Banana Bread with Ghirardelli Chocolate Chips

I’m going to note this first: I live at high altitude, so if you live at sea level you may have to cut cooking time and some of the flour to ensure it’s not dry 🙂 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened 2 large eggs, room temperature 4 medium very ripe bananas, mashed…

Black Forest Honey Streusel Coffee Cake

Firstly, I want to say how excited and privileged I felt to be able to receive ‘The New Southwest’ cookbook by Meagan Micozzi. It’s truly a stunning book. I’m a graphic designer by trade (for over 25 years now) and love the fact that there are pictures with every recipe. I had difficulty picking just…

Bobs Red Mill Challenge: Blueberry Nectarine Buckle

A buckle? What is a buckle? No. Not the clasp that holds your belt together. It’s an old-fashioned, summertime, English dessert, and a quite tasty one at that! The original recipe (from Real Simple magazines’ July 2013 issue) calls for peaches, but to be honest, I couldn’t find any good ones. However, I had perfect…

Shrimp Creole

Back in August of 2000, I visited New Orleans, Louisiana for the first time. Man was it hot! It was 97˚ in the shade with 90˚ humidity. All we could do to keep cool was drink Hurricanes and hide in the shade. I ate at many restaurants, both large and small, but one of my…

Chocolate Dream Cheesecake

22 creme filled chocolate cookies 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted —— 2 pkg. cream cheese, room temp 2 pkg. Neufantel cream cheese, room temp 1 c. sugar 2 Tbsp. flour 1 tsp. vanilla 8 oz. Ghirardelli dark chocolate, melted/cooled 4 medium eggs, room temp. —— remainder of cookie pkg, crushed 1 pint heavy whipping cream,…