I don’t know about you, but the warm, bright spring weather always has me craving lighter fare. While pasta is in heavy rotation during the winter months, I’m just not feeling it as much in the spring. That’s where this spring veggie quinoa comes in. It is very similar to a baked pasta dish with veggies and cheese mixed in, but it is lighter, healthier, and seems much more fitting for the season at hand. I threw this meal together on a gorgeous sunny day when some family and friends were visiting. For many, it was their first time trying quinoa and it received rave reviews across the board. Quinoa is a protein-packed whole grain (technically a seed) that is similar to pasta but with a slightly nutty flavor. If you are new to quinoa, this dish is a great way to experience it. Give it a try. What are you waiting for?
Note: This recipe was developed as part of my ongoing contribution to the Go Bold with Butter blog. Head over to see my posts as well as those of the other awesome bloggers involved with the project!
Ingredients
2 cups uncooked quinoa
4 cups vegetable broth
4 oz. asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, plus more for the baking dish
1 small onion, chopped
6 oz. button or cremini mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ tsp. kosher salt
½ tsp. red pepper flakes
1 cup baby spinach leaves, chopped
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise
3 oz. shredded Gouda
1 oz. freshly grated Parmesan, divided
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400˚ F. Cook the quinoa according to the package directions, replacing the water with vegetable broth for cooking. Once cooked, set aside.
Add the asparagus to a small saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook just until crisp-tender, 2-3 minutes. Drain well and set aside. Meanwhile, in a large skillet or sauté pan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onion to the pan and cook for about 2 minutes. Mix in the mushrooms and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic, salt, and red pepper flakes and sauté just until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
In a large bowl, combine the cooked quinoa, blanched asparagus, sautéed veggies, tomatoes and spinach with the shredded Gouda and half of the Parmesan. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. Transfer the mixture to a lightly buttered 9 x 13-inch baking dish and spread in an even layer. Sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned on top. Serve warm.
Oatmeal. Eggs. Smoothies. Repeat. This is the general breakfast routine in our home 90% of the time. Occasionally we get crazy and make 
To cap off my week-long blogiversary celebration, I knew some sort of fabulous dessert was in order. After all, this is a very exciting occasion for me. I only celebrate my blogiversary once every five years, apparently, so it will be five more before I do this again. (Wonder where I’ll be in five years?) As I often do when a special occasion arises, I decided to bake a cake. But not just any cake. I decided to revamp a layer cake that was formerly posted here on the blog that deserved some updating. Now, I personally never had any trouble with that cake but a good number of readers reported back that the cake turned out dry for them. Combined with the fact that the peanut butter frosting I had used for that version was good but not great, it needed a makeover. I mean, a chocolate peanut butter layer cake really should be knock-your-socks-off, not just okay.
Addressing the issue of the dry cake layers was simple. I turned to 
So there you have it – a special cake to celebrate a truly special occasion, at least to me. Back when I started this blog, I never thought anyone would even read it, let alone try a recipe. Thank you, all of you, so much for making this experience truly life-changing in many ways. This cake is for you.
Aside from snuggles with my babies and cute, homemade handprint cards, family brunch is definitely one of my favorite things about Mother’s Day. Brunch and Mother’s Day are like peas and carrots, peanut butter and jelly, etc. etc. Another thing often associated with Mother’s Day is hummingbird cake. Personally, I had never even heard of hummingbird cake until about a year ago, but when I saw the ingredient list including banana, pineapple, and coconut, I was on board and the next thing I knew, I was baking 
Note: This recipe was developed as part of my ongoing contribution to the 
Confession time: I’ve known about this pizza for the better part of a year, and I haven’t shared it with you yet. Shame on me. But you see, I had good intentions. I first tried this pizza last summer, right at the tail end of strawberry season. Really, I think I used our last container of strawberries to make it before they started to go south fast. And we loved it. This presented a dilemma. Share the pizza with you then, when (a) strawberries were no longer available or (b) you might be tempted to make it with flavorless berries, or (c) wait all fall and winter until strawberry season arrived again. You can see which route I opted to take, and I think it was the right one.
Now that good berries are available, I suggest you find some, make this, and prepare to be wowed. If you think the idea of strawberries on pizza is completely strange, I was right there with you before I had tried it. This was a recipe I initially tried simply because I was intrigued, and I think we had extra bacon in the fridge. Suffice it to say, we dreamed about this pizza all through the fall and winter months. When I made it again recently, I served it to guests who were also politely skeptical but just like me, they are now fully convinced. The flavor combinations may seem odd but I swear, it just works. The sweet-savory-mild spiciness is awesome. Give it a chance, you won’t be sorry!
