Maybe you’re thinking now would be a good time to read about Christmas cookies. I’ll get to that another day. However, a nice frozen margarita is a year-round necessity. Consider this post a public service announcement. ♦ ♦ ♦ AUSTIN, TEXAS. I wanted to know what a moontower looked like. First born wanted to taste a freshly-made…
Author: cookbookwall
Lunchroom Rolls
Thanksgiving is nigh. I’m not ready. Usually my grocery list for this epic dinner is pages long, listing ingredients for new dishes and old favorites. It’s too much. This is not the year for it. My standbys will be on the table: a roasted turkey breast (we’re not fond of the rest of the bird…
(Fresh) Spinach and Artichoke Dip
Four hundred twenty-six trick-or-treaters pulling one’s bell rope can make a witch grumpy. At my cottage, we can’t beat ’em, so we join ’em! Halloween 2012, by the numbers: 25 pounds of fun-size candy bars, the good kind (Snickers, Twix, Heath Bars, et cetera) for the hordes of costumed children who descended on my patch…
Pumpkin Brownies
If you had a chance to shop for chrysanthemums with a chihuahua riding shotgun in a flower pot, wouldn’t you do it? I did. It’s fun. And if you could dig into a luscious pumpkin brownie crowned with orange-flavored cream cheese frosting, wouldn’t you do that? You should. It’s delicious. That’s not such a stretch…
Baked Apples
Food doesn’t get much more straight-forward than this, and autumn is the perfect time for it. Let me introduce you to Baked Apples, something I consider a treat but which makes my husband, an apple-hater of some renown, recoil. Pay him no mind. These are delicious. No bonnet, pinafore, or gingham apron is necessary to make these…
Ground Beef Stroganoff made with You-Know-What
It’s no secret. I have three cans of the stuff in my pantry right now. I made dinner with it tonight, and it was good. First born texted a request for the recipe; Last born ate a plate of it and took the leftovers home. I made this all through their growing-up years, because their…
Two-Rice Pilaf with Grapes
This night’s dinner was a variation on a theme of green and white. The menu: Cornish game hens roasted with herb butter under the skin Wild and white rice pilaf with green grapes and fresh rosemary Roasted cauliflower Spinach and feta cheese rolls from a great local bakery I love green. The game hens and…
Pumpkin Pie Follies at the Arkansas State Fair
Some of the nicest people I’ve ever met were my competitors at the First Lady’s Pie Contest at the Arkansas State Fair. They greeted me with smiles, they tried to help me, and then they trounced me. I can’t even trash-talk their pies, because contestants got small tastes of everyone’s entries after the governor’s wife…
Here’s your other banana bread recipe.
Weren’t you looking for one? This recipe is adapted from a local community cookbook, Rave Reviews by the Junior League of North Little Rock (© 1982). Banana bread recipes are everywhere, but this one has crushed pineapple in it, and that makes it sing. I reduce the fat by substituting a single-serving package of unsweetened…
Cranberry-Orange Scones
Bits of the old country weave in and out of my cooking. My mother was British, and while she became adept at frying chicken parts and stuffing Thanksgiving turkeys to feed her American family, from her kitchen occasionally came treats like sausage rolls, trifles, and Bakewell tarts. Her scones were plain, lightly sweetened, and usually…
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