Those who truly love food understand just how strongly food intertwines with memory. I used to not be much of a fan of year end round-ups, but now I realize how well they capture the feeling and memories of my year.  I so look forward to reflecting on the past year and seeing what moments stand out as highlights, both on my blog and others. Tomorrow I’ll share some of my personal favorite recipes from the past year but first I’m sharing the top 10 most popular posts based on reader feedback this year.

Last winter I was in a major blah state of mind with the holidays over, the weather being absolutely heinous and just general cabin fever. All recipe inspiration seemed completely dried up. And then I made these baked chicken parmesan meatballs in a tomato cream sauce and they just blew everything out of the water.

After readers reported inconsistent results with an old cupcake recipe, I revamped and retested it several times to come up with a new and more improved version of cookies and cream cupcakes. Love them!

What started as a personal quest to mix up our previously boring school lunch routine turned into something much more fun than I had planned. I ended up compiling a series of ideas in my post on  school lunch inspiration. I use this as a reference all the time when making lunches and am hoping to do another edition some time in the next few months because more and more ideas have been building up. Yay!

If you like eggplant parm, this skillet eggplant parmesan is such a game changer. I am SO glad you all love it as much as I do because it is truly one of my favorite meals of this year. It’s on our menu this week, in fact. Make it. Love it. The end.

Over the past year, my love affair with the combination of mushrooms and gouda intensified big time. This mushroom gouda quinoa bake is a totally satisfying vegetarian main dish or a show-stealing side.

Chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes are undoubtedly one of the most popular posts of all time here on the blog. This chocolate chip cookie dough pie came into my mind for Pi(e) Day this year and I couldn’t wait to try it. It’s definitely an over the top dessert perfect for a splurge situation.

Finding a way to make homemade spinach wraps was one of my most gratifying kitchen experiments of the year. I was determined to find a from scratch version after reading the ingredient list of the store bought version. We love these and I’m so glad that you do too!

These cinnamon sugar apple doughnut muffins rock my world.

In my opinion, iced oatmeal cookies are one of the very best kinds of cookies – unassuming drop cookies that need almost nothing to make them fabulous. The powdered sugar glaze adds a little something but even without it, these cookies are fab.

Dark chocolate fudgesicles are a double edged sword. It is sooo good to know how to make them at home but dang – they are just so hard to resist.