My first scone was bought from the grocery store bakery. It was pumpkin. It was also hard and crumbly and really dry. I don’t think I finished it.

My second scone was a chocolate chip scone that I made myself. It was soft, buttery, and delicious. I ate three.

Yes, it’s true. Scones are new to me, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know a good scone when I taste one. Anything this fluffy and delicious is good food. It’s a fact.

I don’t know about you, but I generally avoid recipes that require me to spread flour on my counter tops. It’s just so messy and I always get icked out thinking that my counters aren’t really clean enough to be smooshing food around on them, no matter how much I wipe them down. Having said that, the minute I saw that this recipe called for 2 cups of heavy cream I completely forgot about the fact that I’d have to make a big floury mess. Heavy cream will make me do crazy things.

This dough comes together pretty easily. Dump everything into a bowl, give it a stir to make sure all the flour is moist, and then dump it out onto a floured countertop. Knead it for a few minutes and then seperate it into three balls of dough.

The dough balls easily smoosh out into circles that you can then cut with a pizza cutter. Brush the tops of the scones with melted butter and sprinkle with a bit of sugar before baking.

These scones were just delicious. They were nice and moist and all that heavy cream really gave them a great texture and flavor. These weren’t too sweet at all and I think they’d go perfect with a nice hot cup of coffee or tea or a big ol’ glass of icy cold milk.

Chocolate Chip Scones
Adapted from Hershey’s

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease two cookie sheets.

I’ve had appetizers on the brain lately. These little BLT Stuffed Tomatoes aren’t helping much either. In fact, looking at these pictures makes me sad. I don’t have any left and now I want more!

These are the perfect little finger food, full of creamy sour cream, salty bacon, and a bit of parmesan cheese, all stuffed in a little cherry tomato and sprinkled with green onions. Could there be a tastier combination?

The next time you have a get together I beg you, I implore you, I command you to make these little guys. You won’t believe how quickly they fly off the plate.

These don’t take all that long to prepare and can be made a few hours in advance. You just slice a cherry tomato in half and then scoop out the insides. I use a paring knife and just cut all around the edges of the tomato and flip the insides out, but you can also use a small spoon to scrape the guts out. If you do use a paring knife, be careful! It’s easy to slip through the thin tomato skin and slice off a finger.

You then whip up your filling and either pipe it into the tomatoes or just use a small spoon and scoop it into the empty tomatoes. I prefer to use a spoon myself, but do what works best for you.

These aren’t all that bad for you either if you use light sour cream and turkey bacon. I’ve never used turkey bacon myself, but that doesn’t mean you can’t!

You can count on each person eating at least 3 or 4 of these little guys, so make plenty!

BLT Stuffed Tomatoes

• 8 ounces sour cream (light works great!)
• 4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1 tbsp parmesan cheese (the powdery kind is fine)
• 2 tsp fresh parsley, chopped (you can substitute dried parsley)
• green onions, for garnish
• salt and pepper, to taste
• about 20 cherry tomatoes

Wash cherry tomatoes and slice them in half. Use a paring knife or spoon to scrape out the insides. Dab the inside of each tomato with a paper towel to dry it and then sprinkle with salt. Mix together the sour cream, bacon pieces, parmesan, parsley, and salt and pepper. Spoon or pipe the filling into each tomato and sprinkle the tops with chopped green onions (or more parsley, if you’re an onion hater).

I’ve still got Superbowl on the brain over here. No, I don’t care about the teams or the game or any of that other completely interesting football stuff that the rest of the world cares about, I just care about the menu. Superbowl is the perfect day for dips and snacks and finger foods and I’m sorry, but there just aren’t enough days devoted to the finger foods.

This Jalapeno Popper dip is the perfect football food. It’s spicy, so the boys can act all tough and pretend like their lips aren’t burning off and the girls can say things like “My, my, my…aren’t you manly and strong!” Clearly, this is a winning dip.

This is positively full of jalapenos. The recipe calls for two diced jalapenos plus one jar of pickled jalapenos. I’m a bit of a wuss, so I won’t lie, my lips burst into flames. It’s hard being such a sissy. My husband had to throw a glass of water in my face. Go ahead and add the pickled jalapenos and then give it a taste. Add more jalapeno if you can handle it, but be careful, you don’t want to end up with a face full of water and third degree burns on your fragile little lips.

Jalapeno Popper Dip
Recipe from Closet Cooking

• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese (I used the powdery kind and it was fine)
• 1 (4 ounce) can pickled jalapenos
• 2 jalapeno peppers (diced, optional)
• 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Finely dice the jalapenos and add to a mixing bowl. Add in the cream cheese, mayonnaise, cheddar cheese, and parmesan cheese. Mix well and spread into a small baking dish or oven safe bowl. Mix together the panko and parmesan and pour over the top of the dip. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 10-15 minutes or until heated through. Serve with chips and a big ol’ glass of milk to cool the burn.

I may not know who is playing in the Superbowl this year (Does anyone? Have the teams been chosen? Do they even get chosen? How does this thing you call “football” even work?), but I know darn good and well that I’m going to be required to make thirty-seven different appetizers and dips for the game. Oh, yes. My husband had that written into our marriage vows.

“I promise to love you forever ’til death to us part so long as you make me snacks on Superbowl Sunday.”

The wedding guests had never seen a more ridiculous wedding before.

Back to the food! I really think that “dip” should be it’s own food group. Fruits, vegetables, dairy, protein, and dip. That’s the way the food pyramid would look if I were the President of Food. Five servings of dip per day. Ah, that’d be the life.

This Buffalo Chicken Dip (also known as “crack dip” because it’s addicting like crack!) is so good. It’s got a good bit of spice, but the cream cheese and the ranch dressing cools it off just enough. This one really is like crack. You won’t be able to stop dipping!

I would like to note real quick that the original recipe called for (gag) canned chunks (puke) of chicken (vomit). Personally, I think that canned meat (blech) is evil and wrong and terribly bad. I recommend buying a rotisserie chicken and shredding the meat with a fork, but if you are brave (and crazy) go ahead and use the (ewwww) canned chicken. I won’t judge you. At least, not out loud where you can hear me.

Also, while I’m being all picky about my ingredients, I should mention that I’m not a fan of blue cheese. I omitted the blue cheese salad dressing and used all ranch and I substituted the crumbled blue cheese for shredded mozzarella.

Finally, I like to serve this with sliced French bread, but it would also be yummy on chips or crackers.

Buffalo Chicken Dip
Adapted from Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

• 1 rotisserie chicken, meat shredded with a fork
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup blue cheese salad dressing (omit and use 1/2 cup ranch dressing total, if you prefer)
• 1/4 cup ranch salad dressing
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese (substitute shredded mozzarella if you prefer)
• 1/2 cup Frank’s Red Hot sauce (any hot sauce will do)

Mix together all ingredients until well combined. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. Serve with crackers, chips, or sliced bread.

Oh, y’all. I have a big confession to make. You see, I am…I’m…well…I’m the world’s biggest dork. No, really, I am. I pretend I’m just a girl with a blog who knows how to cook, when in reality, I’m just a big dork. You see, a year or so ago I discovered the beauty of wax paper. I believe I first saw it used for lining cake pans. And, you know, it works perfectly for lining cake pans. It’s also perfect for brownies or basically anything where the wax paper is covered completely by the food. You know what wax paper is not good for? Baking cookies.

I have been baking cookies on wax paper (and recommending that you do so, too!) for the last year and I’m only now realizing that you aren’t supposed to do that. The exposed wax paper smokes! Some even say that it leaves a waxy taste on your food, but I’ve never had a problem with that. However, I was thisclose to buying a new oven over the summer because it was smoking so bad when I used it! Well, surprise! The wax paper was what was smoking! Not the oven itself! Let’s just say, my husband is so happy that I ultimately decided to upgrade my camera instead of my (perfectly fine) oven. (And, yes, I did choose a camera over an oven even though I totally thought something was wrong with my oven. Priorities! I have them!)

So, there you have it. I am a complete dork who doesn’t even know how to use an oven. Also, stop using wax paper to bake your cookies.

In honor of my lack of oven skills, I thought I’d share a no bake dessert with you today. I promise, nothing will smoke. Unless you burn your marshmallows, but you can’t blame me for that if you do!

I honestly don’t even have the words to describe these little snack mix bars. They are just beyond delicious. In fact, I have been trying to watch what I eat and I’ve been doing good! I’ve just been shipping all my goodies off to work with my husband, but these little guys? No way. They are staying here with mama.

These little treats have the sweet salty thing going on. The snack mix is made up of rice chex cereal, pretzel sticks, and lots of m&ms. I used a mixture of plain, peanut, and peanut butter m&ms, because I’m wild and crazy, but you can use whatever type of m&ms you like best. I also stirred in a few chocolate chips, just for fun.

The goo that holds these bars together is made of marshmallows, butter, and peanut butter. Could there be a tastier combination of ingredients? I think not.

I would like to note that I didn’t press my mixture together firmly enough in the pan, so the bars fell apart a bit. Next time I will get out a piece of (un-bakeable) wax paper and lay it over the tops of the bars and really press it all together.

Please, if you take anything away from this blog, let it be these two things: 1.  Don’t bake wax paper unless it is completely covered by food, and  2. These snack bars are so delicious they will destroy your desire to diet, so proceed with caution.

Snack Mix Bars
Adapted from Inn Cuisine

• 3 cups pretzel sticks, snapped in half
• 2 1/3 cups chex cereal (I used rice, you can use what you like best)
• 2 cups m&ms (use whichever you like best, I did a mixture of plain, peanut, and peanut butter)
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips (any kind)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 5 1/2 cups mini marshmallows

In a large bowl, combine pretzels, cereal, m&ms, and chocolate chips. Set aside.

In a large sauce pan, melt together the butter and peanut butter over low heat. Stir in the marshmallows and continue to cook over low heat until the marshmallows are melted.Pour over the snack mix and toss to coat.

Press mixture into a 9×13 pan lined with wax or parchment paper. Firmly press mixture together to ensure that the bars stick together when they have cooled. Refrigerate until the mixture is completely cool and firm. Cut into bars and serve.