In celebration of this momentous occasion, dear readers, I am happy to share with you a fantastic recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Bread. I’m also pleased to announce my very first VV Giveaway!!

The recipe in this post comes from one of my all-time favorite cookbooks – packed with vintage recipes, of course! It’s the Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking, and you can win this cookbook from Vintage Victuals! The Jesuits have a special place in my heart, as I am, in fact, the product of a Jesuit college education. You may recognize this book from earlier posts on Vintage Victuals.

This is a great resource full of tried-and-true bread recipes that one Jesuit priest gathered from Jesuits around the world through the course of his career as a Jesuit cook. It is also chock full of great breadmaking tips and cute stories about the origins and stories that each recipe brings to the writer’s mind. It reminds me a lot of what I love best about cooking and baking – the stories and families that come together around food.

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Have I ever mentioned that my brothers are a little bit silly? Yeah, they used to sing “Chicky-Chicky-Parm, Chicky-Chicky-Parm” whenever my mom would make us Chicken Parmesan. And they always did it with this incredibly catchy but annoying rhythm to it. So now I’m cursed because what I think of every time I have Chicken Parmesan!!

Here is an easy and “lighter” (i.e. not fried) version of this dish that you can make in the crock pot. It even came out pretty crispy on the top. Don’t ya just love it when things are easy AND delicious?!

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day, dear readers! As I may have mentioned before, I come from a very strong Irish bloodline, and March 17th is a day to celebrate. Tonight we celebrated our Irish heritage a few days early with wonderful friends and delicious food. I was in charge of the soda bread. I found a great recipe in a book I found recently at a book fair. It was a major crowd pleaser and an excellent accompaniment to our corned beef and cabbage!

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As I’ve mentioned a few times now, I have a mostly Irish heritage. So today is a fun and festive day in my family when we celebrate with food and friends! Here is what I put in my crock pot this morning. As opposed to a London Broil, I like to call this a Dublin Boil.

Here is what my crock pot probably looks like right now, bubbling away in my kitchen:

I can’t wait to get home and enjoy this overflowing, bountiful Irish feast!

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Here is a fun mini-muffin recipe that I made with some more ripe bananas I wanted to use up. It is based on my Banana Cake recipe, but I’ve added nuts and spices to make a tender, hearty, cozy morning treat.

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I’m going to be completely honest with you, dear readers. I love to bake. But I also love to bake quickly. Nanny can tell you plenty of stories about how fast I can throw a pie together. So it makes perfect sense that some of my favorite recipes are what I like to call “dump and mix” recipes. Basically, the directions on these recipes read something like this:

“Preheat your oven and grease the pan. Dump all the ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Bake for 30 minutes and enjoy.”

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Over the past few months I’ve gotten some questions from readers about what “Mexicorn” is. It appears as an ingredient in several of my recipes. It’s produced by Green Giant – simply a mixture of corn, bell peppers, onion, and seasoning.

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Here is another of our favorite turkey burgers that hubby and i love to grill up on a mild spring evening. The idea for the grilled granny smiths was inspired by a Bobby Flay recipe that I came across – but we changed the cheese and added some extra flavor to the burger patties. The ingredients may sound like an odd combination but trust me, dear readers – they come together beautifully!

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Here is a recipe from my husband’s side of the family. As I may have mentioned before, my mother-in-law is an amazing cook. She found the inspiration for this recipe in a magazine when my husband was a baby. It’s evolved over the years into a family favorite, which my husband made for me for the very first time this week. Let’s just say, I’m a believer in Chicken Squares now. The crusty, flaky, buttery pastry opens to reveal a molten hot filling of creamy, cheesy, fragrant chicken. Be careful, because these little babies are addictively good.

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I love black beans, and it’s still cold enough here in Georgia to justify my cravings for nice, hot, steaming bowls of soup. Heck – we even have snow on the ground, lingering after the storm that dumped 6 inches on our little town over the weekend! This is exciting for those of us who only see a light dusting once a year or so!

So I wanted a hearty, chunky black bean soup to warm us up. Forget all of your wimpy pureed soups – this soup is thick, filling, and delicious! Here is what I came up with!

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