Sniffing Around

I love surfing other food blogs; they give me ideas, inspiration, and motivation. Here's some of the best of the Internet from the past week or so:

Ever since I went to England, I've had a thing for shortbread. Nicole of Baking Bites has posted a delicious-looking recipe for Strawberry Pecan Shortbread Crumble Bars, and I can't wait to satisfy my undying hunger for shortbread with this new twist. And what an appetizing photo to drool over!

Isn't fresh fruit just wonderful? Berries are probably my favorite, so, as you can imagine, summer blogsurfing yields a ton of berry recipes for every reader, especially me, to enjoy, including Raspberry Buttermilk Pancakes over at Use Real Butter. Jen, the blog's author, added some particularly stunning photos of nature, family, and food to go along with the recipe, so be sure to check those out, too!

But enough about berries, delicious as they may be, and on to cherries. Now, I don't particularly like to eat cherries in their purest form, but I do love them in pie! Deb of Smitten Kitchen recently featured a Sweet Cherry Pie that I'm just dying to make! (Deb is fearless with a cherry pitter, not like me, who wimps out and buys canned cherries for pie.) I don't know how she takes food photos like this, and just look at that flaky pie crust. Mmm...

Okay, I may have been a little hasty in that last paragraph--I don't like cherries, for sure, but I've never tried them in cake. Enter the Cherry Jam Cake at Culinary Concoctions by Peabody; this cake looks very tasty, with a very deep flavor due to that lovely syrupy glaze, which Peabody captures perfectly in her photography. Not to mention a great Saturday Night Live reference that made me smile.

And finally, I guess we have to have something savory to round everything out, don't we? Well, have I found a sandwich for you: Croque-madame, found at The Way the Cookie Crumbles. I admit, I've never had a Croque-madame, but this one looks suitably rich and, to sum it up, amazing. My mouth is watering just looking at that first photo...and all the other ones, of course!