Confucius once said, "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." Such words never rang more true. 

I am a simple baker. I don't like anything too fussy or recipes that call for too many ingredients. This is probably why I don't make my own bread as often as I would like to or make my Grandma's gorgeous Seven Layer Torte - unless the occasion is extra special.

Take these cookies for instance. These babies are so simple that a 5-year-old can make them. In fact, that's how I came to make these delicious heaps of bliss. I found this recipe in a box my Mom gave me when I moved out of the family home and on my own at 21. Attached to it was a Polaroid of me with my Kindergarten class proudly making these cookies - complete with paper chef hats! I've been making them ever since.

We love parties in our household. My husband and I have been known to throw parties for the most ridiculous reasons just so we can entertain. Ask anyone we know and I guarantee they have been to at least one of our get togethers. One year, we had 8 parties. This is not counting birthday parties.

We especially love birthdays. Our friends invited my family to their son's 5th birthday party/dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. It's all my daughter has talked about for DAYS! So, naturally, she asked if we could make cookies for him. Not that I ever need a reason to make cookies, but it always makes it that much more fun when we make them for someone else.

She chose to do butterflies and hearts, but I had to explain to her that he probably doesn't like them as much as she does, so we settled on a dinosaur theme instead - only because that's what he likes.

He went crazy when he saw them. His reaction was worth all the work we had put into them. As we were stepping out of our seats to go have a look around, someone walked by and asked if the cookies were made of modeling clay.

They get out of the hospital on Wednesday.

Okay, okay, I'm kidding.

But seriously. 

My daughter loved green foods from her first bite.  Spinach, zucchini, peas, brussel sprouts, asparagus - you name it! Out of the green family, her most favorite is broccoli. Her eyes would light up and start jumping out of her high chair when she saw me coming with it. She couldn't get enough. I felt like the luckiest Mom on the planet.

However, my luck was about to change. We were into the first couple of weeks of Kindergarten when, suddenly, she didn't like broccoli anymore. Ah, the joys of peer pressure.

I was no longer allowed to send her to school with broccoli and dip in her lunch bag because it was 'yucky'. If I did, it would come back the same way I sent it. I was so disheartened because we had worked so bloody hard from the age of 6 months to 11 months; the time frame most children are likely to eat anything and set the foundation for a lifetime of healthy eating habits, only for her to go to school and have all that work flushed down the toilet in one day. I had to find ways to get her to eat it again.

I stumbled upon this recipe a few weeks later when I was sitting in the dentist office, reading old issues of Cooking Light. I had 5 heads of broccoli in the refrigerator at home, one stubborn little girl, and desperation on my back. Willing to try anything, I made it that afternoon hoping for the best. Guess what?

Broccoli's back bitches!

BROCCOLI BREAD

Recipe adapted and slightly modified from Cooking Light Issue March 2002

4 eggs, beaten

¾ cup fat-free cottage cheese

½ cup fat-free sour cream

2 tablespoons butter or stick margarine, melted

¾ teaspoon salt

1 package frozen chopped broccoli, thawed and drained OR 1½ cup fresh broccoli, chopped

1 package corn muffin mix (such as Jiffy)

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl.

Add onion, broccoli, and muffin mix; stir until well blended.

Pour into 13 x 9-inch baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake for 27 minutes.

Yields: 12 servings.

Happy Baking!

I appreciate a nice piece of fudge. I'm not talking your average run-of-the-mill fudge. I mean a niiiice piece of fudge. The sort that makes you moan with pleasure until the last bite. 

Unfortunately, fudge is something that usually misses my radar when I need a sweet treat for a few reasons:

A. To buy a slab of fudge, it's a hefty price to pay for a small indulgence.

B. To make it at home, I find it is as temperamental as my ex-boyfriend. If I ruin the first batch, it could cost me more than if I would have just spent the $15 per pound to buy it in the first place.

3. Candy thermometers scare me.

After looking through countless recipes that didn't require a candy thermometer or ingredients that are equivalent to the cost of my weekly grocery shop, alas, I found the fudge recipe. The 'moan-through-every-bite fudge'. The fudge that will not break my bank account to make AND is foolproof.

My sweet tooth is high-fiving my taste buds as we speak.

3 cups of brown sugar - you do not need to pack it

1 cup butter

½ cup of sweetened condensed milk

¼ teaspoon salt

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon maple flavoring or vanilla extract

Put the first 4 ingredients into a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.

Boil for a full 7 minutes, stirring constantly. Stirring is the key to this fudge being smooth and creamy. If you don't stir enough, it can become crumbly once cooled. It's also best to stir with a silicone spatula or spoon so it won't stick. 

After it's boiled, it should look like this....

Remove from heat. Add 2 cups powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon of maple flavoring or vanilla extract. I highly recommend sifting the sugar before adding it to the pan.

Beat with electric mixer for 2 minutes.

Pour into prepared 8 x 8-inch pan - one that has been sprayed with cooking spray or lined with wax paper).

Chill and cut into squares.

Happy Baking!

There is a famous saying, "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade." When life hands me lemons, I bake.

It all started when my friend, Bal, asked me if I would help stage her home to put on the market. I'm not a stager by any means, but I watch enough design shows to know what buyers of today look for and what makes them cringe. Plus, she's a sweetheart and I couldn't say no.

As we were moving and rearranging furniture, I mentioned to her I was a firm believer that bowls of fruit placed strategically in main living quarters sell a home. She looked at me like I had a third eye, but she must have taken what I said at face value, because she went and bought 12 out-of-season lemons at $1 each to display in her kitchen. Yikes! I mean, you can't just eat lemons on their own. Apples. Absolutely. Pears. Of course. Lemons. Ugh.

Funny enough, the day after the open house, her home sold! It was only on the market ONE DAY! I am now completely convinced it was the lemons that sealed the deal.

So here we are, left with 12 lemons that need to be used up. We could make lemonade or make a refreshing Lemonade Cake. 

No contest.

LEMONADE CAKE

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs

1 cup milk

4 tablespoons finely grated lemon peel

LEMON GLAZE

⅓ cup fresh lemon juice
⅔ cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease two 8" or 9" loaf pans. You could also use a bundt pan, but I find it's a cake worthy of sharing with a friend or neighbor! In this post, I used two 9" loaf pans.

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar until creamy. Add one egg at a time and mix well.

Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions, and beating only until blended after each addition.

Stir in lemon peel.





Divide and scrape batter into prepared pans.  Level batter.

Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Please know that no matter what size pan you choose to use, the bake time will not change!

Cool cake in pan for 5 minutes. Remove cake and place on foil or wax paper.

Prepare glaze. My Grandma taught me to warm the lemon juice and melt the sugar within it. It makes a clear glaze that is the consistency of lemonade and with no sugar granules in each bite.

Poke holes with a skewer. This step ensures the glaze gets into the cake, making it lush and lemony from the inside out!

My daughter loves to go through my cookbooks.

My BFF, Beth, gave me a fabulous cupcake cookbook for my birthday last year and my daughter immediately claimed the book as her own (partially because the cover was pink). It now sits on her bookshelf alongside the other best loved books and bedtime stories. One night, she actually chose that book for my husband to read and he actually made up a story about a little cupcake and it's adventures. It was quite riveting and incredibly heartwarming.

Beat in eggs and vanilla until well blended. Gradually add the flour mixture, beating at low speed until well blended.

Recipe adapted and slightly modified from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

1 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

¾ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

2 cups packed light brown sugar

3 cups packed grated zucchini, drained VERY well

1 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Stir in zucchini

Add flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in walnuts. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three quarters full.

Yield: About 24 cupcakes.

Food brings people together. No matter what the occasion or season, it is an important and essential part of the moment.

My name is Jenny. And I am a foodie.

While I have many passions in life, if I had to pick one that stands out above the rest, baking definitely takes the cake...no pun intended. If baking is the addiction, cookies are the drug. If there was a $10 bill and a cookie on the table, I'd take the cookie.

There is something special about creating delightful desserts and confections using simple ingredients such as butter, eggs, flour and sugar. It's like a group of close girlfriends. Each of them are wonderful on their own, but put them together and the end result is something better (most of the time) than what you started out with.

I fell in love with the culinary arts when I was about 13. I can't pinpoint my "AHA!" moment, but I do remember my Home Economics teacher telling me that I had made the prettiest cheesecake she had ever seen. It wasn't long after that I became obsessed with food and perfecting it.

Once cooking programs really hit the airwaves, I was hooked. I remember the first time I watched Martha Stewart on TV. She was making a gorgeous rustic apple tart. I sat there thinking, 'I can so do that!' I found myself glued to her 30 minute program every weekend, jotting down recipes on the back of my math homework. (Which could explain my calculus teacher's surprising weight gain that year).

Before long, I became a bit of a cookbook fanatic. I would hit bookstores, garage sales, church rummage sales, my mother's collection - you name it, I needed to have it.

By the time I was 25, I had about 50. Of course, as the years went on, I would purge to make room for new editions, but I can proudly say I have used every cookbook that was in my possession at least once! My collection is now down to about thirty due to space issues, but it's so hard to pass one by.

I have also learned to become quite adventurous in the kitchen. Over the years, I gained the knowledge to know what flavors and spices work best with what dishes and what recipes would become instant classics and which ones needed to run for the hills. I am happiest when I am in the kitchen - and so is my husband. I often joke that I put the Woman's Movement back 50 years because I enjoy cooking, baking, and, wait for it - cleaning too. I could possibly be the only woman in North America that gets excited to receive kitchen utensils, appliances, and gadgets as gift.

Thankfully, my passion was passed along to my favorite little sous chef. She got the baking bug at the tender age of two and was mastering the hand 'mixert' - as she called it, not long after. Now four years old, she is a whiz the kitchen. I can only hope my little man is just as lucky.

I am super excited to take this journey and see what comes of it. I know I will have many successes and many fails, but it'll be fun to see where it takes me. I hope to meet other folks who love food as much as I do and share passions with them. That's where the fun will really begin.

We'll just have to wait and see.....