Peach Almond Free Form Pie

A free form pie is making a pie without a pie pan by folding up the crust around the filling.  This pie has tender peaches topped with a crumbly almond and brown sugar topping.  Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Roasted Red Pepper Pasta Sauce

I recently went to my parents house and loaded up on fresh vegetables from the garden.  The red peppers are finally ripening!  I have been waiting all summer to make this dish.  A saucy pasta dish is hard to botch, but plain tomato sauce can get pretty boring.  To jazz it up, substitute the tomatoes with roasted red peppers and voila!  A delicious Roasted Red Pepper Pasta Sauce to accompany the wonderful noodle.  Fresh picked basil adds a whole depth of flavor to this sauce.

Cream Cheese Filled Carrot Cake Muffins

I officially own a muffin tin!  I have always wanted one but never got around to getting one until yesterday.  To celebrate I decided to make scrumptious carrot cake muffins loaded with cream cheese frosting.  The best part of these muffins is the design the cream cheese makes when you bake them.  I think this one looks like a Star Wars tie fighter.

Spicy Asian Noodles

Asian food is my absolute favorite style of food.  This Spicy Asian Noodles is a quick and easy way to bring Asian cuisine into your home without all the fuss of julienning vegetables or buying a wok.  It is similar to Pad Thai, but has a thinner, less peanut buttery sauce.

Roasted Chickpeas

Roasted Chickpeas is an easy way to get the healthy benefits of eating beans while enjoying a crunchy munchy snack.  The flavor combinations are endless; I never make mine the same way twice.  Tonight I made them with cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, and cayenne.

No Bake Chocolate Banana Cake

Ever get the craving for a nice big hunk of chocolate cake but never feel like pulling out the mixer, heating up the oven, and baking a huge cake when you only want a slice?  No Bake Chocolate Banana Cake is the solution!  It is a rich, decadent chocolate cake loaded with bananas, and best of all, you cook it in the microwave. 

Guinness Beef Stew

Fall is my favorite season.  It has the perfect not-too-hot, not-too-cold weather, beautiful turning leaves, and of course the best food.  Pumpkin pie, roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, hot chocolate, mashed potatoes, and best of all, beef stew.  I have been looking forward to the fall all summer and couldn't resist making a pre-season beef stew.  This recipe has been in my family for years.

Watermelon Slush

I have a ton of watermelon in my fridge just begging me to eat it.  I have eaten so much of it this summer I think I might explode.  So I decided to make something with it to make it a little more exciting.  This Watermelon Slush is a perfect ending to a beautiful summer day.

Chocolate Strawberry Biscotti

I sat outside this morning drinking my cup of formosa oolong and contemplating what delicious food I should make today.  As I stared into my cup of tea it dawned on me.  A twice baked cookie would compliment my tea quite nicely.  But it couldn't just be any biscotti, it had to include summer fruit and, of course, chocolate.

Fruit Tart

 As much as I love cake, for my birthday I always end up choosing Fruit Tart for my dessert.  My birthday happens to fall in the perfect time of summer, when fruits are ripe and perfectly sweet.  This Fruit Tart is a delightful balance of juicy fruit, sweetened cream cheese, and flaky crust.  I could eat the whole thing in one sitting if my brothers didn't try to stab me with their forks for a piece.  Needless to say, we always make two.

Eggplant Parmesan

For the past week I have been so excited about my birthday meal that I was drooling before I even walked into my parent's house yesterday.  I chose one of my most favorite dishes, Eggplant Parmesan.  It is simply divine and I hardly ever get the chance to eat it.  My mom and I cooked it for 8 people, with tons of extra, so feel free to halve the recipe for a smaller dinner party.

Christmas Cinnamon Rolls

Every Christmas morning, before the rest of my family gets out of bed, I am down in the kitchen with my mom making a whole spread of delectable sweets which we feast on throughout the day.  We don't do the normal Christmas dinner with the nice turkey or ham, we do tooth achingly sweet breads.  Monkey bread and cinnamon rolls.  She makes the monkey bread, I make the rolls.  It's tradition. 

This morning I woke up singing Christmas songs as though I were dreaming of the season.  I immediately got up and put on my Christmas radio station on Pandora and got a hankering for warm, gooey cinnamon rolls.  Yes, I do realize it is only August.  I also realize Christmas is only 4 months and 8 days away!!!

So I set out to make these rolls.  They require a pretty good amount of time to make as the dough needs to rise twice.  I jumped up and ran to the grocery store to gather some ingredients I was out of and hurried home to begin.

Chocolate Iced Coffee

Anyone who knows me would say that my drink of choice is tea.  But dare I say that ever since grad school I have become quite partial to iced coffee. I guess I need that extra burst of caffeine to get me through the day.  Of course, I have to load it up with sugar to the max to make it tolerable, but it is definitely growing on me.  I can never bring myself to buy an iced coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts, however, when the craving strikes I luckily have this delicious recipe to fall back on.

Kale Chips

One of my most favorite midnight snacks to eat is chips.  Unfortunately, they are not the healthiest of things to eat.  So I try to experiment with different ingredients to provide that crispy, salty, munchy snack that is okay to go back for seconds.  And thirds...

Kale chips is one such snack.

They are one of the easiest things to make, and I have made them about eight times just this past month alone.  It helps a lot having a mom who loves to garden and grows bountiful amounts of veggies; enough to supply the whole family, friends, and even the neighbors.  When she gives me bags of kale I know that kale chips will be next on the list of things to make.