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My Go-To Peanut Butter Cookies

To me, a peanut butter cookie should be slightly crisp on the edges, but soft, chewy, and moist in the middle.  And I find that a lot of peanut butter cookies out there are too dry, or too brittle, or don’t have enough peanut butter flavor.  A while back when I was going through Matt Lewis’s Baked, I came across this peanut butter cookie recipe and it satisfied all peanut butter cookie cravings I had.  So now I’m passing it on to you, here’s how to do it:

Bacon Cheddar Scallion Breakfast Tart with Grits Crust

I think the most efficient way to convey how spectacularly delicious this tastes is to tell you about the night I made it.  I made the mistake of making this dish at the same time as dinner the other night, and my husband and I ended up eating half of the tart and forgetting entirely about the dish that I actually had planned for dinner.  I got the idea for a grits tart after seeing Daisy of Daisy’s World make a polenta tart with goat cheese and tomatoes.  I love grits for breakfast, so I thought hm, how about grits with bacon, eggs, scallions, and cheese all in one bite?  And so, this recipe was born.  Oh, and the great thing about making this is you will have breakfast for days (or not, if you eat it all for dinner).  Here’s how to do it:

An Important Post for Bloggers to Read

To my readers who don’t have food blogs, I apologize that this post will be mostly aimed at those who do have them, but it is for an important reason.  Have you all heard about Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes having her recipes and content stolen and sold illegally as an ebook on Amazon?   As a fellow food blogger creating my own content,

Santa Maria Style Tri Tip

When I was strolling through Whole Foods last week, my husband Pete and I stumbled upon some tri-tip roast on sale.  Since we all know I can’t resist a sale, we took it home with us, and fortunately for me, my new favorite cookbook Ad Hoc at Home happened to have a recipe for Santa Maria Style tri-tip.  Santa Maria is a town in California that is famous for making this relatively cheap piece of meat a star in their BBQs.   The tri-tip is a well marbled piece of meat with really good flavor, and it’s perfect thinly sliced for sandwiches or just in its own glory.  Here’s how:

Blood Orange and Pistachio Salad

You may have noticed that the produce section looks a little grim this time of year.  The pickings are slim, and most of the poor little guys are underripe or overripe, and have traveled halfway across the world.  But thank goodness blood oranges come to the rescue this time of year, because they are beyond delicious, pretty cheap, and stunningly beautiful.  Here’s a simple little salad you can make for a light, vibrant meal:

Honey Walnut Shrimp

Honey walnut shrimp is my favorite Chinese dish ever, and is in my opinion, the best Chinese dish ever.  When I was younger and my family went out for Chinese food, we always ordered it, and there were never any leftovers to take home.  I had never even thought to make it at home until I saw it on my friend Daisy’s blog, and I was delighted by how easy it was to make.  I made a few changes to mine, but basically the walnuts are cooked in a honey caramel until they are caramelized and crisp, and the shrimp are battered in a light egg white rice flour batter, and quickly deep fried until puffed and crispy.  If you’ve never tried this dish, you must try it (you’ll thank me later).  Here’s how to make it:

Cherry Almond Granola

If you’ve never made granola at home before, the time has come. It’s just so easy and so much better than what you can get at the store (for a reasonable price at least). Furthermore, when you make it at home, you have the freedom to put whatever you want in it, and that changes all the time for me. Sometimes I want almonds, sometimes I want pecans, and sometimes I want dried cherries, and sometimes I want raisins.  Oh, and just a quick note, this is a loose granola.  If you want the clumped kind, you need to add a lot more honey.  Here’s how to make granola:

Wordless Wednesday: Inspiring Food Art

Market 17, Fort Lauderdale

Red Neck Eggs Benedict

When I ate at Elizabeth’s restaurant a few weeks back in New Orleans, I really enjoyed the duck waffle and praline bacon I had.  But I was let down by a dish I had there called red neck eggs benedict.  Ever since then I’ve been craving a properly made version of this dish, so here it is.  We’ve got a fried green tomato on the bottom, topped with a piece of thinly sliced black forest ham, a poached egg, and hollandaise sauce.  It’s good stuff, and a nice change from the usual English muffin.  Here’s how to do it:

Green Spaghetti

As simple as this dish may seem, I always find that I can’t stop eating it.  Before I go on, let me note that this dish is spicy as all get out, but if you like chiles, you’ll be a fan of this dish.  Yes, it’s spicy, but the flavor packs a punch between the chiles, garlic, and herbs.  I was introduced to this dish by my friend Sara, who says green spaghetti is a very common dish in south Texas.  Her rendition is a bit different from mine, but we always use what we’ve got on hand, right?  Here’s how to make my version:

Strawberry Balsamic Refrigerator Jam

When I stroll around the produce section these days, the experience is often a little bit grim.  Everything seems to be flown in from Chile or Guatemala and looks like it walked the whole way by itself.  So when I saw the heaps and heaps of local Florida strawberries for cheap, I stocked up.  Several of the strawberries were overripe, and this is one of the best uses I’ve found for overripe berries.  The best part about this jam is there’s no canning involved (hence the name “refrigerator jam,”) so if canning freaks you out, this is the recipe for you.  Here’s how to do it: