Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing

Hey, look.  Yet another salad dressing recipe.  (Here's one and another and another and another and another and three more.)  But the thing is, I eat a lot of salad.  For a while there, I was packing some kind of huge salad in my lunch every day.  So you can bet that I quickly grow tired of the same ingredients and the same dressings.  Add to that the fact that bought salad dressing is so iffy on flavor, and buying a whole bottle of something new is an expensive taste-test.

Irish Grandmother's Shepherd's Pie

Did I tell you that Bo's mom is from Ireland?  As in, she still has a bit of her accent, even though she's lived in the States for fifty years.  So, of course, I asked her to make something festive, now that she's living with us!

Over the years, Bo has asked me to make him Shepherd's Pie because he loves it.  I'd never even tasted it, so when I went digging for recipes, I had no idea which ingredients would make a recipe good or not.  So, I tried a few variations on him.  He claimed that they were good; I didn't care for any of it.

Fast forward to yesterday, and I asked his mom to make Shepherd's Pie the way she's always made it.

Berry Birthday Cake for Rory

Happy Birthday, Rory!  Yep.  Today she turns 9!*

Dark Chocolate Caramel Cake with Dark Chocolate Buttercream

Finally.  Finally, she posts the recipes for that birthday cake.  From last week.  It's starting to seem like I never post anything new around here, isn't it.  I usually do my recipe testing and experimenting on the weekends, but lately, it's feeling as if I'm just drained by the time the weekend rolls around.  No bueno!  And as you read this, I'm en route to Ohio for a work trip.  (Ohio in February?!  Brrrrrrr!)

But after all the sugar from last week, I'm feeling fairly icky and my teeth are pretty much screaming for me to lay off the sweets.  So my hope is that these cravings for all things green and crunchy will translate to finding some awesome recipes to post in the very near future.  Til then, I'm just reveling in the fact that I finally got all the sugar out of the house.  Go me!  (Or, don't go me.  Because you know how I ultimately got the sugar gone, don't you?)