Catching Up With The Kelnhofers-26

This week on Catching up with the Kelnhofers-26, I’m sharing stories about our trip up North, ideas for making a romantic dinner in for Valentine’s Day, starting a new sections where I share recipes made by YOU, my readers and giving an update on Ben’s potty training!

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What to make:

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and we’re celebrating by making a great night staying in! It’s obviously a bit more challenging to get out for dinner, especially on a holiday, so Nick and I are making dinner at home. Looking to do the same? I’m sharing a few of my favorite date night meals below:

• Red wine brownies so decadent and delicious
• Surf and turf melts
• Porterhouse steak with white bean, leek, mushroom and potato hash
• Meal delivery for special occasions. In this post, I talk about a blue cheese butter that goes so well on steak. YUM!
• Raspberry cream cheese swirl brownies -another amazing brownie recipe
• For more ideas, head over to this post of some of my favorite date night meals.

Reader Comments

We can’t get enough of these eggless waffles in our house, so I’m happy to hear my readers are loving them too!

• “My fiancé is allergic to eggs and I’m in the market for all kinds of egg free recipes not just that he can eat but that we both enjoy. We always used to make the Krusteaz box ones but they recently added egg to the recipe. Such a bummer! This was the second homemade recipe we tried, And the second time is a charm These were amazing and the touch of lemon is a really yummy unique touch.“

Reader Re-Creations

I love when you guys make my recipes and even better when you share pictures with me! I’m going to start featuring some reader re-creations each week in the newsletter. This week, so many of you were re-creating my recipe for sheet pan balsamic turkey meatloaf.

Anytime you make one of my recipes, be sure to tag PhiliaKelnhofer on instagram or send me a note!

Things I’m Loving:

• Have you ever heard of ‘soup dumplings’? Neither had I! They’re little dumplings that are literally filled with soup! You poke a hole, drain the soup, then eat the spoonful of soup and then the dumpling. A neat experience. We went out for Nick’s Dad’s birthday (even though his actual birthday was back in November) and had all sorts of unique dumplings and bao at a local place called Momo Mee. It was delish!

• We had to go to Target to pick up more cars for Ben (it’s actually working for his potty training!!) and I needed a coffee so we stopped at the Starbucks kiosk and he NEEDED the bulls-eye cookie, and wanted to sit at a table and eat it nicely, how could I resist?
• I got him this set of cars because he picked them out as his “prize” (I just gave him 1), but next time I’m going with these because they’re much cheaper, lol. But really, at this point I’m doing whatever works. And what’s working is he gets a mini car every time he goes in the potty, he also gets a sticker and then wants me to take his picture so I can send it to dad at work. This week he gave me a sticker and I felt like the luckiest-proudest mom alive, lol.

Products I’m loving:

• These almonds, I’m kind of obsessed. Not all stores have them, so I just buy a bunch online.
• My friend Molly lent me a pack ‘n play for when we went up north. This is the one she has it’s so compact and light and amazing…if you’re ever in the need for a Pack ‘n Play, do yourself a favor and get this one!
  

Links from around the web:

• LOVING this new album by The Dustbowl Revival. I actually went to school with the creator of the band and he’s a close friend (since we were like 5), so neat to see the beautiful works of art people create!
• Have you seen those pretty initial necklaces? They’re $$$ via this site and then I saw one of my friends wearing it, and commented how much I liked hers.  And guess what? She said she found it on Etsy! It looks the exact same!!! Here is the Etsy store where she get hers and it was only like $30!

What I’m Reading:

• Finally finished: Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo. I feel so jazzed up about life and my blog business and relationships and just everything. This book can be very inspiring and make you feel like you can do anything!!
• I’ve started The Hideaway and am loving it so far, but then I came across a book club that I want to join (I used to be in a book club 10 years ago and miss it!) so I’m reading/finishing The Whisper Network and am completely engrossed, it’s a page turner!
  

What I’m Watching:

• We started watching the latest season of The Great British Bakeoff. We love watching cooking/baking shows as kind of a brain-less activity to help wind down at the end of a long day.
• We finished watching The Good Place, it was the series finale and my goodness – all the tears! *Spoiler alert* – but this speech and beautiful saying/scene at the end had me crying (Nick too!)

Personal Stories:

• This past weekend we went Up North to visit Nicks grandparents with the kids. We made sheet pan pizza, which set off the smoke detector (it cooks at a high temperature) and Ben and I built snowmen. We also managed to navigate the road trip with the 3 kids and on the way home even stopped at a restaurant! Pictures below (if you want to see pictures of us visiting Up North in the summertime, check out this Catching Up With The Kelnhofers from August!)

• There was so much snow!

• Nick and I got to go on a little date night just the two of us as his parents watched the kids
• The twins and Ben played so nicely together

• Grandma Rita makes some big breakfasts!
• I got to work by the fire!

• Meal time at our house is a little crazy now that all three kids are eating! But Ben is so sweet and the babies look at him, and if he’s eating applesauce, he gives them a little bite (it can also be a very messy endeavor!)
• We have started saying a simple grace before we eat, and Ben was reaching out to the babies to show them/say grace.

This week, I have two new videos on my YouTube – they’re for these recipes: 5 Ingredient blueberry skillet dump cake and sheet pan ground turkey balsamic meatloaf.

This week new on the blog:

• Catching up with the Kelnhofers
• Raspberry cream cheese swirl brownies

What are your Valentine’s day plans? Just leave a comment below and let me know!