Lemony Almond Thumbprints

I don't know why, but for the last few weeks I've been really, really busy on the weekends. From housewarmings to planned full-day excursions to family gatherings and  those unavoidable, necessary cleaning days, I feel like I haven't had a weeks to just sit back and do nothing in a while. Even this weekend is jam-packed: my sister is home from college for spring break, a few of my cousins from Colombia are here for the weekend (one of them is running on Sunday's NYC half marathon!), and Sunday also happens to be my sister's 21st birthday. So, there's tons to do. I'm happy to be this busy, and am genuinely looking forward to everything we have scheduled: Korean food for dinner with my sister on Friday, souvlaki with the family in Astoria on Saturday, and marathon spectating early Sunday morning with a big celebratory/birthday Colombian meal to follow. Three days of delicious eats and time with some of my favorite people- it's definitely a good way to spend the weekend. But with scheduled Easter activities all of next weekend, it sort of feels like my do-nothing weekend is still so far off! 

It's one of the reasons why I've been having trouble getting recipes posted lately. I made this commitment to myself to get back in the blogging game and post delicious recipes only when I had the time or came up with something truly delicious, but I've been having trouble sticking to it. Every now and then I find myself getting caught in that old mentality of mine, where I HAD to post at MINIMUM once a week (because otherwise the blogging police would get me or something). It's taken some time to get used to the fact that I don't actually have to post on a strict schedule, and if I don't have the time to make a recipe  it's not the end of the world. So, that's that. I've had busy weekends with little time for baking and photographing, but luckily, I was able to squeeze in one recipe last Saturday. 

Cream Cheese Cookies

I know, I know, these cookies don't look like much. I struggled when taking the photos for this post, because there just isn't very much that's interesting about these white, plain, cream cheese cookies. No styling trick or pretty plate from my now extremely pared down prop collection seemed to do the trick. They just looked boring, for lack of a better word. Uninspired and dull. I took the best photos I could, and then set my camera down. I was pretty sure these cookies weren't even worth posting, and then I decided to eat one.

And just like that, I changed my mind. These cookies needed to be shared.

The recipe is from Food52 Baking (an awesome addition to anyone's cookbook collection, if it's not there already), and I marked it off as a recipe worth testing for two reasons. The first, is that the recipe is so darn easy. It has five super basic ingredients—butter, cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt. The second, is that I thought the recipe headnote was endearing. Apparently, the recipe comes from a Tupperware party that Merrill's mom attended in the 1970's. Lately, I've been really interested in trying out classic, homey, all-American recipes like these (tomato soup cake is currently on my list of things to try), so how could I not give an easy recipe like this one a shot?

World Peace Cookies

Christmas is exactly one week away...um, WHAT? It certainly doesn't feel like it is, but here I am, buying wrapping paper, praying my gifts ship in time, and planning Christmas Eve/Christmas Day breakfast menus worth remembering with my sister. This is my first holiday season away from home, and it's a bit strange. It used to be that I was the first to welcome Christmas into the house-- I'd put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving, start (but never finish) a gingerbread house, and untangle the icicle lights to hang off the roof. My sister was always a little indifferent about getting the house ready (she was more into eating my Christmas cookies), and while my mom loves putting up Christmas decorations, she needs a push from me to get started. Essentially, all the Christmas spirit in our family came from me. I always said that if I wasn't home the house would be lacking in decorations, and of course, that's what happened this year! My mom took out a few decorations from the attic, but didn't go crazy, and instead of classic icicle lights, my parents installed a red and green strobe light of sorts that covers the entire house ( which I'll admit look kind of cool actually).




I wish I had had more time to decorate the apartment for the holidays and get crafty. I've been meaning to make some orange and clove pomanders for weeks, and I wish I had gotten a wreath (it seems silly to get one now), and I would have loved to make lots of homemade hot fudge sauce (or anything really) to jar and give away as gifts. Unfortunately though, there was just no way any of those things were happening. I barely even had a chance to do any holiday baking! The blog was way too quiet for my favorite time of the year (especially for baking), but I'm hoping I'll get to squeeze in one more Christmas recipe before next Friday. But until then, let's talk about the amazing cookies we have in front of us.

Chewy Molasses Ginger Chews

It's been a very quiet month on the blog. I hate that it's been this way, especially since I was so excited to announce my big comeback and get back into blogging regularly. Everything just seemed to happen at once though--coming back to blogging, searching for an apartment, actually moving in, Thanksgiving, the holidays, getting a new stove, getting sick, lots of freelance work...things have been pretty hectic around here, to say the least. Fortunately though, personal life seem to be getting back on track and quieting down, so hopefully I'll actually get to keep my promise and get back to blogging consistently (and enjoying some downtime in my new place!). One can only hope, right?




As busy as things have been lately, I did make sure to sign up for this year's Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. It's my third year participating, and I look forward to baking and receiving cookies more and more each year. What I don't look forward to is choosing what to bake. It's silly, because that should be the part that I get most excited for, but it never works out that way. I can never ever make up my mind, so then I end up stressing more than I should over what to make.  That's the only part that's no fun at all, but once I figure it out, I love the rest!  I love figuring out how to package the cookies, getting sweet surprises in the mail, and of course, knowing that this enormous blogger event is benefitting Cookies for Kid's Cancer, a really fantastic organization that works to provide research grants to leading pediatric centers across the country who are looking to find more effective treatments for children battling cancer. It's a beautiful cause, and it's incredible to see how much the Cookie Swap grows each year!

Oatmeal, Pecan, and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal is one of my all time favorite breakfast items, period. When I was little, I was really into microwaveable instant oatmeal packets, mostly because they could be purchased in variety packs and I could have a different flavor for breakfast every day. As varied as my breakfasts may have been, they were definitely pretty lackluster in flavor!  My oatmeal obsession matured over time, and now I make my own oatmeal breakfasts, in a variety of flavors, but with a whole lot more flavor.  One thing I still haven't outgrown though, is a really good oatmeal cookie. As a kid, oatmeal raisin cookies were my favorite.  Super sweet and chewy with just barely a hint of oatmeal and maybe two raisins per cookie...that was a good oatmeal cookie. 

I think it's safe to say that my taste in oatmeal cookies have evolved significantly since then.  Gone are the barely-there oatmeal cookies of my youth; they've since been replaced with chunky, substantial cookies, loaded with real oats and mix-ins galore. Even classic chocolate chip cookies can benefit from the addition of a few ups of rolled oats and nuts, a thought I would have never ever considered back in the day!

Gluten Free Chocolate Chunk Cookies

If I had to eliminate gluten from my diet, I think I would miss my mom’s famous chocolate cake the most out of everything.  It’s intensely chocolatey and is brushed with amaretto for three days before serving, and it’s easily one of my favorite desserts of all time. Second on my list would be these brown butter chocolate chip cookies. They’re everything a chocolate chip cookie should be: crisp around the edges, thick and chewy in the center, loaded with chocolate chips, and rough and craggy on top.  While one of those cookies should be enough to satisfy me, they’re so good that I can never help but break off small pieces of cookie whenever I walk past the kitchen, and the next thing I know, I’ve ended up eating something around three entire cookies by myself…or more. They’re dangerously delicious. 

I wanted to make a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie that exactly matched my favorite traditional cookies.  They had to be thick and chewy and deliciously crisp along the outside- I was not going to compromise on any of those requirements. While browsing through recipes I was disappointed by most of the photos I saw.  The recipes may have been just fine, but none had that old-fashioned bakery look that I think is essential to a really good chocolate chip cookies. It was frustrating, but after a little more Google-ing, I found Alton Brown’s recipe.  The photo for his cookies was the closest in matching the perfect cookie vision I had in my head, so I figured this would be the best way to go. 

Red Velvet Crackle Cookies

Christmas is less than a week away and I can hardly believe it. It just crept up on me out of nowhere, and I'm entering a slight state of panic. The state where I feel like I'm close to finishing all my Christmas shopping, but it's really not quite done; the state where I'm still trying to figure out what to bake for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but I then realize that there is no way I'll have time to bake everything.  My brain is currently jumbled with ideas for treats I should have baked and shared and things I think there's still time to share, and I just got this very inexplicable craving to bake and ice sugar cookies, something I never ever do because it requires patience that I don't have.  

In any case, let's try to break away from that mess of a brain I have right now and instead focus on what I actually have managed to accomplish in these past weeks, these Red Velvet Crackle Cookies being one of them.  I had been thinking about making something like these for a little while now, and then I ended up seeing them on the cover of this month's Food Network Magazine.  I'm sure it was just a happy coincidence, but it made these cookies happen.   

For me, crackle cookies bring an element of nostalgia.  I remember making them in my 7th (or was it 8th?) grade home economics class as part of our "baking" portion of the curriculum.  I shudder a bit every time I think back to that class.  They were part of the class because they're easy, very hard to screw up, and really tasty. Fast forward a few years, and I remember my sister asking me to make a chocolate crackle cookie to share on the blog (also around Christmas time).  They're just a wonderful cookie that is comforting and tasty, because after all, what's not to love about a chocolate cookie with a soft brownie texture and a powdered sugar exterior?  

Nothing, that's what. 

Coconut Thumbprint Cookies, and the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

And it's time to wrap up this year's Food Blogger Cookie Swap! This is my second year participating, and I had just as much fun this time around as I did the first time.  It was great getting to be part of such a great cause (if you didn't know, in order to take part in the swap, you have to first make a donation to Cookies For Kids Cancer, a fantastic nonprofit that works exclusively towards finding ways to combat pediatric cancer), and it makes the whole swap just that much sweeter. In the swap itself, you are randomly paired with three other bloggers, and to each you must send one dozen cookies, all from the same recipe.  In return, you receive one dozen cookies from three other bloggers, so you end up with three dozen different cookies.  It sounds a little confusing, but it's really quite simple once you get involved.  Both times that I've participated, I haven't been able to decide if deciding what to bake or the waiting for my boxes of cookies to arrive in the mail is more fun!

While it's definitely a close call, I think that this year, I may have had more fun waiting for my cookies to arrive.  I always have such a hard time deciding what to bake, because these aren't just any old cookies that need to be made- they need to be sturdy and durable enough to withstand a few days in the mail, yet still taste as delicious as they day they were made, if not better! Last year, I made these amazing Fudge Brownie Cookies with Cherries and Pistachio, but this year I wanted something completely different.  Since I went with a chocolate cookie last year, I wanted this year's cookie to be completely chocolate-free.  While browsing through recipes, I came across my favorite lemony thumbprint cookies, and I realized that might be the best option for the cookie swap.  They're easy to make and definitely taste good after a few days (I know this from experience), so I figured they'd be ok to stand up to a few days tied up with the US Postal Service.

Sesame and Poppy Palmiers

I've loved palmiers for as long as I can remember.  Years ago, my dad was taking a Saturday art class at the Art Students League in Manhattan, and on his return trip home, he would always stop at the Hot and Crusty in Penn Station and buy me and my sister an elephant ear (the palmier's most popular nickname) or black and white cookie.  I loved both, but the elephant ear was my favorite.  It was massive, so my sister and I would always split it right down the middle.  Sometimes he would bring us one that was covered in chocolate, but my favorite were the classic, caramelized sugar palmiers.

My dad is no longer taking his Saturday art classes, but I've made palmiers for myself a few times since then. They're one of the simplest cookies you can make, but they're also one of the most delicious.  They become tricky is you use homemade puff pastry, but a good quality store-bought puff pastry will be just as delicious. I've never attempted to make puff pastry myself, but I think I'd like to one day.  Working with the massive quantity of butter needed for puff pastry makes me feel a bit nervous; I prefer to work with large quantities of butter that I can't actually see.  Know what I mean?

Rugelach with Raspberries and Walnuts

I don't think there's a cookie that I enjoy more than a well-made rugelach. Its only competition would probably be a freshly baked, still warm from the oven chocolate chip cookie, but aside from that, I can't think of a cookie I enjoy more.  They're more than just cookies; they're delectable little pastries filled with all kinds of delicious things.  My favorite rugelach are filled with apricot preserves and pistachios, but rugelach filled with raspberry jam and walnuts are also perfection.  So, when the Baddish Group reached out to me and asked if I wanted to try out Dorie Greenspan's famous rugelach recipe from her newest book, Baking Chez Moi, I couldn't say no. 

The challenge wasn't just to make Dorie's rugelach recipe- I also got the chance to work with Driscoll's raspberries to prepare a delicious filling for my rugelach, a perfect match! I normally use ready-made jams and preserves when making rugelach, so I was excited to try out this new approach.  I first started by preparing the raspberry filling.  I took beautiful ruby-red raspberries and cooked them with a little sugar and freshly squeezed lemon juice. As the fruit cooked down and broke apart, it thickened just slightly.  After cooling and chilling in the fridge, the fruity mixture transformed into a thick spreadable filling. Once the filling was done, it was time to tackle the rugelach dough. 

Thumbprint Cookies with Chocolate Ganache

This weekend was the first in a while where I was rudely reminded that winter is coming.  It's obviously been on its way for a while now, but we've had many random little moments of sunshine and mild weather, the kind of moments where you wish it could just be fall forever.  This weekend though, oh boy.  It was cold.  Much colder than it had been earlier in the week.  And it was gray and rainy and just miserable.  Truly, it was depressing.  It didn't stop raining for the entire day on Saturday, and as much as I wanted to curl up under the covers with a cup of tea and a good book, I devised a new plan to entertain myself and brighten up my day.  I would make cookies, because the idea made its way into my head and it wasn't leaving.  Cookies were exactly what I  needed.

While I could have chosen to make some wonderfully spiced or pumpkin or cider kind of cookie, I didn't want that. No, I wanted nothing seasonal.  I just wanted a good old, straight up happy cookie.  Seasonal wasn't going to cut it.  My cookies needed to be cheery and be able to make me feel good.  Nothing fussy or overly complicated about them...they just needed to be good.

Spiced Pumpkin Rugelach

Rugelach are one of those little cookies that I've always thought I knew how to make (as evidenced here).  I mean, these looked like rugelach and tasted like rugelach, so I assumed that the little crescents that I was pulling out from my oven were in fact, rugelach.  I liked how they tasted, and I thought I could turn the page on rugelach. One more cookie that I had nailed, and it was on to the next.

While I may have always thought that I knew what I was doing when it came to rugelach, my mom always begged to differ.  She said they tasted fine, but were always too big. 

"They're supposed to be just a little bite!" she'd always say. 

I obviously thought I knew better, so I ignored her comments.  Every single time I made a batch of rugelach, she would say the same thing, and I would always brush her input aside, because I knew what I was doing.  In reality though, I didn't.

It wasn't until I got a box of rugelach in last year's Food Blogger Cookie Swap that I realized my mom was right. The rugelach I received were incredible.  They were flaky and buttery, tender and rich, but most importantly, they were tiny.  It took two small bites two eat each cookie, and it was a hard truth to accept.  I was wrong, and my mom was right (this seems like it always happens to me...).

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Can I confess something to you all?  I had never actually had the chocolate-chip-cookies-and-milk combination until yesterday.  Actually, I'd never had cookies of any kind with milk before, to be perfectly honest.  I didn't really drink milk as a kid, because it always upset my stomach (thankfully, this never happened with ice cream or cheese), and while I can drink milk now, I usually don't, just out of habit I think.  I've photographed many different cookie recipes for the blog, and they're almost always accompanied by a nice tall glass of milk.  Whenever the time came to taste the cookies in question for the photos, I would always take a bite out of the cookies, and pour just a bit of the milk back into its container, to pretend like I actually took a sip myself.  At the end of the photo shoot, all the remaining milk in the glass would go back into the milk carton, or I'd give it to my sister to drink. This is how I always photographed my cookies and milk, until yesterday, when I photographed these Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. 

I really wanted to try a new approach to photographing my cookies and milk.  I took a few shots with the standard glass, of course, but I also wanted to try a few shots with spilled milk.  I had no idea how those photos would come out, but I ended up really liking them!  If you scroll down for the recipe, you'll see what I'm talking about.  In that photo, some of the cookies got pretty soaked in milk, so I figured it would be as good a time as any to finally try out the whole, "cookies and milk" phenomenon and see if it was actually as great as everyone claimed it was. To my big surprise, I ended up liking the combination!  I still prefer my cookies when they're not dipped in milk, purely for textural reasons, but I can see myself dipping them in milk on occasion from now on, especially now that I've found this amazing recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

Trail Mix Cookies

How many of you guys are going camping this summer? Or hiking?  Or both? Or going out and exploring nature for hours and hours?  If you have these kinds of plans, you'll need to refuel at some point, and I have the perfect camping/hiking/nature-exploring snack for you.  These trail mix cookies are IT.  They're the perfect portable and cute little snack that you can munch on while doing all kinds of nature-type things, I think.  I'm not a camping kind of gal, but if I did go camping, or hiking, or nature exploring, these are the cookies I would bring. However, since that type of activity is not happening any time soon, I will settle for making a batch of these cookies and eating them while sitting on a blanket in my backyard, or maybe, if I want to get really crazy, while sitting on a blanket in the park.  Eating homemade cookies in the grass in the middle of the suburbs is my way of bonding with nature, and that's ok.

While I may not be the first to sign up for a hiking trip, I have eaten my fair share of trail mix and granola, and I think it's an understatement to say that I like both.  I mean, I haven't met anyone who doesn't like trail mix, because what's not to like about it?  There's M&M's, and nuts, and dried fruit, and all kinds of delicious things mixed up inside a single package.  Trail mix is something I can easily pick at without realizing how much I've actually eaten, so it's a dangerous snack.  Before I even realize it, the whole bag is gone, and I'm left alone, with a stomach ache, and without any trail mix.  In some instances, I'll only like a handful of the things mixed into the trail mix, so I'll pick at what I like and leave what I don't like behind.  Trail mix is just too addicting. 

Soft Frosted Sugar Cookies

The Fourth of July is tomorrow, and I'm actually not as excited as I should be.  Mother Nature has once again decided to turn things upside down, and we're in the middle of a tropical storm...?  This means that my plans to picnic and barbecue and grill hot dogs and toast marshmallows for s'mores has turned into an indoor potluck lunch with friends.  I'm sure it'll still be a fun time, and I'm making chocolate chip cookies, which always make my day better.  Regardless it's a bit of a bummer knowing that my favorite Fourth of July activities probably aren't going to be happening.  At least there will be cookies and potentially clear skies at night, so fireworks are still a possibility!  I'll be making the best of my rainy day Fourth of July (except that I'm switching my patriotism at 4 for the Colombia-Brazil game, because that's historic and too important to be missed), but that's not to say that I won't be crossing my fingers for nice weather until it's picnic time!

Hopefully where you live you'll be having a much nicer Fourth of July.  I hope your day is full of sunshine, zero humidity, and a cool breeze.  It's not too much to ask for, right?  It's just a little perfect barbecue weather.  I'm sure that you all have your Fourth of July barbecue menus planned out by now (or at least I hope you do), but like Mother Nature, I'm going to have to turn things upside down with some sugar cookies.  These soft sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting absolutely must become a late, last minute addition to your menu, because they're EASY to make, CUTE to look at, and DELICIOUS to eat.  Easy cute and delicious are the defining qualities of any last minute dessert addition, so these cookies are obviously a must.

Toasted Coconut Shortbread Hearts

It's finally Wednesday, meaning that we're almost at the weekend!  Finally!  My weekend plans include tuning in for the season premiere of Orange is the New Black on Friday (!!!) and heading over to Governor's Ball on Saturday for a day full of awesome music and awesome food.  I only got into watching Orange a few weeks ago, and as soon as I finished the first episode, my TV-binge watching spree began.  Thankfully, my GRE was already over with, so I had nothing holding me back from watching the show in its entirety.  I'm so excited to see what happens on Friday!  Perhaps more exciting is Gov Ball on Saturday- the line up on Saturday has a few of my favorite bands, but what I'm secretly extra excited for are the food trucks that will be there as well (it's the foodie in me...).  Some of my favorite trucks will be there, like Cool Haus and Korilla Barbecue, and some of my favorite restaurants and quick bite places will also be there (hellooo Pommes Frites!).  There's something about food trucks that I just love- they're casual, inventive and creative, and pretty much always will guarantee a delicious meal.  

While I love simple and casual fare, I also love when things look and taste refined and delicate.  Sometimes I want an overload of flavors in whatever I'm eating, and I want it to be the kind of meal where I will end up questioning myself for having it.  Other times, I need something simple, straightforward and delicious.  These Toasted Coconut Shortbread Hearts are just one small example of something straightforward, uncomplicated, and truly delicious (best segue ever, right?).

Nutella Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies

Annnddd I'm back with a chocolatey recipe! Not just chocolatey, but peanut buttery too!  I love it when ingredients like those collide and form something magical.  That's exactly what these cookies are- they are magic!  MAGIC! I'm a little excited about these cookies because they were a really big success, and by that, I mean they were gone in about a day.  Seriously, when something like that happens, you know there's some kind of magic sitting on your plate.

These cookies all started because of my mom.  Over the past several weeks, the spring cleaning bug hit my mom, and it hit her hard.  I mean, my mama has gone a bit crazy reorganizing most of the rooms in our house before, but this time it was something else, especially in the kitchen.  Let's just say that we are no longer allowed to have anything (literally nothing) on the counters (because then they don't look clean, duh) and I no longer know where the majority of our kitchen equipment is anymore; everything is hiding away in a drawer or behind a cabinet. This was a bit problematic the first time I attempted to bake something in our now spotless kitchen- I was ready to pull something out of the oven when I realized that I didn't know where all of the oven mitts and pot holders went.  I didn't even know where any of the dish towels were.  This scenario led to me running around frantically searching for an oven mitt as the timer on my stove was going off, and fortunately I found something to take out whatever I was baking from the oven before it turned extra, extra golden brown.  In addition to clearing out the counters and rearranging every last item in the kitchen, my mama also cleaned out the pantry, which I'll admit, was getting a bit out of hand.  It was just full of random half open boxes of food, food that hadn't even been opened, and other items that we just didn't know we even had anymore.  The pantry cleanout was necessary.  In this process, my mom discovered that we had three large half-filled jars of Nutella, obviously all purchased by me for my baking endeavors.  She ordered me to use them up ASAP, so I obliged. 

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

Well, just when it seemed as though we were making great strides in the spring department, the weather suddenly decided to turn cold, gray, and rainy once again.  Spring is such a tease!  I recently made great strides in updating my closet with some new spring time additions (aka, I ventured out of the stereotypical architect black-gray-neutral wardrobe and bought things in COLOR!), yet I've been finding myself having to resort to wearing my old clothes because it's a bit too cold to wear my new ones.  At this point, I'm ready to just fast forward through spring and get to summer.  I'm already having intense cravings for stone fruit pies and crostatas, refreshing paletas in every flavor imaginable, and tons and tons (and did I mention, tons) of freshly churned ice cream.  I neeeed warm summer weather and summertime desserts, but right now, I'd settle for a 60 degree and slightly overcast day!  That can't be too much to ask for, right?

Apparently though, a 60-degree and slightly overcast day is a lot to ask for, because it was 45 and rainy yesterday!  As underwhelmed as I feel about spring right now, a berry-filled dessert will almost always do the trick to make me feel a bit more positive about the current season.  I'm a huge berry person; I always have been.  My parents often bring up the story that when I was really little, maybe 3 years old, I went through a phase where the only things I wanted to eat were minestrone soup, strawberries, and orange juice...and that was it.  I guess living off of strawberries for a period of a few months really did something to me, because I can still eat all the strawberries in the world without thinking twice about it.  I typically like to eat strawberries, and most other fruits, fresh, but every now and then I feel like I just have to bake something with them.  These strawberry shortcake cookies are the product of such a moment in time. 

PB+J Blondies

Hello, hello, hello!  The blog has been a bit quiet this week...much too quiet for my personal liking, but this little thing called life has been getting in the way.  You see, work has been busy and I've been getting home late. Then, since we're getting closer and closer to summer and I happen to run a blog that features desserts that emphasize the use of real butter, sugar, and chocolate in generous amounts, I've been kicking it into high gear at the gym during the week after work.  My attempts at getting to the gym after work have me coming home sometimes at 9:30 at night, and after I scarf down a quick dinner, it's time for my favorite activity of all, GRE prep. I can't even tell you how many irrelevant new vocabulary words that I will never ever use I've had to learn, and how much I can't wait until this stupid test is finished with.  There's literally only four weeks left until it's over and done with, so the end is near!  After doing an hour of GRE prep a few times a night, I'm usually pretty pooped and ready to just go to bed, meaning that my blog work has been taking a back seat.  Good thing I also caught the spring cleaning bug and have been doing lots of random projects in my bedroom, as if work, the gym, and GRE work weren't enough.  But I digress.  I've been busy, and I've missed getting to work on the blog.   

Fortunately, there's only a month left until the GRE is over with, so by then I'm sure that I'll have some more free time on my schedule and things around here can be a little more lively and dessert-filled.  Until then, just bear with me.  Recipes and photos will come up sporadically, but if they're a little far apart or my writing is reading a little wonky, just rest assured that this is only a temporary phase.  For now though, let's focus instead on these PB+J blondies.  When life gets too busy to handle, you need easy desserts to keep you sane, and these blondies are the simplest of desserts!

Irish Shortbread

Lately, I've gotten all settled into a new routine.  Every single night for the past month and a half or so, I've started drinking a hot cup of tea after I finish eating dinner.  I was never really a fan of drinking tea (or hot beverages in general, really), but a month and a half ago I found myself drinking it out of pure necessity.  There's been this polar vortex hanging whirling around (I imagine it whirls in a circle, because that's what vortexes do, right?), and it's just been so cold.  I know it's nowhere near as cold on Long Island as it is in other parts of the country (my sister kindly reminds me that it's -10 degrees without windchill all the time up by Dartmouth every chance she gets), but it's been a lot colder than normal, that's for sure!  The fact that I am one of those people who is perpetually cold doesn't help me very much either.  It's not so bad when I'm at home, because I can easily put on two sweatshirts and fashion myself a cape out of a blanket to wear around the house (seriously).  The problem is when I have to go to work and wear real clothes and look like a normal person.  Even though the heat is on, let's just say that my hands get frigid, and by the middle of the morning, my fingers are already frozen as I'm clicking away on AutoCAD.  But anyway, I've digressed way too much.  The point is this:

I got really cold one night and I decided to see if a cup of hot tea would make me feel better.  It helped (sort of), and the habit stuck.

Drinking my night-time cup of tea has become one of my favorite things to do.  It means that I'll have something to warm me up, and it also means that the day is almost over and it's just about time for bed (I sound way older than I actually am).  I actually have been starting to crave a cup of tea every afternoon when I'm at work!  I never thought I'd see the day where I actually want to consume a hot beverage, but it's quickly become a routine that now feels automatic.  I don't usually eat anything while I drink my tea since I have it just after I eat dinner, but on weekends, I'm always searching for some plain cookies or crackers to enjoy alongside my tea.  It's gotta be something simple and classic.  Danish butter cookies (you know, the one's that come in a blue tin) are some of my favorite, and as of this past weekend, so is Irish shortbread.