A Side of Sweet

Christmas in Photos – Food {Family}

Because I’ve been traveling, I’ve been deprived of time in the kitchen. Pat’s family has a beautiful kitchen and I spent most of Christmas Eve making as many things as I could. I made some delicious Cooks Illustrated banana bread. The secret to this amazing bread is microwaving the bananas before adding them – so good!

Christmas dinner was also almost entirely Cooks Illustrated recipes. I made butternut squash soup, pear and blue cheese salad, balsamic glazed asparagus, cheese biscuits and my favorite blueberry pie!

I also made some Cooks Illustrated cookie dough (are you seeing a theme here?) and decorated them with Pat’s sisters.

Pat got a much-needed haircut and then we worked on finishing up the napkins I’ve been making for the wedding. I think I want to create a stamp to personalize them, but I haven’t come up with a design yet. Any ideas?

Christmas in Photos – Opening Gifts {Family}

Kelly & Pat | Running Blonde

Best DIYs & Recipes of 2012

This year, my little travel blog grew into a place where I shared more than just photos of my adventures. Given that interviewing for residency took me to Portland, Denver, San Francisco, and Stanford, there were plenty of photos, but I was also able to share some of my favorite recipes and DIY projects. Literally thousands of people from all of the world stopped by to check out my humble ramblings.

2013 will be full of changes and adventures for Pat and I. We are getting married in May, just a week after I graduate from medical school. I’ll be starting my first real job, as a pediatric resident. Hopefully that will mean we’ll be moving to a new city, after almost a decade of being in Madison. I also have two big trips coming up – six weeks working with Tibetan refugees in India and three weeks in Morocco for our honeymoon! All of that in just the first six months of 2013!

Thank you again for reading A. Here are the top 10 most visited projects of 2012:

10. Embossed Envelopes

9. Dip Dye Ombre Skirt

8. Greek Yogurt Apple Dip

7. Gilded Plates

6. Black Bean Lettuce Wraps

5. Easy-Peasy Punch Dot Cards

4. Skillet Vegetarian Lasagna

3. Halloween Deviled Eggs

2. Easy Watercolor Cards

1. Fresh Fruit Tartlets

Happy New Year to you and your loved ones!

Christmas in Photos {Family}

Maple Hot Cocoa Mix Recipe + Free Labels

Vegetarian

First, Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones from Pat and I! It’s been a wonderful year for us and we are looking forward to getting married in 2013!

I love making presents for the holidays. I made homemade marshmallows for our engagement photo shoot and loved them so much that I thought they would make great presents for our family and friends. I’m surprised by the amount of people I’ve talked to who are amazed that you can make marshmallows from scratch. The ones I made for our photos are cardamom flavored. I promise I’ll post the recipe!… Read More »

Weekend in Portland, Part 2

Heath and I started out our morning with brunch at Tasty and Sons. It was a-mazing. I had house made kimchi with stewed veggies over brown rice. Soo good! Heath had biscuits and gravy.

Weekend in Portland - Brunch at Tasty & Sons

We also had some beautifully-made drinks – a Bloody Mary for Health and something figgy and fizzy for myself.

To give me a peek at her background, my other host, Anesa, took me to try to Bosnian food. We went to Two Brothers to eat Chevapi (little sausages) and Serbian style flat bread called lepinja. The food was delicious and very hearty. The photo below on the right is a random sighting in Portland. Sweet ride!

We finished the night with a pint of local brew at the Green Dragon Bistro and Brewpub. You really can’t experience Portland without trying one of their hundreds of microbrews!