February Snow

Winter is flying by!  Can’t believe March will be here in about two weeks!  This has to be the snowiest winter I can remember.  Snow on Christmas, and then a pretty good ice storm, then 1 – 2 inches last week.  Although it didn’t lay on the road, it was so pretty and so fun to wake up to a blanket of snow on the ground!  And of course having snow on the ground is just another excuse to indulge my nerdy side that like to photograph weeds, twigs, and leaves.  Enjoy, Kourtney!

And below is a picture of a totally nasty & creepy bird that is living in our backyard. It gives me the heebie-jeebies and makes me a little nauseous, to be honest.  I HATE IT!  I thought it was an owl (disgusting!), but I posted the pictures on Facebook and was told that it was a chicken hawk by the Tennessee folk. I think a hawk is better than an owl, but it is still totally gross! Ugh…..it makes me sick. I look at this picture and think that it is looking into my soul…..I think it might have put a spell on me because I keep thinking about it…..so scary!  I mean, have you ever seen a bird that creepy?!?!  I’m not even going to blow the photo up on the blog…you’ll have to do that yourself.  But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

One chicken hawk. Free to a good home!  Or a bad home!  I don’t care!! 

Superbowl Snacks

I’m in a festive mood today.  Even though I care nothing of football and I really have no allegiance to either the Steelers or the Packers, it’s Superbowl Sunday, which is practically a holiday, right?  I will take any excuse to cook & bake delicious snacks.

So far today, I have made two great snacks.

First, Union Square Café’s Bar Nuts.

Oh my gosh.  These are SO GOOD.  I modified the recipe a little bit.  Instead of raw, unsalted nuts, I just used 2 cups of roasted, salted mixed nuts that I already had.  I used ~2 tbsp of dried rosemary (instead of fresh, it was all I had), and 2 tbsp of butter instead of 1, to dilute out the rosemary a bit. If I make these again with dried rosemary, I’ll only use 1 tbsp (and 1 tbsp butter), which I thought about doing today, but rosemary is my FAVORITE spice, so I have trouble imagining too much of a good thing.  Also, I didn’t add any salt because the nuts were already salted.  And even though the nuts were already roasted, I baked them anyway, giving them a twice-baked kind of flavor.

Oh, wow…these smell amazing while they are baking and are so addictive!  I will say, however, that Brent did NOT like them.  He doesn’t care for rosemary unless it is in stuffing.  Me, I can eat it by the spoonful.

Next up…..

Nutella Cupcakes

I believe the original recipe is from Abby Dodge (linked above – she calls them Nutella Brownies), but there are many variations around the internet.  They require only three ingredients and are super easy & fast to make….could be dangerous!

The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup Nutella, 5 tbsp all-purpose flour, 1 egg, & chopped hazelnuts to yield 12 mini cupcakes.  I left the hazelnuts out and was actually SO surprised at how these cupcakes turned out!  They taste like little bites of molten lava cake and just melt in your mouth!!!  Brent loved them!  I actually thought about about frosting them by dipping them in melted Nutella, but actually we already ate half of them, so what’s the point now?

So good.