I took this week off from work. Didn't go anywhere, just hung around the house, puttered, tried new recipes, sat in the big soft brown chair and read. It was perfect. I managed to rouse myself to invite some friends over for dinner. I love midweek dinner parties because it's such a luxury to [...]
I found myself with a half gallon of milk that was two days from it's expiration date which is really odd in my house. Both Bob and Claire are cereal eaters and typically I can't stay on top of the milk consumption, but for some reason, they've switched breakfast foods. My first thought was [...]
And Class #5 Hmmmm....chocolate! Even the word sounds rich and round and satisfying. Chocolate came up frequently on the survey I sent to students before the cooking class began. We devoted one class to it, but in fact we could have devoted a whole semester to it. Chocolate is a very complex subject matter [...]
Class # 2 - Paella I took a survey of students prior to the class to see what folks wanted to learn. Many people said they wanted to learn more about seafood so I chose Paella as our topic since it would allow me an opportunity to discuss many food related things [...]
In my desire to throw myself head first into fall, I’ve been obsessing on some kind of apple dessert. Not cakes, something moist and very, very apply. I became intrigued with making an apple clafouti but loaded with sliced apples, baked in a spring form pan instead of the classic pie pan or gratin [...]
This is the time of year for baking and for apples. Last week a friend forwarded a link from the Letters From a Hill Farm blog which featured a buttermilk apple snack cake. I received the link on Friday and of course baked the cake first thing Saturday morning, and I do mean first [...]
Throughout France and many upscale restaurants Gougere are considered an appetizer but in our home they are considered breakfast! Gougere are made from pat a choux dough the same dough that is used for cream puffs, but instead of being sweet the dough has cheese and/or chives, onions, garlic in them. Whatever you feel [...]
This is an old family favorite. I'm sure the original recipe came from the Pillsbury Bake-Off cookbook series. They were my mothers constant companion when it came to baking. Mom was a great baker and she taught me how to read a recipe so that I choose the best ones. One of her tips [...]
Since we are such fans of the Vanilla Coconut Sugar Shortbread it was an easy leap to this recipe. I wanted to try coconut sugar’s caramel-like flavor in a chocolate cookie. Using a standard shortbread formula I added cocoa as part of the dry ingredients and flaked coconut to give the cookies some texture, [...]
Being a sucker for a flourless chocolate cake, and being a sucker for trying different kinds of flours in recipes it was no surprise that I would be smitten with this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I like the texture of it. I beat it long as suggested on the recipe to make sure [...]
