“It smells like fall in here,” Joey announced this weekend when he came home to the scent of fresh cinnamon brownies in our kitchen. I forget that cinnamon normally evokes a cold weather feeling from people. I’ll eat it any time of year. Find me some cinnamon ice cream, and I’d be all in. But …
Continue reading “Brownies prove spices not ‘cinnamon’ous with fall”
I recently came across a photo of an adorable indoor herb garden and immediately became interested in having one myself. I’m not much of a gardener, and I’m enough of a nerd that I love research, so I have spent more time than I’d like to admit over the past few weeks looking at which …
Continue reading “It’ll be tough to ‘leaf’ leftovers of basil sausage soup”
Early on in our marriage, Joey told me he loves Boston cream pie, and I kept that in the back of my mind for a long time as a recipe I should try to make for him. But then I didn’t. I think it’s probably because I often balk at making layer cakes, as though …
With heat advisories peppering the weather reports this past week, I found myself in serious need of a cool, summer dessert that wouldn’t heat my kitchen past its breaking point. I guess I didn’t really “need” it, but when the heat index is pushing into the triple digits, I often search for something sweet to …
Continue reading “Gelatin pie will make you say ‘Jell-O, there’”
When I was in grade school, our family used to frequent a now defunct Mexican restaurant called Zaki’s. For some reason, at that age, I was particularly fond of making bets with my dad, and I can remember two challenges that centered on that restaurant in particular. The first was a bet I won. The …
Continue reading “Deciding to make enchiladas an open and shut ‘queso’”
My sister and I have a fundamental difference in opinion when it comes to potatoes in Mexican food. I’m in the “absolutely” camp, and she’s in the “never, ever” camp. I discovered this philosophical divergence one day when I recommended a local restaurant’s chorizo and potato fried tacos to her, and we were both shocked …
Continue reading “Expand your ‘chorizo’ns with potato tacos”
I have apparently been misinformed about the difference between scalloped potatoes and potatoes au gratin for my entire life. I always thought they both had cheese involved. But after I decided recently to make scalloped potatoes, I discovered that the dish has no cheese at all, and it led me down a rabbit hole of …
While hunting for something in the freezer recently, I caused a bit of an avalanche of frozen food and discovered a bag of caramel bits tucked away on the bottom that I was gifted a few weeks ago by someone cleaning out their pantry. I’ve never used caramel bits in baking before, and although I …
Continue reading “You’ll love these caramel apple cookies to bits”
A couple weeks ago, our family gathered around my maternal grandmother’s table, enjoying a meal with her along with all of the cousins and their children and spouses present. It was sometimes a bit loud and boisterous, and there was plenty of laughter as we all ate way too much while telling stories and catching …
Continue reading “It’s tough to see one more empty seat at the table”
I absolutely adore green beans. They’ve been near the top of my favorite veggies list since I was little. My normal ways of preparing them is to open a can, dump them in a microwave-safe container with some salt and pepper and heat them up or to fry up some bits of bacon in a …
Continue reading “I finally found the cooking method I’ve ‘bean’ looking for”
