Lemon Raspberry Dutch Baby Pancake

Breakfast has never been better with this huge, airy pancake with tart lemon curd and raspberries!

I tried Chrissy Teigen's  Dutch Baby Pancakes recipe and posted it a few months ago (I even mentioned this recipe in the bottom of the post!) - I've kind of had them on my mind since then and really wanted to make a recipe with berries (as I mentioned in that post). I have never in my life had lemon curd and wasn't sure how I would feel about it. It was SO good. The kind I got was very tart - honestly reminded me a little of a Warhead but without the bitterness. This dutch baby was insanely good. The raspberry and lemon curd combo was killer. I cannot wait to make more of these with different flavor profiles - and try more recipes with lemon curd.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

This delicious cheesecake dessert is so beautiful that it's hard to believe it's so easy to make!

One of my favorite things about having a large family is the amount of birthdays we get to celebrate, which means we get to eat lots of cake. I'm always so happy to make someone's birthday cake if they want and my sister-in-law requested raspberry cheesecake last year for her birthday cake and trusted me to find a good recipe. I usually am successful and this raspberry cheesecake was definitely perfect! It's simple yet rich and way too delicious for how simple it is. The raspberry sauce really truly makes this dessert and the way you make the hearts on top makes for such a beautiful cheesecake and again - SO simple!

Red Velvet Sheet Cake #FantasticalFoodFight

Welcome to another Food Fight! Fantastical Food Fight is a group of food bloggers who will get a theme or ingredient each month and make some sort of variation for it. It could be traditional or nontraditional and can be found in a cookbook, on a blog, or be a blogger's own creation!

This month's Fantastical Food Fight theme is RED VELVET. This unfortunately is going to be the very last Food Fight due to my very busy schedule. I just started my masters program in Accounting at the beginning of the month and I'm trying to cut back on all my "extracurricular" activities, so to speak. I have had so much fun with my blogging friends and have enjoyed seeing what recipes they've shared each month. I highly recommend following their blogs that you can find below in the blog hop.

Red velvet was chosen due to it being Valentine's Day this month. Even though we are past Valentine's Day now, I thought it would still be fun to do it. Now, I was a little nervous about this month's theme because I generally don't care for anything red velvet. It's basically chocolate cake dyed red, but that red is so overpowering and I think that's why I don't like it. However, my family loves red velvet and I decided to try this really pretty sheet cake that had whipped frosting (my daughter's favorite) and raspberries. And surprise, surprise, I liked it! In fact, it's on my favorites list now. It wasn't overpoweringly "red-flavored" and the frosting was so perfect. My daughter and I especially loved the little raspberry on each piece. It complimented the cake very well.

Berrylicious Smoothie Bowls

Start your day with this berrylicious recipe - loads of berries plus whatever toppings you want!

I've been wanting to jump on the smoothie bowl bandwagon for forever, but I'll be honest..I hate pulling out my blender so much. I don't have it out on the counter (although I would love to) and I also hate cleaning my blender. But I finally decided it was time to try one and it was super wonderful. Probably still not something I'll make all the time, but definitely a nice treat when you're craving berries in particular. I topped ours with blueberries, blackberries, banana, honey, coconut, almonds, and granola (cashew butter and cocoa nibs).

Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies

These amazing shortbread cookies are filled with raspberry jam and drizzled with a sweet almond icing!

Since I have made a few thumbprint cookie recipes now, I feel much more confident about making them and decided to try my hand at a shortbread like cookie with a raspberry filling and a sweet almond icing. These were easy to make and delightful. They aren't overly sweet, but they are just the right amount of sweetness to keep you coming back for more, if that makes sense.

Raspberry Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars

These cheesecake bars are flaky and sweet with raspberry filling and chocolate on top!

I love when I come across a breakfast recipe like this one that uses crescent rolls. I particularly love sweets made with crescent rolls and raspberry and chocolate are a match made in heaven. So this is seriously a great recipe. It's fairly simple for a breakfast recipe and I appreciate that because I am NOT a morning person. Not one bit. I used the Kroger's Private Selection brand pie filling. I think the quality is a little better than the generic pie filling in a can. I can't recommend this breakfast enough.

PB&J Crumble Yogurt Parfait #FantasticalFoodFight

Welcome to another Food Fight! Fantastical Food Fight is a group of food bloggers who will get a theme or ingredient each month and make some sort of variation for it. It could be traditional or nontraditional and can be found in a cookbook, on a blog, or be a blogger's own creation! For more details, check out this page.

This month's theme is PB&J -- peanut butter and jelly. Why? Because not only is March National Peanut Month, but it's also National Peanut Lover's Day today! And peanut butter and jelly is such an iconic and classic combination that I thought would fit perfectly. Today, you find recipes containing peanut or peanut butter and fruit (not necessarily jelly or jam). I chose this amazing breakfast parfait that I couldn't get enough of: PB&J Crumble Yogurt Parfait.

Technically speaking, it's actually peanut butter crumble yogurt parfait with fruit, but since I did add the fruit, I renamed it PB&J Crumble Yogurt Parfait. The peanut butter crumble is fantastic. I could and did eat it by the handful. Nick did too. I have eaten it with fresh fruit (the first picture) and frozen fruit that had been slightly heated up.

Everything about these parfaits makes me such a happy camper. But I cannot wait to see what other pb&j treats my blogging pals have to share!

Raspberry Lemonade Cheesecake Parfaits

 These parfaits are refreshing and decadent - truly the perfect treat for warm weather.

I am finally obsessed with lemon in everything, so all my years of not being a fan means I have very few recipes saved up and I'm still not completely sold on full-on lemon desserts like lemon cookies or bars. I am sure I will work my way up to them, but I am loving experimenting in the meantime. This sweet dessert had the perfect amount of lemon in it. These little babies were so addictive. I made them way back in 2015 for the Fourth of July (with the addition of blueberries) since they were very festive and the citrus was perfect for summer.

What I really loved was the element of crunch that the almonds added. The nuttiness was just so perfect with the grahams and lemon cheesecake filling and berries. Heaven in a mason jar, folks.

I also found out the hard way that late summertime afternoons do not shed very much natural light at my mom-in-law's, so I used her breezeway as my backdrop LOL. Except the one picture from my kitchen island.

Triple Berry Crisp

This crisp is the perfect thing to whip up with berries with or without ice cream on top.

We had family in town last summer and we scraped together a quick meal to serve a crowd. I needed a quick summery dessert that wasn't really heavy and didn't take many ingredients or time to make. I had already pulled together the 30-Minute Shepherd's Pie and I knew I wanted to do something with berries. I hunted in one of my favorite cookbooks: Sally's Baking Addiction. I found this berry crisp recipe and I had everything on hand to make it. I ate mine without ice cream because it's incredible without it.

Nutella Cheesecake Shooters #SundaySupper

It's time for another round of #SundaySupper yumminess! Because today is Mother's Day and we all love the moms in our lives, we are sharing recipes for Mother's Day. I chose dessert because that is something my mom enjoys making. My mom always volunteered to make mints (the cream cheese kind) for wedding showers, baby showers, and graduation open houses when I was little. She volunteered to make desserts for church. She made cookies, bars, and cakes. She actually went to school for cake decorating and does that for a hobby nowadays for her church's "meals on wheels" type program.

I chose to do a smaller portion dessert because even though my mom loves sweets - she doesn't like big portions of them. She also loves fruit and cheesecake! So this combination is just perfect for her and many other moms too :) When I made these, I split them up into five portions - two for the kids and three for the adults. When I make it again (yes, again!), I will definitely double the amount and make it in 4 jam mason jars for four full desserts. It's really fast to throw together and turns out very tasty and sits light in your stomach. So it's really perfect for a big get-together pot roast type Sunday dinner - like we're having tonight at my mom-in-law's. It was the perfect amount of dessert and incredibly creamy and fluffy. It tasted like an amazing cheesecake, but in a more pudding type version. Definitely cannot be missed - you have to try this for the moms in your life!

Triple Chocolate Raspberry Brownies #SecretRecipeClub

It's time again for my group, Group D, to share our reveal day posts for The Secret Recipe Club. It's my 3 year anniversary of being a part of the SRC and I've only missed one reveal day. I cannot believe it's been so long and have to link to my very first post with the club: Brisket & Veggies.

So what is The Secret Recipe Club? It's over 100 food bloggers who are split into four groups. Each group is assigned another fellow group member to secretly stalk their blog and choose a recipe (or two) to make, blog, and share on a designated Monday in the month. It's a really fun way to find new blogs and give a little blog love to someone once a month. I absolutely love being apart of it...and except for a few bumps in the road, SRC is a great community of food bloggers! I adore my fellow Group D members who love to haze and tease each other on how quickly they made their recipe and how much tastier it is than anyone else's :) They are a hoot!

This month I was assigned to Sue's blog, Couscous & Consciousness. Sue blogs from New Zealand and is a busy yoga teacher whom is conscientious of eating ethically (but is not necessarily strictly vegetarian). I narrowed down my picks very quickly on Sue's blog...two recipes spoke to me and I had a huge problem picking between the two. One was Italian Sausage with Gnocchi & Red Peppers because I'm on a huge Italian sausage kick right now. YUM. However, I had already planned out my dinners for the month, forgetting to leave an empty space for a possible SRC recipe.

Clearly from my post title, I went with my other pick: Triple Chocolate Raspberry Brownies. These brownies are fudgy and contain a nice helping of chocolate. I was incredibly impressed with how good they were because they didn't "look" like the normal chocolate-y brownies. If you look at Sue's pictures...her's look more like a traditional brownie does...and I was sure I had messed something up. But I hadn't - and that was a relief because they not only sound good - they ARE GOOD!

My Very Best Blueberry Coffeecake #secretrecipeclub

So unfortunately, the Secret Recipe Club decided to crap out and just stop working for no reason. When I tried to consult the host, they weren't very helpful and everything they were telling me to do, I did...and then it was still down and they would say something new was "wrong". After some discussing with April [the former owner], I felt it was the best decision to make a "free" site and just start over. So SRC is now hosted on Blogger and has a new look...and basically everything had to be done from memory with the help of my lovely hostesses. Be sure to stop by and see it, follow it, etc. HERE.

For those who don't know, Secret Recipe Club is a great little group...well, large group, of food bloggers who are secretly assigned another blog each month. Each member chooses a recipe (or more) from their assigned blog and then on the designated Monday for their group, they post the recipe they made. It's a great way to feature a new blog - really discover a new blog - and help others to find new blogs to follow. It feels good to shine that spotlight on another blogger :)

This month, I was assigned to Susan of The Wimpy Vegetarian. Last month, Susan had my blog, so I was excited when the randomizer paired me with her blog. She made the quinoa & black bean wraps and I love the adaptations she made. I cannot wait to try her version! I love that Susan refers to herself as a "wimpy vegetarian" and I love even more that her husband is a total meat lover who says he has incisors for a reason. Nick is the exact same way when we have meatless nights. It drives him bonkers. I love meat too, but I love to have a variation of foods which typically in a week includes one meatless night. She has an incredible resume of culinary amazingness and is even creating a proposal for a cookbook with a theme of focusing on meals for a mixed family/couple of vegetarians and omnivores.

This month I was very VERY decisive unlike last month. Right now in this stage of pregnancy, I am pretty much not into chicken at all...and certain things just don't sound appetizing even if I give in and make them and they are. I almost went with this Healthy No-Bake Chocolate Fudge..but I'm not supremely into sweets like I was during my second pregnancy.

I am, however, incredibly into berries right now. Especially with yogurt and granola. So when I saw "My Very Best Blueberry Coffeecake" - I was absolutely sold. I can finally drink coffee again and there is nothing more that I love that a great streusel-topped coffeecake with a cup of coffee.

I didn't have apricots, so I did blueberries and raspberries. Everything else stayed pretty similar to Susan's recipe. It was absolutely perfect. The lemon was really nice and came through really well. The berries, of course, were fantastic. The produce down here is just seriously amazing! I love being in the South. Can't wait to make this one again. It was definitely the best!

Lemon Berry Twist Pancakes

When I was younger, I had a real aversion to lemons. It continued until Nick's return from his second deployment when he was obsessed with lemon on everything. Because I am an awesome wife (tooting my own horn here) I started to gather up lemony recipes to make for him. Then his magical "making-me-like-foods-I-don't-like" powers took over and I am loving lemony recipes! It's fun to get a whole new slew of things to eat because of my new found love of lemon :)

These pancakes are really simple to make and really refreshing!

Raspberry Lemonade Slushy

My 6 year old is notoriously bad about eating fruits. I think the only way I can sneak any into his diet is if I make banana bread or he eats yogurt. Another way that I try and get him to get his fruit is with drinks. He's not a big fan of fruit juices (and neither is his tummy) and if it's a really thick yogurty smoothie, he usually drinks a little and then leaves it on the kitchen counter. Both of my kids are really into slushies though. I have to blame/thank the infomercials they saw on tv for the Slushy Magic cup thing.

I have to say that I really loved this too. Sometimes you really just don't want a thick dairy smoothie, but something more simple and refreshing. This was the perfect amount of sweet and sour - and it was gone in no time at all. Also as a side-note...I still love my Ninja [blender/food processor extraordinaire].

Lemon Raspberry Oatmeal

This is probably the very best oatmeal I've had. It was incredible. Now that I'm a lemon lover, I can't go back and this has just enough lemon to keep it from being overwhelming.

Secret Recipe Club: Raspberry Cheesecake Muffins

We had an extra blog this month and since I had such an easy time picking out and making my actually assigned blog's in like 2 days time, leaving me with pretty much the full time of picking out and making a recipe, I took on our extra: Karen from Lavender & Lovage.

When I joined SRC, Karen's blog was my first assigned blog. So it's kind of a little nostalgic that I would make something from her blog again for my 1 year SRC anniversary :)

I immediately went with her raspberry cheesecake muffins. I've made cheesecake muffins before and they were great, but I loved how these ones you just put a dollop of cream cheese right in there. It was very easy and efficient - instead of cubed up 8 oz. of cream cheese.

DIY Flavored Water - Batch 1

I have been drinking lots of water this year. More than I ever have my whole life! I've been using the flavored packets thought to accomplish this. I'm not a huge fan of plain, flavorless water. Now I'd be quite stupid if I thought that these packets are super healthy...because they have to have dye in them. Probably preservatives too. So what better way to get rid of that than actually having naturally flavored water?

I tried out one of The Yummy Life's suggested flavors, Raspberry Lime, but I think I may have done something wrong because it tasted like lime rind. Even after a bunch of honey was added into it. I loved the strawberry lemon and strawberry basil!

Frozen Yogurt Berries

Every weekday, Nick comes home from work and raids the fridge and cupboards for something to snack on before dinner. I was in a particularly "surprise-y" mood and knew he would probably be late coming home and exhausted, having just driven for 13 hours straight the day before. I had a little trouble with the blueberries, so I ended up putting them in my pop molds for a little blueberry yogurt popsicles snack. Our store also didn't have blackberries which I would have loved to have done.

No-Bake Berry Cheesecake

My husband, Nick, had his birthday this month and I always get really nervous when it comes to making his birthday meal. This year I asked him what he wanted for his cake and he was stumped. So I had found a few recipes I thought he may like and asked him what he wanted. He decided on berry cheesecake.

This recipe is a no-bake cheesecake. I wanted to do this because my cheesecakes always crack (I have yet to get a pan so I can do a water bath) and I wanted his birthday cake to be perfect. This one doesn't set like a normal cheesecake, but it was still incredibly delicious. I loved the berry topping too! You can never go wrong with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries!

French Toast with Berry Butter

I can't even begin to say how amazing this was. The berry butter is unbelievable. This recipe will blow your mind...again, Ree Drummond did not fail me!