Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers!!
Here in the United States, we are celebrating Thanksgiving, the harvest, our families, delicious food, and life in general. This recipe celebrates all of those, fully and simultaneously.
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One of my very first cookbooks when I was a little girl was the Care Bears Party Cook Book. It had lots of kid-friendly recipes for fun and festive treats. To this day, I still make a dessert that is based on a recipe from this cookbook. It’s called Cloud Cake. I have included the original recipe and my simplified version below.
I usually make this light and easy dessert with just strawberries, but for the Fourth of July? Red White and Blue Cloud Cake just seemed right!
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Don’t you love that blueberry running down
my oh-so retro-foil muffin liner?
Try not to drool on your keyboard, kay?
This fruit dip is absolutely addictive. My sister-in-law makes it for us on occasion, and it works great as either an appetizer, dessert, or summer afternoon snack. I was so excited that she agreed to let me blog it when she made it for Mother’s Day this weekend! There was a good bit of impatience and teasing aimed in my general direction as I snapped these photos – the whole family loves this stuff – but I think you will agree, dear readers, that it was worth it.
You will not believe how tasty this dip is. Plus, you know me, friends, and you KNOW how I love an *unexpected ingredient* – check out what makes this recipe so special! Good ol’ fashioned Tang!
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I can still remember the Christmas gift exchange we had in elementary school when I was in Third Grade. We all brought in small, generic gifts. Then we drew the name of a classmate and exchanged gifts with them. And I still have the gift that I got: the Gold Medal Alpha-Bakery Cookbook!
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I found this excellent cookbook at a book fair recently called “The Meats Cookbook” – it’s from the early ’70s, published by Southern Living and Progressive Farmer. It is so much fun to look through – with instructions on how to cook every cut of meat you could possibly imagine! And the recipes are definitely old-fashioned! I found one that appealed to me, mainly because it combined two rather unusual ingredients: corn chips and hominy. Well, I souped it up a little bit with some extra veggies and some different kinds of cheese, and it turned out to be amazing.
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Happy Earth Day, dear readers!
In celebration of this special day, my hubby and I made a fun Flower Pot “Cake” – ain’t it purty? Okay, so you’re supposed to make it in an actual flower pot, but I thought it would be so much fun to be able to see all the pretty sedimentary layers of sweetness.
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The key to the perfect trail mix is to hit that ration of sweet-n-savory right on the nose. Here, the sweet tartness of dried fruits and chocolate compliments the salty pretzels, nuts, and goldfish. The combination of textures and flavors is so satisfying – perfect for an extra energy boost on the run.
One of my culinary inspirations growing up was Nathalie Dupree. Her cooking show on TV was one of my favorites, and to this day, I swear by her cookbook New Southern Cooking. But the best thing about her show was that things didn’t have to be perfect. She would spill a little flour on the counter, pick egg shells out of the bowl, or maybe get a few cake crumbs stuck in the frosting. But that was alright – it almost made it better, more homemade.
I think I need to start out by admitting the truth: I love Alton Brown. I have even considered going to stalk him in the finer grocery stores of north Atlanta. I’ve always been a bit of a science nerd, so his scientific approach to cooking and baking really appeals to me. I’ve been wanting to try his recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies, and over the weekend, I got my chance! They turned out beautifully – fluffy, doughy, chewy, delicious.