So a couple of weeks ago I got a comment left on my blog about my Snickerdoodle muffins(aka refund muffins). But this was not a comment asking for money back, in fact it was a comment asking if they could send me a gift. See, this reader(Eunice of Lemond Almond) is actually getting people to pay her to make those refund muffins for them. I politely thanked her and said it wasn't necessary but she said that she wanted to and so I said alright. I'm glad I did. She decided that since she found my site through a Donna Hay event that she would send me a Donna Hay cookbook. Well I own quite a few and so her choices were narrowed...but then she realized that one of the books wasn't even released yet in the states(she is in Singapore). So in the mail the other day arrived a package with a lovely note and a copy of Donna Hay Simple Essentials Chocolate. YUM. It is a smaller book that the ones I own(which is great because the DH are so tall they barely fit in my bookcase). I immediately wanted … [Read more...]
It’s not easy being greens….
“You can order something other than salad....you know that right?” These were the words spoken to me by my now husband after dating for about 3 weeks. Everywhere I went I was ordering salad. I wasn't trying to be polite or watching my weight, I just happened to really like salad. Problem was as a single girl my ingredients in my fridge would always spoil before I could use them....so I usually only had salad when I went out to eat. He kept taking me out to eat. I kept eating salad. I still to this day don't make it at home as much as I would eat it because(and this will be shocking) my husband doesn't like salad. So if I do have salad, it is usually for lunch when Mr. No Palate is not around. I've been very bad lately about participating in blogging events. Seems I always remember to do it the day(or week) after the fact. But the Salad Stravaganza(co-hosted by Lisa and Kelly) was publicized enough to the Daring Bakers that I had enough gently reminders to get mine in. This … [Read more...]
Purple Haze
I decided that I had better make something with sugar before I started to make poor Jeff over at C is for Cooking worry about me. It's not that I haven't been making things with sugar, I have just been making things that have already been on my blog...so I can't put them up again. In case you were wondering what those were: blackberry cobbler, peanut butter chocolate chip cake and my mom's banana bread. So not to worry, sugar has been in my system :) I had tagged this cake awhile back when a friend had given me some homemade blackberry jam. As with most recipes I mark them and then they go and get lost into the dark corners of my mind. But as I was searching for something else in my pantry I ran across the jam and immediately remember the blackberry jam cake. It is a Bundt cake and therefore by definition is easy to make. The only thing I would change the next time I make it would be to run the jam through a sieve. The seeds in this batch were quite big and noticeable when you are … [Read more...]
100 Miles….
There has been a lot of talk lately in the culinary world about the 100 mile diet. For those who don't know what it is, it is basically only eating food that has been grown or made within 100 miles of where you live. It all started from a book, Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B Mackinnon. Now if someone had asked me a few years ago if I could do this I would have laughed in their face. Arizona is not known for it's bounty of food. I could never have seafood again and I would be living on citrus. Moving to the Pacific Northwest is a whole other story. My first spring here was overwhelming to me, all this beautiful produce grown right here in my state, nothing I had seen in Arizona. Up until we moved here I had thought little of Pacific Northwest cuisine. I took a one night class on it and that was about it. We made salmon, pasta with Tillamook cheese and hazelnuts and something with Dungeness crab. The local chef up here are very … [Read more...]
