The original recipe is from the Tasty Kitchen website. So far, the only change I’ve made is to not include the dried cranberries or chocolate. Honestly, I like it plain. It is plenty sweet from the brown sugar and agave syrup. One of these days, I’d like to try using honey or maple syrup instead of the agave syrup, and I’d like to experiment with different combinations of nuts and seeds. Recipe after the jump.

Coconut Granola
By whatsgabycooking from the Tasty Kitchen website

3 cups old fashion oats
3/4 cup raw cashews, roughly chopped
3/4 cup almond, roughly chopped
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 stick unsalted butter
1/4 cup agave nectar (or honey)
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup dried cranberries

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

2. In a large bowl, combine the oats, cashews, almonds, coconut, salt and cinnamon and set aside.

3. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter, agave and brown sugar until the sugar has completely dissolved. Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Pour the butter mixture over the oat mixture and stir to combine until everything is well coated.

4. Spread the granola mixture onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving a few large clumps. Bake the granola for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and break up the pieces to ensure even baking. Place the baking sheet back into the oven for another 15 minutes. Remove the sheet pan from the oven and give it one more toss to break up some of the pieces and place back into the oven for the last 10 minutes.

5. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let it cool completely. Once cooled, add the chocolate chips and the dried cranberries. Give it a quick toss with a spoon and then package into mason jars or brown paper bags to store.

Key Lime Pears from Michael Recchiuti’s cookbook Chocolate Obsession. I’ve been making these for Christmas for the past few years, and it’s my go-to recipe when I have an excess of pears. My friend Missy gifted me with a box (a BIG box) of the fruit last week, and I’ve been struggling to use them all before they go bad. I’ve lost count of how many batches of these key lime pears I’ve made, but we keep eating them faster than I can make them. You take green, very firm pears and slice them thinly, then soak the pear slices in a key lime sugar syrup. The pear slices are then baked (I use a rack set over a cookie sheet, but Recchiuti just lays them on a silpat-covered cookie sheet) until crisp. Recchiuti dips them in chocolate, but I prefer them plain. I think the chocolate overwhelms the pear/key lime flavor.

Pear Bread from Bake or Break. When the pears got too ripe for key lime pears, I decided to give pear bread a try. This is like zucchini bread, except with pears. There are lots of pear bread recipes floating around, and the only reason I picked this one was because I had all the ingredients on hand. I made a few changes. First I substituted brown sugar for half of the sugar, and I added about 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg. Finally, I left out the nuts because I didn’t have any. I ended up with two loaves of fragrant, sweet, dense quick bread. I didn’t really taste pears, unfortunately. I’m going to keep playing with this recipe, especially as my pears continue to ripen.

Corn with Tons of Herbs from Dana Treat. One night I was looking for a side dish to serve with dinner, and I remembered reading about this dish. Corn sauteed with butter, shallots and a ton of herbs, basil and cilantro in my case. Use the best corn you can and fresh herbs only, please. I liked the basil here, but not the cilantro. Thyme would be lovely as would dill.

Cherry Tomato Orzo Salad from Simply Recipes. We’ve been living off of this salad for the past few months, and every time I make it, I make it a little bit different. I’ve moved away from orzo and now use macaroni pasta; its a little more substantial. I also like this with parmesan instead of feta, and I don’t limit myself to just cucumbers and green onions. Any veggies I have languishing in the fridge tend to make their way into this salad. I especially like bell peppers, frozen peas and avocados.

Sweet Potato Tian from danatreat.com. Bryan doesn’t like sweet potatoes, and I keep trying to change his mind by cooking them different ways. I think this dish finally swayed him, a little. This tian was hearty enough for a vegetarian meal, but I can see serving it as a side dish as well. It was sweet from the potatoes, bell peppers and onions, and the garlic mellowed out significantly. Leftovers, although a little soggy, were terrific. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Whole Wheat Pasta with Creamy Roasted Carrot Sauce from www.travelerslunchbox.com was another terrific dish. It uses ingredients you likely have on hand, and it comes together quickly. The only problem I had was that the sauce was a little too thick. I used some of the pasta cooking water to thin it out. Once again, the leftovers were just as good. We added some grilled chicken to the pasta on the second night which took the dish to a whole new level. If you are looking for an alternative to a tomato-based pasta sauce, look no farther.

And finally, Big Mouth Burgers from cheekykitchen.com. I just couldn’t pass these up. Whenever I see mushrooms as a primary ingredient, I have to give it a try because the fungi are one of Bryan’s favorite foods. And, I was intrigued by this recipe. The burgers were pretty good, but they puffed up like balloons while they cooked and were very dense. I suspect I ground my mushrooms a little too finely. The burgers definitely tasted like mushrooms, but they were juicy and had good flavor (if you like mushrooms, that is). Not a bad recipe, and something I’ll keep in mind if I find myself drowning in mushrooms.

I stumbled across this recipe here. While I don’t usually crave rice pudding, there was something about this recipe that refused to let me forget it. So I made it. And then I made it again. And again. Each time I made it, I changed the recipe just a little, and in the process, made a few discoveries.

First, I like this rice pudding made with almond milk instead of soy or regular milk. The almond milk gives the rice more flavor (I think) and a thicker consistency.

Second, I like cinnamon and vanilla bean (if you don’t have a vanilla bean, just use vanilla extract, stirring it in when the rice is finished) here and nothing else. No raisins, no pistachios, nothing.

Third, I use a bulk short-grain brown rice. I have no idea if it is arborio rice or not. And my pudding cooks for more than an hour, usually about an hour and fifteen minutes. I just cook it until the rice is as tender as I want it, adding more almond milk if it starts to look dry.

That edamame hummus up there? It was okay, very green tasting. I prefer traditional hummus. From a can.

I recently stumbled across a new website, ruhlman.com, and, in particular, this recipe for buttermilk rolls. I liked the rolls so much, I’ve made them several times since Christmas. These aren’t light-as-a-feather rolls. They are dense and soft, almost a bit heavy. They have fantastic flavor from the buttermilk, and they stay soft for days.

As I’ve played around with this recipe, I made a few changes. First of all, I halve the recipe and still get eight good-sized rolls out of it. The second thing I do is use a 13″x9″ pan to bake the rolls. I tried using a springform pan, but I had a hard time getting the rolls completely baked before the tops burned (did I mention this is a dense dough?). Spreading the rolls out helps them baking more evenly.

After making eight or nine batches, here’s my spin on the recipe:

We like our salsa less liquidy, so I briefly drain the tomatoes, and then add in some of the tomato juice at the end.

I also dislike getting chunks of raw onion and jalapeno in my salsa, so I process them into very small pieces first

And finally, I like more lime juice than the original recipe calls for, so I use the juice of a whole lime.

My version of the recipe is after the jump.

Salsa
Adapted from The Pioneer Woman cooking website
Makes about 3 cups, give or take

1/4 cup chopped onion (I use about 1/4 of a medium onion)
1-2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup cilantro
1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes with juice, drained and juice reserved
2 cans (10 ounces each) Rotel tomatoes, drained
1 Tbs sugar
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
Juice of one lime

In a food processor finely chop onions, garlic, jalapeno and cilantro. Add in whole tomatoes, Rotel tomatoes, sugar, salt, pepper, cumin and lime juice. Pulse until the salsa is the consistency you want, adding some of the reserved tomato juice if you feel it is a little dry. Taste and adjust for seasoning, then refrigerate for a couple of hours before eating.

She may be right. This is certainly one of the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. The cookies baked up crunchy on the edges and chewy in the center. The dough itself has flavor (so many chocolate chip cookie doughs are tasteless, relying on the chocolate chips for flavor) due to three kinds of sugar. They baked up fat and round without much spread. And a sprinkle of salt on the tops contrasts nicely with the sweet cookie.

Skeptical? Click on that link up there for the recipe and try it yourself.

Seriously, these are good. The sweet, tangy filling is encased by a soft, just slightly sweet yeasty bread. The lemon flavor is everywhere. There’s lemon zest in the dough. The filling is made up of sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice. And the cream cheese glaze has lemon juice in it.

You can find the recipe here.

I found the original recipe on www.browneyedbaker.com and made my first batch exactly as the recipe was written. Then I decided to experiment a little bit.

My first change was to use chunky peanut butter instead of creamy. It increased the peanutty flavor and gave the cookies a little more texture. I also increased the amount of oatmeal because I thought the original amount (1/2 cup) was skimpy. I increased the ratio of brown sugar to white sugar and added an extra egg yolk. My final change was to double the recipe and refrigerate the cookies for a couple of hours before baking them. This batch was a keeper.

The cookies stayed on the thick side, with crunchy edges and chewy centers. Be careful not to overbake these. You want them to just start browning around the edges. The middle may look a bit undercooked, but the cookies will continue to cook after you take them out of the oven. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet.

Recipe is after the jump.

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from browneyedbaker.com
Makes about 30 cookies

Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature. I accidentally picked up a no-sugar added chunky peanut butter that wasn’t very sweet. If you use a peanut butter that has added sugar, I’d decrease the brown sugar by 1/4 cup.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chunky peanut butter
2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups rolled oats (I used old-fashioned rolled oats)
2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

In a standmixer, cream together the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract for about 3 minutes. Add the peanut butter and mix well. Add the eggs and egg yolk and beat to combine. On low speed, gradually add the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the oats and then the chocolate chips.

Use a large cookie scoop (I used a 3-tablespoon scoop) and drop dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and adjust rack to middle of the oven. Space cold dough mounds about two inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets and flatten them slightly. Bake for 13-15 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden around the edges, rotating cookie sheet after 10 minutes of baking. Cool completely on the baking sheet and then store in an airtight container at room temperature.