Simply Hil

Happy Valentine's Day! It's the day of love and I love making treats. (If you couldn't tell already by the nature of all the recipes on this blog . I'm pretty sure almost each one of them is some type of baked good or dessert!) I wanted to make something fun and somewhat special for Valentine's day and went scouring through my cook books. I found the winner in my favorite goodie book " The Cookie Dough Lover's Cookbook " that I got from my dear friend Marta . (She knows me all too well!) I love this book and find myself looking at it quite often because of the yummy treats and gorgeous pictures it contains. This time I landed on an "Inside Out Cookie Dough Truffle" and knew I had to make it.  As I searched my pantry for all the ingredients, my heart sunk as I realized I didn't have them all. I didn't want to have to pack both of my boys up and drive to the store just to get those specific items. So, I made due with what I had a...

Here's a little tid bit for ya'll: February is National Heart Month! Fitting isn't it? Seeing how it is also the month that holds Valentine's day. Both sides of my family (mom's mom and dad's dad) have had heart health issues and as a result I have always been somewhat paranoid about the health of my own heart. The desire to finally do something and be proactive with my heart health started when I lost my baby due to a very serious heart defect called Ebstein's Anomaly . During that time, amid all of the doctor's visits and echocardiograms, I learned more about the heart than I ever did in all my years of biology classes at school (no duh). It opened my eyes to what a miracle life is and made me never want to take my heart for granted again. It wasn't until last year that I really started to do something about it by signing up for my first 5k, knowing it would get me moving. Since that  5k last May I have been running every other day and some...