One breakfast item that I have grown to LOVE is Eggs Benedict. Since making individual egg benedict for everyone was going to be a large feat, this casserole was the perfect compromise. The base of the casserole (the first two photos) is the absolute easiest part. Takes very little time and basically no prep. My biggest suggestion for the base of the casserole is this: whisk the eggs before adding any cream or milk. I made that mistake and it was incredibly difficult to make sure you got all the egg yolks mixed together properly. Take my advice: eggs first, milk and cream second.

Once you have the base done, let it cook the first 30 minutes and just clean up and relax. After the first 30 minute bake is when things get interesting. You have to make the hollandaise sauce in the final 30 minute baking session. Now if you have never made hollandaise sauce, let me preface this, it can be intimidating. There are a couple key steps and all have to be executed correctly for it not to turn into scrambled eggs. My suggestion is to have someone assist you with this part, especially if you are new to cooking or making this sauce. I had my sister (thanks Mads!), take care of pouring the butter in while I whisked.

It was absolutely necessary for me because my arm was killing me from whisking and we had to switch positions! I also highly suggest that you turn down the heat a bit once you have boiling water and start whisking the eggs. I found that turning down the heat helped them not get too hot and I was able to make a sauce and not scrambled eggs. My other recommendation is to make sure that you have extra eggs in case you do need to try this sauce again. Regardless, this casserole can’t be classified as eggs benedict without this sauce.

I will say that once you do get the hollandaise sauce correct, it really makes this eggs benedict casserole shine. It’s got a very rich flavor that compliments the Canadian ham and egg mixture. I paired this with the Orange-Walnut Sweet Rolls for my gender reveal brunch and it was a perfect combination!

Overall Review: 5/5

Overall, I would say that this is a great bunch casserole. It makes a ton of food so I would definitely leave this recipe for an event where you are trying to feed 10-12 people. But it’s got an excellent flavor, feeds a crowd and looks like you put a lot of work into it. It’s definitely a favorite of mine and I’m so glad I took the time to make it!

If you choose to try this recipe, please let me know what you think in the comments below.

These orange-walnut sweet rolls are phenomenal! Seriously one of my favorite Magnolia Table recipes to date. I made these for our gender reveal brunch with our family and it was a huge hit. They do require quite a bit of orange zest so be prepared with several oranges to get enough zest. I would say it took about four full oranges to get enough for the filling and the glaze.

The hardest part is getting the mixture for the center of the rolls mixed together correctly. You definitely need to make sure the butter is soft and room temperature, I had a small mishap with the butter that morning and it made softening it a challenge. But if at all possible, soften the butter first and the rest of the mixture should mix nicely. There is a decent orange taste to these orange-walnut sweet rolls, but its not overpowering. Don’t be afraid to make this recipe because of the orange flavoring! I also made these orange-walnut sweet rolls ahead early that morning and let them sit until I was ready for them to bake. That eliminated a lot of the prep work and made the morning go that much smoother.

Overall Review: 5/5

Overall, I loved these orange-walnut sweet rolls. They hit the spot, didn’t require making the dough ahead of time and the filling was fantastic. I would highly recommend these for any brunch or breakfast you have coming up. These also store for a day or two so you can have them for an entire weekend!

For more recipe reviews head to our site here: Recipe Reviews. If you decide to try these sweet rolls let me know in the comments below. I’d love to know what your thoughts are and if they were a hit with your family!

My husband and I love Thai food, especially all things curry. We found this amazing Thai restaurant in Seattle and haven’t been able to go back in over a year. So, I’ve been trying new recipes to bring the style of food we like to our home. This Thai chicken noodle soup sounded so perfect and like a fun variation of this style of food we love. First and foremost, this recipe does not call for a lot of hot spice. So if you enjoy more of a kick, make sure to add hot sauce before you serve it. I tried it both ways and adding the hot sauce enhanced this recipe 10 fold.

This was also my first time using brown rice noodles, and I loved them! Seriously fantastic in taste and could not have been easier to make. The rest of the recipe is not difficult just takes a bit of time to create and prep all the ingredients. If you are looking for soup for a group this is the one, its filling and can feed at least 8 depending on how hungry you are.

Overall Review: 4.7/5

Overall, my review of this Thai Chicken Noodle Soup is positive. The flavors were good, there are lots of adjustments that can be made depending on what you have. I highly recommend that if you have time and can get the ingredients that you try this out! If you do decide to try it, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

To find the original recipe you can go to Joyful Healthy Eats. For more recipe reviews, head to our recipe reviews page here: Recipe Reviews.

Super Bowl Sunday was yesterday and that means buffalo themed dinners! If you were watching the game last night you know that the Buccaneers and Tom Brady DOMINATED the game. When that happens food definitely becomes a main focus of the night! These buffalo chicken wraps are so easy to make and are perfect for any family dinner or game time you have coming up. I highly recommend them when you are looking to compliment that buffalo chicken dip you have in the crock-pot!

The recipe I am reviewing today came from Tastes Better From Scratch and the link is below. There are a couple things about these wraps that I changed from the original recipe. For one, I omitted the avocado and cheese because my husband is lactose intolerant and doesn’t like avocado. Even with omitting these items, the wraps were tasty and hit the spot. You could add pickles or other veggies that you love and it will only enhance the wraps. What I loved most about these buffalo chicken wraps is you can prep the chicken the night before and let it marinate in the fridge. If you do it ahead of time, when it comes time to cooking and preparing the wraps you will only need about 10 minutes!

Buffalo chicken wraps are perfect for any hot sauce lover and would be easily complimented with some pasta salad, chips or french fries. Whatever you decide to pair it with I hope you enjoy it and post pictures in the comments below! Also, if you are interested in more recipes and reviews check out our page here: Cultivate Confidence Food Reviews.

xoxo – Kayla

I am not going to lie to you, pregnancy has been absolutely kicking my butt when it comes to food. For the first 16 weeks I didn’t eat much and there were a lot of foods that sounded awful. Couple that with the fact that I had absolutely no desire to cook, and you can guess what my diet looked like. HORRIBLE! My poor husband and bank account just rolled with the flow of these pregnancy hormones. But now that my appetite has been coming back and I’m feeling up to cooking again, I wanted to share what my weekly meals look like. Right now it’s been a lot of meals I’ve made before because I’m not quite ready to try new meals after so many food aversions. So, today I am going to walk through a one week dinner schedule that has worked for me in my 2nd trimester.

One Week Dinner Schedule

• Monday – Zuppa Toscana

Monday’s Zuppa Toscana came from The Chunky Chef and is an easy yet comforting soup to make. It make plenty of soup as its so hearty. Great for leftovers and lunches the next day. This is a copycat of the soup that Olive Garden soup and is my husband and I’s favorites. It’s also one of the things I can stomach at this point in the pregnancy so that always gives it an extra boost in my book!

• Tuesday – Chicken Piccata

Tuesday’s meal was a combination of foods. Let’s explain the boxed pasta up front. My husband is hilarious in the fact that he loves simple foods. Boxed foods, chips from the grocery store, nothing fancy. So this particular box pasta is one of his favorites and honestly doesn’t bother my stomach right now so it got added to the weeks list as well. Sometimes you just have to be okay with some adjustments in pregnancy, am I right?! For the chicken piccata, I found that it is a lighter but tasty meal. Again, one that tastes good and isn’t difficult to make. You can find my full review here: click here.

• Wednesday – Spinach, Mushroom and Spicy Sausage Pasta

Wednesday is one of my favorite recipes that I’ve ‘developed’. It’s simple but so good and full of flavor. All it really is is, penne pasta, Alfredo sauce, mushrooms, spicy ground sausage, spinach, salt and pepper. My next blog post will include a full recipe on how to make it so watch out for that!

• Thursday – Jalapeno Chorizo Queso

Thursday was a spicy meal so if you are prone to heartburn be weary. This is my husbands favorite queso as it has a whopping six jalapenos in it. Jalapeno Chorizo Queso is so easy to make and is a great dinner if you don’t want something super traditional. You can find my full review of this queso here: click here.

• Friday -Frozen Meal/Pizza Night

Friday’s meal is the epitome of not underestimating pregnancy hormones. I have been scheduling one night a week where there is flexibility. If I am feeling sick or I don’t feel like cooking. This is the day I pull out the frozen meal. I know its not healthy or what is recommended, however some nights it’s just needed. I also think its good to plan for night where you aren’t feeling well or feeling like cooking. It happens in pregnancy so planning for it in your dinner schedule is the best option!

For those who are pregnant or have been pregnant, I’m curious what were your cravings in pregnancy? Anything interesting or out there? Let me know in the comment section below!

There is nothing better than a classic Midwestern home style meal, and this corn casserole fits the bill. When I first moved to Arizona I had a boss, who when I showed him some of the ingredients in Midwestern cooking exclaimed, “it’s all canned items!” Not going to lie, there is some truth there! But when you are in a landlocked state, sometimes canned items are the best way to go. This is one of those canned, classic recipes that never goes out of style!

Corn casserole is a super easy recipe to make and is one you could throw together on a weeknight with no hassle. Its perfect for holiday meals like Thanksgiving and Christmas as a side for turkey and ham. I will preface this by saying this corn casserole is not a special or unique recipe. Its simple comfort food and it tastes that way. There aren’t a bunch of spices that will entice you to eat more. This casserole will simple warm your heart and fill your belly.

Overall Review: 5/5

I’m a big fan of corn casserole and am always the first to hit the pan when its brought to family dinners. As we approach the Christmas holiday, I’d highly recommend trying this out! It’s simple, cheap and easy to make. I also love the fact that this dish is re-heatable and still tastes great. You can eat it a few days after cooking and it still maintains its flavor. Overall, I highly recommend this corn casserole recipe for any family dinner you have coming up!

If you are interested in more of our reviews you can find them here: Recipe Reviews. As always, if you try this recipe, let me know what you think in the comments below! xoxo – Kayla

Cranberries and jalapenos are two ingredients that were meant to coexist. I was looking for a new and unique dish for our Thanksgiving dinner this year. Since we couldn’t go anywhere due to my husband being call at the hospital and Covid, we had dinner just the two of us. So each dish was customized to be something that we would like. I was so excited about this cranberry jalapeno dip because it looks absolutely beautiful and can be made ahead of time!

So let’s get into this recipe! The ‘hardest’ part is that you need to hand chop the cranberries. If you put them in a food processor the dip won’t turn out correctly. It does require a good 20-30 minutes to chop up and entire bag of cranberries. Especially if you want them to not be too big in size. You will need to let the top part of the dip chill overnight before its topped on the cream cheese. But I think that’s what makes this dip so great. You can do almost all the prep ahead of time and just need 10 minutes to put the dip together in the morning.

As weird as these flavors might seem and as worried as you might be about trying it, please trust me, it’s worth it! Letting the top mixture sit overnight softens the cranberries and jalapenos and lets those flavors meld so that everything has this phenomenal flavor. Once it’s placed on top of the whipped cream cheese, any ‘spiciness’ is cut with the cream cheese flavor. To scoop out the dip I bought a box of Triskets and they paired beautifully with this cranberry jalapeno dip. The Triskets added to the flavor and didn’t overpower or change the taste of the dip. I’m sure there are other crackers that would work well, but Triskets are what I went with.

Overall Review: 5/5

Overall this is definitely a must make recipe for the holidays. I think that this cranberry jalapeno dip recipe is easy to make and looks good to boot. The taste is great even for those who aren’t big spice fans and is a perfect pre-dinner dip. If you do end up trying the recipe, let me know what you think in the comments below. And for more recipe reviews you can head to our reviews page: Recipe Reviews.

https://sparrowsandlily.com/cranberry-jalapeno-dip-holidays/

After cooking a big meal its nice to be able to make a quick and easy dessert! These easy pecan sticky buns are the perfect dessert for a busy night. The entire process from start to finish took about 25 minutes and 18-20 of that was cooking in the oven! Now let me preface this review by stating these are easy pecan sticky buns, but they are not perfect.

I found that the glaze didn’t thicken up near what it needed too and a lot of it stayed in the pan no matter what I did. Because you are flipping these pecan sticky buns at the end, the glaze needed to thicken up a bit more to transfer to the plate. I tried to pull up as much as I could with a spoon and stick it on top of the buns but it definitely wasn’t perfect. However, they tasted pretty darn good for a quick dessert option!

Overall Review: 3.5/5

My overall review of these pecan sticky buns is that they are great if you don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking. But they are no where near the real thing. The glaze is very thin and doesn’t transfer well after cooking. But if you transfer as much as you can with a spoon the sticky buns actually taste good! Don’t knock them until you try them but go into making them with reasonable expectations! If you decide to try them, comment below and post pictures!

You can find the original recipe from Tornadough Alli by clicking here. More recipe reviews can be found at our Recipe Review tab here.

I got a text from my husband one day after he had a ridiculous day at the hospital, and all he asked for is whether we could have chili. A simple request that I could absolutely do. I remembered that I hadn’t had a chance to try the Gaines Family Chili from the Magnolia Table cookbook so I thought why not give it a try. And without doubt this is the easiest family chili I have ever made! I was pretty skeptical since it seemed like little ingredients for a chili, but holy crap is it good! I swear it has to be the juices from the cans that adds that extra punch you are looking for.

There is a note from Joanna in this recipe that clearly states, don’t forget the Fritos and cheese. And she was so right! Those little touches at the end of this chili recipe really took it to the next level and I loved how it tasted! I will say that I added double the beans to make it a bit heartier since my husband eats so much food and doesn’t like cheese. But even with the extra beans the texture was beautiful! This is the perfect family chili for a busy winter night when you don’t want to spend hours cooking.

Overall Review: 5/5

This Gaines Family Chili recipe was wonderful and so easy to make. I will be making this again, probably in the next week, and I highly suggest you do as well. Especially with the lockdowns coming back into play, an easy and comforting family chili is the perfect answer. For more recipes and reviews head to our Recipe Reviews page.

Stay safe out there and know you are loved! xoxo-Kayla