thursday things – my favorite wee eats recipes from 2014

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!  I can’t believe it’s already 2015 ~ 2014 was quite a year, so 2015 has a lot to live up to.

We already discussed YOUR favorite recipes of 2014 – now I want to share MY favorite recipes from 2014… in no particular order. Not because I didn’t try to rank them, I did. I just could not for the life of me figure out which order to put them in because I loved them all SO MUCH.

If you didn’t get around to making any of these in 2014, I definitely recommend putting them on your to-do list for this year!

The savories…

This red lentil daal – it’s so warm and hearty and perfect for cold winter nights.

red lentil daal | wee eats

My pain au Thanksgiving – which could really be stuffed with anything – but were SO GOOD that we basically ended up consuming an entire batch of croissants in less than week…

pain au thanksgiving | wee eats

These grain-free stuffed peppers from when I was on my whole 30 kick – I’ve been making them consistently ever since!

stuffed pepper wee-eats.com

This over the top lasagna grilled cheese – because if you haven’t eaten your pasta inside of bread, then you haven’t truly lived.

lasagna grilled cheese| wee eats

If just looking at that grilled cheese is making your arteries clog, try this Creamless Creamy Cauliflower Soup – it is to DIE for.

cauliflower soup | wee eats

 

 The sweets….

Pumpkin Cookies & Cream Ice Cream – which was an extremely difficult choice. Runners up included the salted caramel pumpkin roll and pumpkin pie bread pudding, but I didn’t want to pumpkin-out the list…

pumpkin ice cream | wee eats

The almond-stuffed galette de rois which, trust me, tastes WAAAAY better than it looks.

king cake | wee eats

These deligtfully adorable mini tagalong cheesecakes – runner up:  DIY Peanut Butter Eggs

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The Baked Bakery’s Sweet & Salty Cake that I made for my birthday

sweet and salty cake | wee eats

The even-better-than-girlscout-cookies samoa cookie bars

samoa cookie bars | wee eats

 

Most Popular Posts in 2014

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I have returned from my holiday slumber!

Didn’t mean to disappear on you guys but something wonderful happened over the holidays…. I … unplugged. I closed the laptop, stepped away from the computer, and spent time with our family. And it was glorious.

But now I’m back to give you a proper send-off. 2014 was a big deal around here, namely because Mr. Eats and I got hitched. On the blog side, I didn’t post as much as I would have liked (which is evident by 2013 posts dominating the “best of” list for 2014 🙂 – oops!) and probably didn’t fulfill any of my 2014 blog resolutions, but that’s what 2015 is for – right?

I can’t wait to see what 2015 brings ~ and to share it with all of you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The most popular Wee Eats posts in 2014 were….

10. Momofuku Milk Bar’s Confetti Cake

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9. Oreo Cookie Dirt

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8. Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream (and how to fix broken buttercream)

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7. Pumpkin Dessert (or Breakfast) Squares

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6. DIY Ding Dongs (with Fleur de Sel)

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5. Momofuku Milk Bar Cornflake Cookie

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4. Funfetti Brownie Swirl Cake

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3. DIY Clif Bars

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2. Double Dark Chocolate Cake

doublt dark chocolate cake

1. Oreo Cheesecake Cookies – These guys were #1 last year too!

oreo cheesecake cookie main

thursday things – ben and jerry’s core ice cream, kiwi berries, and more

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NEWS FLASH! IT RAINED IN PHOENIX! FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 60+ DAYS! Everyone went crazy updating their Facebook accounts and crashing their cars, even our local news was standing outside “waiting for the rain” to come.

It was big news, people. Big news. Can you imagine having a committed newscaster every time water fell from the sky? Because that’s a thing here.

Big. News.

The weeds in our yard are very happy now that they received some water. Our lemon tree grew some flowers, too!

Have you heard about this guy who pretended to be a chef and ended up on multiple news programs making disgusting meals?  Who knew it was that easy to get on the news?

Surely you’ve heard that Ben & Jerry’s released a new series of ice creams, which I quickly tracked down so I could give them a try…

And after all the hype of the OMG AMAZING CORE… this is what I found in my chocolate-peanut butter ice cream. I believe the “core” is located in the upper-left quadrant somewhere, as you can see there is a slight change in texture there.

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I wish I had taken a picture when I FIRST opened it because it looked like they had forgotten the core altogether.

I will, however, still pick up a second flavor and give them another chance to impress me (I did see salty caramel was on the list, and that jam one looks enticing, too). I will update you with the results.

For now, though, my verdict is: Not life-changing. Save your money unless, like me, you are just excited about having two flavors in the same container. Although, this particular container’s flavors were kinda meh. At least I could pick out the mini peanut butter cups, though.

Oddly enough, in other ice-cream-related-news, FH opened up a frozen Drumstick ice cream cone only to find that IT HAD NO CONE.

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Apparently we are just magnets for food oddities… I’ve even received Reese’s with no peanut butter before… HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN?

Anyway, while I was buying my Ben & Jerry’s ice cream at Target I also stumbled across two of the coolest shirts ever. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make in awhile as it involved two of my favorite things: owls & kittens.

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In the end, I went with the kitten shirt (because, kittens!). And I know everyone at work was super jealous when I wore it last Friday (even if they didn’t say anything).

In other news, I discovered that Donald Trump was on Twitter while I was watching the Oscars, and live-tweeting about how horrible they were. Naturally, I found this hilarious and wanted to ask if he was watching the same Oscars as the rest of us, but I tweeted this instead, which he then retweeted, which caused my twitter to explode with Trump haters and lovers alike… some berating me for “pal-ing up to the Don” while others “agreed” with me…. Meanwhile, one person got the joke (although they did call me a “he”).

Lesson learned: Sarcasm does not translate well to Twitter.

Meanwhile I discovered kiwi berries at our local Trader Joe’s. They resemble what would happen if a kiwi and a grape had a baby.

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A delicious, delicious baby. They taste like kiwi but are bite-sized and no peeling (or shaving) needed!

In other food news, FH told me that Phoenix is finally getting its very first Panera Bread! While I’m sure it seems like no big deal to anyone who already HAS a Panera Bread, there’s a decent bit of nostalgia (and a mild soup-and-baguettte addiction) that is fueling this excitement.

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 We currently have something called “Paradise Bakery” which was technically bought by Panera several years ago but is a lackluster Panera-wanna-be that doesn’t serve half of what Panera does and gives you a side of cookie with your soup or sandwich.

A COOKIE!!!

I mean, it’s no secret that I love cookies (who doesn’t?) but NO I DON’T WANT TO DIP A COOKIE INTO MY SOUP, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

Long story short, I can’t wait to drown myself in Panera’s chicken noodle soup (or creamy tomato soup) and baguettes. I’m just going to buy gallons of it and take it home and pour it over myself…

Can’t. Wait.

I want to buy this squirrel feeder in hopes that it will lure squirrels into my yard… and then take silly pictures of them.

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While I’m at it I might as well get this pillow for the cats that I have already lured into our home – even though cats are jerks so I know they will never ever use it (except for when I force them into it against their will).

“GET INTO THE BURGER, CAT! GAWD!”

That kitten is unrelated to anything. I just thought he was super cute. HI KITTY!

I woke up this morning with an intense craving for zucchini bread for NO REASON (I don’t think I’ve even had zucchini bread since, like, high school… so, basically, a bajillion years ago.)

And this loaf of zucchini bread [from I am Baker] looks like the perfect cure.

Does that not just make your stomach growl for zucchini bread? Plus, zucchini and banana, so it’s like, good for you and stuff. 

On the other end of the spectrum we have the craziest pancakes I’ve ever seen on Noble Pig.

…which are transformed into pizzas.

Pizzas, people! Out of pancakes! Give this girl a goddamn medal! And I happen to have extremely teeny tiny pepperonis in our fridge RIGHT NOW so it’s basically in my fate that I make these.

Fate.

Then you know I made some darn tasty irish soda bread earlier in the week, and the real reason behind why I made it (besides that I like it) is because I saw this on Foodness Gracious:

Irish. Soda Bread. Pudding.

I die.

And finally, I just realized that my birthday is coming up fast. Like really fast. So I will probably need to bake my cake this weekend.

This cake. [from Life Tastes Good]

Full of peanut butter and marshmallowy goodness.

I need it.