anna eats - week of treats

Clockwise from top left: 

• Ina Garten's Jam Thumbprint Cookies were a hit at my office's Cookie Club.
• I'm addicted to Skyr soothies. This one is banana, fronzen peaches, plain skyr, orange juice, and protein powder. 
• My friend Alyssa made the most adorable and delicious lemon, lavendar, blueberry cupcakes. 
• My Tuesday was greatly improved with an afternoon crepe from Boston's Paris Creperie Food Truck. Mmmm, nutella. 

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. I have some exciting personal news in the works, which I will share soon. I also have some exciting knitting projects that are almost ready to post. For now though, I wanted to share some of delicious treats I've enjoyed in the past week. Have you been baking, making, or noshing on anything noteworthy recently? xo anna

anna cooks - muddy buddies

Are you excited for the Super Bowl? I am - perhaps more for the food than the game, but that's all part of the fun. I'm heading to a Super Bowl watching party and I offered to bring a dessert I hadn't had in years: Muddy Buddies. Here's how I did it:

Muddy Buddies: A Photo Recipe

Get the full recipe here. 

holidays, etc. - DIY holiday ideas

I love this idea for a DIY melted snowman ornament I saw on Pinterest:

Just a glass ornament, salt, a few peppercorns, and an orange paper cone. You can find step by step instructions here.

Another holiday Pinterest find I love is this Mediterranean food wreath:

The idea comes from Julia M. Usher's blog, which has some other cute DIY holiday ideas here. 

You can see my entire Holiday Times Pinboard here. 

anna eats - narragansett creamery

I was so excited to see that the Whole Foods near me sells Narragansett Creamery cheeses. I used to get it in Rhode Island while in college. The ricotta is perfect with a bowl of pasta.

On their website, Narragansett Creamery has recipes to try with their products. This Honey Drizzled Ricotta with Shortbread recipe is so simple, but I'm sure it would be amazing:

Honey Drizzled Ricotta with Shortbread - recipe taken from Narragansett Creamery (http://www.richeeses.com/recipes.html)

Ingredients
1 cup Renaissance ricotta
2 tablespoons local honey + more for drizzling
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
2 to 3 drops pure almond extract
Fresh berries of your choice
Scottish shortbread

Place ricotta, honey, lemon zest and almond extract in a blender and blend on medium speed until smooth. Refrigerate for 1 hour, then spoon into small dessert cups. Top with berries and a stick of shortbread. Drizzle with honey and serve.

Narragansett Creamery also sells gift boxes on their website if you want to try them but don't live in the area. Click here to check the gift boxes out!

anna cooks - dinner

Ok, I'm going to brag a little bit -- I made a wonderful dinner tonight. I wanted to share the recipes, because the meal turned out so well. Plus it was easy to make and easy on the wallet.

The main dish was Braised Chicken with Shallots, which is available as a free recipe on the Martha Stewart webpage. I initially found the recipe in the book Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast: 250 Easy, Delicious Recipes for Any Time of Day. I bought my book at Marshalls -- best place to buy cook books!

I unfortunately didn't take any pictures of my meal because my boyfriend and I gobbled it up so fast, but this is what it looked like. (Really it did!)

When I made this meal before, I served it with french bread or rice, but this time I made popovers. I had never made them before, but they were super easy and delicious! Luckily for me, my roommate has great popover cups that are stick-proof. I just used a recipe from All Recipes. It had gotten a bunch of positive reviews, which I've found to be a reliable way to  judge recipes online. 

We finished the meal with some chocolate covered orange rinds my boyfriend brought back from Paris when he visited a few weeks ago. If you find yourself over there be sure to pick some up at Un Dimanche à Paris: Le Concept-Store tout Chocolat, located at 4-6-8 Cour du Commerce Saint André - Paris 6ème.

I'll definitely be making this meal again! 

anna gifts - grandma's cookies

Printable Grandma DeSimone's Butter Cookies Recipe Card Now Available Here!

I made the rest of the Grandma DeSimone's Butter Cookies yesterday for my friend Melissa's birthday. Since the recipe makes so many, I wrapped a few up in these cute heart bags from Martha Stewart, and gave them out to people attending her birthday dinner.

I included a little printout of the custom stickers I ordered from The Paper Source in case people wanted to visit the blog to get the recipe. The stickers are meant to be personalized gift tags for holidays or after weddings, but you can customize the writing with whatever words you want! See the template I used here.