There’s a phrase we often hear when we travel north: Minnesota Nice. It refers to how friendly the folks in Minnesota are, and that’s especially true when you visit in the summer months. After being snowed in and freezing in sub-zero temperatures all winter, they are ready to go out and about and are happy …
Continue reading “‘Chew’se a chocolate-free bar cookie for your summer treat”
If you didn’t know, we recently celebrated the first-ever “Local News Day” on April 9. The effort to observe local journalists around the country came from a push in Montana. In Newton, we had a small, but mighty, group of community members who stood outside our office with signs, touting the importance of having a …
Continue reading “There’s no doubt you should cobble together dessert this week”
The National Pecan Shellers Association has a wealth of knowledge about pecans on its website. One of the items that interested me the most is that the pecan tree is the only major nut tree native to North America. I thought that was strange, because I know quite a few nuts who were born here, …
Continue reading “Raise the bar with a dangerously easy pecan dessert”
Someone told me last week that I don’t really qualify as an amateur baker, since I’ve been writing this column way too long for that, but I still claim the title, especially after taking on a recent huge project. A dear friend of the newspaper, Debbie Pierce, celebrated her retirement last week, and since we …
Continue reading “Cupcakes the best way to say ‘auf Wiedersehn’ to a good friend”
It must have been sometime when I was in middle school that a family acquaintance gifted us with a basket of homemade goodies during the holidays. Most of the items were run-of-the-mill, well-done treats, but there was one none of us could identify initially. Upon further inspection, we discovered a sweet that none of us …
Continue reading “Overcome old assumptions with something sc‘rum’ptious”
When I was a teacher, I often said that I wished I could have a day or so to audit my colleagues’ classes, just to get a feel for their style and methods. I had a bucket list of people I would have loved to sit in on to learn some tricks of the trade. …
Continue reading “This is a really ‘yammy’ way to eat sweet potatoes”
One of the benefits of being married for as long as Joey and I have is that there are times when I can perfectly judge what his reaction to a recipe will be before I even make it. When I spotted this week’s recipe—featuring cherries, coconut and pecans—online, I knew I had a hit on …
Continue reading “‘Chews’ something sweet and nutty this week”
If you have been reading my column for very long, you might remember a fancy lemon tart I made last year about this time. It was a French recipe and included making everything from scratch. I decided to try it as a donation to one of our local non-profits, Peace Connections, for their annual soup …
Continue reading “This gooey, fancy souffle can’t possibly fall flat”
We had a bit of a scaled-down celebration for Christmas this year, with several of our family members traveling outside of Kansas, so I very carefully considered what treats I would be making. Normally, I overdo it with several types of candies and baked goods to share, but knowing that our group would be a …
Continue reading “Become ‘nut’orious for simple pecan brownies”
The names people choose for recipes often crack me up. There’s the embarrassing-to-talk-about “better than sex” or “sex in a pan” variety of dishes, followed by “blue-ribbon” and “award-winning” options, and of course, there are a million recipes purporting to be “Mom’s” or “Grandma’s,” although few identify which matriarch those actually belong to. So you’ll …
