Dudes! I’ve missed you so much! I have been a bad, bad blogger and I will take 80% of the blame. I’ve been trying to be less of a jerk wife, thereby spending less time blogging and more time watching Fringe and Lost with Tony; we recently lost two really great people at work so [...]

Now I’m no food stylist, but I can usually make a plate of cookies not look like a pile of scabs. But when your car and your camera break on the same day, and you decide to move out of your apartment and your son gets chronically constipated all at the same time it’s prioroties-setting [...]

world’s easiest pasta salad Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy! Every winter in Chicago I wonder why I didn’t spend my summer days lounging in the sun and hanging out by the lake. Every summer I wonder why I wasn’t diving head-first into snow piles and enjoying hot chocolate while it was still appetizing. Yesterday [...]

strawberry banana muffin Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy! I’d planned on posting this recipe sooner than now (how soon is now?) but after all the lovin’ I got from Cakespy’s loyal readers my head swelled up so big I couldn’t get out of bed for a week. Tony and Teno have been nursing me [...]

I know I’ve mentioned before that Teno is a class-A banana waster. Sometimes he’ll eat an entire bunch in two days and sometimes the whole bunch will rot. Tony likes bananas but he’s been on an apple bender lately and I find the texture of bananas repulsive so I won’t eat them. So this week [...]

  vegan very lemon poppy seed muffins Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy! So I graduated from Columbia on the 17th but I’m finishing my last eight credits (as well as holding down an internship at Time Out Chicago’s Eating and Drinking guide- woot) starting tomorrow. I’m taking nutrition (I’m hoping to learn that eating [...]

Jo’s birthday cake Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy! I’ve been taunting my mother-in-law Jo with iced tea cupcakes for months now. She drinks this vile instant iced tea powder, I thought it’d be funny to mix it into frosting and frost lemon cupcakes with it. Then I thought about the chai cupcake recipe from [...]

cakespy cafe Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy! Jessie Oleson, for those of you in need of a “things what are cute” lesson, is the Head Spy over at Cakespy.com and she is also a fantastic and hilarious painter. I wanted to make a cake ode to her before I throw myself head first into [...]

Pizza Margherita Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy! Tony and I have taken to watching Delicious TV lately. I love Toni Fiore, she’s like a vegetarian Carmella Soprano. We watched the pizza special the other day and couldn’t wait until the week end to make pizza margherita. Our Aerogarden supplied us with fresh basil and [...]

Beating you with beaters. Originally uploaded by Bake & Destroy! I was unable to get a proper picture of Amy Sedaris’ recipe in action because it was so delicious my family ate one whole cheese ball in about 10 minutes. I made two cheese balls from this recipe, if you made one it would be [...]