Baked eggs

Oh Mark,
On a lark I followed you on twitter. And yesterday afternoon, your post simply titled the recipe baked eggs with prosciutto and tomato. And really, tomato in December? I don't think so. But I was in Morgan and York, so I picked up a few heavenly slices of prosciutto di parma and brought them home. Now, I'm dreaming of eggs with cream.
I took my prosciutto and lined the bottom of my bowls with it. Tossed in some locavorious asparagus pieces, a splash of cream, and some salt and pepper. On top, I cracked an egg and set the bowls in a 400 degree oven.
The creaminess, the saltiness, the eggyness. I thought about making another one for breakfast this morning. I'll probably make one for lunch.
First Orangette convinced me that Lima beans (which I love) taste better simmered in heavy cream. She's right. And now, I'm baking my eggs with it too.

Just a few cookies

We planned to bake some cookies. In just over six hours, and with six kids at times helping, and at times detracting we finished 8 types of cookies. Added to the few I had made last week, there are a lot of cookies in the house.

Clockwise from top: My mom's raisin bars, coconut macaroons, chocolate chip and orange chocolate (Martha Stewart, Cookies), Triple Ginger Cookies (Bon Appetit, Dec 2009), salted langue-de-chat (Gourmet, Dec 2007) to-be-baked sables -- cocoa with sea salt and pepper, and spice (Dorie Greenspan, Baking from my home to Yours), chocolate peppermint bark cookies (Bon Appetit, Dec 2009), Malted Chocolate Sandwich cookies (Martha Stewart, Cookies), sugar rolled Sables, lemon cranberry florentines (Bon Appetit, Dec 2009), Allison's rum balls. Not pictured: ruglelah (Dorie Greenspan, Baking from my home to Yours)

We had a little bit of taste-testing last night. Allen's partial to the ginger cookies, I like the florentines and the rum balls, and the rugelah, and the sables... It depends on my mood.

We're going to make cutout cookies when school lets out, and I want to make the chocolate cherry cookies that Marsha recommended. There are probably a few others too...

TWD: Sables

Let the holiday baking begin!

DB Cannoli

Cannolipoleon with pumpkin and homemade ricotta chocolate chip filling

DB: Cannoli

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

The filling's in the fridge, and the fried cannoli are cooling on a plate. Are you drooling yet? Photos to follow.

Thanksgiving

I didn't make the turkey this year. If we had eaten at home, I don't know if I would have made the turkey. But for our feast with friends, I had a few things to contribute. We brought:
Pecan and Goat Cheese Marbles


Brussels Sprout Slaw



Oreo Turkeys (which didn't stay together this well)

Puff Pastry Pepperoni Pinwheels

and Creamed Onions from the Joy of Cooking. We didn't eat creamed onions at the holiday table when I was a kid, and we certainly didn't eat brussels sprouts. But after our decade in St. Louis, sharing Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle, I wouldn't have it any other way. Kiki always made this recipe, which might be as native to St.L as toasted ravioli. My one shortcut in this recipe is to use frozen, peeled onions.

Creamed Onions adapted from The Joy of Cooking

Boil water in large saucepan. Add 1 lb frozen baby onions and cook until just tender. Drain and set aside
In second saucepan, melt 1 1/2 tbsp butter. When butter has melted, stir in 1 1/2 tbsp flour and cook until lightly brown. Stir in 1/2 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 tsp salt, 1 1/2 cups milk ( I used skim) and 1 cup evaporated skim milk. Whisk over medium heat until sauce thickens.

Put onions in shallow casserole dish. Cover with sauce. Top with 1 cup shredded Swiss Cheese.
Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes -- until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly.

Thanks to epicurious and thrifyfun for the photos!

TWD: Holiday fruit cake

I love to give gifts, but only when I have found the right gift for the giftee. And sadly, it doesn't always line up with the gift-giving demands of the calendar and more often, with my budget. So right now, I'm all geeked about Nudo. That's right, it's open in my browser window right now as I ponder the fact that it's over my gift giving budget. But I digress.

My parents have always been gift givers. Christmas was, and still is, a big deal. For years, my dad baked loaves of bread for all of the neighbors and friends, and we'd head out on Christmas Eve to deliver them. When his schedule became too full, my mom would bake muffins, or make jam. And the reciprocity -- there were bottles of wine, and boxes of fruit and cheese, and poinsettias, from friends and associates. It's those tastes of the season that I remember -- and that have made me a loyal customer of Harry & David pears year after year. It brings a holiday giddiness that I have a hard time explaining.

I grew up not far Claxton, GA, which might be the fruit cake capital of the world. Claxton Fruit Cakes, too arrived many Christmas', bricks, or doorstops of a pound cake, loaded with red and green maraschino cherries and nuts. They took their place on the piano with chocolates and bottles of scotch. I imagine the shelf life of a fruitcake to be infinite, and honestly, I couldn't ever bring myself to take a bite.

Honestly, I wasn't psyched to see that Dorie had included a fruit cake recipe, but I whipped it up anyways. Added the maple syrup glaze, and send 3/4 of it off to work with A. I kept a wedge on the counter, thinking I take a picture. But with spur of the moment dessert guests, the cake was served. And enjoyed. I didn't want to tease you with a picture of the empty plate.

Drunken Beans

I've been ordering beans from Rancho Gordo for about a year and a half. They're so much tastier than grocery store varieties, which are often old and lack the texture and flavor of the heirloom beans. Every few months, I hop over to the website and order a half dozen or bags of beans. Yesterday, I simmered a pound of Yellow Indian Woman, planning to make them into a bean cakes for dinner.

As the day got away from me, however, my dish became a bit more streamlined. I dumped a can of beer in the pot of beans after they were cooked and let them simmer away. I sauteed some mushrooms, onions, and garlic in bacon grease. I whipped up a bit of guacamole with lime juice, smoked paprika, and aleppo pepper.

Layered in bowls, the beans were delicious. Meaty, full of flavor and with the added smokiness from the bacon fat and paprika they were just the thing on a November evening.

TWD: Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

My apologies to Mitch Albom, as it's been Wednesdays with Dorie around here lately. I know that I've spread myself a little bit thin when I run out of cinnamon. Seriously, now, I. Ran. Out. Of. Cinnamon. In the fall. It's one of my favorite spices, or really one of my favorite flavors, and I use multiple 8 oz Penzey's bags each year. So imagine my surprise when I went to make this recipe and found myself scraping the jar and raiding the cinnamon/sugar container to finish.

These gingersnaps were delicious. They were quick to make, and I stored half the dough in the fridge for more than a week before baking a second mini-batch. As everyone was eating them, dunked in cups of milk, I realized that I ought to take a picture. So here are the last three cookies, which hung around mere minutes after their photo shoot.

TWD: Cran-Apple Crisp

Love Crisp. Don't have the right dishes to make individual servings, so I made the giant crisp. It was delicious. We're fighting over the last bit now...

DB: Macarons

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

I have to say that there was a lot to like about this challenge. I enjoyed the lack of butter, my procrastinatory tendencies were rewarded with such a quick cookie, and the flavor combinations are endless.

My friend Allison and I shared sifting and piping duties on this one. I can't fault either our sifting or our piping, but our macarons didn't rise nearly as high as we might have hoped. In fact, my lemon macarons bore a remarkable visual resemblance to communion wafers. Fortunately, they tasted a lot better. I planned to fill the lemon ones with raspberry jam, but the cookies were great on their own, so I ate them plain.

For the remainder of our macarons, we considered savory options. Ultimately, we were unable to reconcile the 2 cups of powdered sugar with savory flavorings. We added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder, and some chili powder for a savory kick. These macarons rose a bit higher, and I filled them with a sour cream, dark chocolate frosting. I ate one. My family finished the rest in mere minutes.

TWD: Cherry Fudge Cake

So Allen went to bring the cake in from the fridge last night. His comment: "what's in this thing, besides butter?" See this cake weighs, oh, 5 lbs. Cutting into it is like cutting into winter squash -- if the cake could roll away, I'd worry about my hand coming into contact with the knife.

This cake is quite good, fudgy and studded with cherries. It's rich enough to benefit from a glass of milk as an accompaniment. It's probably best served as a single, bite-sized desserts.

TWD: Sweet Potato Biscuits

"Those were surprisingly tasty for sweet potato biscuits," said A.
"They were so good, I didn't even know they had sweet potato in them," added J.
They weren't as puffy as I might have liked, and I added a lot of skim milk to the batter after using two fresh sweet potatoes, but they complemented our creamy lentil soup quite nicely.

Unfortunately, my computer isn't currently recognizing my camera, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

TWD: Allspice Muffins

So I jumped ahead and made these one evening right after the selections for October were posted. They're delicious, easy, and pantry ready (although I'm now out of Allspice). I've made them three times, adding some chopped apples after a recent trip to the orchard.

TWD: Split Level Pudding

One Word: Yum!

DB: Puff pastry

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

I really wanted to be inspired by puff pastry. But instead, I've been on a sandwich kick. After getting through 5 turns of the puff pastry last Wednesday with Allison, my pastry languished in the fridge while I started turning out sandwiches left and right. Too those who know me best, my sandwich kick is as rare as homemade puff pastry when one can go to the store and pick up a box of Dufour. See, I don't really like sandwiches. Well, I'll take that back, I really, really don't like making sandwhiches with big slices of slimy deli meat. My aforementioned hate of peanut butter makes a quick pb&j less pleasurable too. Now, if others want to make a sandwich for me, I'll assure you that it tastes much better than one I make myself.

So, I started with the Shroomwich. And followed up with a remake of the shroomwhich, 'cause it was THAT good. Then, breaking out Tom Colicchio's Wichcraft, I used my CSA arugula and celery to make Goat Cheese, with Avocado, Celery, Walnut Pesto and, in my case Arugula. I finished up with Onion Fritatta with Roasted Tomatoes and Cheddar for breakfast this morning. In the last two cases, my breads weren't what they should be but the sandwiches still rocked.

So back to the pastry. It's been chilling, and I knew I need to do something with (some of) it. So I made my Vols-au-vent, using the shot glass/juice glass method of cutting. They came out nicely, and, given the quick return of the fall weather, I made a quick simmer of some sliced apples with brown sugar, ginger, butter, cinnamon, black pepper, salt, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. With a side of vanilla ice cream, they were the perfect dessert to a goat cheese and celery sandwich.

And the leftover pastry became palmiers, rolled in the remaining sugar mixture from the apples.

Shroomwich

I stopped at the Roadshow, in search of the 8 grain, 3 seed bread. Sadly, their daily allotment of a single loaf was long sold. Bakehouse White, it was then- I had a last of summer BLT in mind, but changed my mind when I recalled this recipe, from Michel Richard's Happy in the Kitchen.

"This," said Allen "is a sandwich I could eat all winter." Mushroom duxelle and Emmenthaler cheese grilled to perfection, with a mushroom dipping jus and a side of parsnip chips. If your sandwich contains cream, you know that it's going to be delicious.

Celeriac

I love my CSA box. It's a bit like celebrating the good parts of my birthday every Tuesday during the growing season. The surprises are good, ripe tomatoes, and winter squash. We get carrots, potatoes, celery and broccoli that tastes nothing like its brethren in the grocery store. But 4 years into our CSA, I'm still occasionally perplexed. I haven't come up with a great use for kholrabi. We don't hate it, but usually I just grate it into some hash browns. We send the beets to our neighbors.

This year, the celeriac came earlier in the season than I remember in years past. In the midst of the some indian summer, mashed potatoes with celeriac just weren't on my radar. So I ended up with this recipe from Angelic Organics -- I tempered its beige-ness by putting it on a bed of arugula.

Celeriac and Apple Salad with Tarragon and Toasted Walnuts

4 c. water
juice 1 lemon

2 tart apples, cored and cut into thin slices
1 large celeriac, peeled, cut into matchsticks.
1/2 c. chopped walnuts, toasted

1 1/2tbsp white wine or rice vinegar
2 1/2tbsp mayonnaise
1tbsp heavy cream
2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp dried tarragon
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
salt

Combine water and lemon in a large bowl. Add celeriac and apple and let stand for 15 minutes.

Drain celeriac and apple mixture, return to bowl. Add vinegar and toss.

Combine remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Pour dressing over apple mixture and toss to coat. Add walnuts and toss again. Chill at least one hour, preferably 2-3 hours before serving.

TWD: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

I had serious deja-vu when I bit into these. I'm convinced that one of my grandmother's used to mail order cookies like this. I can visualize the black and gold box, and taste the tangy cottage/cream cheese dough. When I asked my mom if she remembered such cookies, her response was "well I know that neither one of them would have BAKED them." They weren't the cookie baking kind of grandmothers.

Despite the stickiness of the dough, these cookies got such rave reviews that I'll be making them again. They're soft, puffy, not too sweet, and each one has a delicious bite of this year's blueberry-orange jam.

TWD: Flaky Apple Turnovers

It's the best kind of Tuesday morning after school starts. You know, the kind when you find yourself in the dentist chair while the kids are at school. Let me tell you, I'd way rather be a fifth grader - gym, cursive writing, and all -- and definitely a kindergartner, than hanging out in the dentist chair. Once I've gotten past the reclining chair part, it's all downhill. So while Dr. B drills, and drills, and drills (three fillings, baby!), I'm thinking about these turnovers. Trader Joe's is down the street, and I should have time to stop.

So while I wait for the anesthetic to wear off, stomach growling, lip turned down, slightly achy jaw, and of course, occasional drool, I worked on this dough. Probably not enough, however, to make it actually turn into a dough. I took this picture after the dough had been coerced into a rectangle to rest for a few hours. It seems that some parts of the dough were feeling bullied by other parts of the dough, so they chose not to join the rectangle community. And now, as I sense no real remedy, they'll learn to be friends in the garbage.

Totally kills me to waste 3 sticks of butter like that.

TWD: Chocolate Souffles

It seems that one doesn't need a fancy dinner party in order to serve a chocolate souffle. Sunday night, summer dinner is evidently a fine time to go hunting for ooh's, aah's and "mom of the year" comments from the under 12 set. The kids felt the dessert was duly earned after a dinner on the deck that included more than one wasp trying to crash the party.

I felt that the souffle fine -- enhanced by the Scharffen Berger chocolate that A. brought home from the Sunday NYT run, but a bit dry as well. No doubt due to an oven window in desperate need of cleaning.

The last day of summer

School starts tomorrow. For us, that means Kindergarten and 5th grade, as well as the annual dessert tradition that is now in it's 4th year. 4 years ago, when J. was going into first grade, he asked to celebrate the end of summer with a special dessert. For the life of me, I can't tell you what special dessert he chose. But when we repeated the tradition the following year, we had chocolate fondue. He's chosen chocolate fondue for the past two years as well. So it's often warm, and waspy as we finish our night-before-school dinner and bust out the fondue pot. No New Year's Eve's or Valentine's Day here -- it's all about Labor Day.

TWD: Espresso Cheesecake Brownies

Five years ago, we hosted a party for a group of people who worked with my husband. With 30 or so coming, we asked for everyone to bring a contribution. Fateful night, that was, as it has since been referred to as "the party where everyone brought chips." I'm not so much a chip person, although I am fond of TJ's salt and pepper potato chips and the tortilla chips from the Ann Arbor Tortilla Factory, so it took us months to munch our way through a half dozen or more leftover bags of Doritos.

Fast forward a few years, and I was more specific in my potluck recommendations -- another 30 coworkers, and one group brought apps, another sides, and the third dessert. Worked like a charm, but a seemingly forgotten one by last weekend. I'm a pretty organized person, but I try not to be too demanding, and for the smaller gathering, A. simply said that we'd do the grilling, and feel free to bring something to go alongside. Fearing his colleagues would run, not walk, to Meijer in search of chips, I planned cole slaw, potato salad, baba ghanoush and other CSA box inspired munchies. I made brownies and Dorie's Cheesecake Espresso Brownies for dessert.

So my brownies were made, and chilling in the fridge when the guests arrive. Our guests have unknowingly turned this party into "the party where everyone brought desserts" -- cupcakes, cookies, brownies... So my brownies sat in the fridge until Tuesday, when they travelled to the park for a loosely planned picnic. They were a bit dry on the bottom, in my opinion. And the more discriminating eaters actually asked for the cheesecake topping to be removed. I'm going to stick with the Katherine Hepburn brownies.

DB: Dobos Torte

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

File this one in the "looks terrible, tastes great" category. Chocolate sponge cake, chocolate frosting that didn't set too well, and a caramel layer that initially wanted to break some teeth. The layering effect inside was pretty cool looking, though!

TWD: Applesauce Spice Bars

Dorie was right, I'd be inclined to skip right past this cookie. No particular reason, I guess, as I really love apples. When Karen of Something Sweet chose these bars, I figured that she must be like many of my other friends, posting pictures of their kids first days of school, and tucking these treats into lunchboxes. I know the new school year is right around the corner, but I'll savor the last few weeks of summer while enjoying this taste of fall.

TWD: Brownie Buttons

I'm having a hard time prioritizing the baking this summer. These sure are cute, but it takes longer to wash the pan than to eat the whole batch. I added cinnamon instead of orange zest, and then drizzled them with a cinnamon glaze.

Dinner = Failure

Last winter, I served maple glazed tofu, with a side of wilted spinach with citrus butter. The kids loved it. I felt like mother of the year. So tonight, I whipped out the tofu again, with far different results. Looks so good, but they ate only the stir fried beans, leaving behind the pineapple glazed tofu with spicy cucumber salad.

I'm just waiting for someone to tell me, "I told you so!"

Men who cook

I didn't grow up around men who cook.

My grandfather excelled at taking naps after dinner, sitting in the white wicker chair, pretending to be awake, omnipresent cigarette hanging from his fingers. My grandmother had kitchen duty, complete with new fangled Weight Watchers food and jars of dried herbs on the table. She served me stew with calamari in it, and green cheese, while harboring a secret passion for reese's peanut butter cups that my family knew nothing about until just before her death.

Mimi cooked, I think. I have memories of holiday meals at her house and I assume that she cooked many of the same recipes that my mom makes. I remember Helen the housekeeper made amazing pickles (I have the recipe, but remain fearful that in making it, the pickles won't taste as good as they do in my memories). Mimi and I did try to make a gingerbread house from scratch one year. It was great fun, and more than a bit lopsided. At this point, PopPop only exists in vague memories and stories related to photographs. One might have included him at the bbq, but never near the kitchen.

My dad, well he makes good pancakes on weekend mornings when we visit, and somewhat reluctantly mans the grill. When I was a kid, he'd bake loaves of bread to give to the neighbors as Christmas gifts, and at one point he grew his own grapes and made wine. Was it any good? I'll have to ask.

But MEN WHO COOK seems to be a recent phenomenon, and I've been overwhelmed by them for the past few weeks. First my friend Matt, who proceeded to take over my mom's kitchen and turn out masterful food each night. Reduced to sous chef, I made the pizza dough for his pies (soy crumbles, fresh mozzarella and raisins, for one), and the salad to accompany his pasta with yellow squash. Matt even preferred to do the grocery shopping.

Then there's Jim, who for his 70th birthday published a cookbook of his recipes and stories. We had dinner with Jim and my Aunt Chris last week. The cioppino was fantastic, the salad dressing of anchovy paste, lemon juice and a little of the marinating liquid from some artichokes was excellent, but the peach cobbler was unbeatable. Even Allen, a professed lover of crisp, who is usually ambivalent at best about cobbler was wow-ed. My version of Jim's cobbler contains raspberries and the last of the carolina peaches that we brought home. I hope it's half as good.

We finished our vacation (aside from a less than memorable stay at the Super 8 in Galliapolis (that's Gall op o lees, to those of you who aren't familiar with the home of Bob Evans) at my sister's house, where her husband made a delicious fish stew for 12, served over croutons. My contribution: egg salad sandwiches for our lunch at the pool the next day.

It's great to be back home, now with a pile of veggies from the CSA to cook from. We'll see what comes from that.

DB: Milano Cookies

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

My grandfather died when I was in elementary school -- maybe second or third grade. After that, my grandmother moved to Pennsylvania to South Carolina and eventually remarried an old friend, Les.

I don't know whether it was Mimi or Les who chose the snacks that we were offered when we went to visit after school, but my mother was a strong woman to turn a blind eye to their 6pm offerings of Hilton Head Ice Cream (double chocolate or lemon custard, usually), chocolate eclairs, See's Candies that they ordered by mail, and yes, Milano cookies.

I haven't eaten Milanos much since then. The occasional reception, or airplane snack box I suppose, but I set out to replicate them on a really damp, rainy night. The cookies baked on a silpat came out somewhat sticky, those on standard cookie sheets had to be chipped off the sheet. I couldn't decide, which if either, I preferred. By this afternoon, however, some time in the cookie tin had mellowed the texture and they sure are tasty.

TWD: Plum Brioche Tart and Honey Vanilla Ice Cream

Vacations require a bit of planning ahead. So when I started making this tart, I also began working on the ice cream recipe for a few weeks from now.

The plums, fabulous -- the brioche crust, not my favorite. I love brioche (If you've never made Dorie's snails or the Belgian bread Craquelin, consider adding it to the top of your "to bake" list.) I think I'd just prefer more of a pastry crust with this yummy filling. Or maybe I'd prefer that my husband look at the color of the crust, rather than the nut and sugar topping, when asked to "see if it's getting too brown."

Now the ice cream, that's good stuff. I often struggle with recipes for ice cream, as they are usually too eggy for my liking. I took some liberties with Dorie's recipe, swapping 1/2 & 1/2 for one of the cups of cream, and reducing the egg yolks from 6 to 3. I chose not to strain my custard as well, preferring the specks of vanilla bean. The result was delicious, but the attempts to photograph the last spoonful before it was eaten were not successful.

TWD: Katherine Hepburn Brownies

In past cafeteria life --high school, college, job at college, job at high school-- I ate lots of brownies at "celebratory" cookouts. There were the cakey brownies, puffy and bordering on tan in color, and the dense brownies, a bit chewier but still lacking in any substantial chocolate flavor. As with most mass produced food, neither type of brownie was satistfying. I can still picture the dense one, dark, gooey, and sprinkled with powdered sugar and sitting on a white cocktail napkin, leaving a square of grease behind when I start to take a bite. After the first disappoiting bite, I'd follow it up with a slice of slightly underripe watermelon, and maybe a White Rock soda.

During those college years, my brownie needs were met by a family friend. She made truly excellent brownies, thick, chewy, moist, studded with chocolate chunks, and frosted with chocolate buttercream. They'd arrive in the mail -- still in the aluminum pan, carefully concealed underneath layers of foil and plastic wrap, no worse for 800 mile trip they'd made from South Carolina to Maryland. After the first one, I'd leave the knife, sticky with crumbs and frosting, in the pan, making it so easy to carve off yet another little square. Years later, I managed to acquire a copy of the recipe, and I made it once, remembering the huge pan we consumed at my parents' house in the days leading up to my wedding. In my own kitchen, the brownies were good, but not the same. I still treasure the recipe, but rarely find myself with the time and ingredient combination to whip them up.

I always have the ingredients for the Katherine Hepburn brownies sitting in my pantry. They combine the chewy, gooey texture I love with cinnamon (which I doubled for this recipe) and coffee. For things like this recipe, I cherish the extra large jar of instant coffee that I keep on hand only for my mother in law. I loved these brownies, and immediately took them to Allen's lab so that I didn't eat the whole pan. Only now, I'm searching for the memories to go with them.

*While these looked and tasted great, they looked rather blah in photos. Haven't mastered brownie photography yet.

TWD: Perfect Party Cake

The perfect party cake requires the perfect party guests. And they're coming tonight!

Dorie's perfect party cake with homemade strawberry rhubarb jam and the buttercream frosting, minus the lemon zest and vanilla because I got distracted.

27 June

I've seen my kids pick up my speech and mannerisms. I don't know where she got her 'phone persona'.

26 June

We set out for the pool, but only made it halfway before the chain fell off.

25 June

4 people x 11 days = a whole lot of laundry to fold!

20 June

Allen's college word processor... it was worth both the technological laugh and the explanation to the computer generation.

19 June

It's hard to resist spinning the stools...at least until the seats come off.

18 June

Boston ducklings bring back as many memories as the Quimby girls of Clickitat Street. I'm glad we've made time to pay them a visit.

17 June

Steamy windows at the Loaf, they don't have a season, or even a year. It's been 18 years and it's still the same.