Salted caramel no-bake cookies

Why, yes, spoon-with-the-most-delicious-cookie-ever-stuck-to-you, I will be happy to clean you off.



Thanks to my sweet friend Jackie for passing the word on about this amazing salted caramel no-bake cookie recipe from Biblical Homemaking, I may never make another cookie recipe again ever. 

This one is so easy (20 minutes until eating time and you always have all the ingredients on hand), has virtually no cleanup (just one pot!), requires no oven (perfect for summer), and is TOTALLY ADDICTING (I seriously considered licking the wax paper.)

Go make them now!

The best breakfast in Salt Lake City: The Park Cafe

How have I never written about breakfast at The Park Cafe?



This was one of the first restaurants I ever visited in Salt Lake - it was before Hubs and I moved here, when we were visiting some friends for Thanksgiving 2010. We came really early on a Saturday morning (I think at like 7am) so we could get a table. It made it feel like a secret club - and I am a sucker for secret breakfast clubs (remember Snug's in L.A.?)

What can I say about The Park Cafe?

It's just...amazing.

Some of my favorite things:

They have the most delicious homemade strawberry jam. Don't get distracted by the generic peel-off-top "fam" (fake jam) in the little packets! The good stuff is right on the tables in little jars.

The chai tea latte is heaven.

Almost all the breakfasts come with "park potatoes", which are half-diced/half-smashed real potatoes all crunchy and flavorful from the grill. Yum!

Keep an eye on the daily specials - they usually have some kind of really good Mexican breakfast on special (although when I came the other day for lunch, it was country fried steak - equally delicious. See photo above.) Though all the omelets are great, and the Michigan Hash is not to be missed, I practically always get the special - so good! And it usually comes with homemade black refried beans.

It's one of the few trendy breakfast places in SLC that still is affordable for breakfast. (I mean, seriously, people, eggs are cheap! Don't overcharge us!)

Check out the t-shirts and mugs for sale - they look like a skull face, but with eggs for eyes and bacon for a mouth. Adorable/so cool.

Portion sizes are huge, breakfast is served all day, coffee refills are bottomless, and if there's a line when you get there (expect one if you come on the weekends for breakfast) you can grab a mug and hot coffee from the table by the door while you're waiting.

Love The Park Cafe!

Their website is not very spectacular but it has the menu on it with (I think updated) prices.

Nordstrom Cafe Bistro's classy lunch

Had the most amazing day two weeks ago. It included a very dear friend who had the day off of work, an amazingly well-behaved baby, and Nordstrom's Cafe Bistro.

Very rarely do the little babe and I get the chance to meet up with a friend during the week for lunch for a number of reasons: friends work during the week, Little One is having a crazy morning and I won't shower until late afternoon, and/or Hubs and I are really cheap thrifty and don't usually eat out except on special occasions.

Also, blame my California-spoiled foodie background, but I just haven't found a whole lot of great places for lunch and dinner around here. There are some very tasty chain restaurants (Cafe Rio, to name a favorite), and some wonderful breakfast places (Park Cafe all the way), but in my opinion, eating out for lunch or dinner should be a little bit more special, especially when you're paying at least $10 no matter where you go.

Ladies and gentlemen: meet Nordstrom's Cafe Bistro.



The restaurant in Salt Lake's Fashion Place mall was lovely! It's tucked back on the second floor behind the juniors clothing, so you get to walk through the classy store and feel all classy-like on the way to the cafe. There are white cloth napkins, a clear glass divider so you can watch the chefs in the kitchen, and plenty of cozy seating either in booths, tables, or at the bar at the front. Guests order at a counter - more casual and easy to split tabs - and then are seated by the hostess and attended to by a server like a traditional restaurant. We had wonderful service - not too chatty but very attentive.

I ordered the Mojo roasted pork sandwich. Monterey jack cheese, cilantro and pickled onions, with warm red mole sauce, an elegant tower of ultra-crispy shoestring fries with, arguably the best thing in the whole restaurant (at least according to Yelp's reviews), kalamata olive dipping sauce. It was some of the best food I've had since moving to Salt Lake City from Los Angeles. I am already thinking of who I can take there so I can eat there again.

They serve breakfast all day (my friend ordered an omelet that looked delicious and came with fresh fruit) and the portions of everything we saw looked very generous (I took half my sandwich home). Lunch runs between $10.50-$17.25, with some interesting salad options like lentil salad with kale and beet chips ($9.95), and heftier entrees like wild shrimp and grits with gouda cheese and andouille sausage ($15.95) and pan-seared salmon with gazpacho salsa ($17.25).

Here's the rest of the Fashion Place Mall Nordstrom Cafe Bistro menu (may vary by location).

Babies and springtime

Well, it is springtime around these parts in Salt Lake, and we couldn't be more pleased to introduce our newest little nosher:

Our sweet little one! Now two months old.

There is so much new to share about the notable things going on that we can't possibly waste time with complete sentences, so here goes:

Bought an ugly house last summer and fixed it up all pretty (though still a major work in progress).
Went through a major nesting phase.
Learned a lot about patience (i.e. you can't do all the projects on the house you want to do all at once unless you have a billion dollars.)

Found some tasty eateries in Salt Lake like Roots Cafe and its tasty brunch.

Went through a period where I didn't eat any vegetables. None. Sometimes I'd try to trick myself and cut them up really tiny - and then I'd pick them all out. (So weird that such a healthy, wonderful thing can cause so much nausea...)
Found Stella Grill. Hubs claimed it was the "best food [he's] had since moving to Salt Lake." It is pretty wonderful.
Craved only fast food.
Began to hate fast food.

Found cobwebs on my pre-pregnancy clothes during the preggo stage.

Oh yeah, had a baby!

Love that little one.

Took that little peanut on her first trip to southern Utah for camping, hiking and sunbathing.
Nursed her on the trail multiple times. Felt really hardcore.
A friend introduced me to the most amazing protein balls - sweet little bites of delicious that are perfect for when you need to grab a bite of protein quick (essential for nursing.) My version: Add chocolate chips, omit the raisins, add nutritional yeast, and roll in chia seeds.
Started a garden in our beautiful new raised beds in the backyard. Can't wait to try new recipes with that bounty!

You can't really tell from this photo but our little yard has come a long way since we bought it! It's almost beautiful now, really.
Blessed to be able to end working outside the home so I can stay at home full-time with our little one. Doing a lot more photography and web design work, and loving it.
Also doing tons of laundry and feeding and diaper changing.
Hubs built a fire pit in our backyard and we've enjoyed a lot of campfires around it already.
Trying to figure out this parenting thing. (What do all the cries mean? And how do I know what to do when she cries?)
Learning to have grace with myself and allow God's grace in when I feel like I've totally failed. Such a difficult transition.
But trying to love and enjoy it all - even the endless dirty diapers and the no-sleep nights and the grumpiness that ensues from those. We are so thankful for our little bean!

Nosh Report: Summer means grilled pizza, grilled everything

The other day I had a craving for grilled pizza.



We felt a little of the laziness of summer and didn't want to make pizza dough, so we used whole wheat tortillas from the fridge instead.

All of the ingredients were already in our fridge - it was awesome. Capers, salami, yellow squash, feta cheese, fresh spinach. Delicious and super fast for hungry eaters.



On Memorial Day weekend we got rained out of a backpacking trip, so we went to a friend's parent's place and ate spaghetti with slow-cooker meat sauce, her award-winning homemade rolls and scrumptious homemade boysenberry and cherry pie instead. Look at these things!!



We ate pie for dessert, then breakfast the next day, and lunch after that. We couldn't get enough. :)

And the first weekend of June, it was a double birthday - for me and our friend Alese. We drove up to Deer Creek Reservoir, near Heber, and grilled burgers and ate fresh watermelon out by the lake under the snow-topped mountains. It was amazing.



Summer is so much fun.

What are your summer plans?
Share them in the comments below - we'd love to hear from you.