My friend Maile asked me to make peach muffins like the ones she discovered at her local grocery store’s bakery years ago and hasn’t seen since. That’s all I had to go on. “Can you make me some peach muffins like those? They were sooooo good!” Um, okay? I’ll try?

I have no idea if these muffins are exactly what Maile wanted me to replicate, but I do know that these have passed the “everyone loves them” test. I took them to a party and they vanished. It was like a Harry Potter trick, but in real life and without wands. I made them again today to share the perfected version with Maile. I sent her the above picture and her response was “YES!” so I think maybe we’re onto something.

Here’s to you, Maile. May it be the peach muffin of your dreams!

When Annie posted this recipe, I thought to myself, “What the heck? Annie suggests it. I’ll try it. But I don’t think I’ll like it!” Boy was I ever surprised! First of all, start to finish, this takes less than 20 minutes to make. If you burn the butter and the fire alarm goes off and you can’t figure out how to turn the fire alarm off and you have to stuff the alarm into the couch cushions to silence it, it may take 25 minutes. But if you don’t have fire alarm issues, I promise, it’s a super-fast meal. Weeknight dinner? I’d say so! And it’s healthy. And it’s delicious. It’s a new favorite in our house that I’ve served several times in the past few weeks! Try it with our summer tomatoes. You’re going to be delighted!

My husband loves angel food cake and yet I have never made it for him. I think it’s because I have tasted only the Safeway version and the spongy texture creeped me out. How in the world can a cake be sooooo spongy? I found a recipe on Cook’s Illustrated’s website and a quick perusal of the ingredients answered my question: a dozen egg whites. Yowsers. That is a lot of egg whites! Fortunately, one batch of homemade vanilla ice cream uses a half dozen egg yolks, so all I need to do is time one angel food cake and two batches of ice cream and I am left with no waste at all!

This cake is heavenly. It is perfect topped with a mound of lightly sweetened whipped cream and some fresh berries. You can serve it at a formal occasion or for a weeknight dessert. Either way, it’s delicious! Now that I know how easy it is to prepare angel food cake, I will make this cake often throughout the summer to go with all those wonderful strawberries and blueberries at the local farmer’s market!

Continue reading: angel food cake

My apologies. I had NO IDEA that I had not posted this recipe yet. I’m so glad an observant reader brought this to my attention as I thought I had posted this recipe ages ago. While I love my yeasted waffles recipe for Saturday morning simplicity, I’m always so disappointed when they go limp minutes after taking them out of the waffle maker. Pam Anderson’s recipe for super crunchy waffles that stay crunchy for up to an hour after taking them out of the waffle maker is my new favorite. The secret is the corn starch and the 5 minutes in the oven. I absolutely adore these, topping mine with syrup, fresh berries, and whipped cream. Give them a shot and tell me if they don’t become your new favorite waffle recipe too!

Continue reading: super crunchy waffles that *stay* crunchy

I love my mom’s potato salad, but it takes several hours to make and sometimes I don’t have that much time (or energy! phew…. this pregnancy stuff is draining!). I came across this potato salad recipe eons ago on Brown Eyed Baker and its simplicity intrigued me. I have made it twice in three weeks, which is not something that I generally do. Because it is so easy to make, so tasty, and it goes well with so many main courses, this will be a mainstay in our house. Best part? No potato peeling required! Yahoo!

Continue reading: herbed vinaigrette potato salad

First off, I see a new trend. First, there were mufcakes. Now there’s muffin cake. I promise. I’ll make something that doesn’t include “muf” in it at some point.

Secondly, I don’t want you to make this. Nope. No sirree. Because then you’ll buy more blueberries, which will mean fewer for me. The last time I checked, my Costco had PLENTY of frozen organic blueberries in stock. If I go tomorrow, I will buy some before you catch onto this craze. At the worst, I did plant 9 blueberry plants a couple of years ago. Come June, there is no stopping the blueberry madness in my house!

Third, if you do make this, you’ll want to hide it from yourself. Probably in a high place behind a heavy box. It’s delicious, but with a stick of butter in the ingredients list, it really can’t be considered a health food (although, I think that with two cups of blueberries, I could be convinced otherwise).

Eat this warm out of the oven or reheat it a bit. Either way, slather some salted butter along the middle or the sides (not the top! don’t ruin the perfectly crunchy top!). And enjoy!

Continue reading: blueberry muffin cake

I’m not much of a chicken-breast-for-dinner girl. I used to be. When I was younger, it used to be my first choice when I ate at restaurants. Now I prefer chicken *in* my meals instead of chicken *as* my meal. When I saw this recipe, I thought, “Hmmm…. maybe I can bend the rules just this once.” I’m so glad I did. This was a phenomenal meal. So much cheese and basil and a hint of garlic all layered in and on top of a chicken breast that is cooked to perfection… I’m drooling at the thought of it. Serve this along with rice or potatoes or, better yet, these buttermilk biscuits. And swoon.

Continue reading: easy stuffed chicken breasts with parmesan and basil filling

I have a confession to make: I did not make this bread. I had to commission my mom to do it for me. When I was assigned to Kate’s blog I was *super* excited. Kate has tons of amazing looking recipes with beautiful pictures and I immediately selected a few that I wanted to try. My intention was to prepare these recipes for a baby shower that I was hosting this weekend. Then I got *super* sick on Friday morning and ended up in the ER on Saturday for extreme dehydration. The doctors loaded me up on fluids and meds and told me to go home and rest. No baby shower. No cooking. No Food Babbles blog recipe. I was bummed. Not wanting to leave Kate orphaned, I texted my mom and asked her to do the baking honors for me. She agreed and then came over today to drop off this gorgeous Lemon Blueberry Loaf for me to taste and share with you! Three cheers to mom for helping me ensure that my Secret Recipe Club post came together just in time for the big reveal on Monday!

My friend Bridget asked me if I would donate cookies to her school’s fundraising event. One of the challenges of being a food blogger is finding a home for all the desserts that I bake, so these kinds of opportunities are a great excuse to try a new recipe. Bridget specifically wanted me to donate a few already-baked cookies along with a couple of bags of frozen cookie dough so that the lucky winner would not have to eat 4 dozen cookies at once. I flipped through my must-make-cookies and came across this recipe that a friend had forwarded to me months ago.

After reading the directions, I realized that their assembly was way too complicated for me to ask someone else to prepare at home. It involved dividing dough balls into disks, mashing cream cheese between the disks and pinching the dough balls together while hoping that the cream cheese would not ooze out any cracks that formed. A tester batch was in order. I prepared one cookie as directed in the recipe and two cookies with a small amount of cream cheese pressed into the center of the baked cookie. A friend dropped by randomly and we taste tested the results. The cream-cheese topped cookies were a clear winner. My friend declared these cookies some of the best snicker doodles she has ever had. I’m not usually a snicker doodle fan, but I could see why she liked them so much. They are crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and the cream cheese topping is really something special.

I know what you’re thinking. Green beans aren’t that exciting. Well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong. These green beans are exciting. In fact, often times they’re my favorite part of the meal. Unless, of course, they are served alongside these mashed potatoes. I’d probably choose the potatoes just because puddles of melted butter scream my name in the night. TMI? Okay, I’ll stop.