Back In The Kitchen!!

After the last couple weeks of constant running from place to place....we finally had a low key weekend where I could spend some time back in the kitchen!!

It was rainy, cold, and dreary both Saturday and Sunday, so it was the perfect weekend to spend behind my stove!! I invited my friend Ivy up for the afternoon so that our girls could play and we could spend some time cooking and trying to edit the rest of our pictures from the photography workshop weekend!

Well.....we had a great time, but most of our time was spent chasing the girls around the house. They had lots of fun together and didn't sit still for two minutes....they went from one activity to the next....at one point Sarah opened my closet in the laundry room and brought out two mops......they decided to mop my floors instead of playing with toys!! Ivy got some cute photos.....Unfortunately I missed the moment....I was up to my elbows in Ricotta cheese!!


I bet you are wondering what we made.....maybe this picture gave you a hint. These are not your ordinary stuffed shells....I decided to try a new recipe this weekend and it did not disappoint.....Turkey and Artichoke Stuffed Shells using my family's marinara recipe.....we also made a salad with a homemade white wine vinaigrette and my version of croutons to top the salad......I will give you that recipe next week. With summer approaching, there will be lots of salads in our future:)

Both the girls started to hit the wall around 4pm....so much so that Sarah came up to me and asked to go to bed. Shortly after that Ivy and Kira had to head home, so we sent them with a goody bag of all the items we made.......we hope you liked your meal...thanks for coming up to play with us!!


Nick has been with his Dad all weekend and we thought we would see him this afternoon at his soccer game, but with this weather, his game was cancelled.....So Sarah and I had a little girl bonding time and put on our aprons and went back into the kitchen.....


Today it was time to bring out the old Kitchen Aid and try our hands at baking....not my favorite thing to do, but Sarah has a sweet tooth and so does Daddy so we whipped up a Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Icing.


We wanted to make it a girly cake, so we used food coloring along with our cake decorating kit to pretty it up:)


Do you want to guess which part of the process Sarah enjoyed most? She doesn't like baking as much as she likes licking the spoon!! Her face was not the only thing filled with chocolate....you should have seen her shirt....

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.....we are off to dig into that cake!!

Have a great week!!