Ah, summer…so much variety available in terms of fresh fruit and berries.  And my favorite way to eat a fruity dessert is in the form of a crisp.  For the uneducated, a crisp is a baked dish where the bottom layer is fruit or berries, sweetened as desired, and the topping is a combination of butter, brown sugar, and oats or nuts.

I love strawberries.  Which is why I planted a bunch of them in my deck garden this year: Tristar day-neutral (ever-bearing) strawberries, among the sweetest and most flavorful I’ve ever tasted.  And of course it follows that I love the summer dessert, strawberry shortcake.

PI Day and St. Patrick’s Day come in quick succession, which is perhaps why I was thinking about pie.  And then green pie.  Which naturally led to Grasshopper Pie.  Thinking about pie led to googling about pie.

Once upon a time, when I was younger, I used to make fancy cakes for my nephews (and occasionally other family members), often accommodating specific requests. For example, one of the nephews requested a “Dig Dug themed cake with raspberry filling and a surprise inside.”

One of the ways we know the seasons are changing is that seasonal food becomes available. I’m not just talking about eating fruits and vegetables in season (although that’s an excellent strategy) but also what luxury foods are available. We know it’s fall because pumpkin spice everything is available everywhere. Lattes, milkshakes, ice cream, baked goods…it’s truly everywhere.

I can’t remember why my mother and I decided to try the combination, but for Thanksgiving some years ago, when we were making apple pies, we decided to try adding cranberries to them.  As a sort of experiment, we added fresh cranberries to the sliced apples in one pie, and some jam to the other.  I had wanted cranberry jam but couldn’t find any, so I had to settle for Lingonberry.  My mother did say at the time that she thought cranberry sauce would work, but as I recall, I scoffed at that notion and went ahead with my jam plan.

When I was a child, my mother regularly made two kinds of cookies from recipes handed down from the grandmothers. There was the classic Peanut Butter Cookie, of course, and then there were my maternal grandmother’s Molasses Crinkles. Both recipes were originally made with shortening and butter, but since shortening (and hydrogenated fats in general) are against my religion, I’ve tinkered with the recipes a little and now make them with butter only. They aren’t quite as fluffy as the original, but they are still delicious. And a lot less bad for you.

Regular visitors to the blog might remember that I am a fan of “quick and easy” when it comes to cooking and baking.

Approximately a century ago, when I was working a night-shift job, I naturally kept drastically different hours from my family and friends.  This meant I was awake late at night, looking for things to do.

I don’t dislike muffins, exactly…I just don’t love them.  They fall in between all the bread-y things I like.

I believe I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but among the holiday baking traditions for my family are: Christmas Cherry Coffee Cake, Almond Butter Cookies, Ragamuffin Cookies, and Peanut Butter Balls.  In fact, as with the Ragamuffin cookies, my family did our best to persuade my mother to make her peanut butter balls on every “occasion.” (Happy Tuesday!  Have a peanut butter ball…)

Sausage rolls? Two ways? Yes, please!

Chocolate and peanut butter.  The perfect pairing.  Is there any way to improve on this delight?  I would say yes…add some oatmeal.  Then you’ve gone past perfect and into sublime.

I have a few surprisingly vivid memories from a time where I was about three years old.  Possibly a little younger, but I think three is about right.  One of these memories is of being left in the tender care of a grandmotherly lady from our family’s church, while my mom went off and did…mom stuff.  I don’t know.  I was three.

When I was a child, anytime my mother did something I particularly liked, usually involving food, I declared that a new tradition, thereby trapping my mother into having to fulfill the “tradition” every year.

In years that my mother opts to make Christmas treats to give out, she makes two items. She makes her fantastic peanut butter balls and she makes Christmas butter cookies from a recipe I’ve not encountered anywhere else.

Does this look like the face of a pumpkin pie thief? No? Well, she’s had a couple years to perfect that innocent look, but I assure you that she is in fact a little ninja when it comes to swiping unguarded pie.

As any decent coffee house knows, you can’t really properly have coffee (or tea) without coffee cake.

I love bananas. Especially in a dessert. Banana bread. Banana cream pie. And banana cake. I particularly like quick and easy banana cake, using a box mix and some canned cream cheese frosting. Super easy, and a respectful way to deal with the inevitable buildup of very ripe bananas, as I always buy more than I can eat.

A day without chocolate is like…well, I must confess that I don’t actually know what a day without chocolate is like.