Full disclosure: This is LAST Monday’s market haul.

After that whirlwind of a Christmas I barely know what month it is. So last Monday Market Haul it is!

Panic shopping quickly turned into panic wrapping and then panic delivering. Between that, the baking, and the making of lasagna -- Christmas day is always a stressful event. And somewhere in there, I turn another year older. Covered in powdered sugar, red sauce, and brown butter, I'm now 27.

I’m a notoriously grumpy Christmas baby, but throughout the years, I’ve cobbled together a fairly amazing group of friends, so now this time of year I am spoiled rotten to the core. Between New York friends, work, home, and then home again, I received no less than 4 cakes. I’m pretty freakin’ lucky. Being a Christmas baby wasn’t so bad this time around.

In an effort to spoil myself, I took to daydreaming about my dream cake, which consequently would not be a cake at all. Don’t get me wrong, put cake in front of me, I will NOT refuse. Never. Not ever. But in a perfect world, cookies would probably top my list with ice cream or really good donuts just trailing behind.

So to christen my first birthday with my blog running, I decided to make some dreamy brown butter blondies for my special day. Which I had big plans to photograph, but as mentioned, my Christmas day was cray, so all you get is a shitty instagram below. Many thanks to Dash and Bella for the "hella" good recipe. This is of course in addition to the classic pudding bundt cake my mother makes me every year. (See above: spoiled rotten.)

I’m now confident that I know what heaven smells like. And it’s brown butter and brown sugar mixed together. Make these blondies just.for.that.

These are filed directly under the “treat yo’ self” category. There is a dumb amount of butter, sugar, and evil gluten in these and I’m not sorry. They’re essentially half baked cookie dough. They are irrationally good.

Hope everyone had some amazing holidays! And since the season is not quite over, I think it’s more than okay to make these blondies for no good reason. You can find the recipe here. When the resolutions begin on January 1st these might seem gluttonous and extravagant. But right now, they are life affirming in the best way.

I atone my blondie sins with lots of brussels sprouts, squash, and tart honey crisp apples as shown! I finally got around to using all those b.sprouts I’d been bringing home, there will be evidence of that eventually. As soon as I’m done licking brown butter sugar from my fingertips.