Bacon and Gruyère Muffins

These Bacon and Gruyère Muffins are loaded with chunks of melty cheese and are so easy to prepare in less than two hours. Even better, if you fry the bacon and dice the Gruyère the day before, you can make these muffins in less than an hour. You will look like a baking genius.

If I had to pick just one cheese to bake with, it would be Gruyère cheese. Even though it is an aged cheese with a firm and slightly grainy texture, it melts perfectly. It has a mild, sweet, and nutty taste.

To bring out the melty goodness of the Gruyère, I cut it into a small dice rather than grate it to better achieve little pockets of melty cheese.

Triple Oatmeal Cookies

These Triple Oatmeal Cookies are loaded with three kinds of oats, along with dried blueberries.

It's been a long time since I've made oatmeal cookies. Too long! I used to have a recipe for an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie that assuaged some of the guilt of giving my kids cookies because they contained oats. Sadly, somewhere along the way, my first recipe box, with the few recipes I ever mastered as a young mom such as my mom's meatloaf, my friend's Chinese chicken salad, and a pretty tasty tuna dip that another friend served at her Tupperware parties, disappeared.

Smoked Trout Cakes

These Smoked Trout Cakes are so rich tasting, with so many interesting flavor elements.

The ingredients for these smoked trout cakes include sour cream, whole grain mustard, red bell pepper, chives, and capers. Instead of bread crumbs, they are coated with potato flakes....  "Gluten free....." Those words don't often fall out of my lips.

Tutmanik | Bulgarian Cheese Bread

This bread is tutmanik. It's an amazingly delicious cheese bread from Bulgaria. Filled with feta and herbs and brushed with layers of melted butter, this bread is so tempting and flavorful.

Tutmanik, also known as Tootmanik s Gotovo Testo (with pre-made dough) or mesentiza, can be shaped simply, in layers, as I have here, or in fanciful and flowery shapes.

Petit Pains - Julia Child's French Bread Rolls - Happy birthday Julia!

These Petit Pains, inspired by Julia Child, are wonderfully crusty and flavorful.

These Petit Pains take about 7 hours to make. That does not mean you are active the whole time. It just means that the dough gets lots of extra time to develop flavor. In fact, the dough for these rolls requires very little attention from you. If you need even more time, you can actually slow down the rising time by placing the dough in the refrigerator for each rise. The longer the dough takes to rise, the more developed the flavor.

Pork and Chinese Chive Steamed Buns

These Pork and Chinese Chive Steamed Buns represent a cross between two of my favorite hobbies, bread baking and wok cooking.

Chinese steamed buns. also known as bao or baozi, are kind of like a meal in a bun. They are typically filled with pork, other meats, vegetables, and even sweets.

Zucchini Parmesan Salad

This Zucchini Parmesan Salad is an wonderful combination of raw zucchini topped with shaved Parmesan and candied pecans, and dressed with a bright lemon dressing.

The raw zucchini for this salad is cut into ribbons. I used a Y-peeler to make the ribbons, which worked perfectly. No special tool required!

Italian Style Durum Wheat Bread

This Italian Style Durum Wheat Bread, with its gorgeous gold color, airy crumb, and chewy crust, might just be my new favorite bread.

I love the flavor of this Italian Style Durum Wheat Bread, and I'm so happy with the look and chew of the crust and crumb.