With frozen puff pastry so readily available, we can make our own bakery-like pastries at home. Show off your baking skills this holiday season with a puff pastry dessert! They always look elegant, and who doesn’t love the rich creamy filling? Top them off with a seasonal fruit glaze and you’ve got a memorable treat.

Maybe I should take that last statement back! McTasty’s Caramel Cream Puffs don’t contain any bit of fruit but I know we’d enjoy them with some hot chocolate on a cool fall day.

CakeWardrobe’s Condensed Milk Cream Puffs look like the kind of dessert that’d be fit for a princess! The creamy filling looks like fluffy clouds and probably tastes just as heavenly, because it’s totally homemade.

Chirsty’s Strawberry Powder Puffs are fruity and fun. These little pastry sandwiches remind me of a shortcake. She makes the ‘puff’ completely from scratch, very impressive.

Don’t forget to read about our holiday contest.

I know this isn’t the first peanut butter post we’ve blogged, but can you ever get too much of the good stuff that gets stuck to the roof of your mouth? Pour yourself an ice cold glass of milk because you’re going to need it to wash down every one of these nutty recipes.

Peanut butter isn’t just for crackers and sandwiches these days. UrbCindy’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Popsicles just might be the thing you crave if warm summer weather’s stickin’ around your neck of the woods.

I also like how mytastytreasures creatively uses peanut butter to make frosting for her Chocolate Sheet Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting. Think of a favorite chocolate candy bar, but in cake form. Yummm!

If you came here for a classic recipe with a twist, this is it: Elle’s Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies. Time to refill that glass of milk, you’ll want to dunk these! The combination of sweet and savory always makes my mouth water. Take a look, she actually adds pretzel pieces to the dough!

Out of all the root vegetables, I’d say carrots receive the most attention. Raw, baked, or sauteed they’re usually loved by even the finickiest vegetable critics. Then you have parsnips, poor guys. They’re those strange wanna-be carrots piled up in a corner of the produce section. What the heck do you do with an albino carrot, anyway? And maybe because sweet potatoes are orange, like carrots, we accept them. Does this sound like foodie discrimination? I think so!

DeniseB61’s Root Vegetable and Potato Pancakes recipe represents the kind of change we need to see. So many root veggies, yes even parsnips, shine in this delicious side or snack. Even the folks who said they’d never eat a parsnip will be chowing down on these pancakes.

I like how InspiredBites’ Roasted Parsnip Soup with Balsamic Syrup incorporates roasted parsnips. I have to agree with what she says, when you roast these crunchy carrot and gingery veggies, their natural “earthy flavor” and mild sweetness deliciously comes out.

Ok, so it looks like we’re giving parsnips too much attention now! How about a nice autumnal soup that’s sweet and savory? Vventi’s Sweet Potato-Carrot Soup with Ginger and Apple is what you’ll want to fill up on this fall. And make enough so that you have left overs, she says this is a soup that gets tastier with time; it’ll last a week in the fridge.

Remember fondus? Chocolate or cheese, which one was your favorite? I’ll take chocolate. But why did they give us only two options? There’s more to savor when you mix it up, try one of these dips when you’re looking for a change.

Gone are the days of serving just melted butter and salted asparagus. Chefkk’s Asparagus with Citrus Ginger Dip brings together an interesting combination of ingredients to create a fresh summery dip that’s full of flavor.

I love what CheapFoodHere has to say about this Homegrown Spinach Dip Recipe, “find what you need in your backyard…” Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a back yard. If you’re like me and don’t have a yard, use fresh or even frozen spinach. Instead of microwaving the frozen spinach to thaw it out, rinse it under lukewarm water until it just begins to melt so that it’s still cool enough for your dip.

What could possibly be better than Pumpkin Pie? That’s a really tough question, but I have to say that crisscrossqz’s Pumpkin Pie Dip with Apples is a pretty close match. Who needs caramel sauce?

Halloween is just around the corner, take a look at this cute way you’ll be able to serve dip to your trick o’ treaters this year.

Want to know something? I prepared that dish in under half an hour! If you missed yesterday’s post, where I discussed Dr_Mom’s Moroccan Chicken with Green Olives and Lemons, then it’s a good thing you stopped by today. Everything I said about the recipe yesterday still holds true today: the aroma of this dish is heavenly!

If you don’t have time to stand in front of the stove all evening, think about preparing the sauce in advance then cooking the chicken in the crock pot with the sauce a little later. I was curious to see how the dish would come out if I baked it. So that’s exactly what I did. I snapped the photo before popping the cast iron pan in the oven, then I covered it with foil and baked it at 350 for about an hour and 15 minutes.

What else did I do differently? Not much, because this recipe works as is. I did add a little bit of honey and also thickened the sauce by reducing it and adding a bit of potato flour. The end result? A slightly sweet and savory dish with so much flavor, you can serve it over a bed of plain white rice and still feel like you’re enjoying a fancy meal… without the headache of having to prepare a complicated recipe. Simple and delicious!

Though I can’t imagine a world without olives, I don’t know that I’d actually want to try one straight off the tree. The truth is, olives taste pretty bad in their rawest form. Believe it or not, this is why they’re soaked in lye and washed thoroughly — to remove the strong, unappealing bitter taste.

But let’s not focus on the olive’s bitter past :P, let’s talk about how olives add such delicious flavor to some of our favorite foods, like bread. You’ll never want to eat plain white bread after you take a look at Vals Kalmata Olive Bread with Oregano. You know those breadsticks from your favorite restaurant? They pale in comparison to this recipe.

Susie87’s got a nice vegetarian meal or side dish. Her Chickpea Saute with Garlic and Olives proves that you can make a quick, nutritious meal in minutes, without having to sacrifice taste or blow your budget.

Olives and cheese are the perfect couple, right? In CynMaria’s Quick Feta and Olive Spread, they’re looking tastier than ever. Why’s that? Because they’re allowed to shine, the other ingredients, like lemon juice and oregano, only enhance their flavor.

Let’s finishes this post off right, with a meal that’ll fill us all up. Dr_Mom shares a mouthwatering recipe for Moroccan Chicken with Green Olives and Lemons. Cinnamon, onion and cloves make this a dish that’ll bring everyone to the dinner table on time… That frozen chicken looked pretty boring in my freezer a few hours ago, I know what I’m making for dinner later this week!

Planning a birthday party this weekend? Good news, little kids and big kids love cupcakes, especially when they’re made with a creative twist. What else do we love about cupcakes? They usually come with more frosting than a piece of cake :).

Makingbananapancakes serves up a creative batch of cupcakes with her Blueberry and Strawberry Cupcakes with Whipped Cream Frosting. Fresh fruit tops off a light cake made with apple sauce, only a quarter cup of butter go into these berry lean cupcakes :).

The overripe brown bananas on your countertop will be making their way into the mixing bowl instead of the trash can when you hear about MyTastyTreasures Banana Cupcakes with Honey Cinnamon frosting. The bananas not only add great flavor, but they make these cupcakes extra moist.

You might’ve tried a banana cupcake before, but I bet you’ve never heard of porcalina’s French Toast and Bacon Cupcakes. Breakfast isn’t complete without maple syrup and these breakfast-inspired cupcakes aren’t complete until they’re frosted with homemade maple buttercream! Make these a part of your balanced breakfast or serve them at your next party, either way, they’ll be the dessert that everyone remembers.

Puran Boli, also known as Puran Poli, is a South Indian sweet bread that’s aromatic and flavorful. The filling, or puran, provides the most flavor. Madhumathi from Madhu’s Food Journal makes her puran with chana dal. Chana dal is a dark-seeded chickpea without the skin. You might be surprised to find chickpeas in the filling of a dessert, but they are soaked and cooked so that they become soft; they are later combined with sweet ingredients.

Madhumathi puran is a paste that consists of ground chickpeas, coconut and jaggery, or brown sugar. Unlike baked desserts, Puran Boli is cooked on a griddle, where it is lightly fried with gingely oil on both sides until its exterior becomes golden brown.

You might’ve grown up with your mom telling you to not touch the cake until it cooled, but you can go ahead and enjoy the Puran Boli while it is still warm. In fact, Madhumathi says it’s the most tasty that way! Just don’t forget to sprinkle on a bit of ghee to make it extra mouthwatering!

What kind of birthday gift do you get for the friend who puts you up to a pretty big challenge? Like telling you to take a gelato recipe and turn it into another kind of dessert, something made with crushed cookies and a chocolate drizzle! No, we’re not talking about a homemade cone served up with two scoops of ice cream… we’re talking about a homemade Ginger Ice Cream Pie.

It’s the ultimate birthday present for that friend who also happens to be a pie aficionado. Charmian’s Ginger Ice Cream Pie has everything you’d expect to find in an ice cream dessert, and more. Fresh ginger and crystallized ginger both show up in the homemade ice cream that sits on top of a spicy brown sugar ginger cookie crust. And ice cream isn’t complete without a drizzle of chocolate syrup, or a semi-sweet chocolate drizzle in Charmian’s case.

There are ice cream sandwiches, ice cream cakes, but the first ice cream pie we came across was on Charmian’s blog, Christie’s Corner. If you want to see a few more photos of a pie you’ll actually want to eat right out of the freezer, be sure to drop by and say hello to Charmian. If there’s a dessert out there you’d like to see transformed into some sort of pie, she’s the one to contact :)!

When the cat’s away, the mice will play…or bake up a fabulous batch of addicting brownies, of course :)! Chef Dennis of Beyond the Kitchen Wall invented a brownie recipe when he had the kitchen all to himself one afternoon. His Chestnut and Armagnac Brownies are a bit different from the ones you might find in grandma’s kitchen. Though the recipe includes some familiar ingredients, like chocolate, butter and flour, you’ll find there’s plenty more to sink your teeth into than just rich chocolatey goodness.

Chef Dennis says that chestnuts are quite the underrated nut. We sing about them, we like roasting them on an open fire around the holidays… but we just don’t bake enough with them. Dennis shows us how to use chestnuts in one of the tastiest ways possible, in a dessert. Not just any dessert, but in what he refers to as sophisticated brownies. He says that their amazing flavor will transport you to French Southwest. A top-notch brownie it is, with ingredients like tahitian vanilla and armagnac, also known as brandy with a French accent :).

Warm and gooey, these are heavenly when served fresh, right out of the oven… or, take Chef Dennis’ suggestion: let them cool for just a little bit then serve them with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream, for a sundae you can enjoy on any day of the week :).