If you have Jack Johnson music stuck in your head, the only cure is to make banana pancakes and pretend that it's the weekend.

It's a BIG DAY here in the Starving Chef's household! That's right, Luna turned ONE today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOONEY LUNA!

I'm not sure how I've been on the earth for almost twenty-seven years and it took me twenty-five years to learn of the existence of pillow cookies. Then another two years to actually make them for myself. If you don't know what a pillow cookie is - hold on to your oven mitts. They are literally chocolate chip cookies STUFFED WITH BROWNIES. AND OMG THEY ARE SO EASY TO MAKE.

We need to talk about dim sum. First of all, no Chinese food order would be complete without some, whether you order spring rolls or dumplings, many Americanized Chinese food "sides" are traditionally considered dim sum. But did you know there's a wide range of breakfast dim sum?

Even though the weather would have you think it is still summer, we are already weeks into fall and on our merry way to winter. Despite the heat, I'm in full blown "soup mode" and am looking for any excuse to whip some up. To convince myself it is really fall, I made a sweet potato stew packed full of autumn flavor.

Every once in a while, I get the midnight munchies. And because we generally don't keep many snack items around our house, I'm 'forced' to make something for myself. Fortunately, we always have a good supply of corn kernels for popping in our stove top popper - and an assortment of fun ingredients to flavor it with.