Tomato Mozzarella Skewers with Pesto Sauce

This recipe is a variation of the famous Caprese salad. The tender taste of mozzarella cheese combined with delicious pesto, and fresh cherry tomatoes, results in a wonderful and mouth-watering combination. These appetizers can also be a great decoration for your dinner table. I found this recipe here. 

Pesto Sauce with Walnuts

This delicious sauce comes from Italy. I’ve read that it is over 200 years old and it is one of the most popular sauces in the world. The classic version of pesto sauce is made from olive oil, basil leaves, pine nuts, and grated hard cheese. However, nowadays there are many variations to the original recipe, and therefore, I decided to try out pesto sauce with walnuts. You can also replace, for example basil leaves with parsley, arugula, spinach, or even mint. In Sicily, they don’t even use nuts, but tomatos instead.    

Any variation of pesto sauce goes well with pasta, ravioli or rice. You can even use this sauce on a toast. 

Without further ado, let’s make pesto sauce!

Banana Muffins with Oatmeal Topping

After trying banana bread, me and my family fell in love with baking that includes bananas. This banana muffin recipe is simply amazing: it’s not complicated at all, yet your muffins will come out so delicious, tender and moist. Better yet, they will have a rich banana taste to them. This is a great recipe for those times when you have, for example unexpected guests coming over, and you happen to have some ripe bananas. Thank you Hidden Ponies for sharing this great recipe!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yesterday I got a huge cookie crave, so I just had to bake some. The cookie recipe was inspired from this recipe. Thank you Ambrosia for this wonderful recipe!

I’ve modified the recipe slightly. For example, I didn’t use distilled white vinegar, red food coloring and M&M’s. Also, I used milk chocolate chips instead of white ones and I halved the ingredients. In addition, I used baking soda instead of baking powder, as well as vanilla sugar instead of vanilla extract.

I've read (and learnt the hard way) that it is important to let the cookie dough sit in the refrigerator for some time before baking them. This way you get better tasting cookies, with a nicer texture and they won’t spread too much while baking.

Dried Apricot Candies

These healthy and yummy candies are made from dried fruits. They’re full of nutrients and vitamins, and will boost your energy levels. This recipe is very easy yet interesting, and it could be a fun project to do with your kids. This is also a great way to make them eat healthy.  

There are many variations to this recipe. For instance, instead of dark chocolate you can also use milk chocolate or white chocolate. In order to make more colorful apricot candies, just add some food colorant in the melted white chocolate before the dipping the apricots in it. 

Roasted Turkey Breast

I love turkey meat, it's light and full of protein. Still I was always scared to bake it since I thought it would turn out dry. I found this recipe, and decided to try it out, and to my surprise the meat turned out very tender and not dry at all. I recommend everyone to try this recipe out especially since it's very simple. 

Traditional Finnish Pannukakku

This traditional Finnish dessert is very simple yet delicious. Basically, the dough is the same as you use in pancakes, the only difference is that instead of cooking it in a frying pan, you bake it in the oven. This dessert is perfect to serve with some coffee. However, you can also make it into a main dish by adding some chopped vegetables, bacon, ham… Basically anything you want, just use your imagination. For example, you can use some left-over chicken and carrots from last night. Despite the variations of this recipe, it always turns out great and yummy! 

The recipe was taken from valio.fi.