To be honest, I didn’t know what a cheese straw was until my mom suggested I serve them at a shower I threw for a girlfriend several weekends ago. My mom was so taken by her own idea, she offered to make them herself.

My mom arrived the morning of the shower with cheese straws in tow. They weren’t at all what I expected – a cross between a pirouette cookie and a Cheeto. Only spiraled.

They also weren’t the product of my mom’s kitchen. [Gasp]. These were created in a magical place known to Target shoppers as Archer Farms.

My poor mom had spent the last several days on the road watching my brother’s hockey games, and consequently didn’t have time to make homemade cheese straws.

She did manage to swing into a Target ,where apparently cheese straws flow like wine and are sold for right around $2 per box. Problem solved.

The cheese straws were a huge hit at the shower. Certainly not a conversation piece, but admired nonetheless. And thankfully, nobody asked for the recipe. It’s a good thing, too. I had no idea how they were made.

And it’s a great question. I spend countless hours online looking up recipes for fun and I had no idea. I perused dozens of recipes and found several of the semi-homemade variety which called for phyllo dough.

Phyllo dough is my one of my dead end ingredients: a.) I never have it on hand, b.) I don’t know where to find it in the grocery store, and c.) I hardly know what the stuff is – much less pronounce it.

For those of you who still don’t know, phyllo dough is puff pastry and it’s located in the frozen food aisle in grocery stores. Cheese straws were my golden opportunity to try working with this enigmatic ingredient.

The recipe I found and later adapted (which is a fancy way of saying I didn’t have every ingredient handy) was from the Food Network’s Ina Garten.

Her recipe was pretty straightforward: brush the puff pastry sheet with egg wash and sprinkle with fresh thyme, Gruyere and Parmesan. Slice, twist, bake and serve. Simple, right?

One would think.

I could handle the egg washing and sprinkling. Slicing and twisting was a breeze, too.

Problems arose when I tried to turn the individual straws over on the baking sheet after 10 – 15 minutes of baking. The dough had a different agenda. It stuck to the baking sheet and wouldn’t hold its form once flipped.

After much finagling, I was able to get my straws in a row to complete the baking process. I could see layers of puff pastry emerge from the corners of each golden straw. The cheeses were melting beautifully and the woody aroma of thyme filled the kitchen. Maybe I was too quick to judge?

I pulled out the sheets to let them cool, expecting the straws to harden in the process. I waited and taste-tested, and tasted some more, yet they never hardened. They were flaky, but flimsy. The puff pastry gave the final product a buttery, layered dimension, but the true integrity of a cheese straw was missing.

They tasted great, but so do breadsticks – which is exactly what these cheese “straws” resembled.

But fancier. And messier. Be sure to have your hand vac nearby.

I would definitely buy these before I would attempt to make them again. They were good, but not worth the effort. These didn’t achieve the wow factor of the store-bought variety.

Now the phyllo dough – that I would keep on hand. Not for the purpose of cheese straws, but for tarts. Many simple yet impressive appetizers can be made with phyllo dough as the base. Or so I’ve read.

Lesson learned: just becuse you can doesn’t mean you should. I’ll still try to spend as little time in the land of Archer Farms as possible.

They look innocent enough, but don’t be fooled.

I should have known better. After all, I’d been forewarned by the person who created the festive Easter appetizer.

They say it’s the journey, not the destination. I disagree. The destination was not worth writing home about, and I’d really rather forget the journey altogether.

It was a turbulent start: I spent way too much time trying to remove tiny shell fragments from my eggs. In the process I somehow managed to tear the whites of nearly every egg I boiled. Only about six whole eggs made it beyond the first leg of the journey.

I had smoother sailing once shells were removed. I scooped out the yolk, setting aside the whites. To the yolks I added lite mayo, lemon juice, vinegar, red onion, pepper, sea salt and wasabi paste.

If you have yet to try wasabi, I would recommend it. Especially if you’re experiencing nasal congestion. It’s also referred to as Japanese horseradish, and I thought the sting would lend itself nicely to deviled eggs.

After mashing the ingredients together with a fork until nearly all the lumps were worked out, I let the mixture firm up in the refridgerator for about an hour.

I was nearing destination, but one last crucial leg of the journey remained: the pastry gun. I don’t own my own, but my mom graciously borrowed me hers. I scooped the wasabi yoke mixture into the gun and began refilling the whites.

If you’ve done the math from above, you’d already know I only had 12 egg halves to work with. The pastry gun portion of the journey didn’t last long, which was really too bad. They are fun to use. And a pain to clean.

The last step was a garnish: fresh thyme. If it sounds strange, it should. I was supposed to use scallions but forget to include them on my grocery store run.

And we reached our destination: a modest (and I stress modest) plate of wasabi deviled eggs. My destination coincided with the arrival of a pickupful of hungry men back from an afternoon of 4-wheeling.

And just like that they were gone. I could have saved myself hours of work and set out a bag of Doritos or a frozen pizza and achieved the same effect.

I haven’t written off deviled eggs completely. Though high-maintenence, they have their place at the Easter buffet. And beyond egg salad, what can a person really do with all those hard-boiled eggs?

Note to self: I should probably wait a good year or two to try a twice-baked potato.

Too-much-thyme wasabi deviled eggs:

6 large eggs
1/3 C mayo
3 T wasabi paste
3 T lemon juice
2 T vinegar
1/3 C finely chopped red onion
sea salt
fresh thyme for garnish
*optional: glass of wine for removing shell

Set eggs in saucepan and fill with water until eggs are submerged. Remove saucepan from heat once water comes to a boil and let sit for 20 minutes.

Once eggs have cooled, remove shell.

Cut egg in half lengthwise, saving yolk portion in a bowl. Set egg white halves aside.

Add remaining ingredients (all except thyme) to yolk and mash with fork until blended. Let mixture firm up in fridge for about an hour.

Fill pastry gun with mixture. Using pastry gun, fill eggg white halves with yolk mixture.

Remove leaves from thyme and sprinkle over eggs for garnish.

Enjoy!

Kashi cereal, half a banana and a sprinkle of frozen blueberries is what I eat for breakfast each and every morning.

My breakfast trends go in phases, but this particular combination has been my mainstay for well over a year.

I know what you’re thinking: You are a huge control freak. When it comes to my breakfast, you’re absolutely right. I consider my breakfast as the anchor of my otherwise fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of day.

In honor of Easter, my husand and I made the 5-hour trek up north to celebrate with my parents. In doing so, I indignantly passed the reigns of breakfast control onto my mom for the Easter holiday weekend. [Exhale.]

I keep a tight grip on these reigns, and to relinquish is no easy task. And this weekend I really tried.

But I woke up Saturday morning to my mother slathering cream cheese annd jelly between two slices of french bread. The concept was a sort of french toast sandwich.

Now I can enjoy french toast with ease. But adding a thick layer of cream cheese and jelly between two slices is like adding insult to injury. Why was my mom trying to sabotage what I try so hard to keep in check?

Even as I type this, I know I sound like a complete lunatic. Watching my mom prepare breakfast, I told myself to get a reality check.

Once I came to my senses, I was astounded by how much I lavished this breakfast. Salty/sweet. Need I say more?

Sweet: two thick slices of french bread sharing a membrane of egg and vanilla, with a nucleus of whipped strawberry cream cheese spread and jelly.

Smothered in lite whipped cream, berries and bananas with a drizzle of syrup.

Salty: my husband’s own goose breakfast sausage boiled to perfection on the stovestop.

A sample of each combined on each delectable forkful?

Yum.

Some habitual routines are certainly worth breaking. My Kashi cereal will be waiting for me Monday morning.

I’m normally inclined to avoid cream cheese at all costs. Yes, this includes cheesecake. No thanks. In my opinion, healthier alternatives exist to enhance the flavor of any dish.

This breakfast? I’d make for any overnight guest without hesitation. After this echanted Easter eve breakfast I’m going to make an extra effort to keep whipped cream cheese in the refrigerator. I can’t wait to pass this spring this recipe on the next unsuspecting breakfast control freak.

Salty/sweet wake-up breakfast: (crucial both elements are present)

one loaf french bread
1/2 C whipped strawrberry cream cheese
2 T straberry jam
5 large eggs
2 T pure vanilla extract
Sliced bananas
1 package frozen berries, thawed
lite whipped cream

Sausage:
Bring saucepan of water to a boil. Add breakfast sausage links and cook until warmed.

French toast sandwiches:
Preheat electric griddle to medium heat.

Whisk eggs and vanilla in shallow dish.

Slice french bread into 1″ slices.

Coat one side of each slice with whipped strawberry cream cheese and strawberry jam. Add top layer to form sandwiches.

Drop sanwiches into egg mixture, letting soak on each side for several minutes. Transfer to electric griddle.

Let sanwiches cook on each side for 3-4 minutes or until browned.

Garnish with lite whip cream, berries, bananas and syrup.

I love my carbs. I don’t love the calories.

Whenever I’m about to add penne rigate to boiling water, I can’t help but notice the nutrition facts on the box: 180 calories per serving. Yikes.

Even pasta varieities boasting of added fiber and whole grains can’t skirt around the fact that they deliver the caloric equivalence of its enriched counterpart.

I would simply have to wait patiently for the day my friends at Barilla or Creamette would create a true diet pasta. My own Pasta Zero.

Apparently you can’t rush these things – hundreds of years of growing pasta and we still don’t have a low-calorie pasta product.

Until NoOodle.

I came across this gem of a product while paging through a magazine last week. Derived from yam plants, NoOodles contain zero calories. Zero.

I took a chance on the recommendation from the trusted periodical and ordered two packages from the company’s web site. They arrived yesterday.

Had they arrived at my doorstep April 1, I would have considered a package of zero-calorie pasta a sick joke.

Anything derived from a yam plant I would have assumed to be bright orange, but not NoOodles – they were white. This was a little off-putting.

My husband would surely be suspicious. And if he knew they were calorie-free, that would be the end of NoOodles in the Hanson home.

Unsure exactly of what to do with strange noodles packaged in water, I warmed them up on the stovetop. I was making peanut ginger chicken that night, and in keeping with the asian theme I added them to a package of frozen stir fry vegetables. Thankfully the noodles took on the amber color of soy sauce.

To serve, I mixed the drained noodles and vegetables together and sprinkled the dish with sesame seeds.

My husband had no idea. I still felt like I was enjoying noodles. Success. The peanut ginger chicken, now that could use some tweaking. Maybe I’ll hold out for Skippy Zero to try that one again.

Yum.

Lo Mein Zero:

One package frozen stir fry vegetable blend
one package NoOodles
1/4 C soy sauce
1 t sesame seeds

Prepare frozen stir fry blend as directed on package.

Add NoOodles to pan on stovetop and bring to a low boil. Drain NoOodles and add stir fry vegetables.

Mix together, adding soy sauce and sesame seeds.

If I bake a batch of cookies, I’ll easily polish off six before the last batch is out of the oven – and that’s not including the batter. The same goes for bars and cupcakes.

Dark chocolate is one of the only treats I can consume in moderation. We have a healthy relationship: I love it so much, I respect it enough not to abuse it. Which is exactly why I feel secure knowing I have an emergency supply in the freezer.

I don’t know when and where I aquired a taste for dark chocolate, but I’ve long since graduated from the milk chocolate of my youth. And by dark, I mean dark: the higher the percentage of cacao the better.

In college I used to keep a dark chocolate bar in the freezer. Graduated, married and without a meal plan, I now spend more time in a grocery store. And thus discovered dark chocolate baking chips.

My original intention was to make dark chocolate chip cookies. I ran out of my emergency freezer supply of dark chocolate before I had the chance, and consequently opened the bag of dark chocolate morsels for a late afternon pick-me-up.

I was in the mood to bake, but I didn’t want to eat my weight in cookie dough before I was finished. If not cookies – then what?

I suddenly remembered the bag of raw almonds I had recently purchased. Almonds, though great for you, are also meant to be consumed in moderation. Hand-dipping each almond seemed time consuming and tedious. Strawberries – yes. Almonds – no thanks.

Instead, I dumped several handfuls of them on a cookie tray lined with parchment paper, melted my dark chocolate chips in the microwave, poured the chocolate over the almonds, and put the tray in the freezer. Once the chocolate hardened, I broke the sheet into manageable pieces. Back into the freezer they went.

After that batch ran out, I made another batch. Only instead of almonds (which I no longer had on hand) I used whole coffee beans.

My latest batch (pictured above) would not be possible had it not been for my unusual supply of nuts I had on hand: relics from a recent visit from my parents, a girlfriend’s shower and a completely random pit stop at an organic lamb farm en route to the cities this Saturday.

The stars in the cellestial kitchen above must have aligned in order for me to have dark chocolate, pistaccios, walnuts and almonds on hand at the same time. Yum.

[dark chocolate+pistaccio+walnut]+almond bark:

1 bag dark chocolate chips (I used 60 percent cacao)
1/2 C shelled pistaccios
1/2 C raw whole almonds
1/2 C raw whole walnuts

Combine all nuts in a ziplock bag and seal, pounding bag with a wooden spooon until coarsely chopped. (I don’t have a food processor, but I’m sure that would work, too).

Melt chips in microwaveo-safe bowl for four minutes on power level 4. Remove bowl and stir until chips are melted. Repeat at 30 second intervals, stirring until all chips are melted.

Line cookie sheet with parchent paper. Spread chocolate mixture in an area over parchment paper to desired thickness.

Sprinkle chopped nuts evenly over dark chocolate.

Transfer cookie sheet to freezer and let chocolate cool for 1 to 2 hours.

Remove cookie sheet from freezer, and break solid chocolate sheet into chunks of desired sizes.