Double Chocolate Souffle Torte with Raspberry Sauce

I like living here in Colorado, but there is one thing I would gladly move elsewhere for. Baking! So many times I crave to bake something, then I remember I live at high altitude and it will probably turn out hard as a rock. There are tons of articles and tips on how to alter a recipe to fit high altitude. Whenever I decide to take a recipe and alter it, I end up with many failed attempts and wasted ingredients. I hate wasting ingredients. I know baking is a lot like trial and error, but I can't help it!

A lot of times I forget I'm at high altitude. I start baking and when I pull whatever it is out of the oven it's dense and hard. That's when I get sad. I have even thrown out rock hard cupcakes before and just reverted to the high altitude alterations on a box. Yes shameful, but sometimes I just want to bake and I only have the patience to waste so many ingredients.

Slow Cooker French Dip

My slow cooker is one of my favorite appliances in my kitchen. If I could cook everyday with it I would! Pretty sure if I got determined enough I could find nonstop recipes that would allow me to use this beauty all the time. For now I don't have an infinite number of slow cooker recipes but I do have this gem right here. 

Cool Salmon & Couscous Salad with Snap Peas, Orange, & Mint

I have been tempted to try a lot of new things. Like a cold salmon couscous salad for example. I would have never even thought twice about making this. When I saw this recipe I was actually excited to try it. So much nutrition and flavor! 

Now I had to cook my snap peas before mixing everything together. I am allergic to raw snap peas. I know weird. If they are cooked though I am all good. So just so I wasn't thrown any curve balls while eating I simply sauteed the snap peas for a few minutes. This dish is so flexible you could really do anything you want.

Flour-less Brownies with a Secret Ingredient!

This cold snowy day has been a great day for lighting a fire, reading, and baking brownies. Not just any brownies mind you. Brownies that are lower in calories and made with a "secret" ingredient. I put that in quotes cause it's really not much of a secret. I have heard about this recipe many times but I never believed that this specific ingredient could taste like brownies. Oh man was I wrong.

Lemon-Pistachio Chicken

I really enjoy productive days off. Today I checked a few things off my list, as well as a few others that I wasn't expecting. Good thing I did everything early and now I can relax for the rest of the day. Pretty sure I'm going to cut this post short so I can go have a beer and wait for dinner to cook itself in the crock pot (to be posted soon).
:)

This recipe is great as a light lemony dinner. If you love lemon, and I mean LOVE, then you will enjoy this. It's very "airy" and summery. When it starts getting warm outside I promise to make this again, because this is definitely for one of those nights where it still above 90 and you just want to cool off. Yum!

Hominy & Jalapeno Chicken Soup

When it's below 10 outside you know it's time for some soup. Especially if you plan on staying inside to watch the 2014 Winter Olympics. Every night we just turned on whatever event is playing. The event we like the most is curling. Unfortunately it seems to be the only event that plays in the middle of the night where we live. As long as we wake up at 3 am we can watch it. Probably won't happen as much as we want. :) 

This is a fantastic flavorful Mexican style soup. It's great because you can really dial the spice up or down, depending on how you like it. The original recipe called for the peppers to be seeded, but I know in this household we want to be breathing fire! So I decided to leave in the seeds, as well as adding a little more chili powder. For us it still wasn't as spicy as we like, so my husband ended up adding a little hot sauce to his third helping. Pretty sure after his third bowl I knew this dish got a double thumbs up. Along with being tasteful, this recipe was also very easy. It requires time, but most of that time doesn't require any action. So if you want a simple but exotic dish, here you go! 

Barbecue Turkey Sloppy Joes

This has been one crazy week. So much going on with work and home. Especially when we were sitting with a high in the single digits for a couple days in a row. Not much fun let me tell you. When you step outside and your face instantly stings...nope. No thank you. Good thing there is such a thing as comfort food. 

If you want sloppy, cozy, finger licking, saucy deliciousness then makes this. Sloppy joes are a staple in any household I believe. I remember eating sloppy joes when I was a kid and getting that filling all over my hands. Aw, the time when it was socially acceptable to be messy. Now we are adults and have to actually clean ourselves. Oops, off topic. Anyways. I love barbecue sauce on pretty much anything. With this recipe you could get any flavor barbecue sauce every time you make it and it would be like a brand new recipe. I only had original in my pantry this time, but I usually go for the sweet and spicy kind. After working around the warm cozy sandwich you still have all that fell out on to your plate. It's like seconds. :)