Betty-Lou's Blueberry Roly-Poly

There are a million ways to use blueberries in the kitchen. Whether you add them to your cereal, pop them in your yogurt, bake them into muffins, or throw them into a delectable dessert, they're completely versatile and let's not forget absolutely Delicious!! One of my favourite ways to eat fresh blueberries is to bake up a batch of blueberry squares, I could literally eat the full tray myself. Unfortunately... or fortunately (I haven't quite decided yet), I've discovered another irresistible blueberry dessert I could also polish off myself: my mother-in-law's Blueberry Roly-Poly. This is my father-in-law's favourite blueberry recipe, and is always his main request come blueberry season. I completely understand why! I'm hooked.

Baked Brie with Figs & Honey

Don't you love it when you walk into the grocery store for 1 thing and come out with 1 cartload? Yeah me neither, well at least my bank account doesn't like it, I'm usually pretty smitten with all my new goodies. In any case, that happened to me a couple of weeks back as I popped into Sobey's for a few last minute ingredients for supper, when all of a sudden I spied FRESH FIGS!! You don't even understand how excited I was... well actually in my mind I was freaking out, while on the exterior I was playing it cool, as to not draw attention to the rare and limited find!

Needless to say, my few items turned into my few items plus 6 precious little figs, crusty bread, double-creme brie and pure happiness. So again, I must reiterate, if you are a fig fan like me, please run, not walk to your nearest grocery store and scour those refrigerated produce racks, they won't be in season forever!

Lemon Panna Cotta with Blueberry Sauce

I love trying new recipes, especially desserts! However, like a good chunk of the population these days, I'm constantly trying to 'eat better', which means my experiments in the recipe world usually revolve around meals or apps or snacks... not desserts. God knows I have no restraint when they're in my house. In any case, special occasions present the opportunity for experimentation with sweets, and for Valentine's Day I gave Panna Cotta a try. After the tasty rack of lamb, I knew we would want something refreshing and this recipe from Italian Food Forever, sounded ideal.

I had never had panna cotta prior to making this recipe, so I wasn't sure what to expect - it was amazing! It requires a bit of time to set up in the fridge, but, once it does, it is silky, creamy and incredible. The Lemon Panna Cotta on its own was good, but the topping made it better again. I would highly recommend this recipe.

Date Squares

Dunno about you, but I'm ready for this week to be over!! Nothing dramatic happening, just really looking forward to some lazy times on the weekend! Since this has been, and continues to be, a rather drawn out week, I think I... sorry WE, deserve a delicious treat! And at the moment, I would love nothing more than a warm, fresh outta the oven date square - the proper comfort food. Using my momma's recipe, I whipped these up for my visiting fam a little while ago and am wishing I had some more, they're just sooooo tasty!!

Baked Mini Cadbury Creme Eggs!!!

I'm SO excited to share my latest food epiphany with you! Not near as excited as I was to eat it, but excited nonetheless! ;)

In a serendipitous moment late last week, while daydreaming about Easter treats and deep-fried Mars bars (like ya would), a magical thought process entered my brain and produced the concept for 'deep-fried' creme eggs. So last night in a delicious, and at times, dangerous test kitchen, I tried out a couple of different ways to prepare the bundles of deliciousness. I had already determined the basics of wrapping and securing the eggs within the phyllo pastry, but whether they would be deep-fried or baked was still to be determined... that was until I basically smoked out the house and nearly caught the kitchen on fire while frying the bundles in fat on the stove (be safe friends, do not try this at home unless you really know what you're doing!). Needless to say, the baked version won out. With that said, even if I did own a deep-frier, I would still recommend the baking method, just because the phyllo pastry is so fragile and so delicate that in the few tests I did in the hot fat, it took less than a minute to brown and start to burn.

Anywho, with all that excitement/embarrassing info divulged (I like to keep it real in my food diaries), let's get to instructing you on how to make these delicious treats at home!

WARNING: YES! It tastes as good as it sounds! And YES! you will experience multiple foodgasms as you consume them. These are wicked-awesome-good!

Apricot Raisin Cake

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, which means I will be handing one of these cakes over to each of my Nans. Apricot cake just happens to be their favourite Christmas cake and for the past couple of years it has been my Christmas gift to them. Not only is this cake moist and delicious, but it's comprised of simple ingredients. I found this recipe on Rock Recipes which is a blog by a fellow Newfoundlander. I would highly recommend this site to anyone! Some amazing recipes on there.

Fruited Marshmallow Dessert

If you're ever looking for a last minute, quick-fix dessert, this is it. Not only does it take a very brief time to prepare, it's simple and tasty. I've never met a person who hasn't loved it. Bonus is, they usually assume you've worked hard to make it! So simple and so delish.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I’ve always loved Pineapple Upside Down Cake and now I understand why! Turns out it’s nothing but butter and sugar... and a little bit of shortening… oh! and canned sugary pineapple! Mmmm sugar coma’s are the bomb! :) In all seriousness, it’s obviously not the best thing for you, but who cares? as long as you’re not stuffing it in your face every other day, one piece, once or twice a year won’t hurt. It’s a treat, and a delicious one at that, indulge yourself!

White Chocolate Candy Cane Whip

I first concocted this recipe last Christmas while messing around in my kitchen. Not sure how it came to be, but it was a big hit. It tastes like Christmas. It looks like Christmas. Best of all, it's completely versatile. You can use it to ice your brownies, top your ice cream, or top special Christmas waffles on Christmas morning! There's also the eat-it-straight-out-of-the-bowl-option that I'm a fan of ;) Regardless of how you eat it, you will love it!

Apple-Blueberry Crunch

Bliss

After a meal of soup failure - by failure, I mean a soup that tasted like nothingness, with rice that literally sucked the remaining pot liquor dry (didn't even know that was possible)?! - I was left with a tremendous need to redeem/comfort myself with deliciousness.

Enter Crunch. One of my all-time favourite desserts. It's sweet, delicious, a bit 'crunch'-y and oh-so-satisfying, especially after a savoury meal (or a failed one in this case). Like many of my recipes, this was a favourite growing up. Typically, we would have either blueberry or apple crunch, but last week, with both on hand, I stared destiny in the face and created my new favourite version, Apple-Blueberry!

Pavlova - Check!

Yesterday was a big day for me, I crossed not only one, but two items off of my Food List Challenge. One of those items was Pavlova. To be honest I've always wanted to try it! I mean what's not to love? Meringue, whip and fresh fruit?! Not only is it very yummy, and not only does it look quite fancy and gorgeous, but it's actually quite simple to make. My recipe came from allrecipes.com.

Blueberry Squares

This recipe comes to you courtesy of my wonderful mother, who, over the years, has had a knack of discovering and creating recipes I don't just love, I crave! These things are probably my favourite cookie ever - delicious cake with a fluffy meringue and blueberry topping - they melt in your mouth! I could seriously eat an entire tray in one sitting - no joke. So naturally, after a day of berry picking, I just had to make them, especially once I discovered my husband had never had them before?!

Frozen Banana Treats

While searching Pinterest for some summery treats, I came across these quick and simple frozen banana pops (originally on the blog Recipes under 400). I like them because you can literally make them in ten minutes, and you don't have to wait a day or more before you can eat them (one of the reasons I've yet to make homeade ice cream - I'm more of an instant gratification kinda gal).

I also like the fact that they're customizable; the original recipe called for plain greek yogurt to be flavoured with cinnamon - I opted for vanilla greek yogurt and cinnamon coated praline pecans. It's really up to you, on how you decide to make them, you can even spruce them up with some chocolate chips, or toasted coconut, or both?! Which now that I suggest that, I'm wondering why I never thought of it earlier!

I made two different versions of this treat (only because I ran out of the praline pecans and needed to improvise). Option 1 was me improvising with chopped almonds and brown sugar, while Option 2 is the Praline Pecan version.

5 Minute Brownie in a Mug

After getting lost in the 5 minute cake and then discovering the chocolate chip cookie in a mug, I thought there must be more cookies I can make in a mug... turns out Mug brownies are another popular option. I found this recipe on Instructables - Enjoy! (I know I do!)

5 Minute Chocolate Chip Cookies in a Mug!

If you follow me on Twitter or Pinterest - which you should ;) - you would know I've been up to a lot lately in the land of food. I've been eating (more than I should), Instagramming everything (from pineapple and custard sundaes down the Cape to baking bread with my nan), and pinning my little heart out. I seem to be getting a backlog of items to blog about so I figured I'd start off with something quick and yummy that you all would appreciate... Chocolate Chip Mug Cookies!

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By now you've probably taken 2 years off the life of your microwave on account of making so many 5 minute chocolate cakes... or maybe that's just me? Either way, there's a new 5 minute concoction in town and as an admitted chocolate-chip-cookie-a-holic, I couldn't be happier. I still have the original email for the cake recipe from 4 or 5 years ago, aptly entitled 'The most dangerous recipe you'll ever know'. However, after making and eating this cookie recipe, I can honestly say the 5 minute cake has been dethroned in my mind.

Now it doesn't taste the same as an oven baked cookie, but it get's the point across and can knock a craving on it's ass!

Mini Baked Brie Cups

Ooey-gooey, flaky and sweet!

I've said before that trying new and tasty things is relatively new to me, after all, it's only been approximately 2 years since my first taste of sushi! With that said, back in March, while out celebrating my sister's birthday, I had my first taste of Brie. It was baked in phyllo pastry, served warm, and paired with a berry coulis! Delicious!!

Ever since then, I've been in search of a good, baked, ooey-gooey-goodness recipe for Brie. Thanks to Pinterest (Follow me!), and the blog Big Red Kitchen, I found exactly what I was in search of - Mini Baked Brie Cups :)

Easy Shortbread

Not sure if you've ever noticed but shortbread dough and pie crust look a lot alike before they're shaped and baked. Back in the day, any time I ever saw my mom mixing a batch of dough, the first words out of my mouth were 'cookies or pie?' If it was cookies, game on, I'd be stealing me a hunk, if it was pie... not so much! Shortbread are delicious both pre and post baking, and they're also very versatile; not only can you shape them how you like, but you can also add all kinds of super delicious toppings like icing, sprinkles, or candied cherries.

These cookies are a regular at the house during Christmas, and during many other times of the year when the mood strikes. They are so good I've seen them convert shortbread haters into lovers... honestly, they're amazing!