A hint of sweetness with tons of crunch, caramelized almonds are a deliciously nutty and easy salad topping.

Caramelized Almonds

Salad toppings range from savory to sweet for me. While corn chips are my go-to for a savory salad, caramelized or glazed nuts are perfect for lighter salads.

Especially those with fruits paired with a light vinaigrette, like this Orange Parsley Salad. (If you haven’t tried that one yet, put it on your list to make soon. It’s been a huge hit with everyone who has tried it.)

Do you know what often makes the difference between an everyday salad and the fancier salads that we are willing to pay for in restaurants? A couple of minutes in the skillet and a spoonful of sugar.

That is all that is required to transform a handful of plain sliced almonds into a slightly sweet and crunchy topping perfect for any salad!

Candied Almonds for Salad

It never fails to make me grin when I serve a salad and the first question I hear is, “where did you get these nuts?” These almonds taste better than any salad toppings you can buy in a store and they cost a whole lot less as well.

Yes, you can buy sweetly glazed nuts in the store but trust me when I say they take just minutes. Bonus it makes your house smell amazing as well. Like you spent hours preparing dinner.

Just a few minutes is all it takes to make your salad extra special.

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Buffalo Chicken Wings

These Buffalo Chicken Wings are the ultimate wings recipe. Every man, woman and child will be begging to know your secret to making them so crispy and flavorful!

I am officially on team buffalo wings. Everyone says to use a few teaspoons of baking powder before baking, but I beg to differ…

TABLESPOONS PEOPLE!!

I also decided that if I like wings on the Traeger and hate them in the oven, I’d just cook them in the oven like I do on the Traeger, and boom!! I can’t stop eating wings now!

These chicken wings are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. They are coated in a spicy buffalo sauce that is finger lickin’ good…if you know what I’m sayin’!

Ingredients for Buffalo Wings

I’ll divide this grocery list into two parts – the ingredients you need for the wings themselves and what you will need for the sauce. Here is your list:

Chicken Wings

• Party Wings
• Baking Powder
• Paprika
• Salt

Sauce

• Franks Original Red Hot Sauce
• Butter
• White Vinegar
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Dark Brown Sugar
• Cornstarch
• Water
• Blue Cheese Dressing
• Celery

The measurements for each ingredient can be found in the recipe card at the end of this post.

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Halloween Peanut Butter Blondies

Peanut butter blondies that are loaded with Reese’s pieces, peanut butter chips, chocolate chips and Oreos. Yes, you read that correctly! These are fully loaded!

I have refused to post Halloween desserts for years. I am not creative, and I don’t do cute. And I mostly am not at all artistic. Halloween kinda needs all of that. But lately I’ve been all about the mixups of ingredients and I couldn’t help but wonder, could a cute Halloween treat be made just by throwing a lot of goodies into blonde brownies?

Ahhh but there’s the issue, blonde brownies are kind of the worst lately. I think there are far too many recipes out there and the majority are dry. I hate that! Sink-your-teeth-into-them blonde brownies is how they should be. So, until I’m ready to post our favorite blonde brownies I thought I’d start with a peanut butter version. It took many attempts, but these are the best blonde brownies I’ve had and bonus that they not only are peanut butter blonde brownies but they are loaded with Reese’s Pieces, peanut butter chips (my personal favorite part), chocolate chips and Oreos!

On top look for Halloween sprinkles that will pop. I went for a version with purple and green in them so that it was extra colorful and fun. 

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Welcome to the weekend, friends! Are you as excited as I am about FALL??? It might as well be my personal Disneyland outdoors right now. I can’t stop gawking as I drive through our streets. I’ve been detouring down side streets everywhere I go lately.

ON THE BLOG this week: Sourdough stuffing filled with sweetly tart apples, chewy sweet cranberries, savory sausage, plenty of herbs, and cubes of toasted sourdough is a sure win for your holiday dinner.

Corn Pudding is beloved throughout my family. I grew up eating my mom’s corn pudding for every holiday and plenty of Sunday dinners in between. My siblings and I have been known to sneak the leftover corn casserole out of my mom’s house and I’ll even admit to “accidentally” bringing home my sister’s share of the leftovers (along with mine) once upon a time.

When I first came across this recipe named, “I Want to Marry You Cookies.” I laughed, the name reminded me of “Marry Me Chicken”. We’ve been calling these “Marry Me Cookies” for years now. This is NOT your average chocolate chip cookie. They are hands down the best Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies.

Boiled Baby Red Potatoes are beyond easy and simple to make. Served with an easy slow cooker roast beef and these roasted green beans, this is a company-worthy meal that only requires a few minutes hands-on effort.

This is a sweet and spicy homemade bbq sauce with just enough heat to linger in your mouth. I’ve been slathering this sauce on darn near everything in my kitchen for a few weeks now!

What I’m CRAVING: My friend Meseidy’s almond crusted french toast filled with peanut butter, banana and honey is one of the best looking, best tasting, French toast breakfasts you can make. (I made this years ago, and I just put it on our Sunday brunch meal plan.) If you like sweet, crunchy and gooey you’re going to absolutely love this french toast.

My FAVORITE THING this week is my new colander. I know, I know. It’s a colander. What could be so great? Actually a lot! I have been using a cheap little $3 colander for years and it finally bit the dust. So I fell into my usual “read way too many reviews” and “overthink all the things before just buying what you need” kind of shopping.

I stumbled on this OXO colander and oh my word. Over a thousand 5-star reviews wer

This is a sweet and spicy homemade bbq sauce with just enough heat to linger in your mouth. I’ve been slathering this sauce on darn near everything in my kitchen for a few weeks now!

Sweet and Spicy BBQ Sauce

This barbecue sauce is tangy and sweet, it’s perfect on chicken, as a dipping sauce for potato wedges, with steak bites, and mixed into ranch dressing for a spicy kick.

Best of all, not only can you pronounce all the ingredients, but you can whip it together in your own kitchen in less time than it would take to check out at the grocery store.

As you know, I love a great homemade barbecue sauce, so whenever I find a new one to try and it’s a winner, I have to share it with you.

This barbecue sauce is lightly adapted from Half-Baked Harvest’s Sweet Baby Ray’s Copycat Recipe. And I’ve been told by many that this Sweet and Spicy Homemade Barbecue Sauce tastes just like Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce.

However, in all fairness to Sweet Baby Ray, I think this sauce blows the store-bought version away.

I actually went out and bought a bottle of the original sauce, just to compare the flavors. The store-bought sauce was really tasty, but the flavors here are deeper and I prefer them. (Of course, I can’t think of many instances where a homemade version won’t trump store-bought!)

Ketchup is, of course, the base but the combination of brown sugar, molasses, and apple cider vinegar really brings the sweet to this sauce. Hungarian paprika, known to be sweet and mild adds depth without being overly sweet.

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