Chocolate Dipped Espresso Shortbread

Shortbread cookies are yummy!

Coffee flavored anything is yummy!

Chocolate dipped anything is yummy! (Well, within reason.)

So Chocolate Dipped Espresso Shortbread is YUMMY, YUMMY, YUMMY!

Did I mention these cookies are yummy?

I absolutely adore shortbread cookies, all varieties, all variations. They're just so buttery and tender and simple and delicious. This recipe used to be in my regular Christmas Cookie list (minus the chocolate dipping) and I made them every year. I really don't know when they got dropped from the list and why I forgot about them. Maybe it has something to do with getting married, having kids, and loosing my mind. Maybe? Maybe not. Anywho, I was trying to organize a sloppy folder of recipes last week and this gem fell out of the pile. Couldn't believe I'd forgotten about them so I had to make them immediately to redeem myself. Would they be as good as I remembered? Uh, YEAH!

Giant Cornflake Crunch Cookies

It's funny how things start to "trend" on the old world wide web. One person "Pins it" or "Blogs it", or "Tweets it" or "Posts it" or  "Instagrams it" or simply mentions it in an email and suddenly its "Trending". On Monday no one has heard of it and by the time you mention it to a friend on Friday, it's old news. And when I say "it" I mean anything. Celebrity gossip, world news, recipes, crafts, you name it. So what seemed to be trending the last week or so was recipes from the Momofuku Milk Bar. Which apparently is a very popular restaurant/bakery in New York. I'd never heard of it before. But it's no secret that, on trending web topics (and popular New York eateries for that matter), I'm often the last one to the party. But at least I got to the party. And what I found was a interesting, eclectic bunch of recipes. Ones with all kinds of wierdo ingredients that I couldn't help but want to try. So I did. I started with the Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies, and next on my list is the Compost Cookies (I can't resist a cookie recipe that calls for potato chips). Check out the cornflake cookies:

Breakfast Muffin Parfaits

I have a confession to make: I like sweets for breakfast. Seriously, if there was no nutritional downside, I'd eat danish, muffins, pancakes with syrup, donuts, waffles and coffee cake for breakfast each and every day. I admit it,  I have a raging sweet tooth and breakfast is no exception. But there is a downside. Like mega calories, no protein, lots of sugar, etc., etc., etc.. So I don't eat those things, except for occasionally on the weekends. I still want them though and these last few months I've gotten in the bad habit of having a blended mocha for breakfast. Home made, and really not too terribly loaded with calories, about 250. But no nutritional benefit. Seriously, not a redeeming ingredient in them. They're just so tasty and convenient. I can sip on them while still going about my morning routine. Then two hours later I'm crazy hungry. This is not a good habit.

My bad breakfast is not a new realization, I've know it all along, it just got time to get real with myself and kick the habit. As much as I abhor New Year's Resolutions, after the nutritional debauchery of December, I resolved to start my days with a better breakfast. This recipe looked like a good start. Some decent nutritional value, portable (I can easily take it to work), convenient (make ahead on the weekends), easy (a pretty simple recipe) and still sweet. Check it out. . .

Split Pea with Ham Soup

Every Christmas my husband and children insist that we get a "Honeybaked Ham" for Christmas dinner. Not a honey baked ham from the grocery store or Costco but a "Honeybaked Ham" from the Honeybaked Ham store. I myself am not particularly fond of ham for dinner. Not that I don't like ham, I do, but it's more a breakfast or lunch thing for me. A ham dinner just really doesn't excite me. I'll admit, a "Honeybaked Ham" is pretty good and far superior to the grocery store honey baked hams. I know this from my own taste buds and the near mutiny I had on my hands one year when I tried to get by on the cheap with a grocery store ham. I get why they want it, it's good, but it's still hard for me to fork over the $55 plus dollars for the designer brand ham. What softens the blow is that we get 3-4 dinners out of one ham. My family is happy and if you do the math: $55.00 ÷ 4 dinners = $13.75 per dinner ÷ 4 people = $3.45 per serving. No too bad. But the real reason I give into the "Honeybaked Ham" is the ham bone and the glorious pot of split pea soup that comes of it. Now I'm lukewarm on a ham dinner but I LOVE LOVE LOVE split pea soup. Seriously, there aren't enough capital letters or repeated words to express how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE split pea soup. And nothing compares to good homemade split pea soup, with a ham bone from a "Honeybaked Ham". You'll have to see for yourself. . .

(OK, seriously, don't go and spend $55 on a Honeybaked Ham just for the bone. You can usually find bone in hams at the grocery and sometimes smoked ham hocks. Either will do for this recipe.)