What's Cooking - sweetest kitchen

I may not have posted a new recipe this past week, but I have definitely been busy in the kitchen. My daily inspiration is FoodGawker – I love FoodGawker. The website is updated twice daily with over 100 new photos of delicious food and recipes to match. Every day I’m visiting new food blogs, learning new recipes and bookmarking my favorite ones.

In this post, I’d like to show you the fabulous recipes I’ve cooked/baked/prepared – some from my own blog, but mostly from other food blogs that I’ve found through FoodGawker. I hope you’ll discover a new delicious recipe as well!

The first one here is a recipe from our own kitchen and my 8-year-old daughter’s creation. It’s a bacon & mushroom pizza and is a family favorite. I haven’t changed the posted recipe yet, but what I’m doing differently now is not draining the bacon fat, but instead just cooking the mushrooms in the bacon juice along with a good pat of slightly salted butter and the garlic powder. Another blogger, Camille, loved the pizza and claims that my daughter will be president one day as the recipe is exceptional! Well, I don’t know about whether my daughter will become the president, but I love Camille’s post and thank her for trying it out and sharing it with her readers! Camille’s post inspired me to cook those mushrooms in the bacon fat!

Second, is a recipe inspired by this banoffee Eton mess from Sips and Spoonfuls. This is a fun and easy twist on the classic banoffee pie. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly; I used Biscoff biscuits instead of digestive biscuits; I used salted caramel instead of dulce de leche; I didn’t add almonds. It makes for a quick and delicious dessert!

Third, is prep work for a lightened up version of egg salad from Cooking Classy. This recipe replaces mostly all of the traditional mayonnaise with Greek yoghurt. It’s very fresh and light and has made the perfect sandwiches for my daughter’s lunches this week at school.

Fourth, is from one of my most favorite food blogs, Minimalist Baker; it’s banana bread granola. Baking this recipe makes your kitchen smell just like you’re baking a loaf of banana bread, and it’s so delicious I found myself eating it straight out of the container with my hand!

First up, from one of my favorite recipe sources (besides FoodGawker!), taste.com.au, this is an easy Thai beef noodle salad. I thought this made an excellent dinner, but my husband wasn’t fond of the cucumber ribbons or other fresh vegetables (eye roll!).

Second, another recipe from Minimalist Baker – I just want to make everything Dana posts! I passed these brownies up originally because I was scared of the black beans, but I saw how many people were raving about awesome they were, so I caved. And I’m so glad I did; these are perhaps the best brownies I’ve ever eaten. They are full of dark chocolate flavor and are soft and fudgy. The peanut butter swirls really made these brownies extra special. The only difference I made was adding a small amount of agave to the natural peanut butter because I didn’t have powdered sugar. This is, by far, the best thing I have baked lately!

Third, banana cream pie yoghurt from Making Thyme For Health. This recipe uses 4 simple and healthy ingredients to give you a quick, yet decadent, breakfast.

Fourth, oh dear, yet another Minimalist Baker recipe! This is my version of Dana’s vegan cheesecake with salted caramel swirls. With just 7 healthier ingredients, these cheesecakes come together so quickly and taste amazing!

First, one of my husband’s favorites is this spicy penne with chicken and mushrooms from Anina’s Recipes. Another quick recipe, this is full of flavor and so satisfying. I added a bit of garlic to the recipe, which I’d recommend if you were to try this one as well.

Second, a healthy dinner, or light lunch, this gorgeous fresh pasta with zucchini noodles and roasted tomatoes from A Food Centric Life. This one had too much zucchini noodles for my veggie-hating husband, but he did get through his entire serving and I’m happy to have given him a bit of healthy food. I used spelt spaghetti for this recipe.

Third, it was Pancake Day on Tuesday and I did my part by making pancakes and homemade butter! I added muscavado sugar and pecans to the homemade butter and drizzled the entire thing with a bit of maple syrup. This was to-die-for! I loved it so much that I’ll soon be getting a recipe together for this homemade butter to post here.

Lastly, it was my birthday yesterday. I made my own cake, of course, and I chose this droolworthy coconut cream fudge cake from Scientifically Sweet to make. This is an incredibly easy cake and doesn’t even require an electric mixer of any kind. It bakes up lovely and fudgy and might remind you of a brownie, but it isn’t quite a brownie. Like Christina, I wouldn’t ever put frosting on a brownie either! There is coconut cream both in the cake and ganache. We all loved this rich chocolatey cake, it was just perfect. It even tastes amazing straight from the refrigerator.

The last picture here is of my birthday dinner; I made this myself as well. It’s my favorite – lentil bolognese served over some fancy spaghetti (had to have fancy as it’s my birthday dinner!). This recipe is vegetarian, yay! I’d highly recommend this to any vegetarian and even those who shun vegetarian food. This is so delicious and hearty, even my husband loves this one. The recipe is posted here on my blog.

And there you go, even though I don’t post here quite as often as I used to, I am still busy in the kitchen! Thank you to all you amazing food bloggers for your incredible recipes!

What great recipes have you found from a food blog? And where do you go when you’re searching for recipes – cookbooks, magazines, food blogs, google?