Chocolate Chip Muffins with Streusel Topping

Breakfast is so boring.  I have friends and family who think breakfast is the bees knees, but I'd rather have two dinners, or maybe a dessert meal than breakfast.  There's just so little variation to breakfast, and because I would rather hit the snooze button an extra two times than take the time to make something elaborate, more often than not my breakfast consists of something I can stick in the toaster and eat in five minutes.  Sometimes on the weekends I get ambitious and try to brighten up the rest of my week by prepping something homemade that will spice up my mornings before work.  Muffins fit this bill.

For all intents and purposes, muffins are basically breakfast cupcakes.  You really can't ever go wrong with cupcakes (especially if they involve chocolate).  The basic "Muffins" recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook is an excellent blank canvas for all sorts of breakfast creativity.  Chocolate chips + streusel topping?  Now that's nutrition!

Chipotle Turkey Chili

Chili is an American staple.  There are entire festivals devoted to chili, and it seems that every southwestern household has its own signature recipe.  I've never been a huge chili aficionado, mostly because I'm scared it will burn my mouth off.  However, I read a magazine article a while back about a Halloween game plan involving children and adults gathered around a table enjoying a pot of chili followed by full bellies and trick or treat festivities.  This pretty little picture popped into my head, and I was determined to make it mine.  I found the "Chipotle Turkey Chili" recipe in the Cooking with all things Trader Joe's cookbook by Deana Gunn and Wona Miniati, and found the ingredient list general enough that I should be able to find everything at the regular grocery store.  Time for the chili cookoff to commence!

Vanilla Rabbit Hole Cupcakes

Few words invoke my creative juices quite like, "Will you bring dessert?"  Of course, the answer is always yes.  I begin giddy with excitement, poring over my cookbooks for just the perfect confection for the occasion.  The flip side is that this excitement usually turns to sheer panic as I find myself covered in frosting and short just three more candy canes at the eleventh hour.  Alas, dessert is a labor of love and goodness knows, I'm smitten.

Last month, I took on the challenge of Easter dessert, deciding to put my cake decorating chops to the test with the "Rabbit Hole Cupcakes" featured in Karen Tack & Alan Richardson's Hello, Cupcake! They're cute, whimsical, and I figured I could cut the cost often associated with the very specialized candies needed to make many of these cupcake designs work.  I also chose to bake my own cupcakes from scratch, rather than from the box, using the "Vanilla Cupcakes" recipe from the same cookbook.

Roast Chicken

I'm pretty good at planning side dishes, pasta dishes, appetizers, and desserts, but entrees often escape me.  I'm not a big meat eater, though I definitely appreciate it when done right.  With an impending road trip with the husband, I'm trying to find creative ways to empty out the fridge and eat up our leftovers.  Unfortunately, a lot of it is carb-o-licious and not exactly full-meal material.  In an effort to incorporate more protein into our meals, I decided to prepare one item so versatile that it could compliment any of the dinner leftovers in my fridge: chicken.

I was doing my meal planning from the passenger seat of the car today, so I decided to travel light and take Real Simple's Meals Make Easy: Quick and Delicious Recipes for Every Night of the Week.  Lo and behold, the very first recipe in this book is one for "Roast Chicken and Vegetables."  I left out the vegetables part of this recipe because I was already planning to make "Spring Salad with New Potatoes" from my favorite food blog, smitten kitchen.  You can see how that turned out on the right.

Yankee Doodle Dandy Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Every so often I attempt to continue my quest for the perfect macaroni and cheese.  I say every so often because while I would be happy to partake of the dish every day, I would need to constantly replenish my stretchy pant supply, and that's just expensive.  Based on it's ingredients alone, the "Yankee Doodle Dandy Baked Macaroni and Cheese" recipe from the Macaroni and Cheese cookbook by Marlena Spieler appears quite a contender for mac & cheese perfection.  Will it measure up?  Let's get cheesy and find out!

Italian Egg Sandwich

It's no secret that much of my love of food and cooking comes from the Italian side of my family.  Thinking back on my childhood brings memories of vegetables fresh from the garden, days full of making sausage or deep fried cookies, and countless meals surrounded by family.  That's why when I'm feeling a little homesick, or when I want to taste a bit of my past, I devote the better part of a Sunday to making Giada's marinara sauce.  The result is complex, fresh, and far surpasses anything that you can buy in a jar.  However, in addition to a great deal of tastiness, making a full batch of the sauce presents a delicious dilemma: What on earth do you do with two quarts of sauce?  You can only eat so much spaghetti in a week's time before your husband starts complaining & insists on making burgers or something.  Therefore, I had to start getting creative...or keep reading the cookbook and let Giada do the work for me.  Whatever.

The "Italian Egg Sandwich" from Giada de Laurentiis' Everyday Italian cookbook called for simple ingredients that were already in my fridge and pantry and less than half an hour cooking time.  After hours slaving away on marinara sauce, I'm SOLD!

Lentils and Pasta with Greens

The Classic Rachael Ray 30-Minute Meals cookbook is full of recipes.  There is a recipe in here for pretty much anything you can think of, as long as it doesn't involve baking.  I go through phases of love and apathy with this book - love because of the sheer volume of inspirational ideas and apathy because it's just so much to sort through.  I was in an adventurous mood, so I flipped through the book and found "Lentils and Pasta with Greens."  It sounded nutrient dense and Rachael wouldn't make it if it weren't delicious, right?  I've never had lentils before, but it's a new year and the perfect time to expand my culinary horizons.

Pastrami & Cream Cheese Bagel

When opening this cookbook for the first time, I half expected Gordon Ramsay to start yelling at me.  "Just close the book!  You can't cook anything, you donkey!"  Thankfully, this cookbook shows Gordon's softer side and is chock full of very approachable recipes and advice.  I was excited to see a "Working Lunches" section in this book, especially since winter vacation was winding down.  With the inevitable return to work comes the daily stressful, anxiety-filled, dilemma that leaves me sneaking out the door "forgetting" my lunchbox - what to make for lunch?!  Just thinking about it leaves me in a cold sweat...

Anyone who has watched Kitchen Nightmares knows that Gordon Ramsay appreciates quality ingredients treated simply.  The lunches featured in Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food fit the bill with minimal complicated prep and maximum yummy flavor!  A recent and inexplicable yearning for bagels made Ramsay's "Pastrami & cream cheese bagel" seem simply irresistible.  Time to get toasty!