Tastespotting. It's that good.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Tastespotting? If you haven't ever been there, go right now. I'll wait....

(taps foot, hums a tune)

...did you try it? Actually, if you'd never seen the site and you clicked over you'll probably be there for a while and won't come back to this post so I should have said goodbye.

Anyhoo...

If you haven't seen it before it is basically a foodie site. It hosts a million (ok, not literally) but a LOT of pictures from food sites anywhere in the world that you can click on and be sent to a corresponding site to find the recipe. I could spend hours clicking from page to page, opening tab after tab after tab, exploring the various sites, going back to tastespotting, finding more pictures, which leads to more sites...you can get lost after a while if you're not careful but I love getting lost in that world. What makes it even better? I notice that a VAST majority of those pictures/recipes are of sweets. Brownies, cheesecake, muffins, cupcakes, cookies, ice cream, tarts, chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate...and hence my addiction. It is a well-established fact that I am a lover of baking. I'm not fabulous at it, but you can nearly always find some sort of baked good at my house. And I love that. I want people to come to my home and be able to look forward to something sweet or gooey or moist or chocolatey, as long as it is homemade. OK, there is plenty of the other stuff at tastespotting--rices, salsas, salads, meats, veggies, grilling, you name it. But I have to confess I usually pass over most of those (except the Asian dishes--most of them come from authentic Asian sites so the people actually know what they're doing--I tend to pay attention to those) in favor of the baked goods. It's the chocolate. I can't get enough.

For example, after putting kids to bed this evening I decided to relax by browsing through tastespotting. And after looking at just 2 pages I had opened up separate tabs for blueberry cheesecake squares, peanut butter cookies, bruschetta, spicy coconut noodles, spicy sesame-roasted sweet potato chips, some sort of chocolate cake and a couple others that I can't remember because my brain is full of recipes right now. Then, if something catches my eye on the food site I'm on (like the one for blueberry cheesecake) I wander around that site for a while until I remember what I was doing and find myself back at tastespotting, looking at luscious pictures and dreaming about making dessert tomorrow. In fact, just writing about it, looking at the pictures again, I may not be able to wait. If I start something now (around 9:30pm) what are the odds I'll finish and be in bed by a reasonable hour? And what are the odds that I won't eat half of the goodies right before bedtime? Hmmm...all signs point to slim-to-none.

I think I'm OK with that.

Speaking of food sites, I also find some great things at Tasty Kitchen, like these Muffins That Taste Like Doughnuts that I made this week and were, I kid you not, one of the EASIEST recipes in existence, and were also one of the best things I've ever made in my life. Seriously, try them TODAY. This has been a public service announcement.