The Adventures of a Frustrated Baker

I love having granola for breakfast!  I remember always wanting to have some granola whenever we had it in the house as a kid, it seemed like the kind of food grown ups ate, sort of like Grape Nuts only way better! The biggest down fall to granola is the really yummy stuff is sort of expensive, especially if it has lots of fruit and nuts, just the way I like it!  That's fine though, they can keep their expensive granola because this stuff is so simple to make at home! It takes almost no time and the joys of making it yourself is you know exactly what is going into it and you can customize your ingredients depending on your tastes!  Like I said, I love mine with lots of fruit and toasted nuts so I tend to use quite a bit of them in my recipe.  Feel free to adjust this to your tastes and try out different ingredients like coconut and various seeds, nuts and fruits. In a medium bowl combine your oats and sunflower seeds. Roughly chop you...

It's almost time for my favorite time of the school year!  Girl Scout cookie season!!  It comes at the perfect time, far enough away from January that you don't feel too guilty for giving into those adorable little faces in their sharp little uniforms that will greet you at the exit of every major store in your community starting on the 28th.  In effort to help kick off the season, Girl Scouts of Western Washington is again hosting an annual recipe contest, and I have been selected as a finalist!  Be sure to head to their website and vote for me!  Tell your friends! While of course Girl Scout cookies are delicious in their own right, they also can be turned into gloriously decadent treats.  I always have a leftover box or two of most of the flavors in my freezer year round but I especially love to keep some Trefoils on hand because they make the most delicious cookie crumb crusts for any dessert.  A personal favorite of mine is raspberry streus...

Saw this recipe recently while reading the May 2012 copy of Food Network Magazine and just knew I had to try it.  It looked amazing...and it used a product that I had never tried before...silken tofu.  I like tofu, it's alright...mostly it ends up tasting like whatever it is cooked with.  However, I've never used it in a sweet dish before so I was a little curious about how this works. Hmm...mine didn't look quite that perfect...where's my food stage-er?! Honestly, as soon as you mix it with the cream cheese and powdered sugar, it tastes like yogurt!  This recipe is amazing, it was a total hit and everyone who tried it said it was amazing.  Best part, it tastes like a decadent danish or...strudel, and it's not as fattening.  The tofu allows the flavor of the cream cheese to come through without it being so sinful. Plus it makes it really light and creamy... Yup, that's all there is! The tofu before it is made all creamy and smooth....