Ian's favorite food is potatoes. Mashed potatoes, to be exact. This year for Valentine's Day, I wanted to make him a steak dinner, but I wanted to elevate his beloved potatoes. For me, the fanciest a potato could look is a Hasselback potato. Hasselback potatoes are a Swedish-style baked potato with slits down the middle [...]
This recipe makes my heart soar. Ever since we adopted Chewie 2 years ago, we have spoiled him to pieces with toys, treats, and lots of hugs. Recently, I decided to tackle the task of making Chewie his very own dog treats. I know he loves having bananas and peanut butter in his Kongs, [...]
The funny thing about candied walnuts is that I always make them thinking "I can add this to all my salads for the next week", only to eat them by the handfuls and they never ever touch a single salad. They are that addictive. Candied walnuts are quick and easy to make, sort of foolproof, [...]
I LOVE CRUMB BARS. They are one of those really easy desserts to make but looks a lot more decadent than brownies or cookies. The best part of crumb bars, in my opinion, is that the base and the crumble are THE EXACT SAME MIXTURE. Also, it's the perfect excuse to get rid of [...]
Hey y'all! It feels good to be back. These past few weeks have been so hectic with planning out projects around the house, figuring out what we are contracting out and what we are tackling ourselves. Most people don't know this, but Ian and I aren't full-time renovators nor do we have a background in [...]
So back in July, I vowed to rarely turn on the oven as to not overheat my house. Now that we're in mid-December, I crank up my oven every chance I get so not only do I get a delicious treat, my house feels warm (and smells amazing). So whenever I open the fridge [...]
Last month, Ian celebrated his THIRTIETH birthday. To celebrate, I baked him a 4-tiered, peanut butter cup cake. A lot of recipes online simply did chocolate cake with a peanut butter frosting. But I wanted the cake itself to have chocolate & peanut butter combo. The result? Peanut butter goodness.
When Ian and I were renovating our old house, Squirrel House, we were working mainly out of a small one-car garage (that actually doesn't really fit a car). The garage was super dingy, had minimal lighting, and just wasn't super conducive to getting work done. To be fair, we were also horrible at organizing that [...]
Photo sources: Kitchen Cabinets Flooring Subway Tile Lighting Range/Oven Runner This past week was demo week at Squirrel Estate. Our contractors came and tore up all the first-floor flooring, tile, the kitchen, and the powder room. Now it's time to put it all back together! Our contractors took care of tiling the entryway/coat closet/powder [...]
Flooring update on Squirrel Estate! Since August, one thing on my mind is "what flooring am I going to put down on the first floor?" We knew that the three-type flooring of the ceramic tile/hardwood/carpet combo didn't really work and really chopped up space. We wanted to use up to 2 types of flooring (debating [...]
