Brownies with Marshmallows on Top

Brownies with marshmallows on top are one of the easiest ways to turn any brownie — homemade or a box mix — into something bakery-worthy. 

This marshmallow topping trick takes just two extra ingredients and about 2 minutes of extra oven time, and it works no matter what brownie recipe you're starting with.

The best part: the marshmallow layer stays soft and gooey even after the brownies cool completely, so you're not stuck eating them warm to get that melty texture.

Here's exactly how it works, plus how we like to make it with a simple box mix.

Easter Scripture Scavenger Hunt & French Toast Bake

My kids are pretty excited to bake together, but add a scavenger hunt to search for the ingredients list? Well, they're going to love this! :) Colette from My Computer is my Canvas created this adorable printable Easter scavenger hunt to go with her Easter French Toast Bake recipe (free printable recipe card coming up!).




This cute printable scavenger hunt will send your kids into the scriptures to uncover the list of ingredients for the recipe (which you will have a cute recipe card for, with complete instructions and list of ingredients- just don't tell your kids before they complete their hunt! ;).

Polka Dot Rainbow Cake

Here are some helpful tips and tricks for constructing a polka dot rainbow cake, decorated on the outside with the petal cake style.  
In this post, I'll focus on tips & tricks for execution rather than sharing a full recipe. Since you can find recipes for both of these types of cakes online already, I've linked to some recipes at the end of this post. 
For Talia's 8th birthday party, she wanted a polka dot birthday party. I knew that I wanted to make a cake surprise for her with a rainbow polka dot cake. I wasn't sure how I would decorate it on the outside until I came across what is called a petal cake which is the technique I used to frost the exterior- I love the effect!

Rainbow Polka Dot Cake

How to Make a Polka Dot Cake

I used store bought cream cheese frosting for between the layers and a crumb coat (because I was worried that I would run out of the homemade cream cheese frosting that I used for the rainbow part). 

Rainbow Grilled Cheese

A couple years ago, for St. Patrick's Day we made rainbow grilled cheese and I thought it was such a fun idea that could be used any time you want to make lunch more fun!  I had a few people ask how to make it, so I put the instructions here.

Rainbow Grilled Cheese Recipe

All you need to create this colourful meal is bread, butter, white cheese, and food colouring.

Start by grating your cheese (we used havarti mixed with mozarella) and separate into four bowls.  This article recommends some of the best cheeses for melting and getting a stringy effect- which is a big bonus for rainbow grilled cheese sandwiches!

Homemade Candy Cane Marshmallows

I first published this post about how to make candy cane marshmallows years ago, but I wanted to share it this month because it's SUCH a delicious recipe! It makes some mess and takes some effort because making marshmallows is kind of an unusual thing for most of us, but you can totally do it and they are SO soft and delicious and your kids will never forget making these with you! :)  

So, if you've got the time to devote to the making & the clean-up, this just might be the perfect thing to put on your Christmastime bucket list!

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This post was sponsored by Wayfair

Whether they've been working hard outside shoveling the driveway, building a snow fort, making snow angels or just hiking home from the school bus stop, my kids love to come inside and warm up with a nice cup of hot chocolate. We decided to make it more fun during their winter holidays last week and make our own marshmallows! I have always loved adding candy cane to hot chocolate (there's just something so good about that hint of mint mixed in!),  so we tried coating our freshly made marshmallows in a mix of icing sugar and crushed candy cane and the result was fabulous!

I'm going to share the recipe with you because I made some alterations to the original marshmallow recipe I shared on the blog 4 years ago. That recipe was great but it made a TON of marshmallows. Today's recipe makes a smaller batch so it's just right if you're making them just for your own family.

Rainbow Cookies

This rainbow cookies post became very popular so I created a recipe tutorial with pictures of how to make these cookies if you would like to check it out and try making them yourself!

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In honour of St. Patrick's Day one year, we made some fabulous rainbow cookies! :)

Rainbow Cookies

Soft Sour Cream Cookies

Soft Sour Cream Cookies... yep, the secret to those soft sugar cookies you can get in store bakeries is sour cream!  Did you know this?  

Well I'm about to share the recipe, so you can give it a try yourself! ;)  Aren't these snowflake cookies adorable?

I originally shared this post on the blog a few years ago, but I thought it was time to bring these sour cream sugar cookies to the forefront again. Just yesterday, the girls were requesting that we make some for Christmas. :)


I'm using Gay Lea's Premium Sour Cream (which is their thickest, richest sour cream made with 3 simple ingredients.  It's amazing with chips (if you're like me ;) or to use to make a flavoured dip, and it's awesome in baking!  This sour cream is only available in Ontario and only in the 425ml size.

Now, let me share this recipe with you!

Easy Rainbow Cake! (with cake mix & frosting!)

You don't need any fancy baking skills or experience to make an easy rainbow cake using cake mix- the quick and simple version of  the infamous rainbow cake that Kaitlin from Whisk Kid created and blogged about, then shared on the Martha Stewart show!
(This photo is of my version)

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Frozen Hot Chocolate Recipe

Have you ever tried making frozen hot chocolate?

We shared this recipe way back in 2015 and I thought it was time to share it again!

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Summer Holidays are officially here & we are HAPPY about it!!! :) This morning I told the girls that I wanted to make a special treat with them today at snack time and right away they started guessing. One of their first guesses was hot chocolate! It's funny because they will often ask for it, even when it's hot out. So, when that guess came up, I said, "Nope! It's too hot out for that! But we're going to make FROZEN hot chocolate!" and that prompted some wide-eyed faces!

I am SO glad that we decided to give this a try because my goodness, it was good!!! I have seen a few variations of this around the internet and after reading a few different recipes, I made a few little changes and combinations from different recipes and here's what we came up with:

How to Make Your Own Rimming Sugar

I've always thought it would be fun to make our own rimming sugar when we want to have a special drink. When the girls decided they wanted to have Disney Frozen themed birthday parties I thought it would be fun to have a blue drink and rim the glasses with sugar for an icy look. Around that same time we were putting together a gift for my mother-in-law who loves Piña Coladas and Strawberry Daiquiris, so we set out to figure out how to make our own coloured and flavoured rimming sugar as well!

Rimming Sugar Recipe

What kind of sugar do you use to rim a glass?

To Make Regular White Rimming Sugar, all you really need is white sugar and a citrus fruit!

To Make Flavoured, Coloured Rimming Sugar, here's what you'll need:

Cheesy Tortilla Chip After School Snack

We're a couple of weeks into school now and like every year, I find myself searching for ways to fit quality time in with my kids during the busy time between getting home from school and going to bed for the night. We're so busy with the necessary chores, homework, and running around that I'm finding the best way to fit quality time in, is to slide right up next to them while they're busy with something on their list of things to do. One thing on our list is after school snack time, and it makes things run more smoothly if I can have a snack prepared for them when they walk through the door!  This seemed like a good time to re-share this blog post from a few years ago, with an easy snack idea that everyone in our family likes. All you need are 4 ingredients and a microwave!

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My family is made up of cheese-monsters! We all love a good cheesy snack or meal.  Last month I shared a favourite after school snack from my childhood (these chocolate chip cookies) that could be made ahead and frozen. This month I want to share another after school snack from my childhood. This one is really quick and easy to prepare right before you eat it!

We made this snack with Ivanhoe's high quality aged cheddar cheese and it was delicious! 

Here's what you'll need:

- Tortilla Chips (or Crackers)
- Shredded Ivanhoe Old Cheese
- Sour Cream (we used the extra thick Gay Lea Gold Sour Cream)
- Salsa

And the preparation is ridiculously easy:

Turkey Lentil Ragu Recipe & $75 Visa Gift Card Giveaway!

Back-to-School time somehow manages to creep up on me and surprise me every year! I'm only a few days away from the first day of school and my mind is buzzing with thoughts of what to pack for school lunches, what to cook for easy family dinners, what to send in their new backpacks to put in their new desks, how to create the ideal routines, and the list goes on and on! It's easy to spend a lot of money preparing for our kids to go back to school so Canadian Turkey and Lentils.org want to give one of you $75 to put toward those costs!

They've also given me a great recipe to share with you, so while we may have long lists of things to get in order this time of year, at least we can get our lists of easy, inexpensive, healthy meals started!

The ideal dinners during the school year are the ones you can easily turn into leftovers for a quick lunch or another dinner later in the week!

Will It Blend? Blendtec vs. Regular Blender

Our whole family loves homemade smoothies. The kids know that I sometimes add spinach or oats or seeds to the smoothies and they don't mind because they know it won't change the great taste! Something that had bothered me for a while though was that I just couldn't seem to get the spinach blended enough that it wouldn't change the texture of the smoothie.  I would also have chunks of fruit in my smoothies that wouldn't blend and had a very difficult time trying to blend ice. On top of all that, the process of taking apart and cleaning the blender after each use sometimes dissuaded me from using it!

Near the end of last year I started to research blenders. I have a sister-in-law who owns a Blendtec and loves it, so I wanted to look into them as well as a few others. I am careful about how much money I spend - I don't mind spending money on something I need or on a superior product that will last, but I don't want to spend more for a brand name if another product might do the same job!

After all of my research, I just kept coming back to the Blendtec. All of the reviews I had read and watched showed that its performance couldn't be surpassed! Before I heard of Blendtec, I didn't even know that you could have smoothies blended (at home) better than I had been experiencing! I also love that the blades aren't sharp so I don't have to worry that my kids (or I) could get cut by them. That being said, the Blendtec is so simple to clean that my hand hardly ever comes near the blades (keep reading to see why)!

By the time I finished all of my blender research, you can imagine how excited I was to actually put one of Blendtec's blenders to the test against my old blender! The blender used in the comparisons below is the Blendtec Designer 625 blender in Sea Foam (compared with a typical $40-50 blender).

Comparison #1 - Smoothie with Spinach & Frozen Berries

Raspberry Ruffle Recipe

The Raspberry Ruffle dessert is a cherished tradition among my husband's family. It's an often-requested treat at family gatherings, by both immediate and extended family and it's my mother-in-law's specialty! Today I'm going to share this special family recipe with you and I'm very confident that you will love it just as much as our family does.

You'll need the following Ingredients:

1 Angel Food Cake
2 3oz. packages of Raspberry Jell-o (the small, 4-serving size)
At least 2 cups of frozen Raspberries (more is better! :)
1 Medium Carton of Whipping Cream
White Sugar
Fresh Raspberries & Mint Leaves for garnish (if desired)
3 Mixing Bowls
A Trifle Bowl (or other serving dish)

10 Delicious Valentine Treats

There were so many delicious-looking Valentine Treat Recipes shared in January's Sharing Time Link Party, so I had to do a roundup of some of my favourites!  Some of these I have tried before, and some of them I am dying to try!  I had a cream cheese mint at an event a little while ago and I'm so excited to see a recipe to make them!

Here are links to all 10 of these mouth-watering treats!

A Year of Delicious Recipes with Gay Lea!

I spent a year posting recipes on this blog for Gay Lea foods and looking back on the year, there are a lot of great recipes, some of which have been among the most popular posts on this blog in 2015!

Here's a look at all those 12 posts and some of your favourite recipes from this blog over the year!

Chocolate Chip Cookies from My Childhood

These are my childhood cookies! Here's simple recipe & tutorial for chocolate chip cookies that you can freeze for later!

With school around the corner, I've been thinking about how I will try and organize school lunches and other meals. I've been pinning ideas of meals and snacks that can be made ahead and frozen for future use.  I haven't done much with freezer meals in the past, but I think it would help a lot if I could get ahead on some of these things!

The first thing I decided to make was chocolate chip cookies. This is the one recipe I remember helping with most when I was a child and we always used the same recipe from my mom's cookbook. Over the years, my sister Amber got really into making them and made some adjustments to the recipe to perfect it to our liking.

So today, I give you: Chocolate Chip Cookies from my Childhood! :)

We usually double the recipe, so the recipe I'm sharing with you will make approximately 5 dozen cookies (perfect for freezing!)  I made these today and we kept one dozen out and I froze 4 dozen.

Here's what you'll need:

A Summer Brunch Party

Earlier this week, my girls and I hosted a brunch party with some of their friends (and their moms). It was such a fun opportunity to get everyone together during the summer! We had fun planning it and choosing some delicious little breakfast items to serve.

The stars of the party were definitely these parfaits!

Fruit & Yogurt Parfaits 

Layer ingredients (below) in whatever portions and order you desire! 

Yogurt (we used vanilla) Fresh berries (we used raspberries, blueberries, & cut strawberries)Granola (we used Jordans Morning Crisp- details below)

We also served little sandwich roll-ups (shown on the top plate in the photo below).  These were very easy to make and looked really fancy to the kids at the party.

How to "Bake" Potatoes on the BBQ!

We have had so much fun so far this summer, and one of the most fun things we've done was to go to a Cabin for a few days last week!  I'll share more about that, but today I want to share one of the meals that we made while we were there- it was a big hit!  We had a barbecue to use next to our cabin, so we planned some BBQ meals and one that we were excited about was to try BBQ Baked Potatoes!

This meal was SO delicious & I loved the toppings we used!

Blueberry Cheesecake Smoothie Recipe

I have some bad habits when it comes to diet and exercise. I tend to eat a lot of junk food and not a lot of healthy food. As for exercise... well, the bad habit there is that I don't. So, at the start of this month I decided to really work on improving those things. I've been making an effort to go for walks, to try and ease myself into exercising more. I've also been trying to eat more fruits, vegetables, and healthy things (hopefully, to try and avoid eating as much junk!).

One of my favourite ways to get healthy foods in is to make smoothies. This month, I was looking for healthy ways to use cottage cheese into healthy snacks and I came across this idea to use it to make "Cheesecake Smoothies". I LOVE cheesecake, so I thought this would be a GREAT smoothie to try! I did some research into different cheesecake smoothie recipes and came up with my own version that I like.

So, today I wanted to share my favourite version of this recipe that I've come up with so far.