I saw this pudding and I knew I had to make it. 10 minutes to make homemade pudding. Um yeah? And I still had half of a pie crust left over from national pie day. So what I had to do what OBVIOUS, yes?

It’s a good thing that I brought this to someone’s house to share because I could have eaten the whole thing. The. Whole. Thing.

Seriously.

Pudding is one of my favorite things. Something rooting in my childhood memory there.

Look at that damage that four people caused in a matter of minutes.

So when are you going to make this one?

This week in our local basket, we got some of the most beautiful roma tomatoes that I have ever seen. I decided to make Paneer and Tomato Curry with them and attempted to make my own paneer. Paneer is a really simple pressed Indian cheese that you make by bringing milk to 180 degrees and adding buttermilk. It separates and you drain the curds in cheesecloth for a couple hours. It’s pretty much ricotta with less liquid. I’m not sure that I did everything right with the paneer but it still tasted good and it was a nice vegetarian addition to our weekly meals.

I’m still singing the praises of the New Best Recipe Cookbook. This French toast is pretty much perfect and you can make it with simple sandwich bread, which is kinda ridiculous. I have never made a French toast that I want to eat again with regular sandwich bread – it’s always something fancy, like brioche, challah or some sort of raisin cinnamon bread. And then I was introduce to this goodness. It’s amazing. And simple. You should try it!

I had made sushi at home once before, so we decided to give it a go again. This is nice for a couple of reasons – one of which is that you can control the sustainability of the fish. I usually have to turn off that part of my brain when we go enjoy sushi. . . Alaskan sockeye salmon and wild caught blue swimming crab were our ‘fish’ of choice. I wasn’t going to mess with raw fish. The most complicated component is the rice and I used Alton Brown’s simple straightforward recipe. Our other roll components were cream cheese, jalapeños, cucumber, asparagus, avocado, panko, wasabi, ginger, and spicy mayo.

Everyone rolled their own roll and then we all shared. It was pretty delicious. And I think it was pretty beautiful as well!

What have you been cooking lately?

I started with a recipe that I had tried at a wine tasting party I had attended earlier this year: Parmesan Stuffed, Bacon Wrapped Dates. I could not get enough of these when I was at the party, and the same went for book club. I will admit, they aren’t the prettiest to look at, but with only three ingredients (parmesan, bacon and dates), they were so worth making. The flavors are complex and addicting – smoky, sweet and salty. Perfect!

Still on the savory side of things, I decided to make a dip, but one that was a little less expected than normal. I am a big fan of stinky cheese, especially all different varieties of blue cheese so I was won over by this Blue Cheese and Caramelized Shallot Dip. Again, few ingredients with big payoff. I served them with black pepper kettle chips and a mix of sliced veggies.

I was looking for a reason to make this Strawberry Almond Cream Tart and book club was the perfect excuse. Such a beautiful presentation for such little work. I love making desserts like this! I was completely addicted to this tart – I could have eaten the whole thing by myself! Perfect for entertaining.

I made a few other little snacks – tea sandwiches, spiced popcorn, (and Ellie brought mini chocolate pudding pies), but I would say that these items were the stars of the evening!

Recipe for Lime Yogurt Cake with Blackberry Sauce

Recipe for Fresh Mint Ice Cream

So. Much. Better. Than. Starbucks.

My batch made more than the Pioneer Woman’s batch, but that was ok with me. I gave some away (it was difficult). Enjoyed them for dessert and with coffee the next morning. If you are unfamiliar with using a pastry blender, I wrote a tutorial on using one awhile back. I was afraid that they would be too sweet, but they surprised me, even with all that sugary glaze. Not too sweet at all. I did dip the whole scone in the glaze because, as Pioneer Woman noted, the glaze keeps the scones from going stale too quickly and I had a hope that these would stick around for at least a couple days.

They didn’t.

Recipe for Vanilla Bean Scones

I haven’t made a whole lot of bread pudding in my day, but I know it’s basically a sweet version of the breakfast strata that I made awhile back. I also know that this bread pudding was dang amazing (although probably not traditional). Cardamom is a spice that I haven’t used frequently in the past, but it has such an incredible sweet fragrance and wonderful flavor, that I was very grateful to be introduced to such a great spice. Instead of using the white bread that this recipe calls for, we used some homemade brioche, because everything is better with brioche. And this was better with brioche, trust me. And honey vanilla ice cream. The mangos and the cardamom were surprisingly complimentary of each other and everything just worked together perfectly. A nice, light, tropical interpretation of a typically heavy, wintery dessert!

Recipe for Mango Cardamom Bread Pudding

This coffee cake does not taste ‘light’. It tastes rich and delicious. The key is not not overmix the batter. When it says, ‘stir until dry ingredients are just incorporated’, don’t stir longer! You don’t want the glutens to develop and make your cake dense. I especially love the nutty taste from the toasted ground oatmeal and the whole grain oatmeal topping. Now, when I made this, I didn’t realize that I was almost out of sour cream. . . so I used 1/2 c sour cream and 1/2 c fat free french vanilla yogurt. I think that worked out fine. This one is definitely worthy of serving to guests.

Recipe for Sour Cream Coffee Cake

They didn’t last an hour.

Oh smitten kitchen, stop taunting me with all of your amazing recipes! This is starting to get a little stalker-ish if you ask me. Deb, please don’t put a restraining order on me. I couldn’t help myself on this one. You posted it and I had all the ingredients and friends and family to feed. And it was obviously a success.

These are not fancy brownies. I will tell you that. Not like the grasshopper brownies, or the cappuccino brownies I’ve made before. But just because they aren’t fancy doesn’t mean they aren’t delicious.

Such a simple recipe, so few ingredients (all of which are staples in my kitchen) and so many different directions you could go with it. Add some chocolate chips, andes mints, some espresso powder, pinch of cayenne, nuts. . . the opportunities are endless. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I melted the butter in the microwave until I got the consistency that the recipe called for – as Deb noted, it worked perfectly.

I do believe that these brownies would work well to ship since there is no cocoa butter from chocolate chips/bars in it. Delicious. This will certainly be a go to recipe for me whenever I need a quick dessert.

recipe for best cocoa brownies

Well, of course I turn to Deb from Smitten Kitchen. I found her recipes for Crisp Salted Oatmeal Chocolate cookies, and I wanted to make them. She had me hooked at salted. Salt. My weakness. One of many.

The original cookies had white chocolate chunks in them, and I’m not a big fan of white chocolate (as it’s not chocolate at all, just cocoa butter) but she adamantly said that white chocolate was the way to go with these. I thought I bought white chocolate. I really did. The wrapper of the chocolate bar I bought was white while the dark chocolate bar of the same brand was dark! But it was semi-sweet chocolate. So, instead of getting white chocolate, I just used what I had. And I’m happy I did. I mean, I’d still like to try them with white chocolate,  but this batch was not disappointing at all! They are thin, but not too thin. There’s a bit of chewiness but a good amount of crunch around the edges. I think she described them as ‘shattery’ which is definitely a good descriptor. A worthy cookie.

Recipe for Crisp Salted Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies