Chocolate Bar Blondies

I don't know if you've noticed but Blondes are not Brunettes.

It's the same in baking... Blondies are not Brownies.

Blondies are all about brown sugar. Brownies are more into chocolate.

I made some Blondies, not Brownies.

 Chocolate Bar Blondies

Waffled Grilled Cheese

Grilled Cheese is easy.

All you need is bread, cheese, and butter.

It's way cooler if you have a waffle maker.

Grilled Cheese

Black Bean Brownies

My oven has come alive again! It just started decided to work all of a sudden.

So now I'm testing out more recipes that seem healthier.

This recipe doesn't have butter or eggs, but it does have beans in it.

I love brownies. I don't like beans.

I tried this recipe anyways because I remembered that...

Beans, beans, the magical fruit
The more you eat, the more you toot
The better you toot, the better you feel
So, let's eat beans for every meal!

...every meal, including dessert.

 Black Bean Brownies

Yo! Let's go to the cafe... The Yogurt Cafe.

I went to Yo Yo's to grab some frozen yogurt.

A very good idea for them and for me.

They were happy because I served myself and they had less work to do.

I was happy because I got the tasty treat that I wanted.

A mutually beneficial relationship...

Yo Yo's Yogurt Cafe

Chocolate Chip and Toffee Cookies

I wanted to bake to cookies, but the oven is still broken.

Luckily, I had a toaster oven so I decided to put it to use.

Before I tinkered with the little baby oven, I was inspired by Waffleizer to make cookies with the waffle machine.

Waffled Chocolate Chip and Toffee Cookies

Relish on this.

I went to a Gourmet Burger restaurant and I ate a burger. The place was called Relish Gourmet Burger.

First you had to pick a Gourmet Burger Patty from the selection of:

• Pure ground sirloin, Grilled chicken breast, 
• Veggie burger, Portobello mushroom cap, 
• Lamb, Salmon or Bison

Then you had to choose your type of Gourmet Burger. There were lots of different burgers... like 40 or so. They also had interesting descriptions.

• Basic Instinct - "Cheddar cheese...extremely boring but who’s judging"
• Kosher Special - "Cheddar cheese-bacon...still kinda boring but again we're not judging"
• Stoned Kosher - "Cheddar cheese-bacon-sautéed mushrooms...see that better"
• Tucker and Tazz Burger - "Cheddar cheese-bacon-sautéed mushrooms and onions...good job!!!" 

F.Y.I. Tucker and Tazz are local radio hosts.

And then they had weirder ones.

• Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Burger - "Peanut butter-jack cheese-bacon" 
• Tree Hugger - "Pesto-grilled eggplant-grilled red peppers-grilled Bermuda onion-goat cheese" 
• Straight to LHSC - "Back bacon-double smoked bacon-Swiss cheese-cheddar cheese" 

F.Y.I. LHSC is a local hospital.

I had the Don Ho - "Pineapple ring-teriyaki sauce-red onion"

Mom's Wonton Soup

Today our air conditioning was fixed! Hurray!

Now our oven has decided to be uncooperative.

Apparently no clock display = no baking temperature display = no baking for Joyce.

Luckily, today's post did not require an oven.

Mom's Wonton Soup

Mango Dessert

For the last 8 weekends I have been taking mini vacations and traveling to near by cities. Usually I end up in Toronto, but I have gone as far as Montreal and Niagara Falls.

Montreal had some really great bagels. Montreal-style bagels. Sweet and tasty.

Niagara Falls had the Hersey Store. Limited edition chocolate. Cookies-and-cream kisses. Chocolate-and-almond kisses. Choco-mint Chipits.

With all this traveling, I haven't had time to buy flour since I ran out.

This can be a limiting factor when deciding what to make... 

In addition, the air conditioning broke down so I decided not to bake/use the oven to avoid overheating the house. Instead, I used the refrigerator for my Mango Dessert.

Mango Dessert

Take two.

It seems that I always have buttermilk on the verge of being expired and in need to be used up. 

I like to buy buttermilk because it just adds that little extra "umph" to my baking. The problem is that I never use it up in just one recipe, so I always have left over.

I usually buy more buttermilk because I don't have enough for another recipe. And of course, I end up with left over... once again.

So today was a special day.

I used up all the buttermilk, flour, vanilla extract, and eggs in ONE RECIPE. 

Great-tasting-Unintentional-Garbage muffins. 

Feel free to take two of my Berry Buttermilk Muffins.

No butter cookies.

I read online that some cookies can be made with bananas in place of butter.

It sounded too good to be true.

But I tried it anyways... I made up my own recipe. So beware.

Banana-Oatmeal-Peanut-Craisin-Almond flour-No Butter Cookies

That's a mouthful. Literally.