Canned biscuits caused our ruination!

That was the subject of an e-mail I received after my last biscuit post. Who knew biscuits could stir such passion! Apparently, when canned biscuits made their debut, many women quit making them from scratch, even in the southern states.

Even in Tennessee where I’m from, when canned biscuits came out, women quit making homemade ones except for my grandmother who is 90 years old and still going strong. We live in Texas now and it amazes me how many people have never had a great homemade biscuit.

Carmen, the reader who sent the e-mail, went on to explain to me some of the real secrets of making great homemade biscuits and I am now forever in her debt! Continue reading →

I think so.

It was my first night back in my own kitchen but thanks to jet lag, I was far from ready to put a lot of effort into dinner. I put my husband in charge of grilling some meat and I managed to make a decent-tasting side dish out of some canned beans, frozen vegetables and rice.

But what I really wanted was something warm from the oven, dripping with butter.

I started flipping through my latest cookbook, a gift my cousin brought me from a recent trip to Wisconsin, called Best of the Best from Wisconsin. I would have been satisfied with any of the quick muffins or corn bread recipes I found but I realized we had no eggs. Then I found a variety of quick and easy beer bread recipes that sounded good, but we had no beer.

That’s when I saw it: a recipe for Cheese Drop Biscuits. Quick. Easy. Cheesy. It was exactly what I needed and I had all five ingredients on hand! Continue reading →

When I arrived here in California, my Nana and Grandpa were up at the family cabin in the Sierra Nevadas. When they came back a few days later, Nana had a present for me. She had found an old baking book tucked away in the kitchen and thought I might enjoy looking through it. Continue reading →

Hooray! It’s Weekend Herb Blogging time again and this week I’ll be talking about rosemary. And if you keep reading, you’ll even find my recipe for the super yummy rosemary pizza dough I made for lunch today. This week, WHB will be hosted by Kalyn at Kalyn’s Kitchen so don’t forget to head over to her site and see what other herbs are being discussed this week.

What? You still don’t know anything about Weekend Herb Blogging? Go read about it here.

Now, let’s get started!

Here in Sicily, you’ll find rosemary (rosmarino, in Italian) growing all over the place! You’ll see it in gardens growing as a culinary herb, but also in planters and lining sidewalks as decorative shrubs. It can even be trimmed into topiaries and bonsai. Rosemary is native to the Mediterranean region but is a popular culinary herb throughout the world. It pairs well with lamb, chicken, beans, and potatoes and can be added to breads such as focaccia and potato bread. Although some people (like me) can’t get enough of it, it’s important to remember that Rosemary has a very strong flavor and can become easily become overwhelming if you aren’t careful. Continue reading →

This is an older post but it reminds me of my mom so I decided to re-post it for Mother’s Day. We lost my mom in 1998 but I think of her every day, especially when I’m in the kitchen!

I’ve been baking bread since I was small. My mom baked bread a lot when we were kids and my sister and I used to have fun helping (dressed in our matching chef’s hats and aprons, of course). Continue reading →

How it is that I’ve gone this long without tasting any of Nando’s Peri-Peri sauces, I will never know. But now that this wrong has been righted, I’m definitely a Nando’s convert. I like spicy foods and I like hot sauces but I wouldn’t call myself a connoisseur. I always have a supply of a couple different Tabasco sauces on hand (I’ve also tried Texas Pete’s and Louisiana brands but I’ve always been a Tabasco girl), but my pantry hot sauce collection doesn’t usually get much bigger than that other than maybe some Cholula and a mild tomatillo-based green sauce. And of course, there’s the occasional Asian chili paste and I am now always fully stocked with Italian chili paste (crema di peperoncino). But really, considering the variety of hot sauces available in this world, my tiny collection doesn’t even scratch the surface. Continue reading →

While staying with my aunt and uncle, I made several batches of scones in a quest to create a new recipe. The first batch were wonderful and buttery, but almost more like shortbread than a scone. They quickly disappeared along with the homemade meyer lemon curd. Among others I tried were lemon buttermilk, lemon currant, and Apricot Cream. Although none of them were bad, these apricot cream scones were by far my favorite! Continue reading →