From Scratch's Top 10 Recipes from 2014!

As we kick off 2015, there's a lot great things on the horizon!  But today, I'm looking back, to the top 10 most popular posts from last year.  And let me tell you, you readers have got good taste!  There's a year's worth of tastiness summed up in these 10 posts!

Mint and Chocolate Blondies

Screw what botanists may say.  Mint is a weed.

I swear, it's taking over faster than I can keep up.  Right now, it's threatening my chard.  I need to arm my chard with swords and shields (and regular pulls of the mint).  The consistent rain mixed with gorgeous sun is great for all of the garden, but the mint has really been taking advantage lately.  So I've needed to find new way to get rid of...I mean, to use it.

Mint and chocolate were just made to go together, but for some reason, the thought of throwing mint into a brownie didn't really appeal to me. Not that I don't like mint brownies! I do, but usually the mint is done through extract, carrying through the brownie or in a frosting.  But then I started thing about a blondie.  The sweet, buttery base with bits of mint and chocolate chunks mixed through?  Yeah, that's the ticket!

Pesto for Dessert? Absolutely!

My kids are well aware of the weirdness that dances through my head, and sometimes, they are my best sounding boards.  So when I brought up the idea of a dessert pesto to them, I was expecting some good feedback.  What I got went a little like this:

"Hey guys, what do you think about me trying to make a dessert pesto?"

"Ew."
"Yeah, ew."
"Like with cheese?  Ew"

"No, not with cheese, sillies!  I was thinking of making it with mint."

"Mom, mint is NOT going to go well with garlic!"
"Yeah, totally ew."
"I'm not going to eat that."

Garden Mint Honey Caramels

There may be a crack in the universe.  I feel like a kid who was told by a friend that Santa's not real.  One of my culinary beliefs has been shattered.

It's not hard to make caramels.

Mind you, I have probably spent hundreds of dollars over my lifetime on delicious, expensive, artisan caramels.  Not all the time, mind you, I'm not crazy.  But as a once-in-a while indulgence?  Absolutely.  I love the texture of a perfect caramel, how it melts away, but slowly, so that you can linger in it's decadence.  I'm drawn in by unusual flavors like bourbon-walnut and Earl Grey.

And now I can make my own.

It's like finding out that I have a super power.  I can't explain how intensely exciting this is to me.  I'm like a mad scientist who has harnessed the power of lightning.  I'm the Nikola Tesla of my own kitchen, driven swiftly towards madness by my own potential.

Is that overboard?

Okay.  Power trip over.  I can create amazing caramels, but I still am barely holding on to a shred of control over the mint in my garden.  Combine those two, and you get...

Mint Caramels.

Sham-Shamrock Shake

I used to live for that time of year when a certain fast food green shake would make it's appearance.  My birthday happens to be exactly a week after St. Patrick's Day, and spring is my favorite time of year, so getting one of those sweet treats became a tradition of celebrating the season.  A sign of good things to come.

But then, once we started eating more "real food", those shakes just didn't taste as good.  I know a lot of people say that about things and mean it as some kind of metaphor, like their guilt over having it didn't outweigh the enjoyment of drinking it, but I mean it the straightforward way: the shake just tastes artificial to me.  I can taste the food coloring in particular, and it just doesn't match up to the idealized version of it that I have in my head.

So then, last year, I stumbled across this recipe for Drunk Shamrock Shake.  I'm a convert, full on in my new-found affection for this reincarnation of that minty green shake.  If the original shake left me feeling empty and cheated, this one fills my soul and makes me feel...well...happy.