Cream Scones

Lately, I’ve been on a major chocolate chip cookie kick. I have this one particular recipe (this one) that I’ve been making for what feels like forever now. I guess you could say that it’s become my “go-to,” and as much success as I’ve had with it, I’ve grown a bit restless.  There’s so many recipes out there, and I know I haven’t even scratched the surface as far as testing them all! So I’ve been experimenting with chocolate chip cookies a lot in the last few weeks. I’ve made many, many batches and tested tons of recipes, and then one day my boyfriend interrupted my chocolate chip cookie baking spree and suggested that I make something else. Literally, anything else. Anything that wasn’t a chocolate chip cookie. Needless to say, I got the hint. 

I decided to make a batch of scones to win his stomach back (because I still need taste testers, obviously). Scones are one of his favorite baked treats, so I was confident that they would do the trick—all  I had to do was find the perfect recipe. Thanks to my chocolate chip cookie baking mania, I had found myself browsing through cookbooks I didn’t even know I had or hadn’t looked through in a while, and blogs that I had sadly forgotten about, all in search of the perfect cookie recipe. In the process, I stumbled across a lot of recipes that looked like they were worth bookmarking, and this recipe from the Violet Bakery Cookbook was one of them.  I was immediately drawn to these particular recipe because of the way Claire Ptak described the scones in her headnote. “A bit like an American shortcake” and “extra-rich.” I needed no more convincing than that! 

Croissants

Over the holiday break, I tackled my Mount Everest: homemade croissants. I can say with full confidence that there is no recipe that has ever intimidated as much or that I’ve wanted to try more than a batch of fresh from the oven croissants. The amount of time and precision they demand, the careful laminating process, and that insane butter block you have to create…those were just the reasons at the top of my list for always pushing them aside—"I’ll try them eventually,” I always said. Well, that moment came over the holidays when I found myself alone in my apartment, ready for some kind of project or week-long task to entertain myself with. I was debating whether to settle down on the couch with a new book or new TV show (which I’m now trying to figure out how to incorporate in my regular, real-world schedule), when the idea of climbing and conquering Mt. Everest came to me. It was the perfect opportunity—I was in my own kitchen and didn’t have to contend with anyone telling me that preparing a whole batch of croissants was a delicious, yet frivolous decision; I had all the time in the world; and I was bored out of my mind. And so, I set about planning my croissant adventure. 

A few weeks prior, I received an email from Sur La Table about signing up for their two-hour croissant workshop. I actually considered signing up for one of the classes over my break, thinking it would be a good use of my time. Of course, I ended up not signing up (it must have been a combination of my forgetfulness and lack of desire to actually spend $80 on a two-hour workshop). So it was a little funny that I was fully immersing myself in baking up a batch of croissants at home, as if I had any idea what I was doing, instead of a class. I mean, I had read about the process many, many times before, so I knew exactly what I was supposed to do—create a giant block of butter, encase it in a fluffy yeasted dough, pound it out to an even layer, fold it up like a letter, and repeat two more times. I felt like I was ready. I read Thomas Keller's recipe over and over the night before I was going to start, but when it was game time, I found myself so nervous about getting every little step just right. I referred back to the recipe dozens of times, even though I knew what to do. 

Chocolate Walnut Breakfast Buns

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you had a wonderful and relaxing holiday season, filled with family, friends, and lots of delicious, comforting food. I'm lucky enough to get a nice holiday break at work, so I was off for just over a week. Even though I did my fair share of Netflix binge-watching and had many "I'm gonna nap right now because I can" moments, and experienced more food comas than I'm proud of, I had a very productive week off. Last week was the first week where I had a full kitchen completely to myself, and I made sure to take advantage of it. My pantry and kitchen toolbox still aren't quite as stocked as I'd like them to be, but they're getting there, slowly but surely. It was also the first time I baked in my new apartment for the blog, so that was a new experience on its own. I'm so used to baking in my parents' kitchen and photographing in their living room, so doing it somewhere else took some getting used to. Since I only brought my "essential" props and tools, I'm still missing quite a few items that would make the process a bit more seamless. Figuring out how to work the lighting in my new space is also a challenge, especially because my sheer curtains aren't up yet!

New challenges aside, I'm pretty happy with the recipes I managed to bake last week. Each was rewarding in its own special way, and I'm excited to share them. First up, fluffy Chocolate Walnut Breakfast Buns--you're not on any kind of New Year's detox program right now!

I made some Quick and Easy Cinnamon Rolls a few weeks ago to satisfy a craving I had back when I was super busy getting ready to move to my apartment. They were great and totally hit the spot at the time, but the craving just came back just around Christmas. As good as those cinnamon rolls were, I couldn't shake away my need for pillowy soft yeast buns.  Fortunately, the craving came back at just the right moment. With loads of spare time at my disposal for once, I set out to create the fluffy, gooey cinnamon buns I was my brain was telling me I needed...except that as I was making them, I changed my mind. All I wanted was a chocolate breakfast bun. 

Quick and Easy Cinnamon Rolls

Happy Saturday, everyone! Now that Fall is underway (maybe not in NY, where we've had some freakishly spring-like weather for the past few days), all I want to do is bake anything that feels warm and cozy. Rolling my sleeves up, making a mess of flour and spices, and putting something in a hot oven to make my house smell amazing is just about all I want to do. Now that I'm baking on a more regular basis, this is happening much more often, and it's pretty awesome. Of course, just as I start to get back on the baking and blogging grind, my posting and time spent in the kitchen are going to be a little thrown off once again, but at least it's for a good (and exciting!) reason: I'm moving on out! 

The timing is finally right for my long-time boyfriend (C.) and I to finally leave the nest and start a new adventure together. The apartment search went incredibly fast--we went from having no apartment to scheduling the lease signing in a matter of two days, and before we know it we'll be packing up the U-Haul and making the drive to Astoria. To say that we're incredibly excited would be the biggest understatement in the world; this move has been in the works since we graduated from college, and the fact that we're moving to a beautiful pre-war apartment in a prime location of a neighborhood as rich and diverse as Astoria has me completely giddy with excitement. 

Since we're furniture shopping and packing every spare second we have, the time I can actually spend in the kitchen over the next few weeks has to be spent as efficiently as possible, so get ready for a bunch of short, fuss-free (but still amazingly delicious) recipe posts!  All I want are comforting treats now that I'm leaving home and entering a crazy few weeks, and since it's time to bake all things warm and cozy, cinnamon rolls needed to come out of my oven (they're C.'s favorite and Fall=cinnamon roll season, in case you didn't know).  They need to be easy, quick cinnamon rolls though, because I definitely do not have time for sit and wait for yeast rolls to rise. As much as I love traditional, fluffy yeast rolls, right now I just need some immediate gratification. These cinnamon rolls, from Claire Ptak's gorgeous Violet Bakery Cookbook, are exactly the type of cinnamon roll I need. They're definitely different from yeast rolls--they're almost like biscuits--so if you're after a soft, pillowy roll then this might not be the recipe for you  (but this one may be up your alley!).  Warm from the oven, this quick cinnamon roll was comforting, delicious and better than I could have imagined, since I went from having no cinnamon rolls to having a dozen in just under an hour. 

Chocolate Babka

For the past few years, my sister has taken it upon herself to request an unconventional birthday treat.  A regular birthday cake is never good enough for her. She's requested homemade Chocolate-Glazed Yeast Doughnuts, a sky high New York Style Cheesecake, and last year, she wanted an entire week dedicated to breakfast treats.  This year, however, I beat my sister to the punch.  I thought "birthday babka" had a nice ring to it, and she immediately agreed.  I'd been wanting to make a babka for years, but I was never brave enough to go through with it. The yeast, and the folding, and the swirls! It all seemed like too much.  I had already opened my mouth though, and she was set on her birthday babka, with lots of chocolate swirls. There was no turning back now.  

I went straight to Smitten Kitchen, because I knew Deb had simplified Yotam Ottolenghi's chocolate krantz cake recipe into one that was foolproof. If I've learned anything from working closely with Clarkson Potter over the past few months, it's that Ottolenghi is a brilliant, brilliant man. I figured that if Deb had worked her magic on an Ottolenghi recipe to improve it, the final result had to be spectacular.  Her recipe seemed completely doable, and as I was reading it through, I wondered why I hadn't ever given myself chance to actually make a babka.  It didn't seem that hard. 

Buttermilk Waffles (Gluten-Free)

I have a special place in my heart (stomach) for waffles.  I grew up with the frozen kind; I had two for breakfast everyday, all the way up through high school.  I never tired of having the same breakfast, and while I eventually switched up my routine in college, there were a few moments where I caved and bought myself a box, for old time's sakes. At restaurants, if an ice cream-topped waffle is on the dessert menu, it's the obvious choice to finish off my meal. A special breakfast out calls for a waffle.  Basically, I'm crazy for them.  I don't make them all that often though, and it's mostly out of laziness (I'm not a fan of standing over a hot iron making one waffle at a time).  However, when the mood strikes, I just have to make myself a batch at home.  There's nothing like a freshly made waffle. 

Homemade Frosted Strawberry Pop Tarts

One of my earliest, EARLIEST posts on this tiny site of mine was all about pop tart pops. A bit more trouble than they were worth, poorly photographed, but tasty nevertheless. They were teeny tiny, filled with strawberry and peach preserves, drizzled in a sweet icing, and sprinkled with candy colored sugar. They were a "wholesome" breakfast option and a great after work snack. Fast forward two years, to when I questioned why I felt a need to make pop tarts on a stick. Surely I could be a better foodie than that. Fast forward to last weekend, when I found myself trapped inside my house on a snowy Sunday making mini pop tarts again. 

At least these were a bit bigger. And I got rid of the sticks. I replaced the candy colored sugar with candy colored jimmies (and chopped pistachios because I'm almost a grown up now). I did add more icing though. And used only strawberry filling because it's my favorite (how mature of me). I really don't know why I made these; the only explanation I have is that I was bored at home, came across some home made pop tart photos online, and got a huge urge to make a batch. Sometimes you just can't reason everything out logically. 

Gluten Free Blueberry Pancakes

Pancakes are among my favorite ways to start off my weekends.  There's really nothing much better than quickly mixing up a bowl of pancake batter, ladling it onto a hot griddle, and watching it transform into a fluffy and tasty breakfast treat. I've become a bit of a pancake snob in recent years, thanks to my sister, who's without a doubt a bigger pancake obsessed person than I am.  Pancakes from a box are a big no-no.  In my opinion, there's no reason to ever make pancakes from a box, given that they're completely effortless to make from scratch (and they also taste way, way better).  Seriously, I have yet to taste a Bisquick pancake that's as fluffy and tangy as my favorite homemade buttermilk pancakes. 


And then my mom went gluten-free, and suddenly, I was in a predicament.  My mom usually isn't much of a big breakfast person, as she tends to be happy with just coffee and toast, but she does love pancakes.  Blueberry pancakes, especially.  I couldn't very well make my own homemade pancakes to enjoy on the weekend to have my mom watch on without any pancakes on her plate (because what kind of person denies their mother of buttermilk pancakes, right?), so I had to figure out how to make the perfect batch of gluten free pancakes that could hold their own next to my traditional favorites.

Honey and Peanut Butter Oatmeal

It's time to jump on the resolution bandwagon, and while I usually don't particularly go crazy with wanting to detox or get my butt in the gym, this year is a bit different.  Christmas cookies are my biggest weakness, and this past holiday season, I ate more than ever.  I just couldn't stop myself from eating cookie after cookie, and I'm feeling it now, for once.  We don't need to go into anymore detail than that, but it's safe to say that I'm ready to get back in my usual routine.  It's time to get back to work, back to eating square, healthy meals, and back in the gym, with the occasional treat every now and then, for the sake of my own sanity.  As ready as I am to kick this cleansing period into high gear, let's not kid ourselves.  I still have a love for all things made with butter, sugar, and chocolate, so I'm sure those less healthy indulgences will be making a comeback soon...but for now, I'll do what I can.  Healthy breakfasts are as good a place as any to start. 

I love a good bowl of oatmeal in the morning for breakfast.  Comforting and delicious, easy to prepare and full of possibilities, oatmeal is one of my go-to's whenever I want a breakfast I can feel good about eating.  One of my favorite oatmeal mix-ins is peanut butter, because a spoonful melts right into a bowl of hot oats, so you get a ton of flavor in every bite.  In college, PB+J oatmeal was in my regular breakfast rotation, and I always looked forward to making myself a bowl in the morning.  Lately though, I've really been enjoying oatmeal with peanut butter and honey.  A piece of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and a drizzle of honey is my typical pre-workout snack, because it gives me just the energy spike I need to ensure that I perform at my best, so swapping raspberry jelly for honey in my oatmeal makes perfect sense.  Honey, peanut butter and oats are the perfect combination of ingredients to wake me up and get me ready to start my day, everyday. 

Gingerbread Pancakes

Christmas is tomorrow and I can hardly believe it.  So many weeks of preparation and shopping and baking have led up to this day, and I can't wait.  Christmas is by far my favorite time of the year, and I love everything about it.  Tonight, I'll be feasting on Italian specialties at my boyfriend's grandma's house (a real Italian Christmas Eve...I can hardly contain my excitement for the food that's to come), but tomorrow, my family is keeping Christmas Day as casual as possible.  Think pajamas and sweatpants all day, followed by hot chocolate, movies and a few rounds of cards.  It'll be a day to just relax and spend time together, with good food of course.  An easy Christmas at home wouldn't be complete without a special breakfast in the morning (after gifts are exchanged by the tree, of course). 

Big family breakfast are always a source of debate in my house.  It's typically my dad vs my mom vs me and my sister.  My dad is very set in his ways about what a "good" breakfast consists of; it's gotta include freshly made, Colombian-style hot chocolate, cheese and lots of bread.  This year, he wants to have steamed tamales for breakfast, as is traditional in Colombia.  My mom, sister, and I are not going for that though.  My mom is a fan of lighter breakfasts, and is usually satisfied with a coffee, small juice, and a scone or toast with butter and preserves.  My sister and I definitely like more elaborate breakfasts, with either French toast, pancakes, bread puddings...all that healthy stuff, alongside a coffee and an orange juice.   We always have different opinions on breakfast, so family breakfasts are trickier to put together.  In an ideal world, we'd all agree on one option and be done, but instead we typically make two or three options and let everyone choose what they want to eat. One of the options that I'll make sure ends up on tomorrow's Christmas breakfast table are pancakes. 

Cinnamon Chocolate Chunk Scones

I usually try to have some kind of interesting story to write about in every blog post, and for the most part, I'm typically able to come up with something that I hope is worth reading.  And then, I'll try to somehow connect that interesting little story to whatever recipe it is that I'm posting.  Sometimes the two flow together seamlessly, like when I'm sharing a favorite family recipe.  It's like the words just come out and I breathe a sigh of relief when I hit publish.  Other times I'll finish writing my post in a stream of consciousness kind of situation, get to the end, and think to myself, "well...I guess that kind of makes sense?"  When that happens I usually hope that the pretty photos in the post make up for the iffy written content in the post.  And then, there are also times like these. Times when I just really wanted a scone, so I made them, and here they are.

I hadn't made scones in a really long time, and over the weekend, I just had this inexplicable craving for them.  I hardly ever eat scones (shame on me), but last weekend, I couldn't let my craving for them just pass by.  I needed to remedy the situation, and it needed to be done in a manner that was simple and effortless.  Scones are simple on their own, but for the mix-ins, the rule was the same as always.  I was not going to the supermarket, and I could only use things already in my pantry.  I've gotten into the (good) habit of always having a big bar of dark chocolate on hand, and I was excited to see that I still had a decent amount of mini cinnamon chips from sister (previously used in these snickerdoodle cheesecake muffins).  Cinnamon chocolate chunk scones were happening!

Buttermilk and Banana Pancakes

Today is the day my sister returns to college, ready to start her sophomore year. My parents have the car all packed up with her things, ready for the long drive ahead of them, and she's ready to face the chilly weather of New Hampshire all over again.  I'm sending my sister off to college with a stack of banana pancakes in her belly, because what kind of sister and blogger would I be if I didn't supply hearty and delicious breakfasts, right?  It's funny that I chose to make banana flavored pancakes, of all things.  When my sister arrived home from college for the summer, I welcomed her with banana nut muffins; now that she's leaving, she's moving on with banana pancakes.  I guess my sister goes bananas for bananas. 

I happen to love baked banana treats too.  Muffins and banana bread are fantastic, and I even love a good banana cake, but I think pancakes would have to be my favorite way to work with bananas.  For some reason, they just make me think of my childhood.  I say, "for some reason," because I didn't really grow up eating pancakes.  I was a waffle-girl, 100%, and I would never trade a waffle for a pancake.  I think that whenever I did happen to have pancakes sitting in front of me, they were either of the banana or chocolate chip variety. While I can't really pinpoint how I ended up loving banana pancakes as much as I do, or why they make me think of myself as a kid, the moral of the story is that I love a good banana pancake. 

Lemony Dutch Baby with Mixed Berry Sauce

We did it, we did it! We made it all the way to Friday.  The weekend is here and it's time to have some fun, do nothing, bake some treats, and sleep in.  Sleeping in...HA!  As if I do that on the weekends.  I mean, I guess waking up at 8 in the morning on weekends instead of 6:30 is slightly better, but I really just long for a lazy, lazy, lazy Saturday or Sunday where I wake up at 11 am, that critical hour where it's too late to really eat breakfast but too early to eat lunch.  The only obvious solution to such a critical dilemma is to simply make something delicious and special for breakfast, and pretend it's a substantial lunch meal anyway.

That's exactly what I chose to do last weekend (minus the waking up at 11 am part).  I woke up at my normal weekend hour, and just wasn't in the mood for breakfast.  I'm not sure why, because I've grown to really like having breakfast every morning, but this past Sunday I was just not feeling it. Maybe I was lazy, maybe I wanted to change up my routine, maybe a bit of both.  Whatever my reasons for not having breakfast that day were, I found myself at the critical 11 am hour hungry and in need of food.  I hadn't had breakfast, and it was too early for lunch, so I did the only reasonable thing and made myself a Dutch Baby for lunch.  I wouldn't call it brunch, because there was no lunch element to this meal, aside from the time it was consumed.  This was pure breakfast for lunch.

Cherry Breakfast Bars

Here is cherry treat number two!  I never thought I'd be posting two recipes containing cherries back to back, but here I am.  While I loved both cherry treats I made over the weekend, I'm back to enjoying cherries fresh off the stem.  I don't need to go back and explain my love affair with fresh cherries all over again, so let's move on to these Cherry Breakfast Bars, shall we?

The name of these bars might be a little misleading- they're not really breakfasty.  I mean, they can definitely be enjoyed for breakfast, and I'm not going to deny that I ate a bar one morning alongside a glass of orange juice and called it a meal, but I think they're best enjoyed later in the afternoon, or ideally, as a midnight snack.  I suppose they're called "breakfast" bars because they have oats in them...which is reason enough.  Sounds good to me! These breakfast bars are from one of my favorite cookbooks ever, written by the wonderful Matt and Renato over at Baked in Red Hook (I still haven't been there, but it has become my mission to make it over to Red Hook one weekend before summer is over to have pupusas for lunch at the ball fields and then a giant brownie at Baked for dessert, because that just sounds like the most splendid day ever).  I've become a much bigger fan of bar cookies in recent weeks; it wasn't so much that I didn't like them as much as the fact that they just didn't occur to me as naturally as regular cookies did.  Bar cookies are perfect for summertime baking because they're always easy to assemble, yield a ton, and can last a decent amount of time, making them a great option for summer picnics and barbecues.  When your cookie bars are filled with delicious and fresh summer fruit, they're even more perfect! The breakfast bars from the Baked cookbook use fresh raspberries, but I thought that making a cherry version would be a fun twist on an already delicious recipe.  

Cornmeal and Blueberry Pancakes

 
The blog and all my social media channels have been unusually quiet as of late.  I mean, I'm not the biggest user of social media (something I hope to improve on!), but I typically have an Instagram-worthy photo of something delicious to share on a fairly regular basis, at the least.  Or, I'll share something scrumptious and delightful that I've found somewhere in the land of the Internet on Facebook.  Or, I'll have something posted by Tuesday, so that my typical two posts per week are nicely spaced out.  None of that is happening this week.  I wish I could say it was because I've been a busy little bee working on secret projects or off on a super top secret foodie adventure (I wish), but the truth is that my single, lonely recipe post of the week and social absence is the result of something far less exciting.  I was just too darn sick to cook anything this past weekend.

Although I guess that's not totally true, because I'm here talking about pancakes (or I will be in a moment).  I woke up in a slight funk on Friday morning and by Friday night I just felt baaadd (great Fourth of July, right?), and on Saturday morning I woke up feeling even worse.  I usually like to play tough and skip out on going to the doctor, but thankfully my mom got angry at me and made me go (thank you, mama!).  I got a bunch of prescriptions that didn't really make me feel any better, but they did a great job at making feel really really sleepy, so I ended up sleeping through what I had been hoping would be a productive, food-centered Saturday (not like I would have been able to actually make anything had I not gotten drowsy  medication, but whatever).  I still felt pretty sick and pretty sleepy on Sunday, but I forced myself out of bed to make something to share on the blog.  I just had to make at least one thing, and while I originally had plans for more elaborate things to prepare, life got in the way.  I was sick and the oven was off-limits because our air conditioning stopped working over the weekend (I'm happy to report that it works now!), so I needed something comforting and really quick to make that was either no-bake or stovetop-only.  Pancakes seemed like the most obvious solution. 

Buttermilk Biscuits with Salty Honey Butter

Here's an example of a recipe that started out with certain intentions and is being posted as something else.  I decided that my blog was lacking in the shortcake department, and I of course needed to fix that.  I have a Strawberry Shortcake in cake form, which happens to be one of my favorite cakes EVER, but I wanted to make some classic shortcakes.  I needed some buttery biscuit, whipped cream, and fruit action, so I set off to find a good biscuit recipe.  I found one, had them in the oven in about 20 minutes (they're so easy), and before I knew it, I had a tray of warm biscuits cooling on my kitchen counter.

I was about to start making the whipped cream for the shortcakes when temptation struck and I just had to have a biscuit while it was still warm from the oven. I mean, I figured it wouldn't hurt to make sure that these biscuits were shortcake-worthy, and I would only take one bite. Just one, so I did...and that's when it happened. The first bite of warm biscuit made me question why I was making strawberry shortcakes.  The second bite of warm biscuit made me think I was crazy.  At the third bite of warm biscuit, I knew that that I was crazy.  The fourth and final bite of warm biscuit made me change my mind about the urgency of posting a strawberry shortcake recipe. These buttermilk biscuits on their own were worthy of a post of their own, and that was a much more urgent matter.

Lavender and Lemon Scones

Mother's Day is tomorrow!  I hope everyone has something special planned for their mamas, grandmas, aunts, cousins, and all the other special ladies that we would be lost without.  If you're still unsure about what to do for this important holiday, or if, *gasp* you somehow forgot about it (shame on you!), don't worry.  I have you covered. All you need are a few minutes of your precious day, some dried culinary lavender, a lot of butter, and some hot tea and you'll be in the clear for Mother's Day.  You may end up being a bit covered in flour, but that'll be completely irrelevant once you have a taste of these lavender and lemon scones. 

Scones are one of those treats that everyone just seems to love- I don't think I've ever met anyone who would turn down a buttery and flaky scone.  They're simple to make and are a really wonderful treat to enjoy for breakfast, brunch, or afternoon tea.  In honor of Mother's Day, I decided to keep these little scones nice and simple and dainty.  I wanted them to be on the slightly sweet side and to have a pretty and delicate flavor.  Lavender seemed to be the perfect solution- it's subtle, floral, pretty, and sophisticated...and soapy.  This wasn't my first time cooking with culinary lavender, but it was the first time I was actually happy with the results of my lavender-infused confections.  Last summer, I bought a big bag of culinary lavender at the farmer's market, with my little heart set on making a batch of rich and creamy lavender and earl gray ice cream.  It sounds like a perfect flavor combination, but I miscalculated the amount of lavender I needed to use in the custard, and I ended up with a beautifully creamy and soapy tasting ice cream.  It was an unfortunate failure that left me nervous about working with lavender again, but I knew that it would be the perfect flavor to use for my delicate little scones.  Fortunately, like most dried herbs, lavender has a very long shelf life, so when I went back to that little brown satchel holding my dried lavender buds, they were as fragrant as the day I bought them so many months ago.  Having a little restraint when mixing in the lavender proved to be the key to giving these scones a delightfully delicate and sophisticated flavor to them. 

The Best Ever Granola for the Make and Takes Blog!

I hope everyone had a great Easter holiday!  Now that spring is really underway (thank goodness!), I've focused my attention on other lovely spring occasions to come, with Mother's Day being the first of them!  Not only do I love getting to do something special for my mama, but it's also an opportunity to host my favorite kind of celebratory meal...brunch!  My love affair with brunch and breakfast has been proclaimed many times on the blog already, and here I am doing it again.  For Mother's Day, I wanted to make something that was light, quick to prepare, and exceptionally delicious.  My mom has been on a Greek yogurt kick lately, so the perfect complement to Greek yogurt is of course, homemade granola.  Layer that homemade granola with some delicious Greek yogurt and fresh fruit, and you have some delicious and beautiful parfaits.  

This granola recipe is so incredibly simple to make, and boy is it delicious.  It's without a doubt my new favorite granola recipe, and I'm sure I'll be making big batches of it from now on to have on hand.  My mom loved this granola and its unique sweet and salty flavor.  It was incredibly easy to prepare, which makes it a perfect option for a large celebratory brunch or for a more intimate brunch with just you and your mama.  For the full recipe and more photos, head on over to the Make and Takes blog!

Loaded Carrot Muffins

With Easter only a few short days away, I figured that it was high time to finally cave in to that carrot cake craving that has been pestering me for the longest time.  I am a huge, huge, huge fan of the stuff.  I've always loved carrot cake, and I remember that one of my dad's coworkers would always send us carrot cake as a treat.  He and my dad were good friends, and they used to work near this little diner in Long Island City that apparently had good carrot cake.  I'll be honest, I don't really remember how good this particular carrot cake actually was, but I do remember that I always loved eating it.  It must have been good, I guess! 

For me, the problem with most carrot cakes is really simple, and really obvious.  They're just too darn oily and greasy.  I feel like it's a really common and unfortunate problem and for me, it just kills my carrot cake craving. Some people don't mind a dense, slightly greasy carrot cake, but I'm just not one of them.  Greasy cake?  No thank you, that just doesn't sound good.  I also happen to like my carrot cake on the plain side.  I like a moist, fully loaded carrot cake with a sprinkling of powdered sugar on top, or maybe, at the very most, a thin slather of cream cheese frosting.  I love the flavor of a good carrot cake so much that I don't even want cream cheese frosting to taint it.  

Black Pepper Bacon Waffles

Wait, it's Friday already!?  Normally, that's a really good thing (TGIF!) but today, it also means that it's the last day of Breakfast Week, and is slightly upsetting.  I had so much fun working on these breakfast posts and it's sad that this is the last one.  At least I made sure that my final Breakfast Week post was a good one- Black Pepper Bacon Waffles.  Sounds a little crazy, but trust me, this recipe is really pretty amazing.  

Waffles are the ultimate breakfast food for me, hands down.  I grew up eating frozen waffles for breakfast just about everyday when I was growing up.  My mom would always buy the Eggo brand, and I became a die-hard Eggo fanatic. I would eat the other brands she bought sometimes, but I would never like them as much as I liked the Eggo waffles.  Plain, chocolate chip, and banana were my favorite flavors, and I loved eating them with pancake syrup,  chocolate syrup. or fruit jellies.  The most important part of my waffles-for-breakfast was ensuring that every hole in the waffle had a good amount of whatever was topping my waffle that particular morning.  It must have been part of my OCD self.  Anyway, now that I've gotten older and my taste buds are ever so slightly more refined, I've grown to appreciate waffles that come from beyond the confines of the freezer section of my supermarket.  Yeasted waffles, Belgian waffles, buttermilk waffles, fried chicken topped waffles...I love them all. That's not to say that I won't eat my childhood favorites now, because believe me, I will, but my tastes have matured just a bit.  I think that plain buttermilk waffles topped with fresh fruit and syrup are my favorites, but I'm definitely open to other flavors.  I really want to experiment more with savory waffles, and I think that these Black Pepper Bacon Waffles were a good place to start.