Mini Chocolate Eclairs

Ugggghhh. Sorry, that's not a very polite way to begin a conversation, but that's the way I feel right now.

I got it in my head this week that life would not be complete without mini chocolate eclairs. Do you ever get this feeling? Then I saw how many eggs were in my recipe, and my heart nearly stopped. It's probably a good thing that I haven't gotten my cholesterol checked in a while.

But I saw this huge carton of eggs at a local fruit store, and I decided that the heavens were trying to tell me to make eclairs. Isn't it nice when you get approval from above for baking projects?

Cranberry Lemon Oat Bread with Lemon Curd

Oh dear. I must not be very good at this blogging business. I keep making delicious food, mind you. But I do it at night and then my pictures come out all wonky. Or I do manage to get nice pictures but forget to take the in-process pics. You will forgive, me, won't you?

Today I had approximately 15 minutes to whip up something to bring to a friend's house. Luckily, I had some leftover lemon curd in the fridge (how strange, I know) and some cranberries a friend had stuck in my freezer (thank you, friend!).

Pie Pops

Finally! I've been drooling over cake pops since the amazing Bakerella first started this crazy trend. Crazy, of course, because I can't figure out how to acquire candy melts in Israel and there is only so much you can do with chocolate. But oh, the agony of not being able to put cute baked goods on a stick. Belive me, it's bad.

So when I saw cute apple pie cookies on Smitten Kitchen, I finally joined the trend and put something cute on  a stick.

Peach pie. Oh yum. I pre-cooked the peaches so that they would be nice and soft (also, they weren't quite ripe but I didn't have enough patience to wait another day).

Easy Black Bean Soup

Oh boy, has it been a crazy week around here. I started off with all sorts of grand ideas of delicious confections to bake. Then some events beyond my control had me out of the house for almost a week. Not even near a kitchen. Or normal food. Not to mention delicious baked goods. Then of course by the time I came home, the house was a mess, there was no food to be found anywhere, and general mayhem ensued.

Which is the perfect time to start making easy, comfort food recipes that can be made essentially from pantry ingredients. Well, in my house black bean soup is comfort food.

Red Velvet Fudge

It's funny how our tastes change over time. Like, how I used to love those mixed licorice candies more than life itself, and I was so incredibly excited to find them at the store the other day. You know what? They sort of taste like over-sweetened rubber.

Maybe it's the change of countries, but these days I like my chocolate dark, my coffee black and my candies not super sweet.

So when I saw this absolutely genius idea for making red velvet fudge from one of the blogs I love to stalk read, I was thrilled to see that it doesn't require marshmallow creme or condensed milk or those other super sweet unobtainable-in-Israel ingredients. (condensed milk we have, marshmallow creme is always questionable)

What you do need in making this recipe is a lot of faith. Faith that adding so much red food coloring is both 1) good for you and 2) will not stain your teeth irreparably.

Guilt Free Coconana Muffins

There are about a million good banana cake/muffin recipes out there.

In fact, I had fully intended to make one of those very recipes. Except I kept on adding a bit of this and that and substituting, and I wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out. And so I figured, what the heck. Make it "healthy" so I don't feel guilty about eating four muffins instead of lunch. Not that I would do anything like that.

So here you have it. Whole wheat, reduced fat chocolate chip coconana muffins.