Friday Things
1. Joseph is on the cusp of crawling! He’s been rocking on his hands and knees for weeks, but a couple of days ago, he finally started moving his hands with his feet. It’s still awkward and clumsy and he goes nowhere fast, but oh my gosh, I can’t believe he’s almost mobile!
2. We have a sliding glass door that goes from our kitchen out to our deck. It also has a sliding screen door; we opened it up for the first time Sunday morning since the weather was cool and there was a nice breeze. It was open for less than 5 minutes when Duke ran full-speed RIGHT.INTO.IT. When he hit the door, it was like a slow-motion cartoon; we were stunned and all, “oh my gosh!” at first, and then we couldn’t stop laughing. Also, we no longer have a functional screen door.
3. Speaking of cool weather, yesterday totally felt like October, and I loved every minute of the cool, crisp air. Pass the hot chocolate, please.
4. This compromise wedding cake is awesome!
5. Have you watched Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee – the short videos of Jerry Seinfeld hanging out with other comedians? Love it! I’m still stuck in the 90’s and am forever hoping that Friends and Seinfeld will start filming new episodes again.
6. Bacon salted caramels? I’ll take them all, please!
7. Our league had our fantasy football draft on Wednesday night and… my team is less than stellar. I’m a little bummed, but also a little hopeful since I’ve had some fantastic drafts in past years and my teams have taken a nosedive. Fingers crossed!
8. A few weeks ago, I told you that we watched the first episode of season three of House of Cards and were totally underwhelmed. Well, last weekend we decided to give the second episode to try due to a lack of interest in our current DVR queue. The second episode was infinitely better than the first, and we’re now six or seven episodes in and loving it. I’m glad we gave it another chance.
9. Quick, informal survey! I’d love to know what types of things you’d most like to see on the site. What do you need the most help with in the kitchen? You can be as general or as specific as you’d like!
10. TGIF! Einstein enjoyed the cool weather this week, too!
Hi Michelle. I love your site. Your vanilla bean ice cream is a monthly staple at our house. Our youngest daughter just left this past weekend for her sophomore year in college. Now that it is just the husband and I, I would love some smaller recipes. Especially desserts. We don’t have much need for a whole cheesecake but would love to have maybe four single servings. It’s not always easy to divide a recipe and the baking time is always a guess. Maybe you could include tips for making a smaller batch and the correct baking times?
Hi Michelle! I love your site so much, love the discussion, and love the wonderful recipes. You introduced me both to the baked brownie and to the NYT chocolate chip cookie! So yeah, you keep me in the loop :)
The only thing that I wish could change on this site is the comments section. I am always looking to see what people say about the recipes, but I have to sift through hundreds of comments that say ‘This looks great!’ – that is to say, people who have never made the recipe. Could there somehow be a way of separating the made-it comments from the people who are simply drooling over the gorgeous photos?
Thank you so much again for sharing your recipes :)
I agree, that would be awesome! I also would like to put in a request, as quite a few already have, for more weeknight healthy dinner recipes. Whole natural foods preferred (the less artificial sauces, etc the better)! Thanks!! Love your site :)
I really love your site and I look forward to your posting everyday. I really missed it when baby came along . For feedback, I probably lean towards the sweet recipes/baking. However I have liked some of savoury recipe you have put up. I think seasonal recipes are/would be great. Also recipes that are incredibly loved by many / have a huge following. Also enjoy your feedback on things ie. Whole30 diet, orgainizing ideas, kitchen baking items etc. Great job and thanks for adding enjoyment to my day!!
I would love more make ahead/freezable recipes.
I too am stuck in the 90s, I constantly rewatch friends now that it’s on Netflix. :) I would love to see some weekly dinner rotations on your blog. I desperately need to get organized with new ideas for dinner, maybe more chicken breast/ground turkey recipes. As always, your blog is awesome. Keep up the great work!!!
haha! I can just picture Duke running face first into the screen door. Our cat did that once trying to go inside from outside and it was hilarious! I always wish I had a video camera when those things happen.
I’d love to see more weeknight dinner recipes. We try to make a meal every night of the week (and take leftovers for work) and my list is getting a bit low and in need of some new ideas.
the photo of Joseph looks like a selfie, the most young baby selfie ever hhhh, I love it
I love your site as it is! You give a great blend of sweet and savory to keep it refreshing. You are the only food blogger I follow regularly because of what your post. Your perspective on those things is what I enjoy the most. :-) There are other sites that I hit up now and again for other things, but yours has a constant feed to my phone.
So, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is hilarious. I laugh every single time I watch the episode with Ricky Gervais (http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/ricky-gervais-mad-man-in-a-death-machine) and the one with Super Dave (http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/bob-einstein-unusable-on-the-internet). Seriously hilarious!
Dogs and screen doors are a funny thing! When we bought our home 18 years ago, we had a male Golden Retreiver who blew right through the sliding screen door to the deck on the first day we moved in. Eighteen years later….we have yet to replace that screen door, as there will always be a dog in our home! :)
I love the Sunday dinners idea and my extended family has started getting back to it somewhat also. Years ago I had a recipe for a pound cake that baked up with a crunchy crust and everyone got to take some home. I can’t find the recipe. I do know it had lots of eggs and butter, but it fed the crowd with leftovers. Have you heard of this?
Also live the pics of Joseph!
Hi Michelle! I’d love to see easy, toddler (I have a 2 and 4 yo) friendly weeknight dinners. One dish/pot are the best – casseroles! Thanks for asking ?
I’m still not ready for summer to end!!!!! I love fall, but it’s still August!
I love your Duke and Einstein stories. My fiance and I have a kitten, and we die in laughter every night from the silly things that our cats do. We have an ottoman as a coffee table, and the kitten ran straight from the ottoman onto the couch, which would have worked except for the gap in between the two. He fell straight to the floor. Rolling and crying laughter ensued.
I also have a door story. I was out of town a couple of weeks ago, but I really wish that I had seen this. My finance tripped over one of the cats with something in his arms and fell head first into a door between our kitchen and living room. It almost broke the door in two. Needless to say, it’s not there anymore.
So glad you gave House of Cards another chance! Love that show!
We had a dog door for the screen door at some point. They have glass inserts, but this was the only large dog screen door insert we found: http://www.amazon.com/Namsan-Gate-Way-Door-Screens/dp/B00JZM552M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1440779897&sr=8-2&keywords=screen+door+dog+door It worked well for years until we installed a dog door in the wall next to the door.
I would love recipes and tutorials for cut-out cookies. My dough always sticks and the cookies lose their shape when I try to transfer them to the baking sheets. They are always too thick, too. I like nice crunchy cut-out cookies.
This is what I use for my “screen doors” now. I have two 90+ lb Labs who can go in and out all day now. http://www.amazon.com/36-INSTANT-MOVEABLE-SCREEN-MESH/dp/B001W8LM92
I’d love to see some fun salads! My husband and I have been doing a lot more dinner salads but find that you really need to have a good dressing/veggie combo to make it better and more filling for dinner. We have a few salads that we love but we need more so we can keep the dinner rotation exciting.
What would I like to see on the site this year? For starters, how about a recipe for these awesome sounding bacon salted caramels?
Something else I was recently trying to find a recipe for and wasn’t very successful is fresh peach cupcakes with fresh peach frosting (a recipe that canned peaches could be used but is intended for fresh)
Lastly, it would be awesome to have a chart of substitutions. Like, subs for cake flour, bread flour, honey, diff types of chocolate, etc.
Thank you!
I know all about dogs and screen dogs. At my old house we had a sliding glass door and my previous dog would, without fail, run into the screen door several times each spring and fall and end up knocking the screen off the track. It’s funny yet heart breaking at the same time. The same dog even starting licking a smashed snowball off the glass of the same door one winter.
I really enjoy the site. Would love a cinnamon roll recipe. Would also love to see a few more easy dinners.
I am obsessed with Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee!! I am so glad you found it and like it too. I think it gives you that Seinfeld fix we all miss so much.
Crawling?! Already!? How does time move so quickly? Joseph gets cuter by the week. Poor Duke . . . I bet he was as humiliated as a Golden can be over that “blooper”. As for you blog, It’s the ONLY one I read on a daily basis, have pinned many of your recipes, and have made quite a few of them – all with success. Admittedly I would skip the Weekend Dish, but for the last number of weeks I have started reading it too, and now wouldn’t miss it. Since you have asked, I would really like to see something on making yeast doughs. I can bake and cook with a lot of success, but a consistently good yeast dough product evades me. Often times I think my dough is kind of tough, even though whatever I make takes fine. To me, a good yeast dough should be tender and flavorful, not tough and “cardboardish”. So, help on yeast doughs would be enthusiastically welcomed by me :) Also, it’s always great to have more savory recipes that have been tried and test to be delicious, so you wouldn’t hear me complain to see more of those :) Have a great weekend!
I too am a “yeast killer”. I can make anything else.
I’d love to see things with minimal ingredients. Stuff around the house you can put together in a pinch to make a meal. time is limited being a mom!
Happy Friday Michelle! Such adorable pictures! I’d like to get a really good recipe for lasagna. I was in the kitchen last year on Christmas day wrestling with a turkey/ham dinner and all the fixings and missed all the little expressions on my grandchildren’s face when they opened their gifts. It’s an open concept area so I could see some of what was going on but missed most of it and am determined this Christmas, I am making something that I can pre-cook and throw in the oven and put together easy, a salad, some Italian bread, etc., so that I am not “stuck” in the kitchen again. But the recipe has to be Christmas worthy and I have been searching all over for a really good recipe, I know you test all your recipes so I would gladly take any of your recommendations. Also, I am not sure if you are familiar with the Mimi’s restaurants? There is one in my area and they used to have these really delicious chocolate moulton muffins with a really yummy plain white glaze. Oh they were so good! But they took them off the menu!!
Not sure if you’ve ever had one or if there is even a Mimi’s in your area but I was hoping to come up with a similar recipe and duplicate it. My whole family loved those. Thanks Michelle and I hope you have a great weekend!
Get some blue painter’s tape & put an X at “dog-level” on the screen door. That should warn the dogs that something’s there. Joseph is so precious – I enjoy your pix of him.
That is such a smart tip!
I enjoy your recipes so much. I’d like to see more traditional Pittsburgh recipes since that is where I grew up. And lucky you for having cool weather – here in Atlanta its still hot as blazes!
Joseph is such a cutie! Watch out for him crawling and the dog food bowls…he’ll want to sit and eat with the doggies and try their food! As for the web site – I do like it how it is but would not mind a few “one pot” meals, a few freezer meals and some good game day meals
I would really like to know the trick to baking bread. I can never get the yeast to bubble and its never warm enough in my house for the yeast to rise. I usually try to leave it close to a sunny spot but still I can’t get it to rise. I have made biscuits without a problem but anything with yeast, I struggle to get the dough to rise. Love the pictures of Joseph, hes growing so fast!! I can’t believe it and he will be crawling in no time at all! Ready for call too, tired of the 90’s in Texas but we have had an overall great summer I really can’t complain.
Patricia,
I’ve had good luck with this method: Take an electric heating pad set on low, cover with a towel, then setting a bowl of dough on top to rise. OR keep your eyes open for a bread machine at yard sales or thrift shops. You can make and rise dough in them and then shape and bake in the oven.
Saw this article on an alternative Friends ending on USA Today and thought you might enjoy it.
Have a great weekend Michelle!
http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2015/08/27/alternate-friends-ending/
Joseph is adorable! Thanks for sharing pics of him. I would love to see a few easy, healthy weeknight meals along with recipes from your Sunday dinners. And definitely keep the amazing dessert recipes coming!
We’ve gone thru 2 screen doors to the deck thanks to our boxer, Bear! Now we just use a broken one until he figures out the screen is still there.
I’d love to see a couple posts about freezer meals…I’m about to have my first baby in 2 months and I’m getting antsy on making some meals that aren’t all pasta and casseroles. Love your site – thank you!
Please don’t change a thing!!!! Your site is my absolute favorite. You offer many recipes each week, not just one, and you always have a wide variety. I love Fridays and Saturdays especially.
I definitely enjoy recipes from your family (spaghetti and meatballs), and I totally favor any and all desserts. I can’t wait to see your fall recipes along with Thanksgiving and Christmas specialties. Keep up your great work!
I’d love to see slow cooker meals and easy quick meals .
When refreshing my spices in the pantry, as I do every fall…..checking for expiration dates, being fully stocked for fall/winter cooking and baking……I only recently started paying attention to country of origin. I found many spices in which the country of origin is China. I recently began to stay with USDA Organic as much as I can…..which sometimes isn’t easy to do in the spice dept. Then I found myself buying many different brand names depending on the country of origin and even have some empty spots on my nice organized spice shelf because I can’t find USA or spices I think I can trust?
What once was a nicely stocked, good looking, organized supply of spices is now down to a little container here, a monster container there and brand names all over the place!! Guess I’m a bit of a neat freak when it comes to my pantry shelves.
So, my question is, what is your best go-to source for good quality spices. Can you name a Brand name? Or a website you can count on? Thank you for your help.!
My favorite place for spices is Penzey’s. I have to get them on-line since there isn’t a store near me but they have are great and the selection is crazy!
Thanks Julie for the Penzey info. I did check their website as soon as I read your reply and found….LOL they are only 45 minutes from my house.!! Had no idea.
Anyway, just wanted to reply back, after browsing their site, I noticed they don’t offer the information as to the source or country of origin. With Garlic, Onion, and so many spices coming from China, I’m really looking for a product that reveals the country of origin.
I may give them a call on the 800 number and see if they will answer some of my questions before placing an order. If so, then they will be my new source for spices.
Thanks again Julie.
I can’t believe Joseph is almost crawling, it seems just like yesterday you were waiting for him to arrive!! The Duke/screen story cracked me up. I love your recipes where you make homemade favorites! I would also love to see some quick dinner meals for weeknights.
We may have been crazy are expecting baby #2 and will have 2 kids under 2 come feb. Would love more freezer friendly meals and tips along with simple slow cooker meals. It doesn’t save me much time if I’m browning mean and making sauces before I can even put ingredients in the slow cooker. Also Joseph absolutely adorable!
Hi, Joseph looks so adorable! Was that a selfie? ;) It sure looks like one! <3
I need some great cakes which can be as spongy as cakes made with egg! I really don't enjoy cakes which aren't made with eggs but I have a few friends and family members who don't consume eggs! Please help!! :(
I would love a tutorial on various types of egg making. I can cook a lot of things, but I still struggle with making eggs consistently good.
Have had any luck with sourdough, from the starter to the bread?
I’d like more savory recipes — especially those from your family. I don’t remember when I got here, but I know it was your scalloped potatoes that got me here. Still the best I’ve had (and made).
What a cutie! :) Cannot wait to meet my little man in February!
x M.
http://nevermindnm.blogspot.com/
I would like to know some of your favorite blogs. Also I would love to have a good recipe for sponge cake.
Thank you for your amazing recipes. Every one I have made has been a success. Would love to see a good macaroon recipe and your favorite kitchen equipment.