No sweeter three words…

Deep. Fried. Chicken. There are no sweeter words than these when used together. (I. Love. You. is a close second, though.) Fried chicken is my all-time favorite comfort food. Not favorite food, mind you, that would be a hamburger — Dad’s hamburger to be more specific.
Growing up, fried chicken was a weekly staple. I can’t [...]

Pear Fetish…

Perhaps I do have a fetish with pears…this is the second pear post I’ve written this year. (See French Butter Pears from September).
I really think my infliction is not a pear fetish, but a “new ingredient” fetish. As I’m strolling (or whizzing if I’m in a hurry) through the grocery aisles, my built-in food curiosity [...]

Fashion Statement?

Whoever took this picture needs to take a class on self-portraits. I’m only sharing this awful picture of me because it relates to the coolest and most effective kitchen toy I’ve found in years… and I did find this a couple years ago, but now Onion Goggles are all the rage.
I snapped this picture for [...]

Eggs-cellent dish…

Perhaps you are wondering why I’m not showing an image of the meal I’m about to describe?
Here’s why: a.) the said meal was made when the lighting wasn’t good, and b.) said meal did not make a pretty picture regardless of the lighting… and therefore would not do justice to the wonderfulness of it all.
So, [...]

Cardamom Pods…

“Do you have any cardamom? Not ground but the whole pods,” my friend asks as we’re walking our dogs. I run through a mental picture of my spice cabinet, and land on the little bottle of green cardamom I bought a while back at Penzeys Spice Company.
“Yes, I do,” I say, “but they’re green, not [...]

Cranberry Pumpkin Dip…

Going to a holiday party and looking for a dip to take? If you have a leftover can of pumpkin puree from Thanksgiving, here’s a simple recipe worth opening the can for.
A 15 oz. can contains almost 1-3/4 cups of pumpkin, so you’ll have about 1-1/4 cups of pumpkin left over. Most quick bread recipes [...]

A Tale of Two Cornbreads

Cornbread is nothing more than a quick bread. And in some parts of the South, it’s just as sweet, which was a shock to me the first time I tasted my husband’s cornbread after we first married (when he did all the cooking because I didn’t know how.)
He opened a box of Jiffy and whipped [...]

After the fact…

Who does a postmortem after Thanksgiving? Apparently, we do. There we were with notepad in hand, surveying the Thanksgiving buffet line. “Next year, we need half as many sweet potatoes,” I said, looking at the less than half empty 9 X 13 dish of sweet potatoes, still covered with caramel brown marshmallows.
“And let’s not forget [...]