Saturday Pancake Pie

‘Cause I’ve got a golden weekend! I’ve got a golden chance to make my way. And with a golden weekend it’s a golden day…. A Saturday morning at home has the verve of toddlerhood possibility. Of course, such freedom and possibility must start with a homemade pancake. An homage to Festus and Pancake Pie.  Followed […]

Mocha Bundt Cake

Glorious Springtime Weekend. Planting seeds by day, House of Cards by night. There is a new chicken at the Hammer ranch, Juicy. She’s a beauty. And a new flower post fashioned from a PVC pipe, hole punched and spray-painted and stacked with petunias and other bloomers. Pretty sure this is un-waterable…. didn’t think about that […]

Double Chocolate Mocha Cookies

The inception of the Year of Chocolate was the gift of the Theo Chocolate cookbook which inspires this week’s chocolate special: caffeinated dark chocolate cookies. Just the thing to keep my eyes open on the ICU night watch this week. Thank you for this cookbook, Marilyn! And the baking chocolate! #7 Gooey Double Chocolate Mocha […]

King Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Filling

The Mardi Gras season is here! For this week’s chocolate dish, I have elected to bake a king cake with chocolate filling, a traditional Mardi Gras dessert. For most of the rest of the country, the seasonal party-energy build up is around the Christmas and New Year holiday, but for New Orleans, Yuletide is but […]

Whole Wheat Challah Back Girl

“Education doesn’t make you happy. Nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we’re free – if we are. Or because we’ve been educated – if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears, tells us where delights are lurking, […]

Sachertorte, or the Drunk Sand Castle Project

I’m totally in over my head with this new baking group. Last time I made chimney cake. Now this. I spent four hours of my Saturday spackling this cake into the unimpressive mound you see here in this photograph. No shortcuts, every last moment of this project was painstaking–[See: straining apricot chunks out of boiled […]

Shrimp and Sausage Stew for the Beast

Worst food photography ever on this stew, the word itself lending a sort of downturned mouth onomatopoeia effect, stew…ew. Rather than lead off with an unappetizing photograph of my tasty, hearty autumn gruel, I’ve chosen to provide a charming foreshadowing of Hallow’s Eve at our house, with my chunky little Beast (Beauty in her yellow […]

Cauliflower Steaks with Salsa Verde and M&M Conditioning

M&Ms are the reason I learned to defecate properly. This isn’t an IBS biofeedback story, I’m referring to potty-training. My mother used M&Ms as incentive, and the operant conditioning worked. In fact, I even got M&Ms for leading my brother to the trough, so to speak. M&Ms by pooping proxy. Fast-forward from two to twenty-nine, […]

Dark Chocolate No Bake Cookies

Just returned from the yard where the chickens are gracing the grass with their morning constitution. Reminded me that I forgot to post these tasty little nuggets way back when I made them this spring. Not so photogenic, but good. Dark Chocolate No-Bakes, or as my Grandmother Used to Say, “Cat Yummies” Adapted from Penzeys […]

Tartine-Style Polenta Cornbread and Tomato Sauces

Mix it till it looks like quicksand, he’d say. Till it moves like a slow song sounds. Patricia Smith’s description of making cornbread with her father is perfect. Dough churning like a slow song sounds, smooth but with grit and fleck. I’ve made cornbread so many many ways. In waffles with chili, on a skillet […]