In a Baking Frenzy For My 1 Year Anniversary!

Today is my blog anniversary! One year ago, Brandon set up a blogger account for us to share our cooking adventures with friends and family. Our first post documented our favorite spicy Thai chicken dish and a fruit cobbler. It was a slow first six months, with sporadic posts, but when I took over 6 months later it really took off. I'm so happy with how far it has come. I loooooove all you readers and appreciate your loyalty!

In the past year I:

• celebrated my 25th birthday
• had a partially nude Greek yogurt tasting
• pretended to like Clemson football
• dressed up like a Mexican
• fell in love with a Greek soup
• went to Italy!
• made the best cookies ever
• ran my second 5k
• remade the Thai dish and had a nasty knee injury
• discovered my favorite peanut butter (the best!)
• had a blogger brunch and a blogger dinner

Thank you sooooo much to all of you that have been or recently become readers! I appreciate each and every comment so much!! I'm glad you guys have found me and hope you continue to follow my future shenanigans!

To celebrate my anny, I went on a cupcake baking mission. I had a surplus of two things in my refrigerator: strawberries and ricotta. Yes, these two delicious items could be incorporated to make Strawberry Ricotta Cupcakes. I'm a huge fan of Joy the Baker's blog because she whips up some delicious looking treats. Her recipe for Strawberry Ricotta cupcakes caught my eye so I gave it a try.

The batter that my roomie and I were lovin' probably more than the actual cupcakes:

 

Ready to go in the oven after I ate half the batter:

Before being topped with home made (!!) icing:

Images from a crime scene aka my kitchen:

Pretty little cupcakes!

The cupcakes were extremely delicate and fell apart...right into my mouth. They were almost as light and airy as angel food cake but had a rich flavor from the ricotta. They were definitely a nice change from your typical dense cupcake.

And the baking doesn't stop there. Another lover of all things cooking and baking is my friend Allison from Pennsylvania. Allison has two blogs: One Day at a Time where she cooks and bakes freely with no recipes and The Sunday Flog that features her huge, delicious family dinners. A couple weeks ago, I won her giveaway for two dozen cookies of my choice -- home made by Allison! I was so excited to get my package in the mail, but even more excited when I saw what she made me.

S'mores cookies!

My fruit bowl turned into a cookie bowl:

My "initials" cookies in my favorite color.  (Somebody shortened Xtina to X and my last name starts with an O):

Go ahead and check out Allison's blogs. She's fairly new to the blogosphere and I think you guys would love the treats she makes. She has some really great recipes and maybe soon she'll do another cookie giveaway! :)

Happy Monday! 

XO