Coconut ice cream - a little bite of heaven

I had my first bite of homemade ice cream the other night at a friend of friend's house, so this week I broke out my Kitchen Aid ice cream maker attachment that I got for Christmas and stuck it in the freezer. My first ice cream attempt of the year- coconut ice cream, and it couldn't have been more right. It was unstoppable.

Needless to say, today began in tears; tears at home, tears on the way to work, tears at work, and then complete and utter bottom of the barrel awful on they way home from work. It was one of those days that you just want to go to your mama's house and have her tell you everything is going to be okay. But instead, tonight the hubby and I grabbed dinner after I got off at 7:30 and I enjoyed a nice Blue Moon with a freshly sliced orange courtesy of two new, dear friends who brought over 8 brewskies today while I was at work and my husband got to play. (Yes, this was part of the crying fit I found myself in all day. I started work and lost my life. That's an awful feeling when you just moved to a new town in a new state, way too many hours away from the precious comfort of my mama's house.)

Sweetly tart fresh key lime bars

Since moving to the great state of Colorado (pronounced Cal-or-A-doe by natives) I have fallen in love with a farmers market called Sunflower Market. Sunflower is the type of place where you can get 5 lemons for $1. Fresh, organic fruit for $1. How could I stay away? When we visited the other day limes were on sale. Clearly I have to purchase a good deal on produce, but when I got them home I was stumped as to how I would use them. The next day I received this tasty recipe from Real Simple in my inbox. It was serendipitous.

Imitator peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

Okay, so maybe I cheated a little bit. I wanted to make cookies, but I'm still on shaky ground with the whole flour/baking soda combination at this altitude. So, I made flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Baby steps here people. Baby steps.

I must say I'm a smidge annoyed with these cookies because I burned myself on three of my right hand fingers and on the backside of my left hand while making them. Perhaps it's my fault, but I blame the cookies.

Blondies really do have more fun

That's right. This is a post about the most perfect white version of a brownie ever! I must say this is the recipe that I've had the most trouble with, not because of the elevation, but because our apartment didn't come with a microwave and clearly my Kitchen Aid stand mixer had to take up the only remaining counter space. Needless to say, a 5 minute recipe turned into a 20 minute ordeal while trying to melt butter in a toaster oven. Yeah, you're telling me.

A lil' bit of chocolate peanut goodness

As promised, I have brought the hailed no-bake chocolate peanut butter cookies. Mind you, these cookies aren't really cookies at all but rather a mound of chocolatey oatmeal. They were a childhood favorite for sure. The recipe is pretty simple and it's pretty fast from stir to enjoy. So, enough talk-here's what I'ma talkin' bout:

A little fudgy bit of Heaven

So, I know I promised delicious no-bake, chocolate peanut butter cookies for today's bake, BUT instead I bring ooey gooey brownies for everyone. Perhaps there is a life lesson here about hopes, but we won't go there today. This afternoon when I went to start these delicious cookies of my childhood, the fridge had used all the butter. (No, I am not projecting the blame of eating all the butter on the refrigerator. That's craziness.)
Anyways, to the brownies-which I actually made on Thursday. There are now two left. What can I say? It's been a rainy weekend.

The movin' blues turned pumpkin orange

Every time I know I have something to do, I can't think about anything else until I have beat the challenge. This morning, I woke up with an urge to purge-my cabinets that is. Last week, our move-out date was moved up by two weeks. As the organizational and slight control freak that I tend to be, yesterday I started to think about everything that needed to be done. We get our moving truck in four weeks. FOUR. (My husband got a job in February, and we are relocating to Denver, CO on April 20). My brain was still functioning under the impression that I had six weeks, until this morning.

So, I looked in my cabinets to see what we still hadn't eaten during our revisit to our college years (you know, when you would eat a box of macaroni for dinner or pick out everything that you are craving at the time and put it in a pot-perhaps that was just me) while trying to eat all the food in the house. What I found, you ask? Pumpkin. Lots and lots of pumpkin.