Theoretically, we’re halfway through the summer after July 4th. But since the school year here didn’t end until June 20th, we’re not at the halfway mark yet. Nope, no siree! It’s in the 90s, my schedule is more flexible, and I’m getting in lots of quality family time!

There’s something really satisfying about hanging out with everyone when the weather is hot. We can log in lazy pool days, enjoy evenings in the cul de sac after dinner blowing bubbles with all the extra sunlight, and stop looking at the clock so much. We can also pause for afternoon ice cream snacks, and let’s face it. Those are the best. Right now my freezer is fully stocked with EDY’S® Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream and EDY’S® Baby Ruth Ice Cream, and they’re getting a lot of attention. How could they not, when they’re inspired by two of my favorite candy bars?

Since you all know I’m the biggest bargirl ever when it comes to baking, I made a batch of Butterfinger® cookie bars to go along with my ice cream. There’s pretty much no greater combination in life than a good dessert bar and a bowl of ice cream.

The other day, my middle kid had her birthday weekend. She was born right before July 4th, which means that the doctors didn’t bother us at all in the hospital after she was born. They literally ran off to picnics and barbecues, leaving us behind. In fact, the doctor who delivered her met his wife that night at a party. It was a strangely tranquil weekend, and I remember just relaxing with my newborn and eating an entire package of cookies. Hey, I’d earned it.

What struck me at the time was how important family is to everyone, even busy-seeming hospital staff. I mean, the place was nearly deserted. There aren’t many times of year when people just clear a place and head home en masse, but summertime is when we all want to be together. The summer nights might be long, but the months pass quickly. Actually, so do the years. That newborn is now six years old, and she’s not a baby anymore.

Thankfully, she’s someone whom I also like as well as love, and we have a lot in common. One is our endless fondness for ice cream. When she saw the containers of EDY’S® Ice Cream in the freezer, she knew that the best kind of Walmart trip had just taken place.  We took out spoons and had a snack moment together, just my birthday girl and her proud mommy. Plus, I feel a lot better about sharing ice cream with my kids when it’s made with fresh milk & cream with no rBST (milk production hormone). This ice cream is so good, and it has the good stuff in it too!

To go along with our ice cream, I made these Butterfinger cookie bars. The base is a chewy peanut butter cookie, and then I filled the dough with chopped up fun-sized candy bars. I even crumbled some more Butterfinger on top for the perfect finish!

When paired with EDY’S® Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream, these cookie bars make the perfect summer snack. It’s even better during these long summer days that we all spend together. Take some time out with the people you love! This is the time, y’all.

As I’ve mentioned, this is the most challenging food week of the year. I don’t like matza or anything that tastes like it, so my Passover philosophy is to avoid cooking or baking with it as much as possible. Instead, I use nut flours and potato starch, which taste much closer to the real deal.

Every year I buy a new recipe book, and this year I got Paula Shoyer’s The New Passover Menu. It’s an incredible cookbook, and it includes these cookie bars. My holiday is now officially better!

Lately, I’ve experienced a little crisis in confidence. Do you ever go through that? It’s much easier to believe in ourselves when others believe in us. Whenever someone overlooks me or underrates my abilities, I start to doubt myself. I’m guessing that I’m not alone in that.

There are areas in life in which I feel unquestionably competent: teaching, for instance, or baking. Parenting? Nope, that’s something I always feel insecure about, but that seems normal to me. I assume that feeling that way is totally fine, so I’m okay with that kind of insecurity.

But what happens when someone questions my abilities in an area that I dominate? That I am, unquestionably, excellent? Ideally I should stand tall and think, “What jerks.” But there’s also that little voice inside me, the one that says, “Maybe you’re not as good as you think you are.”

Those are dark thoughts, and I try to banish them. But when they pop up, it’s not pleasant. Can anyone relate?

While you’re busy thinking about that, focus on these bars. I’m totally confident that they rock. Hey, my confidence in baked goods shall never be shaken.

The nut flour really makes these rock. I’m a big fan of ground almond meal, and when mixed with a flour stand-in (potato starch in this case), the result is really quite reminiscent of a non-Passover dessert. I think Paula Shoyer must be simpatico with my own Passover baking rule of thumb: never, if it can possibly be helped, bake with matza meal or matza cake meal. Go with something more natural. Both the texture and the taste are better that way. I did adapt Shoyer’s recipe a tiny bit (the original includes more mix-ins), but I’m hoping she won’t mind!

We all have rough weeks, or months, when we’re feeling a little less confident than usual. At least, I think we do. Maybe that’s just part of life, but I hope we all come out of it okay. After all, not every day can be great. But it can include great cookie bars!

As a baking blogger, I try to invent the majority of the recipes I share with you. After all, part of the joy is in the creation. However, there are times when somebody else’s recipe is just too good not to share, and this is one of those times.

A few weeks ago, we had lunch with friends, and their eight year-old daughter made these chocolate chip sticks. Not only were my kids impressed that someone their age baked a treat all by herself, but they also loved them. I’ve had the recipe sitting around in a cookbook called The Kosher Palette for years, but I need to make them more. These cookies are a cross between biscotti and chocolate chip cookies, and you don’t want to miss out!

This is my vacation week, so I’m not super focused on anything right now. I’ve eased up on social media until next week, and I’m taking time to just take some deep breaths.

Being on vacation really reminds me how stressful the rest of the year is. And it’s not just the exhaustion from work that winds up taking its toll. The mental energy required to stay on top of everything produces a lot of stress, a lot of cortisol, and a lot of trouble. Whenever we’re stressed out, our bodies respond in their own ways. We might feel pain, or get indigestion, or not be able to stay awake at the dinner table.

If only there were a good way to manage stress when vacation can’t take care of the problem for us. Some methods, like regular exercise and calm breathing, are definitely helpful. But is there any way to replicate this stress-free feeling when there are to-do lists and projects and people with needs everywhere? That’s not a rhetorical question, but I don’t have the answer. Help me out!

Because I’m stress-free this week, I’m keeping this post short. But that’s appropriate, because this recipe takes almost no time to make. See?

When you’re done, you have a delicious (and butter-free, might I add) treat for everyone to share. These aren’t just quick; they’re borderline healthy. Or at least, borderline not terrible for you. I’ll take that!

And I’ll take my week of vacation. The desserts don’t stop, but I’m posting them with a better mindset right now. Hope you all get a break in there sometime soon!

Purim is on Thursday. Who knows what I’m talking about?

Every spring, the Jewish holiday of Purim occurs. It’s one of the fun ones, following the whole “they tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat” mode of celebration. On that day, people dress in costume, deliver baskets of treats to friends, give charity, and eat hamantaschen.

This delightful cookie is named after the villain of the Purim story, Haman. These are triangular-shaped cookies that are traditionally filled with fruit or chocolate, but I’ve switched things up a bit. The dough here has a Linzer cookie twist with ground almonds, and the filling is chocolate raspberry. Talk about celebrating in style!

Holidays are the most fun with children. And I’m not really a kid person, which often surprises people because I both teach for a living and have three children of my own. But really, that’s not relevant. I don’t teach because I love kids; I teach because I want to help them. And as for my children, they’re mine. I love them. But other people’s? Well, depends on how well-behaved they are.

Anyway, I digress. It’s so much fun to see kids get excited about holiday celebrations. For weeks, I’ve been watching my kids prepare for Purim. They’ve been singing songs, making masks, and doing project after project. If I became bored with it all before they were born, now I’m right back into it.

In fact, my costume is all set to go. As long as my daughters insist on being Disney princesses every year (this year it’s Aurora and Rapunzel, while last year was Anna and Belle), I will persist in being a Disney villain. Last year I was Maleficent; this year I am Cruella.  It actually works really well in making them less afraid of the evil parade of women Disney loves to share. Because really, they’re all quite terrifying.

Oh, well. We’ll leave the discussion of sexist portrayals of women as evil throughout history for another blog post. I’m already excited about a holiday. Let’s keep the energy there!

Hamantaschen are deceptively hard to make. They seem just like cookies, but the epic fail rate is pretty high for so many people. Among the possible issues you can encounter: dough is too sticky, not sticky enough, puffs up obscenely the oven, the edges open, the filling explodes. See? This Purim thing isn’t all fun and games.

This recipe is foolproof if you follow it. Please don’t improvise! And once your dough is rolled out in circles, pinch those edges together really well. You want almost no filling showing through. When I made these with my kids, they definitely had issues. But they’re kids, so it’s fine. It was fun anyway. The ones they made aren’t pictured here, of course.

Happy Purim to all of my readers. Whether you celebrate or not, try and get your hands on some hamantaschen! They’re worth the effort!

If I had to decide what to bake somebody on Valentine’s Day, which I don’t (see below), I’d definitely go for cookie cake. It’s easy and fast, but it just oozes love and chewy delight.

This year for Valentine’s Day, Kenny is getting chocolate and a book. I’ve done enough baking leading up to this heart-shaped day, and we need no more. You feel me? #foodbloggerproblems

Over the course of my not crazy long life, I’ve heard phrases and expressions come and go. One of the more recent (and a growing irritant for me) is the term “conversational snow.” It refers to snow that falls but doesn’t stick anywhere. It’s what I would call “pointless snow,” or if I’m in a better mood, “pretty snow.” After all, it’s a lot more fun to drive home in a light snowfall that isn’t accumulating than in a driving rain.

Another expression that continues to gain momentum? “It is what it is.” I know several people who can’t stand this particular turn of phrase, but it doesn’t bother me that much. After all, how else would you describe something that just cannot be changed?

But I’ll tell you what I can’t stand: “I don’t know what to tell you.” What does that even mean? You say that to someone when they have a problem and there’s no solution, but not much is more frustrating to hear. It’s like an admission of failure.

And finally, nobody likes it when someone says, “That’s the way the cookie crumbles.” Not only is it a stupid expression, but everyone knows that good cookies do not crumble. That’s just a bad cookie.

What is magical is the perfect cookie cake. They sure as heck don’t crumble, and they’re fantastic. On the spectrum of sweets to give your sweetie, this one ranks high.

It’s a peanut butter cookie, of course. But even better, it’s filled with delightful peanut butter M & Ms and piped with hot pink frosting. Let the good times roll, everyone!

The only expression I want to hear this weekend is “I love you.” Over and over. Other than that, all the cliched phrases and conversational snow can just go away. Give me a snowstorm and a cookie cake and we’re in good territory!

A few of you out there are still looking for ways to use up so-called “leftover” candy. I don’t really get that concept. It’s not chicken, people. It’s not gonna go bad that fast. Eat it and enjoy at your leisure.

But heck, if you really want to bake it into something, make a pookie! This lovely cookie dough is filled with all your Halloween candy favorites and baked into a pie shell. With Thanksgiving looming, we should be getting our pie thing going anyway. Let’s do a hybrid holiday treat!

To be honest, I’m relieved to be in November. October is just a terrifying month, and not just because of people banging on your door demanding candy. Grades are due in my school system on November first, and so are college recommendations. I’m just happy that these weights are lifting from my shoulders.

Now I can focus on lifting real weights, which I do faithfully. Still, there’s this area under my arm. I hesitate to use the word “flaps” because it’s not empowering. But with all the triceps work I do and all those painful push-ups with my hands shaped like a diamond, why don’t I have arms like Madonna? Probably the pie.

There have been times that I get frustrated at the parts of my body that don’t tone as easily as others. But lately, I’ve also been trying to focus on the good stuff. My abs are really responsive to training, and that means I need to stop complaining. Why are we so inclined to focus on the stuff that isn’t as great and not spend time enjoying what we love about ourselves?

That said, if I ever became rich, I would hire the following in a heartbeat: a personal trainer, a personal chef (just on retainer for those days I don’t wanna cook), and a hairdresser, not on retainer. Because I need hair help every single day. I wouldn’t even think about redoing the house or anything until these three people were part of my daily routine. And you know, it would be cool to have an assistant too, just to keep track of my appointments and all.

Anyone out there willing to make my dream come true? I will totally bake for you every day if you make me rich. I do that anyway. No matter how rich I got, I would bake. It just makes me so darn happy.

Like this pookie here. Who can turn away from this? Not me, I can tell ya. The trick is to make sure you don’t bake this guy for too long, or the whole thing goes from slightly gooey and joyously chewy to dry and hard. Watch that oven timer!

Listen, I don’t need recipes for leftover candy. In my house, it’s called eating it. But I understand if you do, and I hear where you’re coming from. So go ahead and eat your candy in a pookie! It’s almost as nice as being rich and having your own personal staff.

I’m totally down with spiders. For one thing, they eat mosquitoes. That makes them awesome. And I took care of a tarantula named Pinky back in high school, and he was a real sweetheart. So I have very positive associations and all.

This is my favorite peanut butter cookie recipe all dressed up for Halloween. Is it me, or are creepy treats mainly just adorable? Must be the candy eyes.

In the midst of all this creepiness, I have to admit that Halloween scares me. It really does. I do not like opening the door to people dressed in costumes that are intended to be terrifying. I don’t care how old they are. It’s just not cool.

One year, instead of candy, my mom gave out crayons. I will never forget the humiliation. I was 100% sure that some unruly trick-or-treaters would bust into the house and steal all our food. I mean, I’d be pretty mad if I got crayons instead of candy. The only thing worse would be toothbrushes.

Let’s face it: Halloween is a scary time of year. The sky is often eerily cloudy, and with people moving around at night like ghosts, it’s not exactly reassuring.

Plus, I teach high school, which means that kids come in costume on the closest day to Halloween and we have to figure out which costumes are crossing the line. I really have no desire to see students dressed in short, tight costumes, or in a worst-case scenario from a couple of years back, like a giant condom. It’s so tacky.

The opposite of tacky is cute Halloween treats. And these little guys just make me happy.

This cookie recipe is so good that my oldest son loves it. That might not mean much to you, but the boy eats about two things in life, and I’m not really exaggerating. The fact that he begged me to bake these again after the first time I made them means a lot. Just believe me on that one.

Once the cookie is baked, you press a frozen Reese’s miniature peanut butter cup into the center. Wait for it to harden, and then pipe on legs using chocolate melts. I also used those melts to stick the candy eyes to the spider’s body, i.e., the peanut butter cup. It’s cute, right? Not gross?

I might not like Halloween, but I do love the treats and all the fun you can have with making scary into cute. Spiders might not be as happy an association for you as they are for me, but how about giving them a try? Just this once!

If you catch a whiff of almond extract and you want to drink the bottle, then you love marzipan. If not, well, yep. Sorry. You can come back next week when I have some fun spooky treats set to go!

These are buttery cookie bars topped with a gooey layer of baked marzipan and toasted almonds. I’ve had to hide these in a dark corner of the freezer to avoid consuming every last one.

Like marzipan, acquired tastes abound, and not just in food. I made the mistake of recommending Pitch Perfect to my parents last week. When I saw that movie with Kenny and my brother at the movie theater, we fell out of our seats with tears streaming down our cheeks. We were laughing that hard.

The night my parents sat down to watch the movie, I got a very short e-mail from my mom along the lines of, “This movie sucks.” She informed me that it wasn’t funny, had bad music, and that she and my dad just didn’t get it.

I’m assuming that it must be a generational issue, right? Because people in my age group (not to mention my beloved high school students) loved that movie. And the music, too. I mean, college a capella is so strongly embedded in our culture nowadays, but it probably wasn’t back when my parents were pursuing higher education.

So the movie didn’t mean much to them, and I’m okay with that. I still think that a girl doing snow angels in vomit is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

After all, don’t so many things take time to appreciate? Like Ugg boots, or kale? But once we’re there, we’re there. And I’ve been appreciating marzipan since I was little tiny, thanks to my German grandparents.

Yep, marzipan is a German thing. But I’ve managed to add American flair by putting it on a cookie bar. Because, as you know by now if you read my blog, bars are my jam.

The key to making a good cookie bar is to make it nice and thick. Then it’s just so much fun to bite into. The sticky marzipan topping along with the crunch of the toasted almonds means that your texture senses will be so happy right along with your taste buds.

Just be wary of the marzipan. You want to brown it, but don’t let it go too long. The top should be firm, but underneath will be that fantastic gooey layer right before you get to the soft, thick cookie bar.

Not everyone has the same taste, which is a mercy. And it can take some time to fall in love with something, which is why I became obsessed with sushi after years of not wanting it. Just be glad that some tastes are acquired. They just want to take the time to get to know us!

Last night, I sent Kenny to the grocery store for supplies, and I asked him to buy me a giant cookie so I could lug it to work the next day. Sometimes, lunch is a giant cookie.

Imagine my disappointment when he came home without it. The store had none, so he gave me a bag of Snickers minis instead. I was grateful and all, but I really wanted that giant cookie. A chocolate chip one, to be exact. Well, you know what they say. If you want something done right, be prepared to stay up all night to get it done. No wonder I’m cranky.

For the record, I don’t understand night owls. How do people stay up hour after hour when it’s cold and dark outside, being productive? The very idea is totally foreign to me. Those hours are for sleeping, not for making coffee and powering through your e-mail inbox.

But then, when people talk to me about how I spend my mornings, I start to feel like a weirdo. Anyone else out there like to get up at the crack of dawn, work out, and then get to work by six to get stuff done? Anyone? Crickets?

It’s a damn lucky thing we’re all wired differently. Except when it comes to lusting after George Clooney. He’s not my particular bag, but a disproportionate number of people seem to have a thing for him. And I do acknowledge that he’s quite handsome.

What else can people agree on? Dessert? Nope. I was talking to the father of my son’s friend the other day, and he told me that he never much cared for dessert. It doesn’t do anything for him. This man is very thin, too, so I totally believed him. Again, no way I can understand  that point of view. If food doesn’t make this dude happy, what does? He must be much cooler and more spiritual than most of us, eating just when he gets hungry and only the most nutritious, fuel-rich food.

I’m not jealous, actually. When I think about it, a life of not craving dessert doesn’t sound very nice. And neither does staying up late. Or marrying George Clooney. But all that might sound really good to you, so let’s be glad we’re different and embrace it!

Let’s also share this delightful mega chocolate chip cookie the size of my head. Can we agree to do that?

Really, mega cookies are so where it’s at. Not everyone wants to bake a huge batch of cookies. What if you’re not feeding a huge family? What if you don’t want 36 cookies hanging around to tempt you? Then just make one. It’s appallingly easy.

I use egg substitute in my recipe to make it easier to measure a fraction of an egg, but you can sub in the equal amount of beaten egg. It’s totally your call. It won’t make much of a difference either way. In the end, there will be a cookie! One that you can dig into with just a flick of your wrist. See?

A fantastic cookie, no less. One that you can take to work on rainy days and eat for lunch. Or with lunch. Depends how hungry you get. We’re all wired differently, right?

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s all of eight in the evening and I really need to get ready for bed. Today has been so exhausting.

Or, you know, hidden in a closet from your kids. Whichever image suits you best.

I can’t think of a happier way to highlight the superiority of butterscotch than these thick cookie bars. They’re chock-full of butterscotch chips and topped off with even more of the stuff. Say hello to my new favorite bar cookie!

Recently, my favorite protein bar changed their recipe and now they taste gross. One part of me is really upset about this (time to find a new protein bar, so I’ll take suggestions!), but another part is relieved. I thought my tastes had changed, that something was wrong with me.

How often do our tastes change? They say every seven years, but it must be far more often than that. Either that, or our taste for a particular food changes every seven years, but not all foods. So, I might start liking coconut one year, and mint another, but not at the same time. What that means is that our tastes are changing all the time. That’s my nerdy theory, anyway!

When I bit into my protein bar a few weeks ago, it tasted absurdly sweet, like aspartame. I’m not into that at all, so I ate about three bites before casting it aside. Have you ever noticed that artificial sweeteners are often way too sweet? They just don’t taste good, not even to a dessert fanatic like me. There is such a thing as too much.

And too spicy, too. Kenny can eat food with any degree of heat, shrug, and say it’s not hot enough. Not me. I’m a total wimp. I take a bite of my favorite spicy crunchy salmon roll and have to down half a glass of water before eating another piece. Too much spice just ruins the flavor of the dish.

So not only do our tastes change, but they’re highly subjective. Never bother apologizing for your taste. If someone thinks you’re crazy because the thought of Thin Mints doesn’t get your heart racing with glee, tell them to get over it and enjoy having all the cookies to themselves. More for them!

And if you don’t like butterscotch, I’m not really sure what your problem is, but I accept it. Still, these bars are the very essence of butterscotch goodness, all chewy and thick and desirable. If you have no problem with butterscotch, get on this train, like, yesterday.

Look at how thick these guys are. I’m so proud of them. They have some real heft. Everyone loves a bar with bite. And they’re not only brown sugary, but they’re also full of butterscotch chips. I was very generous.

If you look closely at the pics, you’ll notice that the butterscotch chips on top are sort of melted-looking and bendy at the edges. That’s because I piled them on right after these bars came out of the oven. Butterscotch chips will pretty much hold their form unless you really force them not to, but if you put these on while the bars are hot, the chips will melt into the top of the bars and stay there, for the most part. Some will come off, and then you’ll eat them. It works either way.

When you’re done, you have a dessert bar to be proud of, something that is autumnal but that isn’t made out of apple or pumpkin. How’s that for change? After all, our tastes change all the time, and so should our treats. Getting stuck in a dessert rut is a big no-no. Embrace change!