Super easy chocolate mousse pie. This pie has become a Thanksgiving tradition in our family.

Tastes like a Girl Scout Thin Mint though it looks nothing like it. Perfect combination of chocolate and mint. Everyone asks for the recipe after they taste them.

Very easy to make with pantry ingredients. Smells delicious while baking. Beautiful coffee color.

I'll update the review later after everyone has had a chance to taste at tonight's Christmas Eve party.

Also in Fine Cooking #41.

Written by Mollie Katzen and first published in Parents magazine in November 1995, this has been my go to recipe for banana bread for over 15 years.

This recipe, which is easily doubled, makes a moist delicious loaf of bread.

You know those little brownie bites that you see in the stores? These are just like those only without a shelf life of many months.

Tiny little brownie bites, baked in mini muffin tins. They are low fat - calling for only half a stick of butter for 24 brownies. They use simple pantry ingredients and come together in no time at all. I used a Tablespoon cookie scoop to measure them out and they came out great with exactly enough batter for the 24 brownies.

Unlike brownies baked in bar form, these don't require hours to cool before you can eat them. You can bake, cool for just a bit, and pop them in your mouth.

Yum!

What a brilliant idea! A crust for an ice cream cake made out of pulverized ice cream cones. The sugar cones came out of the food processor looking just like graham cracker crumbs and when mixed with butter made a very nice crust.

Yum!

YUMMY!

Black beans, spices, cilantro ... all mashed up into a yummy vegetarian burger.

I baked them for 20 minutes in a 350 oven and then pan friend them to crisp them up a bit. They are very easy to make and are simply delicious.

The mango salsa could be a complete meal to me. It has just the right mix of fruity and hotness.

Also found here http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/black-bean-burgers-with-mango-salsa-10000001973642/

Yummy peanut butter chocolate squares/bars. These start with a peanut buttery crust made crisp by the addition of bakers's ammonia (which is optional). This crust needs to cool and then a fudgy layer is added and baked. Finally, after this layer cools a peanut butter and chocolate "frosting" is added.

You'll want to cut these small as they're quite rich.

This is the first time I've ever made homemade baked beans.

I doubled the recipe because I'm bringing it to a large gathering. I followed the directions and cooked the onions and garlic on the stove and started the sauce there as well. I then added the sauce to the beans in a crockpot.

I cooked the beans in the crockpot on low for 6 hours before turning it down to warm. All the flavors came together perfectly - they're not too sweet nor do they taste of molasses. They're just right.

This recipe adapts perfectly to the crockpot and I'd recommend cooking them this way during the summer to avoid turning on the oven. They make the house smell wonderful.

EDIT: I have since made these in the crockpot again. This time I did not precook the onions and garlic on the stove - just tossed them raw into the crockpot - and the beans were still just as good.

A nearly perfect cookie. Chewy, fudgy, chocolatey, moist ... pretty much everything you need in a cookie.

The recipe is super simple - especially if you use the microwave to melt the butter, chocolate and brown sugar together. I was a little bit nervous when I baked the first sheet of cookies as the dough seemed very loose. I needn't have worried because when I returned to set out the second sheet, the dough had firmed up nicely and the cookies in the oven had set up into nice looking cookies.

Excellent hot fudge sauce made to celebrate National Ice Cream Day. The sauce comes together in no time with only a minimal amount of heating needed. It does need a little bit of time to thicken so plan accordingly.

I used a mixture of dark chocolate, semisweet chocolate and bittersweet chocolate - all various Lindt bars I had in the pantry. Yummy!

The recipe makes a very large amount so now we need to come up with ideas for the leftovers. What a problem to have!

Everyone in my family is a big fan of pork but I've never really been able to make decent boneless pork chops until now. This recipe is wonderful! All the boys gave it two thumbs up.

The coating is made with crushed Melba toasts and spices and the chops are coated with mayonnaise before patting on the coating. It sounds strange and rather 70s but it's amazing. The pork stays very moist and the topping is delightfully crisp.

We'll be adding this to the regular rotation.

I couldn't really tell you whether or not this is the perfect apple pie but I can tell you that it's awfully good. This is the first recipe for apple pie I ever tried and I've been making it for years. It has just the right amount of sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for our tastes.

Absolutely, totally delicious marinade! There is no vinegar in this marinade - it's made with typical southwestern spices like cumin and cayenne pepper along with soy sauce and canola oil.

The steak tips marinated for about 7 hours and the flavor was very good when we grilled them.

Wonderful!

This dough is super easy to make and work with. I kneaded it in the KitchenAid for 7 minutes. It rose well and was then divided into eight pieces for the hamburger buns. The buns themselves don't rise very much.

Hands on time for these buns is very little. They make a nice sturdy bun for messy things like pulled pork or hamburgers with lots of fixings.

Delicious!

Very simple recipe that requires only almonds, water, sugar, egg white and cinnamon. I've been making these for years to give away at Christmas and they are a huge hit.

Beware - they are quite addictive!

There's not much to say that hasn't been said.

I cut the butter and oil in half which worked out fine. I also used low fat sour cream and lite mayonnaise and the dip was plenty rich.

If you're going to be in the kitchen anyway and can watch the onions for 30 minutes, there's just no reason to use onion dip from an envelope.

Every boy in my family gave this recipe 5 stars and were looking for more at the end of the meal.

This is a very simple recipe which uses the same glaze for both the roast and the green beans. The glaze is nice and spicy made with plenty of grated ginger, hoisin sauce, sesame oil and chili-garlic sauce.

The pork and green beans roast in the same pan in the oven for about 25 minutes. Served with a side of rice this makes a complete meal in about 30 minutes.

Light & flaky & delicious!

To the best of my knowledge, I've never had authentic biscuits so I'm not really sure what they're supposed to be like. These biscuits were super easy to make. I tried very hard not to overwork the dough though it seemed like it didn't want to stay together.

I rolled out the dough and got 9 biscuits. I brushed cream on them before baking. They came out wonderfully! So light and flaky. My middle son ate 3 and kept trying to convince me not to save any for Dad to eat later.

I could eat these every day.

Excellent! Sliced potatoes are simmered on the stove top with onions, spices, chicken stock and cream until the potatoes are fork tender. Only then are the potatoes put in a gratin dish, covered with cheese and put in the oven.

I made this in my small Dutch oven which meant it was a one pot dish. Cooking on the stove top sped up the process and ensured the potatoes were cooked through and tender before putting them in the oven to get brown and bubbly. This makes for a much quicker side dish.

These were loved by one and all.

It's easy to make an expensive roast taste delicious. It's much more difficult to take a cheap roast and cook it so that it's moist and tender.

Eye of Round roasts are always marked down at my supermarket. I've never known quite how to cook them so they don't turn into leather. This method has you salt the roast for 24 hours prior to cooking (actual time was more like 19 hours). The roast is then cooked in a very low oven and finally finished in the oven with the residual heat after the oven is turned off.

At the end of the appointed time, I had a wonderfully cooked roast that was pink, juicy and tender.

These have to be the easiest biscuits ever.

Remembering that I had some heavy cream in the fridge that needed to be used up, I did a quick search for cream biscuits. The dough comes together in about 2 minutes - including gathering ingredients and measuring flour. Basically, the cream is added to the dry ingredients. This is mixed and then kneaded for 30 seconds before patting out the dough to be cut.

20 minutes total time gave us delicious, surprisingly flaky biscuits for dinner.

What a great idea for preserving some of the bounty from the garden!

Sea salt and chopped rosemary leaves are mixed and then baked in a low oven to dry the leaves and prevent the salt from clumping. The rosemary infused salt is then stored in half pint canning jars which are perfect for gift giving or adding to one's spice shelf.

This will be perfect rubbed over roasted or grilled chicken.

Outstanding!

This is a wonderful shortcake recipe with three distinct parts. The shortcake is a brown sugar sweetened biscuit. The biscuit is made mostly in the food processor and includes both butter, sour cream and brown sugar. The dough is moist but still has difficulty truly coming together even when one uses one's hands as directed in the recipe. This is not a problem as the biscuits are formed by using a large ice cream scoop which worked perfectly for this dough. The biscuits are brushed with butter and sprinkled with sugar before baking which leaves them with a lovely crunchy exterior.

The fruit is macerated with brown sugar also which lends a nice flavor to the juice.

Finally, the whipped cream is made with heavy cream, sour cream and brown sugar. I like it even better than regular whipped cream without the sour cream.

Together, these three things make the most delicious dessert. Mmmm!

I will add that my very strange children do not like most fruits and had no interest in the raspberries I used. Instead, they had biscuits with whipped cream and chocolate sauce and were equally happy. One boy even had a biscuit for breakfast.

Very little effort for maximum taste!

Perfect fish and chips!

Okay, to be honest, I didn't actually make the chips because I didn't have the time and I didn't want to spend that much time frying.

I did, however, follow the recipe for the fried fish and it came out beautifully. This is a beer battered fish that is first dredged in a flour, spices and cornstarch mixture, then in the beer batter, and finally in the flour mixture again.

The two secret ingredients - cornstarch and baking powder - contributed to a very crunchy exterior on the fish. The triple coating stayed on the fish nicely while the inside was nice and moist.

Delicious!!

A delicious and very pretty quick bread that's just perfect for the holidays.

This quick bread is made in the typical fashion of adding the liquid ingredients to the dry ones. The liquid includes buttermilk and melted butter - mmm! In addition, chopped cranberries and nuts (I used walnuts but the recipe calls for pecans) are added last.

The bread is slightly sweet and slightly tart. The cranberries makes it quite festive looking.

Now THIS is coffee cake!!

This cake is enormous - truly fit for a crowd. It's baked in a 9x13 pan and rises all the way to the top. Coffee cake for a crowd.

The cake has three parts - the cake batter, a cocoa filling, and a topping. The cake is made by first putting down half the batter. Then the filling is sprinkled on top of that. The second half of the batter is then added (I always find it tricky trying to spread batter over a topping but I managed). Finally, a crumb topping is spread over the very top.

In my oven, this took about 55 minutes to bake. I left it for 20 minutes to cool before trying a piece and was able to remove a piece with no problems.

Oh my! Moist but light cake with a delicious center and lots and lots of crumb topping. Perfect for serving with coffee or tea.

Simply wonderful.

Perfect way to celebrate Pi Day!

I had everything I needed to make this pie in my pantry - even coconut extract! The custard comes together in minutes. In fact, just as I was beginning to wonder if it would thicken at all, it became thick and creamy in seconds.

The pie was creamy but firm. It was topped with whipped cream (to which I also added a splash of coconut extract) and shredded coconut.

Although the pie takes a while to cool, it comes together easily and quickly.

So amazingly excellent!

This is actually a frozen margarita. I made it with fresh squeezed lime juice, Patron tequila and Patron orange liqueur. Half a recipe made two perfectly sized margaritas and they were SO GOOD.

It's a good thing these took some effort to make or I'd drink them way too often.

A neighbor dropped off a beautiful basket of strawberries that she picked this morning so I decided to make strawberry shortcake.

This recipe has all three necessary parts of this quintessential summer dessert.

1. Strawberries - after being cut up, a portion is mashed while the rest are left sliced. They macerated on the counter while the rest of the dish came together.

2. Whipped Cream - I had some shelf stable cream from Trader Joe's. I put it in the freezer to cool it before whipping it. Sadly, I left it in there too long and it froze. I was able to thaw it AND keep it cool at the same time and it whipped up fine.

3. Biscuits - These biscuits are made with baking powder, half and half, and an egg. Eggs are an unusual addition to biscuits but they came together easily - even in the heat of a summer kitchen - and rose beautifully in the oven. The tops are nice and brown due to being brushed with cream and sprinkled with sugar. These are seriously the best dessert biscuits I have ever had. They are a bit sweet and a little crisp on the top but nice and flaky in the middle.

This recipe required many dishes but came together easily and relatively quickly.

Delicious!!

And, because my ridiculous boys don't like berries they ate the biscuits with whipped cream in the middle and homemade hot chocolate sauce on the top.

Very nice fish tacos.

There were three main parts of this recipe: pico de gallo,spicy sour cream, and fried fish. Each of these came together easily but did require multiple dishes.

Pico de gallo - I made this very quickly in my food processor. This meant that it was perhaps chopped too fine but it tasted good and was much quicker than chopping everything by hand.

Spicy sour cream - A simple mix of mayonnaise and sour cream with chipotle in adobo and a few spices. This was delicious inside the tacos with a nice mix of cool and spicy.

Fish - The fish is soaked in milk and then dredged in flour mixed with spices. I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of the milk soak was and I don't believe it added anything to the dish. The fish, however, was excellent.

The three components came together nicely in small flour tortillas and the fish tacos were enjoyed by all.

We have a friend who, despite all odds, is celebrating his birthday today. Jim LOVES whoopie pies more than anything so it seemed fitting I shoudl bake some for his birthday.

These Pumpkin whoopie pies seemed like the perfect thing for a mid October baking session. They are flavored with molasses, cloves, ginger and cinnamon and are a beautiful orange color once baked. They are a bit more moist than chocolate whoopie pies and I would recommend baking on parchment paper.

I chose to make the more typical shortening and fluff filling as opposed the the cream cheese filling as I didn't want to have to refrigerate them. I substituted maple extract for vanilla to complete the fall flavors.

I have no idea why I had a hankering for Sloppy Joes. I can't remember the last time I had them but decided it was time to make them from scratch.

This recipe is delicious. It's not overly sweet or tangy. It's delicious with a nice tomato flavor. It's got just a bit of a kick to it due to the Mexican chili powder I used and the teeny bit of hot sauce.

My husband liked it so much he ate the extra with chips as though it was dip.

Filled with amazing flavors! This is a super simple weeknight dinner that tastes like you've spent a ton of time cooking.

Turkey tenderloins are browned and then simmered in a wonderful sauce of orange juice, lime juice, chipotle in adobo, brown sugar and molasses. After the turkey is cooked, the sauce is reduced to a syrupy consistency.

This was spicy and citrusy and delicious. It was great served over white rice - plenty of sauce.

There are numerous links to this recipe online but none to the official website so I won't link them. If you want to cook this recipe, however, it's easy to fine.

Excellent! Full of flavor and just the right amount of spice. Plenty hot but not so hot as to make my middle son break out in a sweat. The beef was very tender.

The whole meal comes together in the time it takes to make a pot of rice. A perfect week night meal.

Made during the Blizzard of 2015.

At the last minute we braved the grocery store lines before the blizzard hit to pick up the ingredients for this soup. Basically, onions, chicken broth, beef broth, some French bread and some Swiss cheese.

Despite what Serious Eats says, caramelizing onion in the oven in a Dutch oven worked wonderfully. Although it doesn't really cut down on time, it is certainly easier as you need to pay them almost no attention. Once I moved the onions from the oven to the stove they caramelized much quicker than the recipe suggested.

I omitted the the sherry because I didn't have any and I can't say we missed it. I also left out the thyme because I find the taste overwhelming. I also couldn't find Gruyere cheese at the store so we used Swiss. I didn't want to broil the soup in the bowls so I toasted the bread slices, toasted them again with the cheese on them, and then put them in the bowls and ladled the soup on top.

This was delicious and just what we needed on a snowy day.

This dish takes only as long to prepare as whatever you choose to serve with it. I served orecchiette. While the pasta boiled I shelled the shrimp and made the sauce.

Shrimp take only 2-3 minutes to cook and then the sauce is added. The sauce is wonderfully sweet and spicy due to the hoisin and ginger.

Delicious and super fast dinner!

The woman behind the fish counter offered me a free bag of mussels today while I was buying fish. Who could resist?

A quick search on EYB turned up this recipe from one of my most used cookbooks. I assembled everything only to realize I didn't have any five-spice powder.

It turns out it didn't matter. There was so much flavor from the aromatics, soy sauce and oyster sauce that we didn't miss the spice.

My boys have never had mussels before and both were willing to try them. The middle boy really enjoyed them and ate a bunch. The youngest liked them more once my husband suggested he could put sriracha on them.

I can't wait to have these again.

This was an excellent week night meal. The flavors are delicious and there was plenty of sauce to serve over rice.

I added some snow peas toward the end to make it a more balanced meal. I'd add a bit more sriracha next time to make it just a bit more spicy.

A 2 hour delay due to snow meant I had time to bake muffins for my son before he headed off to school. I took a quick look through this new to me book and settled on this recipe because my son LOVES coffee and I had all the necessary ingredients. Flavored with instant espresso powder these muffins are a nice tan color and have great coffee flavor. They are wonderful muffins that I'll be sure to make again.

Asparagus coated in parmesan and panko roasted in the oven. Delightful! The recipe instructs one to poke holes in the asparagus, sprinkle with salt, and leave to drain on paper towels. At the end of the 30 minutes I didn't see any moisture on the paper towels so I'd skip this step in the future. These are so good they just might convince that person who thinks they don't like asparagus to give them a try.

These meatballs and the dipping sauce were to die for delicious. Although there was a lot of chopping the recipe was easy to follow. Everyone loved it and we will definitely make this again.

No more difficult than a cake mix and twice as delicious. Comes together in minutes with common pantry ingredients. Keeps well.

This is the recipe that taught me to cook mac and cheese. It's very easy and my family loves it.

I leave out the broccoli, add breadcrumbs and put it in a 350 oven for about 20 minutes.

Oh. My. Bob. These muffins are totally delicious.

I've been wanting to make these for years - ever since I tasted them on Cape Cod about 17 years ago. I don't know why I waited so long.

They are very easy to make and are sinfully good. They're quite terrible for you but they're supposed to be a treat. Next time, I'd ignore Ree's advice to really soak the muffins in the butter. They're better with just a tad less butter on the outside before the rolling in cinnamon sugar.

Made with frozen blueberries picked last summer. Followed the recipe exactly and got 12 nice, large muffins. No special ingredients - came together in minutes.

Yum!

My go to recipe for whole wheat dinner rolls. This recipe uses 2/3 whole wheat flour and produces 16 wonderfully soft yeasty dinner rolls.

The best thing about cocoa brownies is their simplicity. These brownies start with melted butter and then all the other ingredients can be added to the pot in which the butter was melted.

The brownies are moist and filled with chocolate flavor. They are neither fudgey nor cakey but something in between. They do not have the nice shiny crackled top that many look for in a brownie.

This would make a nice go to brownie recipe when one does not want to mess with melting chocolate. Who doesn't have a can of cocoa sitting around?

Just like the classic toll house cookie but in bar form.

These are perfect for when you just don't have the time to bake sheets of cookies. You can whip these together, pop them in the oven, and go about your busy day while they cool.

Just don't over bake them or they'll be very dry.

This is a basic muffin mix which gives a recipe for a standard muffin to which any ingredients might be added. It uses only standard pantry ingredients and comes together in minutes.

I used the basic recipe and added 1 cup of cinnamon chips. I then baked them in muffin top pans - 1/4 cup of batter for each top baked for 15 minutes made 11 muffins.

These were made for my youngest son who prefers the muffin top. They are quite good though next time I'd add some cinnamon to the dry ingredients.