Save yourself three bucks and a trip to Starbucks, and instead invite some friends over for coffee at your house and serve up these outstandingly delicious cranberry-studded pumpkin scones using this recipe, modeled very closely after the exquisite (and hugely popular) pastry served up at your “local neighborhood Starbucks” (although I do believe that is, in fact, an oxymoron).

Get your tastebuds and a tall glass of milk ready (dairy, soy, rice or otherwise): these are chocolate chip cookies, the chips gone wild edition. Slightly crisp, with a soft, chewy, melt-in-your mouth inside and three types of chocolate in the chips, the classic cookie has been kicked up a notch.

Brownies are fabulous. Turtle candies are divine. And anything that melds these two all-time favorite treats can only be described as supernatural. So in this recipe, the dense, rich, chocolaty goodness of your classic brownie collides in a beautiful union with the sweet, chewy caramel, milk chocolate chunks, and famous pecan crunch that we all love about turtle candies.

These date squares are sweet, chewy, crumbly, messy, and a little bit tangy thanks to the yummy, lemon-spiked medjool date purée sandwiched between a buttery crumble crust. Lemon juice takes the edge off the potentially sickening sweetness of the dates, and butter is… well, butter — enough said.  But honestly, you could eat a medjool date sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard and it would still kick an ordinary date square’s butt.

The center aisles and frozen foods sections of the typical grocery store are testament to the sad and unhealthy alienation of North Americans from the food we eat and the kitchens in which we used to actually cook it. I could go on for days about the shocking “convenience” foods I’ve witnessed whilst strolling through the supermarket: pre-packaged hard-boiled eggs, sliced and cored apples suffocated individually in sheaths of plastic, and vacuum-packed, pre-formed, uncooked meatballs, to name a few. But nestled near the top of the list of these culinary travesties lie box upon box of pancake mix, for these breakfast staples are ridiculously easy to make — even on a weekday.