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Homemade Lasagna

Main Course, Recipes, Uncategorized ·

 

One of my favorite recipes to make is my delicious homemade lasagna recipe. I make it with homemade meat sauce or what they call bolognese. This recipe is also what I use when I’m making a marinara or bolognese sauce for spaghetti! You can make it vegetarian by leaving out the meat and it then becomes a simple marinara. This recipe has evolved over the years as I’ve learned more about authentic Italian cooking.  When I went to Italy years ago, I had the most amazing pasta! I asked the little Italian grandmas who hosted us how they made their sauce. I came back from my trip and tried to replicate what they told me to do. It’s taken a few years, but this is the recipe I’ve come up with that I think is pretty close.

The most important thing is the quality of the ingredients.  If you can get fresh San Marzano tomatoes, that is your best option.  If you can’t find them (they are hard to find sadly) you can use Roma tomatoes.  They also have canned San Marzano tomatoes

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Outdoor Farm to Table Entertaining

Dinnerware, Entertaining, Parties, Tablescapes, Uncategorized ·

A few months back I had the opportunity to attend a floral arranging workshop at a beautiful rose farm in Washington. It was a wonderful day and I met some very lovely and talented ladies.  After the workshop, we stayed in touch and soon we were talking about doing a collaboration. We brainstormed our ideas and thought it would be so much fun to utilize all our different skills to create a farm to table meal and outdoor tablescape.  We wanted to create the perfect outdoor entertaining environment where friends could gather and enjoy the last bit of summer and transition into fall.  Part of what was so amazing about this collaboration was that one of the ladies owns a farm where she grows fresh flowers and produce.  This was a dream come true!  Creating a beautiful tablescape with locally grown flowers and cooking farm-fresh food from a local farm was something I’ve always dreamed about doing. A gorgeous farm to fable entertainment. I plant a garden each year as well, but my garden has

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Lazy Daisy Cake

Desserts + Sweets, Recipes, Uncategorized ·

Lazy Daisy Cake

The year before my Grandma Benson passed away, I gave her a recipe box filled with blank recipe cards as a Christmas gift.  The following Christmas, she gave the box back to me and had handwritten her favorite recipes on the recipe cards.  A month after this, she passed away. The recipes she wrote for me have become one of my most treasured possessions. Whenever I make this simple yummy cake recipe, I think of her and the fond memories I have of her.  

 

One of my favorite recipes that she left for me was “Aunt Mickey’s Lazy Daisy Cake”  It’s a sponge cake with a cooked, then broiled frosting. This is a family favorite and another one of the recipes I grew up enjoying.  We loved it when Grandma Benson (that’s her in the picture frame when she was a little girl) would come to visit because we knew she’d make us a Lazy Daisy Cake and her Chicken Cracker Casserole. I will need to share that recipe

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Stan’s Scones and Honey Butter

Breakfast, Desserts + Sweets, Recipes, Uncategorized ·

In Utah, deep-fried bread is called a scone. Top the scone with this amazingly delicious honey butter and you have a match made in heaven.

Have you ever eaten something and after the first bite, you were transported back to a fond memory? That’s how I feel every time I eat these scones and honey butter!

The Story Behind the Scones and Honey Butter

One of my earliest memories from my childhood was going to a restaurant called Me & Stan’s in Rexburg, Idaho with my grandparents. I distinctly remember the first time I bit into their scones covered in honey butter and I’ve been hooked ever since! Every time I visited my grandparents in Idaho, I always had to go to Me & Stan’s and get my fill. When I went to college in Idaho, I carried on my tradition and would go there often with my roommates.

When I was driving through

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PIE-oneer Day 2018

Dinnerware, Entertaining, Holidays, Parties, party themes, Tablescapes, Uncategorized ·

One of the things I really love about living in Utah is Pioneer Day! It’s celebrated on the 24th of July every year.  It is a celebration of everyone, regardless of faith and nationality, who emigrated to the Salt Lake Valley during the pioneer era, which is generally considered to have ended with the 1869 arrival of the transcontinental railroad. Utahan’s take a day off to celebrate and remember those that came before.  

This day is special to me because many of my ancestors were among the pioneers that crossed the plains in covered wagons looking for a better life in the west.  I learned that one set of my Great Grandparents, Nils and Engelika Thuesen, left Denmark and immigrated to the United States. They crossed the plains in a wagon train and were in the same wagon company as my husband’s Great Grandpa Jacob Fuhriman, who was from Switzerland. That is so amazing to me!

When my

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Summer Entertaining + Barbecue

Entertaining, Main Course, Parties ·

Sharing some favorite simple summer recipes including fresh fruit pies, lemon basil chicken, and barbecue meat for everyone to enjoy.

Summer Entertaining + Barbecue

Summertime is a time we have always loved to get together with friends and family.  I recently hosted a fun little get-together with some ladies from my church. I was asked if I could share some simple summer recipes and ideas with everyone. It was right up my alley and I was delighted to share some fun recipes and ideas with these sweet ladies and get some from them as well! I’ve linked some of the recipes at the bottom of this post and included the lemon basil chicken recipe below.

One thing I’ve learned that makes hosting a gathering a lot easier is that when guests offer to bring something, let them! I have learned that many people enjoy creating works of art and making good

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Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie

Desserts + Sweets, Recipes, Uncategorized ·

Sharing the best strawberry pie recipe with cream cheese filling. It is one of the tastiest desserts thanks to Grandma’s recipe.

I’m so excited to share this amazing strawberry pie with you today. When I first met my husband years ago, one of the things I loved most was getting to know his Grandma Jolley. She wasn’t too sure about me at first, but we eventually bonded over the love of cooking. She was an amazing cook and made everything from scratch. We had the chance to live close to them for one year while my husband was waiting to get into dental school. During that time I learned Grandma Jolley (Louise) was a force to be reckoned with. She said exactly what she thought and was always in charge. It’s just how she was and everyone just knew that the kitchen was her domain!

Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie

Every Saturday morning everyone also knew that Grandma would have homemade

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My Pantry Organization Project

Dinnerware, Entertaining, Home, Home Tour, My Home, Tablescapes, Uncategorized ·

Transform your kitchen with these pantry organization tips to maximize space and efficiency in your cooking area.

My Pantry Organization Project

When we bought this home, one of the things I liked the most about it was how big the pantry was! With my love of cooking and entertaining, this was a big priority for me. The pantry was an excellent size, but I really needed to find a better system to store all my dishes and pantry items. I happened to see that one of my followers had an organizing business, and when I clicked on her profile, I was so excited to see that she was near my Highland, Utah home.  I reached out, and she graciously agreed to come help me tackle my pantry organization project. This job seemed so overwhelming at first, but with the help of a professional organizer, it was a total transformation! Keep scrolling to see these pantry organization tips that sparked such a positive change in my

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Fresh Fruit Cobbler

Desserts + Sweets, Recipes ·

Fresh Blueberry Cobbler Recipe

Having lived in the Pacific Northwest for most of my life, I’ve grown accustomed to having berries all throughout the summer and then freezing them for the winter months.  I love any type of cobbler because it’s good any time of the year! In Washington, we get the most amazing blueberries and there are farms where you can go pick them yourself or buy them by the flat.  I’ve been growing them in my yard at my home in Washington too and I’m hoping that maybe someday they will have enough berries on them that I won’t have to buy them! Wouldn’t that be nice!

This cobbler recipe is one that I’ve made for 20 years.  It was given to me by a friend when we lived in Portland and can be made with any type of fresh fruit. Wild blackberries are very abundant in the PNW and every August there are blackberries everywhere! They are very seedy and not that great to eat plain, but they are really good in pies and

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Red, White, and Blue Patriotic Tablescape

Dinnerware, Entertaining, Holidays, Tablescapes, Uncategorized ·

Create a red, white, and blue patriotic tablescape is perfect inspiration for Fourth of July, Memorial Day, or Flag Day festivities.

Red, White, and Blue Patriotic Tablescape

I love the Fourth of July! Celebrating this holiday has always been so fun and meaningful for me and my family. I also get an excuse to create a Red, White, and Blue Patriotic Tablescape and use my dishes in different ways!

I’ve traveled the world playing and coaching soccer, and whenever I have been in other countries, I almost always choke up when our national anthem is played. I have been able to observe how other people in various countries sing their national anthem at the top of their lungs with as much pride for their country as I have for mine. It’s such a beautiful thing!

I’m that person who will always sing it when it’s appropriate and my kids look at me weird and probably wish

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