Oreo Cheesecake Bars

These Oreo Cheesecake Bars, with a thick layer of cookies and cream crust, will be one of your family's favorite desserts. 

If you love cheesecakes, but are intimidated by the whole ritual of making one, including dealing with the water bath, worrying about the cheesecake cracking, and breaking out the springform pan, you need to give cheesecake bars a chance.

Tomato and Fennel Salad

This tomato and Fennel Salad is light and refreshing, and simply elegant. 

 This tomato and fennel salad is lightly dressed in a mixture of olive oil, orange juice, and cider vinegar, and garnished with orange zest and fennel fronds.

Oatmeal Pear Bars

These Oatmeal Pear Bars are a delicious "grab and go" breakfast for busy mornings. 

Welcome to Back to School Treats Week! We are sharing lots of recipes perfect for Back to School. I received product samples from sponsor companies to aid in the creation of the #BacktoSchoolTreats week recipes. All opinions are my own.

Make a batch of these oatmeal pear bars on a Sunday afternoon, and after they cool, wrap them up and refrigerate to serve later for a quick breakfast.

Barefoot Contessa's Lasagna with Turkey Sausage

Barefoot Contessa's Lasagna with Turkey Sausage is a classic, and it's a big favorite in our family. 

Barefoot Contessa's Lasagna with Turkey Sausage is the first lasagna I ever made. It was also my first introduction to ricotta cheese and goat cheese. It was a revelation, and making it again brings back a lot of memories.

Tandoori Style Crispy Chicken Wings

These Tandoori Style Chicken Wings are spicy, juicy, and super crispy. They are first marinated in a zesty mixture of yogurt and spices, and then baked in a super hot oven.

Tandoori chicken is named after the clay tandoor oven, which gets super hot (up to 900 degrees F). Traditional tandoori chicken is very colorful, often from the spices such as turmeric, cayenne pepper, and paprika, and sometimes from added red food coloring.

Mini Chocolate Sandwich Cookies (Small Batch)

These Mini Chocolate Sandwich Cookies are so crumbly, airy, and buttery, and most of all, chocolatey.

These mini chocolate sandwich cookies are so easy to make. All you need is a couple of small bowls, a hand mixer, and just one baking sheet. The recipe makes just 12 sandwich cookies, perfect for smaller households, small dinner parties, and for people (like me) who need portion control.

Oklahoma Fried Onion Short Rib Burgers

Oklahoma Fried Onion Short Rib Burgers are created by smashing the ground beef into a mound of thinly sliced onions to create a burger infused with the flavors of crispy caramelized onions.

Evidently, fried onion burgers were invented in Oklahoma during the depression because beef was expensive and onions were cheap. They are kind of like a Smashburger, because you press the meat onto the onions and deeply brown both on a hot skillet.

Strawberries and Cream Crêpe Cake

This Strawberries and Cream Crêpe Cake is light, luscious, and creamy. If you've ever wanted to try a crêpe cake, this would be the one to try first. It's easier than it looks, and totally delicious.

This strawberries and cream crêpe cake is light and creamy. It's filled with a mixture of strawberries, whipped cream, butter, and sweetened condensed milk.

Slow Cooker Chicken and Black Bean Chili

This slow cooker chicken and black bean chili is hearty and filling. Make it in your CrockPot for an easy make-ahead dinner.

This CrockPot chicken and black bean chili is thick and hearty. It reminds me of our community's annual Chili Cook-Off.

Grilled Salmon Sandwiches with Basil Dill Sauce

These grilled salmon sandwiches, made with wild caught salmon, slathered with an amazing sauce flavored with basil, dill, scallions, and capers, will be the star of your next football watching party or backyard get together.

I fell in love with these grilled salmon sandwiches with basil dill sauce at first bite.

First, there's the sauce. It's so Oh Em Gee good. Jump up and down good. It's herby, tangy, and loaded with umami from the capers.

Cinnamon Blueberry Multigrain Bread

Toast a slice of this Cinnamon Blueberry Multigrain Bread and spread it with a little butter for your breakfast. I can pretty much guarantee it will carry you all of the way through lunch.

This cinnamon blueberry multigrain bread is a great way to deliver nutritious bread in a delicious loaf. It's loaded with whole grains, including polenta (corn grits), rolled, oats, wheat bran, and cooked brown rice. Not to mention the dried blueberries.

Birthday Cake Ice Cream

Birthday cake ice cream captures the flavors of a birthday candle topped celebration cake and combines them into a creamy delicious ice cream.

The quintessential birthday cake to me is vanilla flavored yellow cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles. It's the kind of cake that made you want to lick the batter from the beaters, bowl, and the spoon when you were a kid. Everyone who tasted this ice cream loved it.

Cornmeal Waffles with Blueberry Sauce

These cornmeal waffles with blueberry sauce are so crispy, slightly chewy, and completely delicious served with a warm homemade blueberry sauce.

These cornmeal waffles with blueberry sauce are yeast-risen.  You make and refrigerate the batter the night before baking them. The next morning, all you need to do is heat up your waffle iron.

Blueberry Barbecue Sauce

This Blueberry Barbecue Sauce, made in the slow cooker, is great to make in the summer when fresh blueberries are bountiful. Don't despair if it's not summer. You can also make this with frozen blueberries. 

This slow cooker blueberry barbecue sauce is savory with a hint of sweetness from the fruit and a little brown sugar. It's easy to make, and excellent both as a simmering sauce and as a finishing sauce.

Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream with Macadamia Nuts

This chocolate coconut ice cream with macadamia nuts is such a chocolatey, creamy, and crunchy treat.

This chocolate coconut ice cream with macadamia nuts not only contains shredded coconut, it also is made with coconut milk. With the macadamia nuts, it is simply decadent and rich.  It's like an imaginary vacation to Hawaii.

Blackberry Cobbler

Blackberry cobbler is an easy way to make a quick summer dessert when you have a lot of blackberries and don't have the time to make a pie! 

Instead of a having a pie crust, a cobbler is dotted with a biscuit topping that bakes along with the blackberry filling. It's great for potlucks or impromptu dinner parties. I made this for a last minute Independence Day dinner and it was a big hit.

Mini Raspberry Cheesecakes

These little mini raspberry cheesecakes are a great way to enjoy cheesecake "on the go." They are all filling with no crust, and are perfect for freezing too.

This post and recipe were created for #SummerDessertWeek! I was sent samples by some of the sponsor companies but as always opinions are 100% mine.

These mini raspberry cheesecakes are all filling and no crust, so making them is easy and a little faster than a full-sized cheesecake. If you still crave a crust, just drop a vanilla wafer in the bottom of the cupcake liner, and pour the batter over the cookie.

Sufganiyot (Hanukkah Jelly Doughnuts)

These jelly doughnuts (sufganiyot) are made with a lemony scented dough and filled with sweet plum jam. These two-bite jelly doughnuts are a traditional Hanukkah treat, but you'll want them all year long. 

These little round jelly doughnuts (sufganiyot) are little bites of sweetness. They are evidently a popular treat in Israel during Hanukkah.

Blackberry Cheesecake with Blackberry Compote

This Blackberry Cheesecake with Blackberry Compote is so creamy and rich, and it takes advantage of all of the goodness of my favorite summer berry, the blackberry.

This post and recipe was created for #SummerDessertWeek! I was sent samples by some of the sponsor companies but as always opinions are 100% mine.

This blackberry cheesecake, with a sugar cookie crust and a blackberry compote, captures the flavors of your favorite summer berry in a rich and decadent dessert. While I made this cheesecake with blackberries, you could substitute strawberries, raspberries, or a combination of all three berries.

Cocada de Forno - Brazilian Baked Coconut

Cocada de Forno, Baked Coconut, is a traditional sweet Brazilian dessert made with shredded coconut.

Baked coconut, or Cocada de Forno, is an easy dessert to make, and it's so delicious. You can make the batter in advance and keep it in the refrigerator until you are ready to bake. The flavor reminds me of coconut macaroons (the kind with two O's).

Sourdough Sandwich Rolls

These pull-apart sourdough sandwich rolls, with a thin crust on the outside and soft and fluffy crumb, are wonderful for sandwiches and even dinner rolls. 

These sourdough sandwich rolls are wonderful filled with your favorite sandwich fillings, from deli meats and cheeses, chicken or tuna salad, hot pastrami or beef dip, and even peanut butter and jam.

Watermelon Salad with Mint and Lime

This watermelon salad with mint and lime is such a refreshing summer salad. 

This watermelon salad with mint and lime juice is so juicy and fresh. It is the perfect salad for picnics, barbecues, and tapas parties.

Jalapeño Pickled Eggs

These jalapeño pickled eggs are a delicious and spicy riff on the classic bar food. 

I can't believe I had never tasted pickled eggs until I made these jalapeño pickled eggs. I have made tea eggs and soy eggs, and have been branching out by making pickled carrots and onions, so I finally felt a little more brave about making pickled eggs.