Simple Yet Gourmet

One of my favorite restaurants, Zupas, has a creamy white cauliflower soup that is so good.  My love for that soup sent me on a quest to find a version I could make at home.  After trying a few different recipes, and adding a few tweaks of my own this soup was born.  Now, it's not exactly like the Zupas version, but I love this soup.  As the name implies, it is creamy and cheesy, but hearty as well thanks to the cauliflower.  You can choose to puree the cauliflower for a smooth creamy soup or leave some pieces in there if you like to have more texture in it.  Hope you like it!

A few months ago we celebrated my husband's birthday.  Last year all he wanted for his birthday were his beloved chocolate chip cookies, but this year he said I could surprise him.  I had a lot of fun looking up different cakes and trying to find the perfect one for him.  Aaron loves chocolate but doesn't like it to be too rich so this Oreo cake seemed like the perfect solution.  The cake itself is fudgy and studded with chocolate chips, but the frosting is light and not as sweet as most.  It's still plenty sweet, especially with the Oreo chunks in it, just not sickeningly sweet.  I had my doubts about this frosting seeing as it starts out with a flour base (what?) but I was really pleased with the outcome.  Overall, this cake was really fun to make and we all loved it!