Confetti Crumb Cake Birthday desserts too cliche for you? How about a birthday breakfast instead? This fun and festive birthday crumb cake has been the birthday breakfast of choice in my household as of late, and I’m hoping your family loves it just as much 💜 Despite the crumb cake name (and crumbly topping), this recipe is actually based on my coffee cake. I jazzed it up with two layers of birthday cake crumbs and a sweet vanilla glaze (the glaze is totally optional; the cake is sweet enough without it)....

Raw papaya is cooked and then tossed with freshly ground roasted peanut and sesame seed powder. This dish is great to serve with both rice and roti. About the recipe I have to confess that I didn’t cook green papaya until I had my son, which was more than a decade ago. It is supposed to be really healthy for nursing moms. So, upon my mom’s suggestion, I started cooking with it....

How long it takes: 5 minutes (not including time to fry bacon) Equipment you’ll need: none Servings: makes 1 wrap Ingredient Notes Eggs: Rarely a day goes by when I don’t eat a couple of eggs. This wrap features two perfectly scrambled eggs. Bacon: A few slices of crisp bacon provides plenty of flavor and texture. Have you ever tried air fryer bacon? It’s perfect for small batches to use in recipes like this wrap....

Today I have a pastry called Bialy or bialystoker kuchen, from the city of Bialystok in Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews immigrated to America and settled in New York city. They brought these bialys with them. There used to be dozens of bialy bakeries in New York but they have dwindled down in numbers in the recent past. A Bialy is similar to a bagel in that it is a round, chewy roll....

Isn’t this dressing the most beautiful color? I love keeping a jar of salad dressing in the fridge and this carrot vinaigrette salad dressing is my new favorite. I hardly ever stray from my honey mustard vinaigrette, but this one is definitely worth straying for. About this Carrot Vinaigrette Salad Dressing I use pure carrot juice (I buy mine but if you have a juicer at home, make your own!...

Here is a very easy vegan cauliflower stew/ curry made with coconut milk. It is an hearty recipe that is great can be served with bread or either rice or roti. Most Indian style stews either have tomato or coconut or both as base. But this recipe uses just coconut milk and it is absolutely scrumptious. The gravy in this curry/ stew is made with coconut milk, there are no ground spices or masalas....

Simple & Easy Cheesecake Bars If you’re a fan of my classic cheesecake, you’re going to love these perfectly portable cheesecake bars! They bake in a fraction of the time a regular cheesecake takes, and they’re much more approachable. I make these so often at home that I felt they deserved their own post. As with all of my cheesecake recipes, this one is perfectly sweet and requires no water bath (yay!...

**Spoiler ahead My colleague recommended this movie and we rented it in YouTube. It’s a nice comedy-drama movie produced and directed by Jon Favreau, he also the main protagonist in that movie. He is professional chef in LA who gets into some issues with a food critic, resigns his job and returns to his home town Miami. There he finds a food truck, fixes it up and comes back to LA while selling cubanos....

Some days you just really need some chocolate. For breakfast. Today is one of those days. Luke and I had a rough night last night in which neither of us slept very much at all. So I’m tired, and maybe a little cranky, and a chocolate turnover seems like a much better option to me right now than my usual breakfast. Melted dark chocolate wrapped in a buttery, flaky, sugar-dusted and chocolate-drizzled pastry shell....

Cinnamon roasted almonds. You all know them by the intoxicating smell that completely overtakes you at fairs, craft shows, football games, malls or wherever the dang things are sold. All you need is 7 bucks for a tiny little cone. I could argue that it’s worth every penny, especially when they are still hot and fresh. How long it takes: 5 minutes to prep, about an hour in the oven Equipment you’ll need: sheet pan, mixing bowl Servings: makes 3 cups That’s all well and good but they are definitely a special treat....

How long it takes: prep time 15 minutes, 5 minutes to cook each batch Equipment you’ll need: mixing bowls, pastry bag with tip (or small resealable plastic bag, griddle Servings: 4 Bakery-Style Cinnamon Roll Pancakes Easier than real cinnamon rolls. When you make cinnamon rolls in pancake form, you don’t have to mess with yeast or wait for dough to rise. And it’s easier than you think! There’s no rolling or slicing involved for these cinnamon roll pancakes—instead you’ll make a separate batter for the cinnamon swirl....

I’m so excited……cause Valentines is just around the corner and this also happens to be a long weekend for us – WooooHoooo (though I still don’t know why I’m more excited 😉 ! Are you ready for the Valentines, have you planned in advance, purchased all the stuff and are pretty much done? OR Are you like most of us (like me – I wish I could put that grinning emoticon here)…....

Leia ruined some of my things yesterday while I was at work. She chewed up the corners of one new book and helped herself to the savory insides of another, shredding it into literary confetti. I tried to salvage it with a roll of scotch tape, but the pages (or rather the remnants of pages) were beyond hope. She also ate a box of mints, the last no-bake cookie I’d left on the counter, destroyed my favorite inky pen and spilled its indelible guts all over our one-and-only piece of carpet in the house, and, worse, got into my notebook where I had the first quarter of a handwritten (as in, no copies to be found on the computer, in my Google docs, or anywhere else in the universe) novel that I’d begun....

Cowboy Cookies If you’re not familiar with them, cowboy cookies are a beefed up version of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies; they’re hearty, chewy, and have a LOT of flavor and texture. Like most cookies, these are sweet, but they’re robust and not too sweet. Best of all, these cowboy cookies are so quick and easy to make. With an oatmeal cookie base and a generous handful of mix-ins (coconut, chocolate, and pecans) cowboy cookies have enough texture to compete with kitchen sink cookies and a flavor that’s almost reminiscent of seven layer bars....

There are only 5 days left until Christmas and I can’t even wrap my head around that right now. 5 days! Are you ready? I know that I’m not ready for Christmas to be over, I’ve had so much fun preparing for the holiday with so many cookie recipes, (like my sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies, which are going bonkers right now, thank you to everyone who has tried them!...

Bake of the day: Cranberry Pistachio Cream Scones I actually posted the recipe for these cream scones a while back already, but they are such a big hit with everyone who taste them, I’m posting them again today. The add-ins for these scones can be customized to ones taste preferences. I thought Cranberries and pistachios are a great combo for the holiday season. I recently bought a scone pan which makes making uniform and even size scones much easier....

Happy Monday Folks and we bring to you these ‘Crispy Potato Tacos’ in celebrations of ‘Cinco de Mayo’ this Tuesday (May 5th) (Mexican Festival). Now there are a lot of ways of making Potato Tacos and my recipe is kind of semi-homemade and saves you tons of time (as we are not cooking the potatoes from scratch). Crispy Potato Tacos Ingredients Frozen Fries – use any variety Cooked Tortilla Bacon Bits Sour Cream Taco Seasoning Lemon – sliced Jalapeno – sliced Fresh Cilantro – chopped...

How long it takes: 20 minutes of prep, with 4 hours of cooking Equipment you’ll need: slow cooker Servings: 6 Crockpot chicken and rice brings both convenience and comfort to the table, with tender chicken, fluffy rice, and a blend of flavorful seasonings and veggies, all simmered together in a slow cooker. (Plus: cheese!) It’s a wholesome one-pot meal, much like a casserole. Crockpot Chicken and Rice A complete meal....

Michigan State played the University of Michigan in basketball last night. Ben cheers for U of M and I cheer for MSU. Now, I don’t really care all that much about the game or even really who wins or loses but I do enjoy competition and a little friendly trash-talking. And if my team wins, that’s just a little sweet icing on the cake. I went to Michigan State for a couple of years so it really is the one team I do like to cheer for if I’m watching a game....

These curry puffs can be filled with any of your favorite stuffing or curry. Use the same filling you use for kachoris (curried peas is a great filling), caramelized onions, use just one veggie or a mixture. These puffs bake at a high temperature for a few minutes. If you have the time, make your own puff pastry dough at home – here’s the recipe from Gayathri’s blog. I used frozen one from Trader Joes....