Blondies, for those of you unfamiliar, are a brilliant dessert creation that takes a chocolate chip cookie, and mashes it into bar form, reminiscent of its brownie cousin. My Mom made blondies for us growing up, and they have remained a key dessert on my easy-and-failsafe shortlist; requiring only that you dump ingredients into one bowl, mix, add in some treats, and bake. These Rich and Salty Coconut Blondies are a densely gooey treat. As many of our North American readers have cool temperatures this long weekend, consider firing up your oven to bake these decadent Rich and Salty Coconut Blondies.

Everyone needs a go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. This is mine. This Oat Chocolate Chip Cookie combines the luscious butteriness of the classic grandma-style cookie with the chewy texture and nutty flavor of oats and the rich warmth of extra vanilla. While Rebecca (and the health department) may not approve, I'll also share that this dough is almost as good raw, as it is baked!  Our recipe is relatively light on chocolate chips, but feel free to amp up the chocolate if you prefer. Treat yourself!

We all have our food indulgences. For Paul, it is a perfectly seared steak. For me, it is a custardy coffee dessert. This incredibly easy mousse recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsey, uses mascarpone cheese as a brilliant shortcut to avoid messing with egg whites. Somewhere between a classic mousse and an airy cheesecake, this Mocha Mascarpone Mousse is a crowd favorite. If you find the coffee and chocolate combination stuck on the brain, check out two of our other favorites:  Mexican Chocolate Custard Cake & Black Fudge Pudding Cakes.

For Paul, hot fudge pudding cakes evoke memories of childhood birthdays in Tanzania and this sweet treat that is both cake and pudding in one. Somewhere between a fudge brownie and a custard, there is not much to improve in this sumptuous chocolate dessert. If you are a hot fudge pudding cake novice, it is an easy, quick, and guest impressing dessert that assembles like a science project. In our version, Black Fudge Pudding Cakes, we deepen the flavor with rich black cocoa powder, espresso, and dark chocolate chips. This week we made one batch to serve eight... and found that it only served two, delicious! 

Mexican Chocolate Custard Cake is our favorite chocolate cake. This fabulous cake is flourless, supremely decadent, dead simple to make, and perfectly balances the subtle spiciness of ancho and cinnamon with a dark fudgy texture. But perhaps the most eloquent endorsement: an enormous bite mark and accompanying slobber stains across the recipe from our sleepy greyhound Leo, who, apparently knows a good recipe when he sees one! While you may be wondering about the wisdom of making a spectacularly sumptuous, rich, pudding-like chocolate cake smack dab in the middle of the holidays, don’t. Dig deep people, this one is worth it!  Or, as one of our dessert tasters muttered under his chocolate-laced breath; “You’ve got to be dead not to like this.” Eat on. 

This week I took a stand against the breakfast industrial complex. Sunday for breakfast, I thought I’d go carnivorous, and ate a plate heaped high with Amish summer sausage. In honor of meatless Monday, I thought I’d swing vegetarian, and polished off a bowl of leftover garlicky lentil salad with goat cheese. Tuesday at 6am, I started to worry that I might not be getting my daily serving of fruits and vegetables, and munched away on snow peas, carrots, and bell peppers while I was getting ready for work. Don’t worry, I also ate string cheese for protein! This morning I was out of time and thinking that I might want to dip towards the sweet side, unfortunately things got a bit sticky when I tried to juggle spoonful’s of Nutella while driving. Paul, no stranger to my breakfast rebellions, calmly continued eating his grape nuts. Now that I’ve gotten that all out of system, I am ready for a spiffed-up breakfast classic. So when I got home from work today, I made a big batch of Chocolate Maple Granola with Quinoa and Cranberries. This chocolaty, crunchy granola is somewhere between breakfast and dessert, a good place to be in my mind, and with the combination of nuts, oats, and quinoa, provides a complete protein rich meal that keeps me energized through the whole day.

I have a family brimming with athletes; there are triathaloning uncles, cyclist aunts, a few who even go to iron man extremes, there are high jumping cousins, long distance winning boys and record setting girls.  This weekend is the Pittsburgh Marathon, where over 30, 000 people will race through our beautiful city, up hills, over bridges and across the three rivers.  Paul and I, along with our hounds, will be there to cheer on my sister as she continues the family tradition of athleticism and runs the half-marathon!  In the spirit of pre-race carb loading, (and middle of the race snacking for the loyal fans), we offer you these delicious dark chocolate-pretzel granola bars.  These granola bars are infinitely more delicious and healthy then their store-bought peers.  I like to make a big batch of granola bars and freeze them individually wrapped.  So while others race, jump, bike and swim, we will be happily cheering and snacking on these tasty bars!