Boozy Choco-Nut Banana Cake with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

When it comes to Valentine's Day, you might as well call me Scrooge.  It's my absolute least favorite holiday of the year.  No matter where you go or what you do, it's practically impossible to escape the overabundance of hearts, sugary sweets and bright pinky red...which is like salt in the wound for this med student wife.  For his first three years the hubs was a medical underling, spending the day either cramming for giant exams or working the night shift.  But this year things are completely different.  No night shifts, no traveling for residency interviews and no large tests on the horizon.  Instead, the hubs and I are celebrating Valentine's on the actual day for the first time...ever.  We're going all out this year with cards, flowers and a heart-shaped cake.  But don't let the shape of that cake fool you.  Stuffed with peanut butter, bananas, chocolate chips and hint of whiskey, this is about as far from a pink fluffy dessert as you can get.

Birthday Week! Red Wine Risotto & Peanut Butter Pup Cake

The first week in June is very important in our household.  After Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's the most anticipated week of the year.  It's Birthday Week!  On the first we celebrate our pups, while the fifth is devoted to the hubs.  I love this week....probably more than my own birthday.  I get to bake both dog and people treats to share with the two most important little creatures in my life.  So it's only fitting that I take a post to stop and reminisce in this year's celebrations.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Treats

Every foodie loves a well stocked pantry.  Filled with packaged of dried beans, cans of tomatoes, cartons of broth and bags of bite-sized candies, it's a perfect little hidey-hole of tasty tidbits.  But as is the case with any hole, there's a dark little corner in the end that is rarely explored.  It goes undiscovered until you pull out calcified honey bears, half eaten bags of chips and melted chocolate chip blocks.  You've all been there....pulling out an item and thinking, "When did I even buy this?"  In my pantry, the two biggest culprits are pretzel sticks and mini marshmallows.  They have a tendency to flock to the corners and lurk for months before finally revealing their stale, pulverized remnants.  And I can never throw anything out.....ever.  So to battle my way back to a clean pantry, I've created several treats of pretzel and marshmallow for the hubs eating pleasure.

Shenanigan's Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Shenanigans:  mischief, antics, fooling around or frolicksomeness (my personal favorite).  As in this pie is utterly shenanigans.  The thought of eating is enough to send one into a total fit of tom-foolery.  And I have been waiting for months to bring this pie to you.  Shenanigans is the name of the pie as it is the culinary triumph of the classic restaurant, C.I. Shenanigan's (insert Super Troopers joke here).  If you've ever bitten into a peanut butter cup and thought, "Huh...could be better" this pie is for you.