Category: baking

Just like mom used to make.

8 Comments

It’s official – my baby girl is a full fledged teenager now.  To celebrate, she wanted a cupcake decorating party, similar to what one of the local cupcake shops hosts, only she wanted it here, because according to her, my frosting is better than any cupcake shop in town.  Which makes me so irrationally happy I can’t stand it.  She is after all, a teenager now, so I am incredibly annoying, horribly embarrassing at times and other times just beyond ridiculous, but I still make the best frosting in town.  I call that a small triumph.

Continue reading →

My version of Uncle Kevin’s Oyster Stew.

7 Comments

One of our holiday traditions is Uncle Kevin’s Oyster Stew.  Years past, he’s always had a nice big pot of it simmering on the stove welcoming us when we arrive for Thanksgiving eve. This year found me in charge of the oyster stew, stemming out of our offer to bring some of Smiley’s oysters for the purpose of making said stew. Uncle Kevin is not the sort who cooks from recipes nor is he the sort of make the same thing exactly the same way twice, so there was some wiggle room in how I made it. He sent me a link to a recipe that he thinks his was based on once upon a time. I took a brief glance at it and then went about making oyster stew the way I’ve been making it for a few years now, based on his as I know it.

DSCN7410 Continue reading →

It tasted good. And that’s what matters.

5 Comments

I had every intention of showing you photos of the cakes I baked for a party this past weekend, but in the latest episode of my camera drama, it seems the photos I took disappeared into the netherworld.  Not one of the shots I took of the baking process Saturday night, the frosting process Sunday morning or the actual finished cakes Sunday afternoon is anywhere to be found on my camera or memory card.  None.  Clearly, my trusty old point & shoot is not as trusty as I though.

DSCN6770 Continue reading →

The great hand pie fiasco

6 Comments

I told Edie I’d make her a cherry pie with fresh cherries.  I’ve long had the itch to make hand pies and thought this was the perfect opportunity to have at it.  I googled a few recipes, but figured, hey, it’s pie that fits in your hand.  I know how to make pie, so I will just use my regular crust recipe and make them hand sized. Continue reading →

Strawberry Rhubarb “Pie”

6 Comments

As the banner strawberry season continued, I started looking for ways in which we had not yet eaten our bounty.  Edie suggested strawberry rhubarb pie.  I still had a tub of the creamy frozen delight that was otherwise known as strawberry ice cream fail that would pair wonderfully with a pie.  However, as I found myself in the kitchen the other afternoon, I realized I just wasn’t in the mood to make a pie crust.  I know I claim they are easy peasy, but I had spent the better part of the last two days working in both gardens, finally getting them both in for the summer growing season,  I had picked up the house and had a batch of bread rising.  Pie just seemed to be slightly overly ambitious for one afternoon. Continue reading →

My first cookbook.

8 Comments

Picture 317The first cookbook I was ever given was the Nancy Drew Cookbook.  I think it was a Christmas present one year, but I can’t really be sure. I remember cooking breakfast out of it in the old farmhouse my parents sold when I was 7. The blue dot on the cover is a color of paint used for the sets one of my professors volunteered me to design for the Miss Glomerata pageant one year in college. (The Glom is the college yearbook that apparently required a beauty pageant in its honor.) I have no clue how it landed on the cover of my oldest & dearest cookbook.

Continue reading →

Sort of in season.

7 Comments

Grandma’s fruitcake cookies are a holiday staple here. Which probably has you asking why I’m blogging about them in February, because everyone knows fruitcake is clearly a December holiday treat and not a February holiday treat.  In the hustle & bustle & multiple cookie swaps that were December, the cookies didn’t get made.  We had fourteen dozen cookies on hand – we didn’t need any more.  As we don’t share these cookies well there was no way they were getting made for a swap for us to only have a few left on hand.  No, we need the entire batch all to ourselves. Continue reading →

The year Pat saved Christmas dessert.

9 Comments

7:30 Christmas eve & I was in the home stretch.  Pat & Edie were cleaning up dinner dishes and I was heading upstairs to start wrapping.  It had been an impossibly long day that started with the snuggling of a baby pig in the kitchen of Farmer Tom when we went to pick up our freshly smoked Christmas dinner ham.

cookbooks 013After leaving the farm, we hit the grocery store for the forgotten holiday essentials like candy canes (it’s not a proper tree without them I was told) before heading home to start the baking & wrapping.  After a long afternoon of cooking, I was looking forward to calling it quits when that timer went off and I could pull the cake destined to be Christmas dessert out of the oven.  Continue reading →

College Football Food.

6 Comments

Saturday’s plan was to sit and watch college football most of the afternoon & evening, which never fails to inspire me to cook a big pot of something and maybe even bake a batch of bread to go along with whatever is in the pot.  This Saturday, with it’s line up of conference championships, inspired me to make some recipes from college friends. That and some Double H andouille sausage I picked up at the Holiday market.   Pat asked if I was going to make gumbo with the sausage.  Considering I have at least 3 different batches in the freezer and it not being a favorite of at least one household member who says watching football with her parents is sort of like this beer commercial, I decided against it. She was already in for a long day of football with us (First SEC Championship, then the ACC & Big 10 games) and I didn’t want to antagonize her.   Besides, gumbo takes time – not just the time to chop all those vegetables, make a broth and a roux, it needs to simmer for a few hours and is really best after all the flavors have had time to meld – next day gumbo is way better than fresh gumbo.  Instead, I went for jambalaya, which is infinitely easier and far quicker.  You can start chopping your veggies and an hour later, your jambalaya is ready to serve.  Not so with gumbo. Continue reading →