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Happy Valentines Day! This is the earliest I have been up in a while. Andy goes to work between 5:30 and 6am, so this morning I got up at 5am to make him breakfast before work. (Why he goes to work so early, I have no idea!) I made pancakes, some in the shapes of hearts (harder than it looks), and added red food coloring to make them pink. Ha, corny, yes I know. Our theme for this Valentines Day is 'corny'. We made corny cards to give each other and had corny pink heart pancakes for breakfast. It was actually quite nice, I think we may have a new tradition. I hope your day is special and filled with love.

Happy Valentines day! Well in light of the holiday of love, this is a Valentines day edition of my weekly Which would you choose . So, here is my little scenario...... your significant other has decided to surprise you and whisk you off to your absolute most favorite restaurant in the world. It can be anywhere, no worries..the "travel fairies" have it all arranged! So go for it, and make it something goooood!   You get to be wined and dined all night long by the person you love (does it get any better)  but there's one detail missing.....the dress! Always about the dress. So here are your choices.....all in various shades of love (red and pink with a few blacks thrown in for good measure). Take a close look and which one most says "Be my valentine"? Can't wait to hear.....     CHOICE 1 Marchesa CHOICE 2 Temperley London CHOICE 3 Missoni   CHOICE 4   Diane Von Furstenberg CHOICE 5 Alice by Temperley CHOICE 6 Valentino CHOICE 7 Diane von Furstenberg  CHO...

Happy Valentines, may your day be filled with love, laughter and happiness.

With Valentines Day approaching I wanted to make French Macarons. Not only do they taste fantastic, but they are a beautiful treat. I love a good excuse to make a great looking and tasting dessert. The basic recipe that I followed came from here . I changed it up a bit though, to create the flavors that I wanted. The macarons are raspberry with a lemon cardamom butter cream filling. The flavors went together excellently! To make some of the macarons pop more I added some hot pink sugar sprinkles. These are such a girlie treat! Below is my butter cream recipe. Next week I'll post a picture how-to for making macarons with a few tips that I have learned. Here is my Lemon Cardamom butter cream recipe: -1/2 stick butter (4-5 Tablespoons) -1 Tablespoon grated lemon zest -1 (scant) teaspoon cardamom -3 Tablespoons milk -3 cups powdered sugar (yellow food coloring optional) Mix all ingredients together with a high speed mixer. Add yellow food coloring to your desire.

Andy and I are not big gift people. We have everything that we could want, so we don't usually give gifts. For Valentines Day we will probably go out to dinner and exchange cards. This doesn't mean I don't enjoy looking for fun gifts though . As I have mentioned plenty of times before, Etsy is the perfect place to find homemade gifts a long with supporting the small business community. These gifts are so much fun , I may actually giv e a gift this year. :) For Him:   Wild cent for your wild man. Cedar and Lime, with subtle hints of Lavender and Rosemary , wow. Find it Here .   Hot chocolate with earl grey for the man with a more defined pallet. Find it Here . A leather cuff for him with the latitude and longitude of your favorite place. (Andy would love this! ) Find it Here .   Guys like getting gifts of chocolate too...bacon covered chocolate! Find it Here . For the coffee lover man. Some morning joe with a sweet note on it. Find it Here . For Her:   Dried ...

In preparation for Valentines Day (coming up!) here is a wonderful, delicious tartlet recipe. (If I do say so myself.) I am not a huge fan of Valentines Day, but I do love the excuse to make fun desserts. I used a crust recipe from Epicurious and it will work for either a full 9" tart pan or about 4-6 mini tart pans, which is what I used. This crust recipe is great to make ahead of time and then freeze until you need it. If you make it ahead of time, form the dough into a disc (or discs if you are using smaller pans), wrap, and freeze/refrigerate it that way. Ingredients: 2 cups all purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes 3 tablespoons (or more) ice water 2 tablespoons chilled whipping cream Preparation: Blend flour and salt. Add butter; using a pastry cutter, cut in until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 3 tablespoons ice water and cream. Process just until moist clumps form, adding more ice water by teaspoonfuls ...