Sugar cookies are not just for Christmas, although this dough is my go-to during the ho-ho-holidays. Let’s let pumpkins steal a little sparkle from the yuletide for a change, shall we? Halloween deserves its own day. Yet, just getting to Halloween items in stores requires wading through acres of fake pine swags and elf statuary…
Category: Desserts
Fudgy Brownies
No pan of brownies is safe. No 9×13-inch cake can escape. No baked good with a side will survive this fiend’s preference for dessert from the center of the pan. She rips the heart out of them all without remorse, because she doesn’t like crispy edges. This menace has a name, but I call her…
Chocolate Meringue Pie
If you come to my house for dinner, you’ll eat well, but you’ll eat late. No matter what preparations I make in advance, I cannot seem to get food on the table in a decent amount of time. We’ll have fun, we’ll talk and laugh, I’ll offer you an appetizer and something to drink while…
Bigger, Better Rice Krispies Treats
Sometimes the craving for a sugary, sticky treat hits without warning, and it must be addressed. I came home from Walmart Tuesday with mundane stuff that was on my list (printer paper, milk, green bell peppers, whole wheat bread) and exciting stuff that was decidedly not (Rice Krispies® and marshmallows!). I had a pan of…
Blueberry Pie
The blueberries I bought for this pie on Friday were luscious. We’re at the height of blueberry season in Arkansas now, and these beauties came with stems and leaves as evidence of their truck farm origins. Sourced by a local produce stand, they were bursting with so much flavor that I might as well have…
Peanut Butter Cookies and (Shrunken) Shrimp Salad
(Thursday, July 18) Reversing my car down the driveway as I headed to the grocery store this morning, I backed into the 64-gallon recycling bin that I’d wheeled out for pick-up last night, knocking it over and sending milk cartons, empty jam jars, wine bottles, and garbanzo bean cans clattering into the street. The noise…
Lime Cheesecake Bars
Hello, Reader. Please excuse my absence. I’ve been in Paradise. ♦ ♦ ♦ Now I’m back, welcomed home with flowers and hummus and happy dogs. Life is good. Viscount David Linley, grandson of a king and son of a princess, was asked once why he chose to make his vacation home on property in the middle of…
Half-a-Pound Cake with Fresh Strawberries
I bought two flats (total weight, about 10 pounds) of strawberries earlier this month so that I could make preserves. It’s not a cost-saving measure to make my own. Ounce for ounce, just about any jar of strawberry jam at a grocery store is much cheaper. But store-bought jam doesn’t taste remotely like what you…
Crunchy Peanut Bars
If you have a cat, maybe you keep a little disposable cup on the side of the bathroom sink, so that your cat can get a fresh drink while you brush your teeth. And maybe at some point you’ve confused your cup with his and accidentally taken your morning blood pressure meds with a swig…
Orange-Chocolate Mini-Chip Cake
I like to give a cake plate with a glass dome as a wedding present. Simultaneously useful and beautiful, a cake plate and dome promises good times ahead and a lifetime of celebrations to share. And it keeps your cake fresh and the flies off. What could be better? At the check-out counter of a…
Cookbook Wall 