Today is my gorgeous girlfriend, Jen’s, birthday. I cannot begin to express how much I love this amazing woman; she is my rock, my soul-mate sister, my “on-demand” comedian, and my friend.  She can make me laugh like nobody’s business! She is there through thick and thin and is a loving friend, mother, wife, sister, aunt, and daughter. Whenever I have something to share, complain about, need help, advice, or just want to chat, Jen is the first person I call.

The one really awful thing about Jennifer? She lives 1,400 miles from me (as the crow flies). Happy birthday, Jenny Jen, I forgive you for that one awful thing and love you unconditionally!

For the rest of the week, I will highlight and share recipes from Jen, who is coincidentally, a great cook, or recipes of mine that are favorites of hers. Today’s recipe is a fun and quite a rich appetizer pizza that is perfect for upcoming holiday parties.

My girl, Jen

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It is “birthday week” around here. Marissa’s was yesterday, and today is Blake’s 12 birthday!  Blake is one of three sons of our very best friends in the world! His parents are Dr. Jeffrey and Jennifer Markett, who live in St. Charles, Illinois. Jeff is my husband’s best friend from college. He was our best man and is godfather to both Marissa and Connor. Jennifer is my best friend, whom I just adore… more on her tomorrow… Until then, Happy Birthday Blakey! We Love YOU!

In Blake’s honor, today we have a seven-layer dip that I’ve never seen a kid turn their nose up at. Use this recipe as a guide, you can add in or sub out so many great ingredients; such as shredded lettuce, roasted red pepper strips, chopped jalapenos, sliced black olives, and chopped tomatoes, etc.  In the picture below, I assembled the dish with a cut-away, so you can see the layers.  Then I just filled it all in after snapping the photo, don’t want you to think I served it this way! 🙂
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Lemon Curd Lemon Roll – getting ready for the trip down to Tucson

December 1, 1987 – was one of the happiest days of my life!

The day my gorgeous daughter, Marissa Lynn, was born. We celebrated as a family on Sunday, going to brunch at The Phoenician, and surprising her with a gift she’s always wished for – a skydiving gift certificate. I will be jumping with her and will post about it when the day comes. Stay tuned.

This is one of Marissa’s favorite cakes. I was going to ship it overnight, but then found out that Marissa’s darling roommate, Paige, wasn’t heading back to Tucson until Monday afternoon, thank you for the delivery service, Paige!

Happy Birthday baby girl. Hope you enjoy the cake with Kaley, Petra, Paige, Kelsey, Lindsey, Astrid, Alberto, Billy, Ryan, Blake, Isaac, and whoever else is with you today. I love and miss you!

Marissa with her brother, Connor, at her birthday brunch

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Today is my friend Kim’s birthday. Kim is the daytime assistant at Les Gourmettes Cooking School (I assist with nighttime classes).  She is a talented chef,  yoga instructor, wife, mother to four, and a wonderful friend – Happy Birthday, Kim!

Above is a picture of our Thanksgiving dessert table; the apple tart, pumpkin pie, plus pilgrim hat, and turkey sugar cookies. Hope your Thanksgiving was a wonderful mix of family, friends, and good food!  Here is a recipe to use up some of your leftover turkey and mashed potatoes. It is equally good with leftover stuffing as the bottom layer of mashed sweet potatoes.

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old Cuisinart, KitchenAid mixer, Brand New Big, and Shiny Cuisinart!

Today is my birthday, I won’t be posting a recipe since I will not be cooking all day. Lunch with friends at the Queen Creek Olive Mill and then out to dinner with Dave at ???  I don’t know where yet because we have a tradition of surprising each other on our birthdays, always going to a place we haven’t tried before.

Happily, I did already open my gifts! I received some very yummy peppermint hot chocolate mix from Connor, a set of eight Riedel wine glasses, and the super-duper new Cuisinart food processor!

When Dave asked me what I wanted, I really couldn’t think of anything, because honestly, if I need something, I buy it. But the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to purchase was this new wonder I’d been craving.  It’s the new Elite Cuisinart.  I’ve seen it in the last few Williams-Sonoma catalogs. I could barely resist, so I would toss the catalogs the second after perusing them, just to keep the temptation away!  I mean, I already own 3 Cuisinarts (for the cooking school, you know!) So to spend all this money on another one did not make sense, but as a gift… that’s OK, right?
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Today is my husband’s birthday. Carrot Cake is a family favorite and it is oh so pretty. It doesn’t make much sense to make a big old layer cake with only two of us here, so I’m taking it to his office this afternoon to celebrate there.

Whenever you’re working with a recipe that calls for dry ingredients to be added to wet ingredients, it makes for easier clean-up to measure the dry ingredients onto waxed paper or foil instead of in a bowl.  It’s easier to fold the paper or foil in half and pour it in this way than it is to pour from a bowl. Plus you can reuse the paper or foil for this purpose over and over again.

Be very careful when toasting the coconut used to decorate the cake. It takes a while to go from white to a nice toasted brown but then goes from that nice brown to burnt, smelly, black, and ruined very quickly!

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Today is my blog’s one month birthday!  Wow, it is true – time flies when you’re having fun!  You may notice that there are some posts prior to August 16th, those were added after the fact so that I could squeeze in important information (including “the basic kitchen” lists) without taking up space from my daily posts. I really love it when you leave comments or ask questions – it lets me know that someone out in cyberspace is reading all this!  Please comment if you haven’t already and do keep it up if you already have – and I’ll do my best to keep posting daily! 🙂

zucchini nut bread

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This recipe was last night’s dinner, served with sides of roasted garlic mashed potatoes and blanched asparagus and green beans (leftover crudites from the NCL Saturday class) that were heated and dressed with the same Garlic Parmesan Crema used to season the roast.  Most Sundays my dad comes over and we play cards (Spades, Hearts, Gin Rummy, and/or Pinochle before dinner, and the meals are usually standard meat/potatoes.  But honestly, you can’t beat an inexpensive beef roast on the weekend. Today is my dear friend’s, Larry Fitzgerald, birthday – he is a mere 26 years old today.  We’ve been in the kitchen together since he was 22 and he is an excellent cook and an amazing person.  Happy Birthday, Fitz!

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