Recipes, projects & products that don’t suck.

Last week we celebrated Hubs’ birthday. Ever since he was a kid, he’s had this obsession with a tiny little bakery in his hometown called Zeeland Bakery. In his mind, this place is legendary. While he’s nuts about their donuts and cookies, it’s their cake (and by cake I mean frosting) that he absolutely adores. It’s super sweet and sugary. No whipped/light/fluffy stuff here. This stuff is heavy-duty. And those gross frosting flowers? He loves ‘em. He would love it if the whole cake was covered in them. I don’t know anyone with a bigger sweet tooth than Hubs. Except maybe my sister, whose favorite food group is candy. Here is a photo of last year’s cake, along with a card he received from my…

I wasn’t a gelato lover until we went to Italy years ago. I just didn’t see what the big deal was – until I had the REAL thing. While we were there, we ate it twice (sometimes three times) a day. Of course, I wasn’t vegan then. But even if I went back to Italy today, I don’t think I could stop myself from having at least one little dish of gelato. And this is why I could never live there. I would have a serious problem. When I stumbled on Nancy’s recipe for vegan, gluten-free gelato on The Sensitive Pantry blog (which has a ton of great gluten/dairy/egg-free recipes!), I figured it was too good to be true. But I tried it anyway. I…

I wish I didn’t have a million things to do because all I want to do is eat these cookies and drink a huge cup of coffee while I curl up on the couch with my two dogs and order bareMinerals from QVC. How’s that for a run-on sentence?! I don’t even know if bM is on QVC today, but it was on yesterday. Leslie Blodgett (bareMinerals founder/CEO) posted something (on fb) about a big reveal on QVC between 3:00 and 4:00. It was 3:07 when I spotted the post. I flipped on the tube and a few minutes later, there it was in all its glory, the new bareMinerals READY SPF 20 Foundation. You bet I ordered it. On auto-delivery, no less. Once I…

Last night, Hubs was digging through the cupboards looking for something sweet to eat (a rather common occurrence). He found a strawberry Kit Kat from his trip to Japan months ago. Apparently Kit Kat is huge in Japan and comes in a wide variety of flavors, including wasabi and green tea (gross!). Needless to say, Hubs brought home a sampling of flavors. So, today I made a sweet, healthy vegan treat. Bonus! – it’s an easy, no-bake recipe. I found the recipe for Guiltless Chocolate Coconut Layered Fudge Bars by Kathy Patalsky on The Family Kitchen blog on babble. The photo got me. Tempting, very tempting. Side note: Kathy Patalsky also writes the Healthy.Happy.Life blog, which is an excellent resource for vegan recipes. And she’s…

I had a great weekend, packed to the gills. In fact, it would be much quicker to tell you what I DIDN’T do this weekend. Four of my college girlfriends came to my house on Friday for a girls night. Two of them arrived early, so we went “junkin” at a local antique shop. Antique shops have the craziest things. We got a laugh out of the “Relax” bed pan, the scary head sculpture with freaky hair, the olympic-esque statue, the pregnant mannequin… who buys this stuff?! Angi scored a couple of old crates at just $12 each. One will be a shelf for Hotwheels in her son’s room. Clever, eh? Later that night, we all went to Saugatuck for dinner. Scored an outdoor table. Perfect weather….