishes for dinner the last few weeks. I’ve been trying to accommodate as many of them as I can since I haven’t been home for dinner too much. I’ve also been trying to make as many crockpot dishes as possible since I can just set it and forget it.This dish was gone very quickly. Alex absolutely loved it and he had it for lunch for the next three days! He said it had fantastic flavor, and was even great reheated. The red pepper flakes had just a slight bit of heat to the overall recipe, if you don’t want any sort of spicy you can just leave them out.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:192]
Alex and I love to have tacos for dinner. With this being such an easy recipe, I can set it in the crockpot and forget all about it and we have a fantastic dinner ready at the end of the day!I typically use my own 
Alex has been bugging me to make fajitas for months now. I just never seemed to have time or all the ingredients into order to make these. I finally just sat down and made them even though I didn’t have all the traditional ingredients called for. Alex absolutely loved them though and couldn’t get enough!I actually used thinly sliced rump roast for this recipe and it turned out fantastic (see Mom, you actually can use roast for this!) I know typically you use some sort of steak but I didn’t have it in my freezer and I didn’t have time to run to the store to get any. The key was to marinate the very thinly sliced beef overnight in the spice mixture in order to give it great flavor.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:188]
I’d been interested in making a lemon and pepper chicken for a while but it was a tad bit scary looking at working with such a strong flavor as lemon. I wanted to do the flavor combination justice, but I was just really nervous to try. However, I finally just decided it was time and went out and found a recipe. I of course adapted it to fit with my personal tastes and time schedule, but I think it turned out fairly well.This recipe calls for a boatload of lemon juice. I actually used fresh squeezed lemon juice and I think that really amped up the overall flavor of the dish. However, if I were to make this dish again and were using fresh juice, I would decrease it by 1/3 to half since lemon juice is very tart. If you’re using bottled juice you’re going to need the entire ½ cup to get the flavor of the dish to come through.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:184]Source: Adapted from 
Baked potatoes are one of my absolute favorite foods. You can make them pretty much any way you like and they are still amazing. I only make this specific recipe on very special occasions since it has so much butter, sour cream and cream. But seriously, this is a fantastic recipe!This would make a great nontraditional dish for your Easter celebration. If you’re tired of the same old mashed potatoes this would be a way to spice up a dish you might be tired of having since you make it several times a year.The amount of milk called for in this recipe is just enough to soften the mixture up. If you add too much the potatoes will be runny and if you don’t add enough they will end up being pretty hard. It really just depends on your personal consistency preference. I typically put in more milk since I like my potatoes pretty soft and squishy. However, I know people who prefer the potato chunks so they would choose to put less milk in. Its really up to the cook. You can also use heavy cream instead of milk to give the recipe a fuller taste.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:183]
I make this for Alex at least once a month since it is one of his favorite dishes. However, he always does the seasoning since I “don’t make it spicy enough”. This is a very malleable recipe. You can make it sweeter, spicier or in between. The directions for this recipe are all spices to your own particular taste. We tend to go heavy on the chili powder, cumin and siracha. But if your taste buds don’t like super spicy things you could go heavier on other things.With the quantities I’ve listed below you can either feed a small army, or you can have leftovers for a week. Since this is an easy dish to reheat Alex loves taking it to work for lunch. It also freezes really nicely if you get tired of it before you finish the leftovers. ;)[amd-yrecipe-recipe:182]
I found Commodity Perfume at the end of last fall when I was trying to keep an eye out for any perfumes or sprays that weren’t formulated with parabens and phthalates. Unfortunately, there just aren’t many options out there for good, clean, non-toxic perfumes.One of the best things about this brand is that it’s 
So I was looking to do something slightly different for a pizza night and this is what I came up with! I don’t have any specific recipe suggestions for pizza dough, simply use whatever you prefer. If you wanted to include some sort of meat on this pizza both chicken and Italian sausage would complement it very well.The 
Oven roasted garlic is one of the easiest things you can possibly make. You can use it in so many different recipes. I’ve used this recipe for roasted garlic to add flavor to hummus, dips and to use on a white sauce pizza! Come back tomorrow for a recipe using this garlic!Alex and I love the flavor of the finished product. It also smells amazing while you’re cooking it. I guarantee you’ll be salivating while it finishes cooking.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:175]
My absolute favorite product from Root’s haircare line has to be their Hair Mask. It is incredibly moisturizing and will leave your hair silky smooth. I had moved away from using conditioner about a year ago because I couldn’t find one with really clean ingredients. However, this changed the moment Root came out with their Hair Mask. I will never go back to not using conditioner again!This was also the only conditioner I took with me on my recent European adventure. It helped keep my hair soft and conditioned while traveling. The other awesome thing is that you can not only use it as a conditioner in the shower, you can also use it as a leave-in conditioner to help give your hair more moisture during the day. While I prefer my Ko & Humble Argan Oil for this, the Root Hair Mask is perfect for traveling or if you don’t have the oil close at hand.
My second favorite product would have to be the Hairspray. This is my holy grail of green beauty hairsprays. I had tried several before Root released theirs and nothing was working for me. The hold was either way too flexible or it made my hair sticky and gross. Root’s spray is perfect though. It gives you a fantastic hold while not being sticky at all. It is also very flexible in the first few minutes so I've found it makes an excellent styling spray too! I’ve really never used such a fantastic hairspray. If you’ve been searching for a non-toxic hairspray or styling spray this is definitely the one for you.While I have tried all four of the products in this line, I don’t really love the shampoo and the conditioner is good, but not as good as their Hair Mask. I highly suggest trying the Hair Mask and the Hairspray. The best part is you can purchase small trial sizes of any of the hair products to see if you like them first.
A couple of years ago I tried making Sloppy Joes for Alex and he absolutely hated them. I decided to try and come up with a Sloppy Joe recipe that Alex would actually like. When I served this to Alex he said “These aren’t sloppy joes. I don’t know what they are, it’s more like chili. Yeah! Chili you can put on a sandwich. Sandwich chili! That’s what you have to call it.”This dish received high marks from Alex. It is really on the spicy side so if you’re not a spicy person you’ll want to make a couple of substitutions. I would suggest using whatever salsa you have on hand that is your favorite. We have several flavors on hand so I’ve combined two different heat levels in order to get the best flavor combination for our tastes.You can serve this dish on either bread or tortillas. You could also spread it over tortilla chips for a different type of dish. I would suggest pairing it with some cheddar cheese if you’d really like a treat.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:174]
Tell me if this has ever happened to you: your husband has made a wonderful breakfast, he’s made cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs and bacon. He even goes so far as to ask you before he uses all the eggs if you’ll need any of them since it’s a giant snow storm outside and everything is closed. You tell him you don’t need any eggs and its fine if he uses all of them.However, later that night you just need a nice pan of brownies to finish off the amazing snow day you’ve had. You put everything in the bowl and go to add an egg…there’s nothing there. All the eggs were used that morning! Yeah, that happened to us the other day. So I went online and tried to figure out a solution to my problem.This worked incredibly well. I personally couldn’t notice a difference in texture, Alex said he could, but I think he was just imagining things. As a disclaimer, I did use this substitute in a gluten free box mix of brownies. From the outcome I had though, I assume it will work in just about any recipe. If you’re baking gluten free though, you’re going to need to add a few additional tablespoons of liquid to the recipe in order to get the right consistency.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:172]
I made a giant ham back over Christmas and Alex decided to use the leftover ham bone to make a soup. He told me that his parents would make this all the time when he was younger and he really enjoyed their recipe. So he decided to look up a recipe and make a few changes of his own, and this is the result.You do need to prep this soup ahead of time since it sits in the crock pot for a while. I would suggest prepping the ingredients the night before so you can easily assemble everything the next day. This soup is best when served with a nice loaf of crusty bread with butter.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:171]Source: Adapted from 
I’ve been trying to clean out the freezer and get rid of or eat anything we’ve had in there for a while. I still had two salmon fillets from the last time I made salmon so I decided to try another recipe. As I’m sure you’ve gathered by now if you follow the blog, Alex really loves spicy foods, so I decided a spicy salmon was in order.The blend of spices I tried in this recipe is definitely pretty spicy. If you’re not a huge fan of spicy dishes you’ll want to adapt it to what your taste buds enjoy. This recipe also cooks very easily with very little clean up since the foil you just toss away. If you’re looking for a quick dinner this is definitely one.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:170]Source: Adapted from 
I love making new soups for Alex to try. He really enjoys a good hearty soup in the winter so I try and make one every week. I’ve been looking for new recipes and came across this one. I thought Alex would absolutely love it since it contains ground beef, beans and spices.This is a VERY easy recipe to make. You simply put everything in a crockpot and let it stew for several hours. I suggest cooking this soup on low so the flavors have more time to blend together. However, if you’re pressed for time you can cut the cook time in half by cooking it on high.Alex absolutely loved this soup. He said it was like a taco in a bowl. He chose to have it with crushed tortilla chips and shredded cheddar on top. You could also include a little sour cream on top if you’d like to add a little bit of creaminess. Overall, if you like tacos and soup you should totally try this recipe. You won’t regret it![amd-yrecipe-recipe:169]Source: Adapted from 
Yesterday I posted some School Spirit cupcakes I had made. I thought I would give you my thoughts on working with the Wilton Sugar Sheets. I wanted to be able to create fully edible cupcake decorations and I thought these sugar sheets would be the perfect way to this.However, I found these sheets incredibly difficult to work with. Alex had to get me his X-Acto knife to cut them. After doing additional research, it seems you need to have a specific Wilton cutter in order to slice them nicely.
I also found that they had gone slightly soft a few hours after I had put them on the cupcakes. I didn’t really feel like they should have done that so quickly after I had put them on. Overall I probably won’t use these again in the future unless I have a lot of time to spare to create the toppers and I can put them on right before they are served.Overall I probably won't use these again since I can probably make better decorations from hand. I also prefer to use fruit, candied and fresh or other natural cupcake toppers instead. I would probably try to make something out of fondant before I used these sheets again.
Sometimes you just need an easy dinner you can put in the crockpot and let sit and cook all day long. This is a great recipe you can do that with. Depending on how many people you need to feed you can change amounts you include. I personally make about 1lb of roast with two or three potatoes and lots of carrots. This can easily be changed depending on the amount you are feeding.The combination of herbs is what we prefer on a roast, however, you can change or substitute things depending on your personal preference. Alex loves it when I include some ground cayenne pepper and chili pepper. This makes for a spicier version rather than the savory version below.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:167]
This soup was a surprise hit at my house! I had been searching for some new soups to broaden our horizons and came across this one. Baked potatoes are one of my favorite things to eat so I thought a soup version of it would be worth trying. I thoroughly enjoyed this soup. It tastes like the middle of a baked potato.Alex liked the base of this recipe too but he had a few suggestions for making this better. He thought adding ham chunks would make the soup a little more hearty. He also thought adding more pepper, both black and white would give the soup a bigger flavor. These suggestions are completely optional. I really loved the basic recipe below and don’t think it needs many changes.[amd-yrecipe-recipe:166]Source: Adapted from