Need an easy weekend breakfast treat? Or something to sweeten the deal when you go apartment hunting? Homemade muffins are the way to go!

A sweet treat to celebrate life's small victories. Like a successful apartment hunt. Yay!

No flour? No sugar? No problem!

Last Christmas my Mom gave an amazing gift to the women in the family: a compilation of family recipes she'd been given by her sister, hand-written and ranging from favorite childhood lunches to elaborate dinner party dishes. One of the recipes is for a lasagne that is insanely rich, filled with béchamel sauce, cheese, noodles...

This isn't that recipe.

I need to get myself back on track with healthy eating, and parties are a consistent saboteur. So instead of creating something indulgent, or creating nothing (and having no other sweet options than other's rich offerings), I've found it's best to bring my own. But that should never mean sacrificing flavor.

This is the first in an intermittent series of culinary how-to's with such ease and changeability that calling them 'recipes' would seem a bit overreaching.

First up: carrots!

In high school, when my family lived in Southern California, I began keeping a small container garden on our back patio (which I sometimes referred to as a "pot garden," before I remembered that had a completely different meaning in SoCal). There were five large pots, one for herbs, and two each for tomatoes and zucchini. The herbs and tomatoes did well, but wow! Those zucchini wouldn't stop growing! I let every flower grow into a zucchini in the first year for fear I'd pluck all the flowers and be left with nothing. Well, that year we grew tired of zucchini bread and zucchini salads and sautéed zucchini, and every morning it seemed I would go out to find a giant specimen as big as my forearm hiding under the leaves, though I could have sworn it was not there yesterday.

Anyway, the second year I began to eat the blossoms. And I'm glad I did!

As a March baby, my birthday coincides perfectly with lamb season.

Fusion cupcakes with a crazy-long name, moist crumb and delicious frosting.

I should have known better than to start drinking coffee.