Strawberry shortcake is an American classic. Everyone (except maybe people deathly allergic to strawberries) loves it. Heck, even people allergic to strawberries must wish they could eat it. For most of my life, I thought that strawberry "shortcake" meant Cool-Whip and sugary, juicy strawberries covering either angel food cake, or those store-bought miniature cakes made for strawberry shortcake. That was until I found this recipe.
I have had this recipe for years. It was one of my first ventures into homemade desserts. I don't remember what made me seek this out, but in doing so, I discovered that traditional strawberry shortcake actually isn't angel food cake, or Hostess cakes. It is basically a slightly sweet biscuit. I know it sounds crazy, but this old-fashioned version of strawberry shortcake is actually quite good. The biscuit is buttery and flaky, and it doesn't compete with the sweetness of the star of the show--the strawberries. Plus, they are easy to make, and you just can't beat the taste of homemade!
I love a good cookie. Probably too much. I absolutely can't have just one. Heck, most of the time I can't have just two! That's why these peanut butter oatmeal cookies are one of my favorites. They are tasty, moist, peanut buttery, and relatively healthy. Relatively.
Another great thing about these yummy cookies is that they are egg free. I don't have an egg allergy or anything, but if you do, these are for you. These are also perfect for people like me who prefer their cookies a tad under-baked. And by under-baked, I mean raw. Grab a spoon!
Because of my serious recipe addiction, I have a habit of making "one and done" recipes. I have so many things I want to try that I frequently make things one time only, no matter how great they turn out. And then it's on to the next new thing! Not so with this recipe. I have several times already since I discovered this amazing recipe!
Every other recipe can wait. This is too good. I'm talking about ground beef, cheese, and sauteed onion smothered in BBQ sauce and baked in a pie crust. (Please excuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard.) This is the kind of food that you eat and think, "I could eat this the rest of my life." Those who really know me know that I love any excuse to eat BBQ sauce. So this dish is right up my alley. And my husband would probably eat roadkill if I served it on pie crust. So it's right up his alley as well. To say the least, we're both kind of into this recipe.
When I was a kid, we ate cereal for breakfast almost every day. And although I loved cereal, having something else for breakfast, especially on a school day, was a pretty big deal. Every now and then my siblings and I would whine enough at the grocery store and my mom would buy us a box of Pop-Tarts. Those toasted pastry crusts with hot fruity filling (because they didn't have all those crazy flavors back then!) where quite a treat back in the day. Now, not so much.
Maybe my pallet has over-evolved, but a store-bought Pop-Tart just doesn't do anything for me anymore. They are hard, artificial tasting, and just not very good. No thanks. But a homemade version of a Pop-Tart? Now we're talking. These are REAL pastry crusts. That means flaky and buttery, not hard and cardboard-tasting. And they have REAL filling. Read the ingredients. You can actually pronounce them. Put that filling in between two of pieces of that pastry crust, and you get something that is absolutely fabulous. Cold cereal has nothing on these babies!
A lot of the great things in life were made by accident. Post-It notes and about half of our population come to mind. And now, these cookies. Between you and me, these were totally meant to be something else. These cookies are the product of one of those "oh-crap" kitchen moments.
They were supposed to be turtle cookies with chocolate chips, pecans, and caramel bits. I actually made them for a tailgate party last fall. The day I was to make them, I sent my husband to the store (which almost never happens) with a very specific list, including caramel bits. I told him the brand I wanted and everything. He shortly returned home and reported to me that our small town grocery store doesn't have caramel bits. "Oh crap" might not have been all that was going through my head at that moment, but I put my thinking cap on and came up with something that was delicious in its own right.
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