American

The pasta salad is loaded with flavor. It has black beans, tomatoes, peppers, onion, sweet corn, avocado and cilantro. And the best part? The creamy avocado dressing. It is rich and creamy, but in a healthy kind of way. The dressing is easy to whip up, just throw all of the ingredients in your blender or food processor and blend until smooth.

Here’s the deal: chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate chunks, white chocolate chips and waaaaay too much Kahlua. In a good way. Frosted with sweet cream buttercream and just a hint of the liqueur, plus chocolate shavings upon chocolate shavings… we’ve got a good thing going on here. Yes we do.

The recipe for these buffalo chicken quinoa fritters could not be easier starting off with the quinoa, chicken, hot sauce, blue cheese with an egg and some bread crumbs to hold everything together. After mixing all of the ingredients it is as easy as forming patties and frying them until golden brown and crispy! You can make the fritters as large or small as you like and I went with a smaller size so that I could serve them as two bit appetizers but larger ones would make for a great light meal. If you wanted to keep these on the lighter side you could easily bake the fritters rather than frying them.

A cheesy potato casserole, made with potatoes that are baked twice, and including all my favorite loaded baked potato ingredients - bacon, butter, sour cream, cheddar cheese and green onion - all in a simple casserole form.

Did you know those cool egg roll wrappers could be used for more than savory foods? Frying or baking them and then dusting with cinnamon and sugar make such a quick easy snack…wait…what if I stuff them with something…WAIT…what if that something is APPLE PIE filling? YES! That is the answer and inspiration for these tantalizing fall treasures I call apple Pie Rolls.1

This banana bread is dangerous I have to warn you.  It’s got marshmallow bits throughout the batter with chocolate and graham cracker stuffed right in the middle.  It’s sweet and irresistible.
It’s whipped up in one bowl too, so you won’t be making a mess of the whole kitchen.  Woohoo!  Enjoy friends!

I did this instead of making individual potato cakes and frying them. Trying to get away from frying. You can add any combination of cheeses you like.

This is still salty sweet, supple, and a sensation, though in its own (darn enticing) right. It’s also a cinch of a weeknight dinner. Just 10 minutes in the a.m. to toss together the marinade and plop in the steak and dinner is almost done by the time you kick off your heels, er, shoes when you come home.

It is easy to make.  It uses a precooked pizza shell as the base - I used Boboli.  I was worried that the egg mixture was going to run off the crust, but it didn't.  It baked up beautifully.  I really loved this!

You can’t beat something that can go from ingredients to finished product in under thirty minutes. These pesto straws are light and crisp, and would be a great accompaniment to a salad or bowl of spaghetti. Or dip them in a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar with cracked black pepper for a tasty appetizer.