Spicy barbecue sauce with enough heat to bite the back of your throat and just barely sweet enough to balance that heat, this is the sauce I was craving.

My family loves spicy barbecue sauces. I’ve played with a few recipes this year. I found this delicious Homemade Barbecue Sauce a few months ago and we love it. I like my barbecue sauce on the thicker side with just a little sweetness and that sauce fit the bill.

It’s become one of the standard sauces that we reach for any time a barbecue craving hits. When we want something tangier, I love this Tangy Memphis BBQ Sauce. For a fruitier sauce, everyone goes nuts for Tangy Peach Barbecue Sauce.

Still, I hadn’t quite found the spicy sauce I was looking for. I wanted something with plenty of heat!

Spicy BBQ Sauce Recipe

So, the hunt for the perfect Spicy Barbecue Sauce continued. As I experimented with different ingredients, I kept coming up ultimately dissatisfied with the end results.

Today, I decided to try again. I had a very long list of ingredients that I wanted to try this time. As I was adding things to the sauce and tasting as I went along, I suddenly realized that I had exactly what I wanted.

I stopped there and very happily asked my husband to taste the sauce. He was thrilled with it. I will be quadrupling this recipe next time I make it and freezing the extra to have for future meals.

This is a pretty spicy sauce as it is written; however, if you like more heat, feel free to increase the Tabasco and cayenne. I served this sauce over pulled pork and it was an instant hit.

This homemade barbecue sauce gets its spiciness from Tabasco sauce and cayenne pepper. Ketchup and brown sugar provide a sweet bac

Cookies and Cream Cookies

These homemade cookies and cream cookies are filled with crunchy chocolate cookie pieces and white chocolate cream that will have you coming back for more cookies every time. 

Who doesn’t love cookies and cream?!

This is a SNEAK PEAK into our new cookbook! If you haven’t purchased it yet, get your buns over to Amazon or Deseret Book and get your copy! This recipe and so many of our family favorites are in the book. You’re going to love it!

Family Bake-Off

Our family has a fun Sunday night tradition a few times a year, or every month if we are up for the challenge. We gather in the kitchen where the main recipe has been made such as pizza dough, cookie dough, etc.

How it Works

Mom has 5 random ingredients and names in a hat. 

Mom pulls a name and that person picks their ingredient. We go until everyone has chosen an ingredient and then separate to make your own creation using anything in the fridge, freezer or pantry.

In the end, we taste, try, and decide on a winner based on our new recipe creations.

It is such a fun an

Garlic Bread Chicken Parmesan Sandwich

Tender chicken parmesan sandwiches with crispy chicken, marinara sauce, melted mozzarella, and pesto all loaded on buttery garlic bread.

I know, you don’t think you need a recipe for a parmesan chicken sandwich, right? You would think that you could just stick our absolutely delicious recipe for chicken parmesan in a hoagie and all would be well, but you would be wrong. We’ve got a few secrets that are very important.

These chicken parm subs were so so yummy. If you live in Utah you may have visited a sandwich shop called, Moochies. It’s delicious, sloppy, fattening and perfect. I decided to make our own version of the chicken parmesan sub from there and oh my! It was really quite yummy.

All of the different flavors used in this sammy really come together and make what could look like just another ordinary sandwich into something worth drooling over. Fresh bread, meat sauce, delicious, melty cheese and the secrets.

Ingredients for Chicken Parm Subs

These ingredients are pretty straightforward. Maybe the only surprise will be the pesto, but we love the extra layer of flavor

Welcome to the weekend, my friends! We are celebrating this weekend as my oldest son is graduating from high school. (I’m not even going to deny that I’m cheering just as hard for us as parents as I am for our graduate.)

When we started this homeschool thing so many years ago, we figured we’d do it for a year or two and see how it goes. Ha – little did we know that we’d be schooling for the next 13+ years, and I wouldn’t change that for anything. More than anything else, it’s been a gift having the boys home with us and I’m so very excited for him to start college in the fall.

ON THE BLOG this week: Fluffy, creamy eggs layered with an abundance of bacon, cream cheese, and jalapenos add up to the Jalapeno Popper Casserole of which dreams are made. Served for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, this is a meal my whole family loves.

Fresh green beans, ginger, and garlic are quickly sauteed with tender strips of beef before being tossed in a light savory sauce to create this easy Beef and Green Bean Stir Fry.

Stir-fries are one of the easiest and most popular ways that I get dinner on the table. Tender strips of chicken, and hot, crisp vegetables are combined with an Asian-inspired sauce in this Ginger Chicken and Broccoli Stir Fry.

Crisp lettuce, sweet mango slices, and sharp red onions combine to make this a deliciously simple Mango Summer Salad. With a light and slightly spicy dressing, this salad was a hit with my family.

Banana Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing is a super moist banana cake filled with pecans and then drizzled with a creamy cinnamon cream cheese icing.

What I’m CRAVING: All the spicy foods! I stumbled on the Chili Pepper Madness website yesterday and I’m in awe of how much knowledge is here. I’ve never seen such a clear and well-organized index of all chili peppers and the recipes sound fantastic too. My hot sauce-loving oldest son is already talking about trying his hand at more homemade hot sauces this summer.

What I’m WATCHING: Old Enough. Oh my goodness, I don’t know when a show last caught my attention this way. In the best description ever, “Adult life is boring. Watch toddlers run errands on Netflix instead.”

This is a long-running (30+ years now) Japanese reality show and Netflix recently picked up one season. The episodes are just 12-15 minutes long and we watched the whole season in a couple of nights. It

Banana Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing is a super moist banana cake filled with pecans and then drizzled with a creamy cinnamon cream cheese icing.

It’s delicious, easy, and beautiful to look at to boot!

Banana Bundt Cake

Sturdy enough to slice thick or thin, this banana bundt cake is perfect with a morning cup of coffee, as an afternoon snack, or for a late-night dessert.

I was first introduced to this cake when we visited my sister Jenny for Christmas. She whipped this up one day during our stay and everyone absolutely loved it.

This recipe has been adapted from and with thanks to Taste Of Home via Cooking Classy and my sister’s kitchen.

I’ve made my fair share of banana bread and banana cakes over the years but the bundt form of this cake makes this one really something special!

When people talk about banana bread and banana cake recipes as a way to use up overripe bananas, I have trouble relating. My kids adore bananas and consume countless pounds of them each week. We rarely have any last long enough to overripen!

Typically, when I want to bake something with bananas, I have to plan ahead and hide some bananas so that they’ll have a chance to get a little brown and extra sweet.

In fact, I’ve bought pounds and pounds of bananas this month in attempts to bake and photograph this cake for you but my kids keep finding them and eating them.

I finally lucked out last week when I found several bunches of dark brown bananas at the grocery store. I wasted no time at all in playing with this recipe and baking a few different versions of this cake before my kids could gobble up my materials.

So, I’m excited to finally be able to share traditional and gluten-free versions of this Banana Bundt Cake.

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you might have noticed that we LOVE banana bread in this house. I’ve made so many different variations on banana bread from Blueberry Coconut Banana Bread to Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Bread to Sour Cream Banana Bread and as much as we enjoy it in all its forms, sometimes you want something a little different.

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