Dessert

Chocolate Chess Pie

December 21, 2021 by Lindsay 4 Comments

Delicious, super easy creamy chocolate chess pie in under an hour! This recipe has just 7 ingredients and is so simple to make with the help of a storebought crust! PS, if you have extra evaporated milk, it can be used in slow cooker butter chicken or other creamy savory recipes!

chocolate chess pie slice on white plate with fork.

Tis the season to make a pie so delicious you may or may not consume 2 pieces in twelve hours just to be sure it was that good.

It was, promise.

Ok so this pie. Vague origin story. I actually didn't know what a chocolate chess pie WAS, but this local grocery/bakery that we frequent makes them around the holidays and they always looked really enticing in pretty bakery boxes. Then I ended up with a few extra pie crusts after Thanksgiving (my apple pies didn't require a top crust because I didn't have as many apples as I thought, long story), and I knew I needed a new Christmas pie. Enter: Chocolate Chess.

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Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie

June 10, 2021 by Lindsay 2 Comments

Hello, summer! The most delicious strawberry cream cheese pie with no Jello and no sweetened condensed milk! This version uses cornstarch to thicken the strawberry layer and has a base of sweetened cream cheese whipped with fresh cream for a decadent, creamy layer. Make this pie with your favorite pie crust; graham cracker or pastry pie crust both work deliciously!

flatlay strawberry pie with cream cheese slice on plate with bite taken out

Ok strawberry season, I see you.

We have been going through literal gallons of local strawberries since the season started, and every year we go through the "they're just so much better in season, right?!" conversations that we have every year. I mean, of course local, in season stuff is better.

Strawberry pie is one of my favorite ways to use up bunches and bunches of strawberries, and there are tons of variations on strawberry pie. This is a strawberry cream cheese pie with a fluffy cream cheese layer, lightly sweetened berries, and flaky pie crust because I just like it better than graham cracker crust.

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Easy Olive Oil Banana Bread

May 20, 2021 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Super easy banana bread with olive oil and just 7 ingredients! This is the best ever moist banana bread, Hawaiian style banana bread, that you'll make again and again. It's become a 100% go-to recipe for a meal prep snack for the week or potluck brunch item.

hawaiian style banana bread with olive oil

YUMYUMYUM.

I would like it to be known how freaking excellent this olive oil banana bread is. I've been adding olive oil to lots of baked goods recently, for the main reason that I Don't Usually Have Other Oil In The House. I don't know why, I just don't think to buy it regularly like other ingredients.

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Puff Pastry Cinnamon Rolls

April 13, 2021 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Yummy, EASY mini puff pastry cinnamon rolls made in a mini-muffin tin! These shortcut cinnamon rolls are perfect for a small dessert or snack for a baby shower or Mother's Day brunch. They have all the flavor of cinnamon rolls in flaky crust with no yeast, rising, or kneading.

What's it called when it's definitely baking in that we turn the oven on, but very low effort?

That's what I think of every time I use frozen puff pastry.

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Easy Chocolate Mousse

February 10, 2021 by Lindsay 12 Comments

Super yummy easy chocolate mousse! This is my favorite chocolate mousse recipe in that it is totally foolproof, works BEST when made in advance, and is an easy gluten free dessert for dinner parties and guests. Chocolate mousse is definitely the at-home dessert we need more of!

For Valentine's Day! Or for your weekend, you do you.

A few nights ago Jay and I were ignoring each other on our devices before we fell asleep, as you do, and all of a sudden he was all "what should we do for Valentine's Day?" I probably replied "I want to keep reading stop talking to me," but honestly we don't always do anything for Valentine's Day. We definitely don't exchange gifts, but we've done flowers and fun dates and cooked fun food together over the years. Valentine's Day falls at a time of year where I'm travelling a lot on the weekends, and now that we have Beck we'd rather relax and enjoy family time with no work (the 7 days a week is getting awful), so I'm hopeful that's what we'll do this weekend leading up to the day.

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Gluten Free Chocolate Cake (with quinoa!)

February 3, 2021 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

This gluten free chocolate cake is a BLENDER CAKE that has just a few ingredients and comes together in under an hour! It's totally foolproof and doesn't taste like it's trying to be healthy at all. Instead, think "is it a brownie, is it a cookie, do I care because it's covered in chocolate ganache frosting?"

It's here, it's here! ....Valentine's Day? To be clear, we celebrate very minimally on V-day, maybe make a big fancy meal, although we technically celebrate our dating anniversary on Valentine's Day - TEN YEARS, where did the time go.

Oh, I know, the time went into the pandemic vortex like the rest of my soul.

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No Bake Chocolate Mousse Pie

December 21, 2020 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

For the countdown to Christmas, a super easy no bake chocolate pie recipe! This pie has the best chocolate mousse ever as a filling, a par-baked pie crust, and keeps perfectly in the fridge for several days. I love all kinds of chocolate pies at the holidays (this chocolate chess pie is another huge hit!), and this one is a huge favorite!

Welp. Christmas time is here.

I'm sure everyone in the world is thinking and talking about and writing the same "what a strange holiday" lines, and it's true, everything is strange. It seems like lots of people are kind of used to the strange at this point; we know nothing will be like it is normally but that doesn't stop us from wanting it, at least not for me.

The endless back and forth of hard decisions with no clear answer, hurt feelings, fake news, and on and on and on is getting to us as a culture, and some of the best "answers" I've heard for how Christmas will go down this year is somewhere along the lines of "the same but way less."

This no bake chocolate pie recipe is 100% "the same but way less." It's a really, really good recipe for chocolate pie, and it's really, really easy. There's nothing to do besides bake a pre-made pie crust, whip some cream, add chocolate, and chill while it chills.

I couldn't help myself.

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Easy White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Cookies

December 8, 2020 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

These chewy cookies are just like subway white chocolate macadamia cookies but so much better! I add almond extract for some extra special bakery taste that complements the white chocolate chips so well. And, yes, if you find Funfetti chocolate chips like I did you should 100% use them in this recipe.

First full week of December, we made it!

Let's talk about productive procrastination:

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Brown Butter Blondies

August 31, 2020 by Lindsay 2 Comments

This brown butter blondies recipe is the best ever! With a gooey, nutty center, crackly crust, and chocolate slightly melted and swirled into the batter, you won't find a better potluck dessert recipe! These easy blondies are super rich making them the perfect small dessert. The recipe is from food52 and we can't get enough!

I have great news for introverts.

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5-Ingredient Strawberry Pie (without Jello!)

May 5, 2020 by Lindsay 2 Comments

This is the easiest strawberry pie without jello! Just 5 ingredients, a little bit of sugar, and this is the easy, rustic, foolproof strawberry pie you've been waiting for.

Here's a story.

(you're like, we hate food blogger stories)

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Brown Butter Pumpkin Blondies

October 8, 2019 by Lindsay 12 Comments

This pumpkin blondies recipe is an EGG FREE DESSERT RECIPE with added pumpkin and fall spices for an easy fall twist on this delicious dessert! These can be made in advance - they keep great in the fridge for about a week or in the freezer for even longer.

close up grid of pumpkin blondies cut into squares.

Got you some seasonal ish, right here.

I am having a season of easy blondies recipes. Since Beck has been old enough to vaguely care about helping in the kitchen I find that I enjoy baking more and more BUT, baking tends to take a lot of time, and Beck's attention span is approximately 47 seconds.

So I'm always on the hunt for quick dessert recipes - things that don't have a ton of ingredients or use a mixer, that sort of thing. Like my absolute favorite brownies: those are worth her attention.

Cue: Brown Butter Pumpkin Blondies.

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Gluten Free 7-Ingredient Banana Cake

August 22, 2019 by Lindsay 4 Comments

I am not gluten free. But! A lot of people are, and all of the kinds of people in this world should be allowed to eat cake. Yummy cake. Intentional cake. Cake with chocolate chips on top of it that are slightly melted like icing.

This recipe came to me via Instagram; someone that I hadn't heard of before posted the recipe and it included almond flour which I HAPPENED to have a bag of in my freezer, among other gluten free ingredients that need a home.

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One-Bowl Fudge Brownies

May 9, 2019 by Lindsay 10 Comments

OMG OMG OMG.

I have for you today the Best One-Bowl Brownies Ever and just trust me when I say that you absolutely definitely want to make these this weekend and twice per week for ever and ever, amen.

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Swedish Gooey Chocolate Cake (Kladdkaka)

February 11, 2019 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

We are starting with dessert first, today.

Because it's Valentine's week!

Now, to be incredibly clear, I don't give a hoot about V-day. I fully get that it's a fabricated holiday to get us to buy chocolate and cards and flowers and makes single people feel bad and moms of elementary schoolers annoyed.

Oh shit. This is my first year as a school mom. Do I have to DO something for Beck's class? This is literally the first time I am considering this.

I just started hating Valentine's Day, fun real life train of thought for you there (not fabricated, ugh, wish it was). But also, I don't hate nice dinners. I don't hate cooking for people I love year round, and I definitely don't hate making lovely desserts. This gooey chocolate cake ticks a lot of boxes for me, the main one being that it is RIDICULOUSLY delicious and insanely simple.

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Easy Slice and Bake Sugar Cookies

December 20, 2018 by Lindsay 3 Comments

Five days until Christmas! I'm not usually a huge baker, but this year I'm allll about it. Dying to make a massive cookie plate with 87 items, that sort of thing. I've made a few new recipes in the last two weeks just to "check" aka have cookies all month, and this is one of the recipes that I'm absolutely making again this week.

It's regular sugar cookies. Advertised as chewy, super easy to make, and a really perfect plain incarnation of a sugar cookie, in the best possible way. I think that fancy cookies have a place, but at Christmas I want things that taste regular, if that makes any sense at all.

I found this recipe on Add a Pinch, and used the dough as a base for the cookies. The recipe calls for rolling the dough into balls then baking that way (like snickerdoodles!), but I rolled the dough into logs instead, then sliced them over the course of a few days when I wanted fresh cookies. It worked perfectly and was easier than rolling the cookies individually into balls, although the result of that method looks a little bit fancier.

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Blueberry Breakfast Cookies

October 23, 2018 by Lindsay 2 Comments

This is of many things currently in my freezer that I'm trying SUPER hard to not eat until after the baby is born, easier said than done. I've been trying to make a thing or two each week to put in the freezer before the baby is born. Mostly I've done sauces to use in quick meals, I froze a bit of slow cooker pork for tacos, and some oatmeal-heavy breakfast-meets-dessert stuff is high on the list for the sake of not just eating a half loaf of bread each morning AND because oatmeal is supposed to be great for lactation but I don't usually run for bowls of straight oatmeal so. Cookies instead!

This particular inspiration came from the fact that I had some frozen blueberries leftover from my sister's inlaw's yard this summer (riddle me that). Part of all this freezer cooking is that we are using up stuff that was already languishing, so I used something from the freezer to make something for the freezer, which is pretty much like saving for retirement, right? Tres meta.

This recipe came straight from Sally's Baking Addiction, and I doubled it and added chocolate chips because chocolate is probably definitely important for lactation.

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Super Quick Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Energy Bites

July 30, 2018 by Lindsay 4 Comments

They're balls, but it felt tacky to use that in the title because of all of the jokes I'd invariably make.

But! For your Monday! Here's our treat-because-its-Monday meets healthy-because-weekend-recovery. It's perfect for any way you're feeling. Our weekend was fiiiine food-wise save for some extra bites of Beck's pizza and overindulgence of the booze on the part of the non-pregos. We went on a quick long weekend vacation with my family and it was great to get away, do very little, and let Beck have some time with her aunts.

Today we're back at it, working and unpacking and cleaning (omg the dogs alone in the house all weekend so much hair), and these little bites of happiness are calling my name. I took the recipe directly from Pinch of Yum, one of my (and everyone else's) favorite food blogs. The recipe takes five minutes, is no-bake, is customizeable, and works every single time, all criteria I have for recipes because obviously. The ingredients combine to taste somewhat like cookie dough, and and the base of oatmeal + peanut butter + coconut is hearty without being super heavy like a cookie made with butter and oil. They're also gluten free and dairy free but don't scream I'M A HEALTH FOOD, which I love.

Make these today and have them for the entire week, is pretty much all you need to know.

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Chia Pudding

March 26, 2018 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Dessert for breakfast! Breakfast for dessert! Reese's cup flavored everything!

Should have led with Reese's cup flavored everything.

Happy Monday! We're starting with chocolate. And why not, really? There is a perception that chocolate is always unhealthy, but I think it's more that when cocoa powder is served with sugar + fat + carbs we run into issues. This has those things, certainly, but it also has chia seeds, peanut butter, honey instead of sugar (still acts like sugar, though, don't be totally fooled), and dairy that can be lower in fat if you choose. You can also sub the milk + cream for coconut milk and/or almond milk if you're dairy-free, so lots of options here!

The point is more that things called pudding can definitely be good for breakfast or snacks or dessert. Chia pudding in particular is so easy to make, and I don't know many people who dislike the chocolate+peanut butter combination, seriously. I love making a big batch like this while something else is cooking (because it takes all of 5 minutes), then keeping it in the fridge for several days to grab when we need something fast. This version has slightly more liquid than other variations for a creamier effect, and I DID throw some peanut butter cups on top for a visual (and because they are delicious, obviously) and to up the dessert-factor of these. Maybe leave them off if you make this for breakfast, maybe don't.

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Emeril's Coconut Cake with 7-Minute Frosting

March 21, 2018 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

I'm 32 today. It's extraordinarily anticlimactic because when there are toddlers you realize how little you matter in the world besides staying alive to feed people and tidy up after them, but somehow that feels very important.

My theme for 32 is heightened anxiety over untimely death, it's very soothing.

I think it's because my life is so good, honestly. I'm terrified of not being here for it, and then I realize that consuming my thoughts with things like that is really a waste of the being here time, and around and around we go. I don't let it consume me, necessarily, but I'm often tearful at just how lucky even the most mundane moments of my life are. Beck begins nearly every sentence with a whine, Jay and I both work too hard at the wrong times, bills come out of nowhere, school debt (and all of the other debt) is relentless, I'm not anywhere close to comfortable with the state of our government, but somehow it works, it works well, and I'm grateful for it. ...

Coconut Vanilla Chia Pudding (vegan, dairy free, sugar free)

January 25, 2018 by Lindsay 3 Comments

I mean, come on. All of the free things, which means that pudding for breakfast is totally acceptable whether you're on a diet or not.

When I was reading about Whole30 and the philosophy (a ton that I disagree with), there is a note that it isn't recommended to eat chia pudding because it can make you think of real pudding and THAT IS SO BAD and on and on. So I presented this to Jay, who'd been asking for chia pudding, and he rolled his eyes and we made chia pudding.

Great story, right? So, while this isn't on the hoity-toity list of recommended Whole30 foods, it is totally compliant with all of the actual rules and delicious to boot. You can also make this with sweetened versions of any of the ingredients, which...wouldn't be gross, hence why some people feel the need to detox from sugar. Because it's good. We enjoyed this without added sugar, though, thanks to some fresh fruit and raisins which add sweetness without sugar to the final dish.

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