Cheesecake. Cheeeeeeeesecake. Cheeeeeeeeeeeesecaaaaaaaaake.

What? I like cheesecake, okay? I like to say it, I like to bake it, I like to smell it, I like to eat it.

Cheesecake. It is good.

My dream cheesecake has a chocolate crust and raspberry topping. Unfortunately, raspberries are fruit and do you know what my husband thinks about fruit? Bad things, that’s what. The man will eat a banana every now and again, but that is the only fruit he likes. He’s so weird. I’m not sure I can stay married to a man that doesn’t enjoy a good berry every now and again.

Enter these cheesecake bites. I swirled some fresh raspberry puree into my portion of cheesecake bites and I swirled in a bit of Nutella for my husband. We both cried tears of joy and decided that maybe our marriage would survive after all. I love a happy ending, don’t you?

These cheesecake bites are so fun. They’re pretty simple too and bake up much faster than a full sized cheesecake. It’s  also a lot easier to sneak one of these in your mouth while hiding behind the refrigerator door so that your kids don’t ask if they can have dessert for breakfast too! Not that I would ever do that or anything.

Cheesecake Bites
slightly adapted from Annie’s Eats (whose blog I ADORE

For the crust:

• 2 cups Oreo crumbs (just crush the cookies, filling and all, in a food processor or blender)
• 4 tbsp butter, melted

For the topping:

• 6 oz fresh raspberries
• 2 tbsp sugar
• Nutella, chocolate, caramel topping (only if you want a variety of toppings, optional)

For the filling:

• 2 lbs cream cheese (4 8oz packages), at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs, room temperature

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Enlist your children to line the muffin pans with paper liners. Combine the crust ingredients in a small bowl. Stir together with a fork until the Oreo crumbs are moist. Spoon 1 tbsp of the crust into each paper liner. Press flat with the back of a spoon. Bake for 5 minutes to set the crust. Transfer to a cooling rack.

To make the topping, add the raspberries and sugar to a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Press through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds. Set aside.

To make the filling, add the cream cheese to the bowl of your mixer. Beat the cream cheese until fluffy on medium speed. Beat in the sugar until the mixture is smooth. Mix in the salt and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time beating until each is fully incorporated.

To assemble, add 3 tablespoons of filling to each cupcake liner/crust. Dot a 1/2 teaspoon of whichever filling you are using (I vote for raspberry!) on to the batter 3 times. You should have 3 separate dots of filling, 1/2 teaspoon each. Use a toothpick to lightly swirl the filling in to the batter creating a pretty swirl. Repeat with the remaining cupcakes.

Bake until the filling is set, about 22 minutes, rotating the pans half way through. Cool to room temperature on a wire rack. Transfer to the refrigerator and let chill at least 4 hours before serving.

Yield: between 24 and 30 cupcakes – I had enough filling for 30 cupcakes, but only enough crust for 24. That being said, I went heavy with the crust because I like lots!

Y’all know what streusel is, right? It’s butter, flour, sugar, and sometimes oats all mushed together to form this delightfully sweet treat. It’s the perfect topping for pies or coffee cakes and it’s down right decadent on dessert pizza. I love streusel. I want to marry streusel. I would have streusel’s babies if I wasn’t so against eating my own offspring. Actually, after the day I’ve had, maybe eating my own offspring wouldn’t be so bad. Also, is it time for my kids to go back to school? What’s that? I homeschool? Who the heck signed me up for THAT?

It’s been a long day, y’all.

Luckily, thankfully, happily I can just hide out in my kitchen making sweet treats while my kids play video games for an unhealthy amount of time. It happens. I admit it.

Enough about my bad parenting, let’s talk about my delicious baking instead. This little treat is basically a streusel crust with a raspberry jam filling. It’s kinda amazing.

I always use Smucker’s Simply Fruit red raspberry spreadable fruit because it’s HFCS free and it’s basically just mushed up fruit. This is not a paid advertisement, I just like what I like and I like Smucker’s. I also like opening a new jar of peanut butter (JIF, because I’m a choosy mom) and being the first to stick a knife in the jar, but that’s neither here nor there and I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore.

So, uh, make these? And, maybe, eat ‘em? Yep. I’m pretty sure that’s where I was going with this whole post.

Over and out.

Raspberry Oatmeal Bars
recipe from allrecipes.com

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup seedless rapsberry jam (or any other flavor you might like)

Preheat oven to 350. Line an 8×8 baking dish with foil and lightly grease.

Using a pastry cutter, two knives, or your hands, cut together everything but the jam. Don’t be afraid to get in there and get your hands dirty. Combine until you have a nice crumbly mixture without too many large chunks of butter.

Press 2 cups of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Spoon on the jam (if it is cold, it helps to microwave it to soften it up a bit) and spread to within 1/4 inch of the edge. Lightly press the remaining crust mixture over the top of the jam.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting.

You know how children grow up to be adults and then they blame their parents for their faults? For example, if your mama gave you cough syrup while you were a baby that would explain why you’re addicted to drugs. Or maybe your daddy gave you a time out one time and now you’re an ax murderer and clearly it’s all his fault. Right? People do that. I’m about to do that. Bear with me.

I was a kid once (shocking, right?) and my parents had their work schedules set so that one of them was always home with my brother and me. Sounds nice, right? Well, I’m sure it was lovely and all, but they didn’t plan for one very important thing. Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches.

You see, with one parent always home that meant that one of them was always cooking us meals. How selfish of them, right? My dad tended to grill hamburgers and hot dogs (and cornbread, lots and lots of cornbread) for lunch and my mama liked to make shake ‘n bake pork chops and frozen pizzas (and lima beans, lots and lots of lima beans) for dinner.

Do you see the problem?

There was no room in there for the peanut butter and jelly. Sure, I could have taken it in my school lunches, but by the time I hit school I had never had one and so I stuck with turkey sandwiches, something that did make the lunch/dinner rotation every now and then.

It’s almost like I didn’t even grow up in America, y’all.

I was married to my husband the first time I tried a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. True story. He still makes fun of me for that. He even calls me un-American!

Because I am a loving mother and don’t want to deprive my children of a childhood lunch classic, I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches quite often. It has nothing at all to do with the fact that they are quick, easy, and cheap. It’s all about making sure my children have a proper American childhood.

And, okay, so they’re quick, easy, and cheap.

I decided to mix it up today and make a real lunch, one where I had to use the stove and everything, and save the PB&J for dessert.

My kids were not one bit disappointed and my husband? Well, I don’t think he’ll call me “un-American” again for a very long time.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars
slightly adapted from Ina Garten

• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 cups peanut butter (I used creamy, chunky would be fun, too)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 1/2 cups raspberry jam or other jam (or more, if you’re a jam lover)
• 2/3 cups salted peanuts, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×13 baking dish with parchment paper, grease and flour parchment paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light yellow. Beat in vanilla, eggs, and peanut butter on low speed until everything is combined.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Slowly add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture. Mix just until combined.

Spread half of the dough in the bottom of the prepared pan. Spread jam evenly over the top of the dough. Use your hands to make large balls of dough with the remaining half of dough, then flatten them out and place them over the jam. The dough will spread a bit in the oven, so it’s okay if there are bare spots. Sprinkle with the chopped peanuts and bake for 45 minutes.

Cool completely before cutting into squares and serving.

My husband has a thing for cookies. He considers them breakfast food, you see, so he gets a bit depressed when there aren’t any cookies in the house. Am I trying to starve him? Don’t I know he needs to eat breakfast to stay strong? What do I mean, we have oatmeal and cereal and bacon and eggs and muffins and waffles? WHERE ARE THE COOKIES, WOMAN?

Alright, so actually all he does when he wants cookies is say, in front of me, to himself “Wonder when the last time I had a cookie was?” I get the hint and I bake him some dang cookies.

He’s too cute to refuse.

These cookies, oh these cookies…how do I begin? They are buttery and slightly crunchy while still being chewy and they are filled with delicious black raspberry jam. The dough is so simple, only requiring four ingredients. They are quick to mix up and totally worth the effort of smooshing a finger (or thumb, if you are a dainty little girl with thumbs the size of a push pin) in to the dough and filling it with jam.

Be patient with the dough, though. It takes a bit for the flour to incorporate into the butter and sugar, and if you’re like me you’ll be wanting to add a few spoonfuls of milk to help things along. Don’t do it. Just be patient and the dough will come together.

You’ll want to make these small. The balls of dough should be just a tiny bit bigger than those annoying bouncy balls my kids insist on getting out of the little quarter machines and then bouncing around my house and off of my head. Yes. That size.

I found it easiest to use a wee little spoon to put the jam in the indention. I tried piping it in, but that was not as easy as I had hoped.

These bake up quickly and it’s a bit tough to tell when they are done. You don’t want them to brown, so just watch the edges and as soon as you see a hint of brown, pull them out of the oven.

Drizzle with a bit of powdered sugar glaze, or if you’re feeling particularly naughty, a bit of melted chocolate. I practiced restraint and only used the powdered sugar glaze.

Black Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies
slightly adapted from allrecipes.com

• 1 cup butter, cold
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup seedless black raspberry jam
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 – 2 teaspoons milk (as needed)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of your mixer, add cold butter, sugar, and vanilla. Beat until well combined. Mix in flour and continue mixing until the dough comes together.

Roll dough into small balls (smaller than a golf ball, a bit bigger than a grape) and press your pinky finger into each ball to make the well for the dough. Fill the wells with the jam.

Place cookies in the refrigerator for 10 minutes to chill. (Do not skip this step or your cookies will spread all over your pan and the jam will leak out and you’ll be scrubbing your baking sheet for an hour. Not that I would know anything about that.)

Bake for 12 minutes or just until the bottoms are browning. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Mix together the powdered sugar, vanilla, and as much milk as you need to get the consistency of glaze you prefer. Drizzle over the cooled cookies.

**You could also make these with almond extract as the original recipe stated, but I’m not a big fan of almond extract, so I used vanilla instead.**

I’ve mentioned that we’re in the process of selling our house (Are your fingers crossed for us? Cross them harder, please.) and moving to a new home. I have grand plans for our new home. The kitchen will be full of windows, all light and airy. There will be lots of counter space and cabinets to store all my goodies. The backyard will be large and fenced in, ready for a swimming pool. I even have plans for a garden! (That sound you just heard was my husband groaning…I don’t have the best gardening track record.)

I’ll plant tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, and onions. I’ll call it the salsa garden. I love salsa. I’ll also have an area of the yard set aside for berries. It will be a large area. Very large. Large enough to grow blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Every berry imaginable! I love berries. Just no dingl…never mind. I’m not even going to finish that thought.

With those berries I will make this delicious cobbler. Today I’m using blackberries. Tomorrow I’ll make it with raspberries. I will not make it with blueberries, because blueberry cobbler is not something I enjoy. Sorry.

There are so many cobbler recipes out there, but this one is it. It’s the winner. It would take home the gold in the National Berry Cobbler Olympic Championship, if only such a thing existed.

Oh, and this cobbler? I baked it in my new cast iron pan. My parents bought it for me for Christmas, but this is the first time I’ve used it. I’m a wee bit scared of cleaning it. I know you aren’t supposed to use soap and water on them, but I just can’t imagine that it gets clean if you don’t scrub it with some Dawn, ya know?

I’m sure this sticky, gooey cobbler will be a breeze to clean up. Right? Please, just agree with me.

Blackberry Cobbler

For the dough:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1  1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 9 tablespoons cold butter
• 1/3 cup boiling water

For the filling:

• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 4 cups fresh blackberries
• 1/2 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

For the dough, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Cut in the butter until you have a coarse, crumbly mixture. Pour in the boiling water and stir together well so that all of the dough is wet. Set aside.

For the berries, dissolve the cornstarch in the cold water in a medium bowl. Add the lemon juice, berries, and sugar. Mix together well. Transfer berries to a 10 inch cast iron pan.

Heat mixture over medium heat until boiling, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.

Drop spoonfuls of dough over the berry mixture and place the cast iron pan on a foil lined cookie sheet and place in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the dough is golden brown and the berries are thick and bubbly.

(If you don’t have a cast iron pan, bring to a boil in a sauce pan and bake in a 9×9 baking dish.)