One question I get emailed a lot is what cookbooks do you recommend? I am a girl who owns a lot of cookbooks. A lot. It’s a sad little addiction I know. But I figure in order to save a little money, as suggested by many readers, not all of my blog posts have to include a recipe. So with that in mind, here I the books I recommend you put on your bookshelf. By far the baking book I recommend and buy as gifts for people the most is Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Conner. Jill bakes like I do, taking the usual baked good and making it just a little more bad for you. :) It also helps that every recipe I have ever tried from this book has turned out great…and I have made a lot from this book. The second baking book I love is Baking for All Occasions by Flo Braker. This was another one of those books that I was pleasantly surprised with how many unique recipes there are and how well they turned out. A book that has a lot of great foundations for you to build on is … [Read more...]
Za!….
Did you know that Za is a real word. It’s slang for pizza. I have learned this thanks to playing Words with Friends. I have learned a lot of words that I didn’t know exists. When I was super sick and on bed rest this last month I was kind of bored out of my mind so my friends suggested the time suck that is Words with Friends. Lucky for me I am fresh off of studying pages of vocabulary words for all of my teacher certification tests (which I passed all of those by the way…even the grammar section) has helped. As has playing a few of my friends who have highly impressive vocabulary skills. I steal their words a lot and use it against other people. I am evil like that. :P I am not a huge pizza girl. I don’t crave it like some people do but I don’t usually turn it down. But since I am supposed to stay away from dairy and tomatoes, it’s not the best food for me. But when I was asked to take a look at a cookbook all about pizza I thought, well pizza technically is baking (at … [Read more...]
Seasonal Fruit Desserts…
One of the joys of living in Western Washington is the abundance of fresh produce to choose from. Farmers Markets and road side stands are scattered across our areas. Some of us are even lucky enough to belong to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). So when the opportunity to receive Seasonal Fruit Desserts (right when lots of fruit will be in season) I was all over the chance. Seasonal Fruit Desserts by Deborah Madison( I actually own her Vegetarian Cookbook) is a visually beautiful cookbook that really focuses on creating desserts that lets the fruit shine through (imagine that). Some of the desserts are as simple as Strawberries in Red Wine Syrup which consists of strawberries (duh), red wine (again duh), sugar and some peppercorns, which I thought was an interesting addition. The author suggest serving them over orange segments. I, being a glutenous person, would probably go for over ice cream. :) But that is an example of the many recipes that highlight just the fruit and … [Read more...]
