I have three important things to tell you today. Earth-shattering things, really. Are you ready for your world to change?

1. My husband does not like cake. We have to make him brownies or cheesecake for his birthday each year.
2. I force him to try foods that he doesn’t like all the time, not because I am a jerk, but because I love him and I have high hopes that one day he will wake up with normal taste buds like a normal person and he will eat normal food.
3. I forced him to try these Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting and he took one bite, pushed me out of his way, grabbed two more cupcakes, and gobbled the three of them down quite happily.

True story. Except for the part where he pushed me. He would never do such a thing, not even for these cupcakes. He’s a keeper and so are these chocolatey peanut buttery cupcakes.

Click here to read the recipe and hear a bit about a campaign that Electrolux is doing with Kelly Ripa to help fund research for Ovarian Cancer.

It’s Valentine’s Day so I’m pretty sure that means that I should be alternating between napping and eating chocolate all day, right? Isn’t that what true love is about?

My kids aren’t allowing me to nap, but they can’t stop me from eating chocolate. I decided that today called for good old chocolate chip cookies, but not just any chocolate chip cookies. These cookies are special. They have a secret ingredient that makes them fat and fluffy and delicious and beautiful.

The secret ingredient is just a small box of instant vanilla pudding powder. Crazy, I know, but it does amazing things to cookies.

The only problem with making these for your Valentine is you won’t be able to sneak in any kisses. You’ll be too busy shoveling cookies in your mouth.

Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from allrecipes.com

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 3.4 oz. package vanilla instant pudding mix
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I use King Arthur’s white whole wheat)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Beat together butter and sugars until creamy. Beat in pudding mix, eggs, and vanilla. Stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt, and slowly mix that into the butter mixture until well combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded spoonfuls (I use a cookie dough scoop) onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 350 degree pre-heated oven for 10-12 minutes.

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.