From the category archives:

Pastry, Pies & Tarts

Potato Crusted Onion and Cilantro Quiche with a Cuban Touch–Bijol!

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It is 3:30 PM, Sunday afternoon. Neither lunchtime nor dinnertime. I’d spent the morning packing meals at Project Angel Food. Came home and took a 3 mile walk. Football on the TV. The house has a chill – all good reasons to turn on the oven.  A Potato Crusted Onion and Cilantro Quiche idea “showed [...]

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Gingersnap Cherry Cheesecake and Dinner Parties vs. Restaurants

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This Gingersnap Cherry Cheesecake was our contribution to the party. Dinner parties, in my opinion, are so much better than restaurants. Cost, sure. But parking, pressure to eat and turn the table, not being able to talk with the whole group, the din of music and room noise. And I know how restaurants cook my [...]

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Kahlua Sweet Potato Pie with Kahlua Whipped Cream ~ Food Bloggers Gather to Cook and Share for Thanksgiving

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The recipe to make this autumn leaf-laced Kahlua Sweet Potato Pie with Kahlua Whipped Cream is at the bottom of this post. Seven bloggers arrived at our home for an early Thanksgiving Feast in the spirit of blogging recipes for our readers’ holiday cooking. As Project Manager, or more realistically “Micro Manager,” I instructed each [...]

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Our Tour of Wilton and My Autumn Leaves Pie Crust

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This pie crust is brought to you by Nancy Siler and Gretchen Homan, who are helping me perfect my autumn leaves. They’re the go-to home economists for baking pretty things – they work at Wilton. 

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Cast Iron Apple Cobbler

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Larry was enjoying an Ozzie & Harriet Sunday.  First, a basketball afternoon game with buddy, Bruce. Returned home to a piping hot Cast Iron Apple Cobbler. “Wow, it smells great in here.” I appreciated the Ozzie reaction, thank you.  Too early for dinner, they then watched another game on TV. Are they living the life, [...]

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The Original Classic Kahlua Pecan Pie

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Heavenly Kahlua Pecan Pie and I go way back. In the late ‘80s, my little PR agency represented Kahlua as a client. Before spirits were OK to advertise on TV, and before stupid corporate changes decimated the brand (ouch, I’m still bitter), Kahlua was on TOP. The brand made piles of money and spent it [...]

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Guest Recipe ~ Plum Frangipane Tart by Gisele of Pain Perdu

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My readers here know by now that I had a big event last Saturday when I produced the Day Camp of Camp Blogaway. One of our sponsors, Viking Range surprised us with door prizes, which lead me to think… hmmmm, bloggers LOVE to cook and they love to compete. Thus, a “Bonus Competition” was born.  [...]

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Look, Ma! I Made A Chicken Pot Pie

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Larry and I are boomers. Frozen chicken pot pies were awesome eats in our formative years. They were cheap, salty, fatty, easy, high-cal pots o’ tasty stuff a kid, teen, babysitter, college student happily ate. Now, as conscientious grownups (buzz kill), we’d probably STILL eat those bombshells of bad nutrition if not for the consequences. [...]

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Strawberry Sour Cream Pie

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This pie was scrumdiddlyumptious. So much, in fact, that after Larry and I had our slices, I pawned the rest off on two neighbors’ households. It was TOO good and my fear was we’d eat it all. Larry wasn’t thrilled with this, scored one more slice, tucked it into the fridge and I bolted up [...]

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Australian Impossible Pie

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The internet is a magic carpet ride for me when I go recipe surfing. And I’m drawn to Australian food blogs, like Gourmet Jack. His slogan: Foodie Nirvana, Australian Style. There he presented Impossible Pie — is it really impossible? Coconut, crustless, custardy… crikey – sounds great!

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Scratch-Made Cinnamon Rolls

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Look right up close at those tender flakes, the cinnamony swirl, ooey vanilla icing. To get to this point was a sticky, messy Sunday baking project; didn’t shower until 3 PM. But I arm-wrestled my way to success making scratch cinnamon rolls just to prove I wasn’t a loser. “Loser?” you might ask. This was [...]

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Tangerine Tart with Cookie Crust

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For more than a decade, I’ve held onto this Sunset Magazine page. You see, the prolific tangerine tree that came with this house disappeared the day our yard was demo’d for landscaping. Waaaaa. Not sure why I never just bought fruit to make the tart; maybe I was insecure.

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Ginger Scones

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Hans Rockenwagner sold Ginger Scones at his bakeries in LA and Venice. And then he didn’t. Apparently they were deeeelicious; an LA Times food section reader wanted the recipe, and they published it. Larry’s recipe binder is jam-packed with pages like this – baked goods, ginger flavored, someone’s favorite. He had yet to make these, [...]

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Thyme and Goat Cheese Tart Topped with Mixed Tender Greens in Champagne Vinaigrette

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This isn’t exactly how we eat around our home, putting salad on top of a cheese tart. Yet, as swank as this appeared, our “Thyme and Goat Cheese Tart Topped with Mixed Tender Greens in Champagne Vinaigrette” (whew, the name alone is a mouthful) was neither pretentious nor weird. This was the salad course during [...]

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Fresh Basil Soft Pretzels

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Jen, our way-cool yoga instructor at Camp GetAway for Mothers & Others had an explosion of gorgeous basil growing in her victory garden.  She was asking me about making pesto — just as I was thinking of making pretzels.  The ideas collided. The March 2004 issue of Gourmet had a Kitchen Notebook story on how [...]

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Blueberry Stuffed Apples in Pastry

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Naming this recipe was tricky; besides being stuffed with fresh blueberries and baked in flaky pastry, the apples are sweetened with Red Hot candies and pure maple syrup.  TMI for a recipe name, but Larry thought the Red Hots were a pretty good idea.  I like using up the second pie crust in the box, [...]

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Larry’s Pesto Pizza

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This is another installment in my series, “Hands Off, Ladies, He’s Mine.” Larry made dinner again recently and decided to create a spin-off of his most excellent pizza.   If you are skilled at making homemade pizza, then you can become comfortable playing with it.  Larry does this on occasion, deciding fun toppings and layouts. This [...]

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Easy Fresh Apple Tart ~ Homage to Julia Child

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Fellow IACP members, who recognizes this plate?  Julia Child was a founding member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals; over the years, the group’s cookbook awards gala grew to a rather big splash.  The year 1997 was so splashy, attendees received this commemorative platter and Julia took the time to autograph plates for anyone [...]

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Thelma’s Popovers

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Larry makes his mom’s golden, airy popovers skillfully.  Some recipes in our household are his alone, and this is definitely one.  If I proclaimed a decision to make some popovers, fuggeddaboudit.  Not allowed.  He has his giant binder of recipes and I have mine. My mother-in-law, Thelma is now 88 and doesn’t cook anymore.  A [...]

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Mini Basil and Goat Cheese Turnovers

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Dinner party for four here. Casual menu:  Larry made his Excellent Pizza. I was excited for dessert, Butterscotch Pudding.  But while shopping for ingredients, it struck me…  I hadn’t planned an appetizer. Wracking my brain (well, not wracking, but thinking harder than normal while shopping), my sis-in-law’s recent pool party snacks struck me as do-able. [...]

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Mini Kahlua Carrot Cakes with Maple Icing

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Mini cake, giant cupcake or big muffin, you decide.  It’s the same pan – the large one-cup muffin tins.  I obviously like to bake with Kahlua.  If you’ve read previous posts, you know that Kahlua was a longtime PR client of mine.  Few days went by without a learning experience, and now-friend, Madeline was responsible [...]

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Larry’s Excellent Pizza

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Have you seen the foodie blog, Hungry Hungry Hippie?   Blogger Elise’s mom is my cousin, Melinda.  I noticed this week that HHH was being written by middle sis, Laura – that’s how I discovered their ENTIRE family is vacationing in Hawaii, ‘cept Laura!  What a good sister – and turns out, a good blogger. I [...]

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All Butter Pie Shell

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When I was a teen, I baked pies for fun.  My dad was very skinny and there wasn’t much of a dietary focus in the household.  Since you couldn’t buy pre-made pie shells in the store yet, the first part of making a pie was obviously making the crust.  Without a food processor.  And with [...]

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