I have three important things to tell you today. Earth-shattering things, really. Are you ready for your world to change?

1. My husband does not like cake. We have to make him brownies or cheesecake for his birthday each year.
2. I force him to try foods that he doesn’t like all the time, not because I am a jerk, but because I love him and I have high hopes that one day he will wake up with normal taste buds like a normal person and he will eat normal food.
3. I forced him to try these Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting and he took one bite, pushed me out of his way, grabbed two more cupcakes, and gobbled the three of them down quite happily.

True story. Except for the part where he pushed me. He would never do such a thing, not even for these cupcakes. He’s a keeper and so are these chocolatey peanut buttery cupcakes.

Click here to read the recipe and hear a bit about a campaign that Electrolux is doing with Kelly Ripa to help fund research for Ovarian Cancer.

I think you all know what my favorite ingredient is, right? It’s butter, of course! It improves the taste of just about everything. Brownies? You need butter. Steak? Plop some butter on that bad boy. Bread? Spread the butter on there nice and thick! Butter is good, man.

These butter cookies are perfect. The recipe uses an entire pound of butter so the flavor just shines right through. They are like a little taste of my butter filled dreams.

This is my mama’s recipe and we all know that recipes from your mama are going to be good, right?

These mix up quick, chill in the fridge for a half hour and then are ready to be rolled and cut into whatever shapes you like. We went with Christmas shapes this time, but don’t consider these to be just Christmas cookies. My mama makes these for her co-workers’ birthdays and people just beg her for the recipe. They are darn good.

My kids really prefer a simple, understated look when it comes to decorating these cookies.

Really, though, you could use royal icing for these and make some pretty spectacular looking cookies if you know how to decorate. Me? I leave that to the kids. I just mix up some powdered sugar, milk, and a little food coloring and beg my kids to keep the icing on the cookies and not decorate the walls. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don’t. And sometimes they bury the gingerbread man in sprinkles. The life of a cookie is rough.

Butter Cookies

• 1 pound butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Add egg yolks and vanilla and mix well. Beat in the flour and salt. Chill for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Roll out dough between 1/4 and 1/2 inch and cut into shapes. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 10 minutes or until very lightly browned on the bottom. Keep a close eye on these, because they are not nearly as tasty when they get too brown.

This recipe was made using Challenge Butter, which Challenge Dairy sent to me to try out and write about. I loved the butter, it was creamy and sweet and perfectly delicious. Challenge Dairy asked that I write about their butter, but the opinions are my own and are not, nor will they ever be, for sale. Challenge Dairy is also holding a “Taste of the West” sweepstakes where you can enter to win a 7 day/6 night trip for 4 people to the Mountain Sky Guest Ranch. This trip is valued at $17,000. The only restriction is that if you win, you are required to take me. (I’m just joking about that last bit. Kind of.)

There are things in this world that most everyone loves and Deviled Eggs and French’s mustard are two of those things.

If you’d like to view my recipe for deviled egg dip and enter a giveaway from French’s, please click HERE.

How many of you have looked at a recipe and started crying when you saw that it called for fresh herbs you didn’t have? How many of you would love to have fresh herbs readily available all year long? How many of you think food sprinkled with pretty green herbs is prettier, and there by tastier, than food that is not? How many of you want me to get to the point already and quit with the questions?

If you don’t happen to have an herb garden and you don’t want to spend a ton of money buying fresh herbs at the grocery store each week, why not try Daregal Fresh Frozen Herbs? Look at how cute the little boxes of frozen herbs are all lined up in my freezer door!

I saw another food blogger using these and started crying when I couldn’t find them at my local grocery store. I did some research and finally found the Daregal website. I was quite happy when they offered to send me some for free to review!  Free herbs? Bring ‘em on!

I expected a small box to arrive with just one package of herbs. Secretly I was hoping for parsely, because I love using it as a garnish. It’s green and pretty and works well in all kinds of dishes. I did’t want to be all bossy, though. After all, they were sending me free herbs! But, as you can see, the people at Daregal didn’t just send me one lonely little container of herbs. They sent me every single variety they sell. Oregano, basil, dill, cilantro, parsley, original blend, italian blend, and grilling blend. That’s a lot of dang herbs.

I’m happy to say that I can’t do anything but rave about these herbs. They are frozen, yeah, but they taste like they are fresh. They are simple to use and they stay fresh for up to 36 months. There are no preservatives or salt added.

I just shake the container a bit and then open it up and dump them out. They don’t clump together because they’re coated with a light mist of natural vegetable oils, so they come out of the container perfectly.

There are so many advantages to using these over the fresh herbs you would buy in the grocery store! No washing, chopping, or waste. You just open up the container and shake some out. They are more fresh than the herbs in your grocery because they are processed within THREE HOURS of being harvested. How long do you think the basil at your local grocery store has been sitting there? Hours? Days? A week? More?

My only complaint is that the product isn’t easy to find. Not a lot of grocery stores carry this yet, but hopefully that will change soon. Happily, you can purchase all the herbs you like from their website and they’ll ship them to you packed in dry ice. Fun!

They also have a deal going on where if you buy a pack of 4, you get 1 free. Buy 6, get 2 free or buy 8 and get 3 free. And, if you really want to go crazy, buy 12 and get 4 free.

I love these herbs. You will too.

Click here to order your own.

If you have a product that you’d like me to review, email me at karly[at]bunsinmyoven[dot]com.