Sunday at the Farmers Market

These are my go-to flowers. I always kept fresh flowers at my apartment, and they are still a must even at home! These really pretty and cheap at about $2.00 a bundle and lasts for forever in flower-years (about 2 weeks).

Absolutely in love with these flowers! How adorable are those yellow puff balls?
Really, what could be better than bright and fresh flowers in the Spring?


The fresh honey sticks Brian bought for us. These bring back so many memories! This was my favorite treat as a child when I used to go to this exact farmers market in Alhambra with my mom after my piano lessons. There is a man here that sells fresh honey; you can buy these tasty sticks for 8 for $1.00!





I've spent the past few Sundays at the local Farmer's Market with Brian. I used to love sleeping in on Sunday's but there is just something so exciting and fresh about the Farmer's Market in the spring that I don't miss the sleep at all. I really love shopping for fresh, and often times organic veggies and fruits (and its always nice on my conscience to buy locally from our farmers). It's nice to meet the growers of these products for a change; they're really proud of what they produce and as strange as it may sound, I can taste it in their products. It's also a nice change from the boring, same old Ralphs or Albertsons. Plus, these farmers often have new and exciting things to offer the taste buds!

I found my new favorite stand during this latest visit. As many of my friends know, apple is one of my favorite fruit. That's why I was so excited to find an apple stand complete from apple vinegar, to apple jam and jelly, to fresh fresh fresh apple juice! I had never had apple jam, jelly, or butter and I was ecstatic to try some. Brian and I picked one of the most interesting concoctions on the stand for our first taste Ha's Apple Farm jam. We picked a spread that combined two of our favorite things to eat: Fuji Apple and Jalapenos.

Seems daring doesn't it? But my taste buds are really quite the little daredevils and I LOVE trying new food. We rushed home to toast a slice of bread and....I can assure you that my mouth was singing praises that day. The jam is just sweet enough, and has the consistency of honey. This spread has a delicate taste of fresh apples (drool. I LOVE APPLES) but there is a definite kick to it. Spiced apples? I'll eat this any day, any time.

Next trip: apple butter or pear jam

Happy Friday :)

Smiley face strawberry and banana pancakes courtesy of Brian, pancake mix by Aunt Jemima

I went to my grad school admitted students dinner tonight. I wanted to take some nice pictures of the food we ate, but it was more of a classier formal/business event and I couldn't bring myself to hover over my food for too long with a camera. I did manage to sneak a few pictures. Not sure how they look yet, but if they are decent I'll be sure to share. Hope everyone had a great day!

Robins Egg Blue Baby Cakes

buttercream vanilla cupcakes...before they wore their fondant "hats"

sticky marshmallows on their way to becoming fondant




Cupcake mix from Pillsbury; Frosting, Fondant, and buttercream from scratch

I think cupcakes are my favorite sweets to make. Cupcakes are tinier than a regular sized cake so they're already automatically cute. Even the "naked" cupcakes look delicious and cute to eat! Decorating these baby cakes is always so much fun and I can make mistakes because it wont ruin everything. And the best part is that Brian or I can eat all the blotched ones later (I think I'm the reason he's a fatty).

I made these cupcakes for Christmas using Pillsbury vanilla and devil's food cake mix. I try to make most things from scratch (I just love that from scratch-y homemade taste :))but it really saves time when I'm planning on making a small factory load of cupcakes to give as gifts. And Pillsbury always achieves that homemade taste when I'm too lazy or have no time to make everything from scratch.

I used buttercream to "glue" the fondant to the vanilla cupcakes and and dotted them with little white pearl icing. I cut the fondant out with round cookie cutters and then used a rolling pin to thin it out to the right size. Then I used vanilla frosting and teal food coloring to decorate the chocolate cupcakes.

Pumpkin Whoopies

Oh how I miss thee...



Outer Pumpkin cookie/cake from scratch, Libby's Canned Pumpkin, Albertsons Cream Cheese

One of my favorite sweets to make and to eat! These little cookie sandwiches are adorable and easy to make. I made these for Christmas and Thanksgiving and I think I ate about 20 of these before my family could get their hands on them. The best part is the cream cheese filling. I love any type of sweets with cream cheese frosting or filling.

It is so easy to use pumpkin and I can not praise it enough. So many good things about these:
1. Easy to use in recipes
2. Tastes amazing
3. Healthy
4. Really good for dog's digestive system! Natures cure for pup diarrhea or constipation (I never thought I would use diarrhea or constipation in my food blog)
okay that last point is only a plus for dog owners but really, it naturally works wonders on a dogs tummy!

My favorite brand to use is Libby's canned pumpkin. The bad news is that the last time I tried to buy canned pumpkin, I drove to 5 different grocery stores only to leave empty handed. Then I went home and looked online to find that recently there was some type of pumpkin epidemic: There was flooding and the farmers were not able to produce enough pumpkins!

I haven't been able to get my hands on any canned pumpkin and I haven't had any pumpkin goodies in my mouth since December...when will this nightmare end!!??

Christmas Goodies in April

russian tea cakes and gingerbread cookies and frosting from scratch, cupcake filling from Pillsbury, white box from Container Store, ribbon from Michaels

I realize that I am way behind on posts when I am only now writing about Christmas goodies and it is already mid April. This year I tried to keep things simple by including only my favorite treats: my favorite Russian tea cakes, gingerbread cookies, and devils food cake cupcakes.

For the past two years I've invested in little white boxes. Since I down-sized the portions this year, I realized that maybe next year I purchase smaller boxes. I wasn't able to get a decent picture of the goodies in the box, but I assure you the cookies and cupcakes were happy nestled in my favorite red polka dot food-safe tissue paper. As usual, I had a great time shopping at Michaels for ribbon to add the finishing touch!

I will include pictures of the devils food cake cupcakes in a different post; they aren't super Christmas-exclusive looking and can be made for various occasions like birthdays, bridal showers, baby showers, etc. so I decided to give them their own little post :)

Hot Fresh Classic Apple Pie

I actually made this apple pie during a more appropriate season. I really wanted to make a homemade apple pie from scratch..well..because one day I want to be one of those little old grannys that make really great pies!

This fall apple pie was my first attempt at pie, and it was definitely delicious. However, I ran into some trouble with trying to peel all those apples, take out the seeds, and cut them. I think that I might invest in a tool to help in cutting the apple if I want to make this more often.

The pie was delicious, especially hot and right out of the oven! Those little cubes are actually baby cubes of butter. It comes out of the oven buttery and the crust flakey.

I used a recipe I found on youtube. Youtube comes in handy because it also shows you the exact steps, which makes more complicated recipes easy as PIE!