My hair is straight today.

My hair is straight today only because a woman spent about two hours pulling, tugging, blowing, and spraying my hair into this state.

It’s still curly on the bottom.  It’s also still frizzy on the top.  It would appear as though the outside of my head is as stubborn as my inside brain.  Stubborn!

I should just let my hair be how it lives.  Curly with a charming hint of frizz.  But… sometimes you want a change.  Sometimes you want to toss your bangs like the girls with the long straight hair.  Whatever.   Sometimes you want to bake your brie up into little bite-sized squares so you can eat too many of them without feeling like you’re eating an entire round of brie.  Again… whatever.

Also… it’s raining today.  I don’t even want to talk about the frizz this will induce.  I’m probably going to stay inside where the baked cheese is.  Just so you know.  Leave me be.

These bite-sized treats come together with puff pastry.

It’s buttery.  It’s flaky and light.  It’s buttery.

It’s totally buttery.

I cut the sheet of puff pastry into 12 rectangles… then each rectangle in half.  That means 24 little rectangles that will make 12 little puffs.

That was math.  I’m totally sorry.

I brush half of the squares with egg wash, a little nibble of cheese (do not be afraid of the brie rind!), a touch of jam, and more puff pastry.

It’s happening!

Yes.  I put these little brie bites on sticks.  I stuck a small popsicle stick half way up the puff pastry and then pressed it all together.

You don’t need popsicle sticks.  You totally don’t.  The sticks just make things more… sticky.

Sweet little cheese pockets.

A lot of brie was eaten in the making of these pockets.

Egg washed and a sprinkling of salt.

Major magic.

Baked and puffed and sometimes they bleed jam and cheese.  No biggie.

These bites are best served warm… but I sure did eat several of them at room temperature.  Delicious still.

It’s warm cheese baked in buttery crust with sweet jam.  If you need convincing… I just… I dunno.

These cookies got me thinking about all the different ways that I enjoy peanut butter and jelly.  You know I love a list… so here goes.
I love peanut butter and jelly:

on white bread with the crust cut off.
rolled up in a warm flour tortilla.
on a toasted bagel, excluding the dreaded onion bagel.
on a spoon.
at midnight.
at lunch from a plastic bag.
with a Capri Sun.
after a date.
after a breakup.
with a banana.
without a stinkin’ banana.
on Wednesday.
every Wednesday.
from now.
until forever.
amen.

I could go on. and on and. on. Really… let’s cut to the cookie.

These flourless peanut butter cookies are my go-to cookie recipe.  There are only four ingredients.  This recipe is heroic.  They’re super simple, crisp little cookies.  Make a little indentation in the center of these cookies, add your favorite jam, bake em up… you’ve got peanut butter and jelly cookies.

It’s not rocket science.  It is super yumtown.

Some things just shouldn’t be a luxury.  Some things are an absolute necessity.

Spending too much money at Target, for example.  Sometimes… (you know it’s true) that’s a total necessity.

Hot bath plus cold beer.  You need it.  I need it. Necessity.

A super comfortable dress that shows a little shoulder.  Everyone loves a little shoulder.

A girlfriend you can talk about your lady parts with.  Yes, I said lady parts.  Please don’t under estimate this necessity.

Aaaaand, last but not least… a little pancake love on a weekday morning.  Do it.

This recipe is super simple and straight forward.  It’s bound to put a smile on your face.  The recipe yields 12 silver dollar pancakes… minis, if you will.  It’s the perfect little breakfast to throw together for just you, or for you and your sweetie on a dirty old Wednesday morning.  Give it a go!

I woke up to an utterly dreamy California morning on Tuesday.  The soft morning sun was just streaming through my bedroom window, the birds were singing good morning, and I knew that I had a whole basket of clean laundry for the week ahead.  Pretty sweet morning, right?

Sure… the only problem was that my brain was entirely unwilling to join  the sunny spirit.  Nope.  I felt like on  big stale loaf of bread.  After an extended love affair with my snooze button, I determined, behind closed eyelids, that the only thing that would change my circumstance was streusel topping.  On the shuffle from my warm bed to the kitchen counter I decided that blueberry muffins with streusel topping would flip the light switch in my brain.

There was only one problem with my blueberry muffin plan.  I had not a blueberry in sight.  No fresh.  No frozen… just a whole lotta outta luck.  After rifling through my freezer and fridge I emerged with the tail end of a bag of frozen raspberries, and half a jar of strawberry jam.  I figured that, brought together under the welcoming umbrella of streusel topping, these two would simply have to work.  Not but thirty minutes later, puffy streusel topped muffins found their way out of the oven and into my face.  While they didn’t pay that pesky credit card bill, or make that much needed dentist appointment, they at least kept me from crawling back in bed for a handful of hours.  Sometimes, that kind of help is just enough.

It’s not every morning that you jump out of bed ready for the world, fully equipped to make blueberry muffins.  When those morning escape you, I promise that with a little jam, the remains of your frozen fruit collection, and loads of streusel topping, you just might be able to set things right.

I’d like to think of these muffins as Anything Muffins.  Really, whatever kind of berry and whatever kind of jam will do you just fine in this recipe.  If it sounds good to you, it’ll most likely taste good coming from your oven.  Don’t deny yourself a warm fruity muffin just because the blueberry escapes you.

On losing, letting go of little sisters, and warm biscuits:

We never talked about this.  I didn’t know how to bring it up.  The 2009 Bloggies.  Remember?  Best New Blog?  So… I sorta…. kinda…. mostly… didn’t win.  The thing is, I really really wanted to win.  I did.  I played it cool though.  On the outside, I pretended to not care either way.  That was a big fat lie.  But the thing about losing… it’s pretty cool actually… it makes me want to be better.  It also makes me unbelievably grateful for all of your smiling faces.  Fact.

I found myself in a frenzy this morning.  My little sister left for a many month long European adventure.  The thought of her being so far away that I can’t easily call her at two in the morning to scream our favorite Mariah Carey song at her sent me into panic mode.  I calmed myself, safe in the knowledge that my sister deserved some life changing adventures and I am due many presents from far away lands upon her return.

Biscuits.  If I were to hand you a warm biscuit with raspberry jam would you: a)  throw it on the ground and shove me on the floor or b) thank me kindly, gobble the biscuit and give me a giant hug?  If your answer involved shoving me on the floor… well, that’s kinda funny, but throwning biscuits on the floor is just plain rude.  Don’t do it.

These Buttermilk Buiscuits… well, they must be blessed by the heavens.  I don’t think there’s any other way to explain just how good they are.  They’re best right out of the oven, steaming hot, doused with butter and jam.

My dad has been making this recipe for Buttermilk Biscuits for our family for, exactly, ever.  Incedentially, my sister has been swiping them of the table for as long as I can remember.  They’re simple family goodness.

Pop Quiz:

If you could only eat one thing for the rest of you life what would it be: sweet and creamy breakfast polenta with milk or (oh my gracious heavens) sweet and creamy fried polenta bars with blackberry meyer lemon jam?

No contest.  Fried polenta with blackberry jam every day, all day.  Let’s do this.

Remember yesterday I told you about Vanilla Brown Sugar Breakfast Polenta?  That was just a dirty trick to make you have enough leftover polenta to make the real deal:  fried polenta.

A quick heads up:  this recipe involves butter and results in an almost French Toast-ish, outta this world breakfast.  If you’re not ready for that… completely understandable… you might want to sit this one out.   I won’t judge.