It’s hard to believe I’ve been writing these posts for a decade of my life! How did that happen? It started out simple, a way to share my recipes with family and friends and maybe engage in dialogue with other like-minded folks. Recipes that began life in the hearts and hands of my mother and…
Category: Baking basics
So when did Parson Brown become a circus clown? Midlife crisis? Perhaps he just needed some coconut cake.
I gave myself the task of recreating my mother’s Christmas coffee cake, with mixed results, mostly wonderful. Our weather has once again been all over the place 50 degrees out yesterday, rain, all the snow vanished and we have green grass again in the fields. Then, the Champlain Winds picked up again and a cold…
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Sylvia’s Oatmeal Apple Rum Cookies and the silly saga of how they grew up.
A misunderstanding led to the greatly evolved oatmeal cookie we all love When I was first on my own, I made my mother’s oatmeal cookies several times but they were never quite the same as hers. Although they tasted great, they didn’t look right or have the same texture; they were flatter and not as…
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Peaches and blueberries decided they wanted to be cobbled together.
Peach season is always greatly anticipated here in the north. While apple season stretches from summer through late fall, peaches are here for only a short time. But while they are here, there’s nothing like them in the world. Peachy memories When I was a child, a friend of mine had both peach and pear…
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We’ve waited for blueberry season all year, and we’re not disappointed now. Scones?
Blueberry Season. It’s a happy day indeed when our local blueberries come in. Nothing better than eating a half pint in the car on the way back from the farm stand, making a mental note that next time we’ll buy more. One should always remember not to go food shopping when hungry, but even if…
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Say strawberry shortcake, and you’ll make new friends. The cream on top is a bonus.
And if you indulge beneath a strawberry moon, what could be better? Last night, we got a double treat from the skies. First, a brilliant sunset. Then, a beautiful moon rise, the strawberry moon of June that this year was a brilliant red, in part, sadly, from the haze we are still experiencing from the…
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Holiday Encore: Sylvia’s Filled Mincemeat Cookies
Mom’s recipe started in October when we stripped the garden of its green tomatoes and made our own micemeat. I still make this (now and then) when I want the house to smell like my childhood home.
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Apple Cheddar Walnut Bread
There’s a tradition in New England to eat our apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese on top. Give it a try, and expand on the idea! It may sound strange to some, but many think it is the only way to enjoy that thick slice of pie. Way better than ice cream or…
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Late Summer Plum and Blueberry Upside-Down Cake
We’ve lots of delightful stone fruit right now, peaches, apricots, nectarines, and plums of many sizes and colors. Plums can be all over the place in terms of sweetness, but most work well in a tart or cake, and who doesn’t love it when it’s an upside-down cake with fresh fruit? Topsy turvy treat Our…
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High Summer, so lets’ make Blueberry Pie
Our blueberries are still coming on strong, large and sweet this year, it has been a most rewarding harvest. My granddaughter and I decided to make a pie this past weekend after picking for the second time, six pounds before the heat got to us. I now have lots in my freezer for the winter…
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Maple Graham Fire Crackers
Graham crackers have been a pantry staple in my house since I was a child. My grandmother loved them, so they were always on the shelf along with her ginger snaps. She was a bit greedy about her ginger snaps, but often shared the graham crackers. My own grandchildren now love them when making s’mores,…
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Jaina’s Apple Tart
We were in the baking mood, my granddaughter and I, and there was a bowl of apples sitting on the counter asking to be used. Since we were planning a small dinner party, dessert seemed to be the order of the day, and apples were drafted into service. What to make? Baked apples? Apple pie?…
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Whole Wheat Scones with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Basil
When you’ve been away, even just for a few days, it’s always nice to get back in the kitchen and make something healthful! When winter holds on, even a mild one like this year, we can get in a rut and realize we are staying in the house way too much. Even when the days…
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Herbed Whole Wheat Naan
Don’t you love it when a new recipe just delights everyone? I had a big group of my family coming for dinner, and decided on a curry with all the trimmings. The curry was loaded with lovely local veggies and wild shrimp, a family favorite. Basmati rice, cucumber and winter radish raita, and curried green…
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Bûche De Noël A Classic Holiday Yule Log, mostly
Our Family’s Traditional Bûche De Noël Christmas Eve was filled with food, family, and festivity when I was a child, but I also loved the magic of all the food preparations that filled the week before – fussing and primping and putting everything together for the grand finale. Lots of baking Mom would make her…
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Christopher’s Burbon Butter Tarts
Sweet little butter tarts are a quintessential Canadian treat. Little pastry shells filled with butter, syrup, egg, and vanilla. They’re also the topic of much disagreement about what exactly, if anything, should be added to these little pastries; some bakers add a little extra something. Raisins? Nuts? Be careful not to declare your preference too…
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Dairy Free Corn & Maple Crème Brûlée
Corn. Maple Sugar. A candy top? What is she thinking? We only had crème brûlée once when I was a kid. My mom did a great job of preparing and baking the little custards, and carefully covering the top with sugar. She commandeered my father’s blow torch to do the brûlée part, and promptly set…
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Rosemary and Goat Cheese Scones
The weather has turned, and with a chill in the air and a fire in the hearth there might be the urge to take a bit more time cooking, or bake something tasty. Bread baking is always satisfying, whether yeasted or a quick bread. Sometimes as we prepare a meal there’s a feeling a little…
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Sunday Brunch Potato Crusted Quiche: Shhh, it’s Gluten and Dairy Free, too.
Don’t we love a traditional quiche? The flaky pastry filled with a creamy baked custard, cheese, and whatever little additions one might want. I first fell in love with this dish when my mom made Julia Child’s classic from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. We probably watched Julia bake it on one of her…
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So, you ended up with too many tomatoes? A savory clafoutis to the rescue!
One day, you are miser with the first couple of tomatoes; the next week, your counter is full! Clafoutis is a French dessert, a kind of an eggy, baked pancake, that is most commonly filled with seasonal cherries and enhanced with a bit of sugar, vanilla, and almond extract. I make this every year when…
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Phyllo Nests with Blueberries and Lemon-Lavender Cream
Light, refreshing, and guilt-free. Did I say tasty? It’s blueberry season, and we’re having a really good year here! The surplus of these gems always gets me excited, and although my absolute favorite way to eat them is right out of hand, it’s fun to dress them up. Lots of blue memories Blueberries have a…
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Did you say Snickerdoodles?
New Englanders love to give silly names to simple dishes, just for the sake of saying them! My granddaughter asked to make snickerdoodles the other day. She asked me multiple times, using the word as much as possible because it is really lots of fun to say. “It should be a grandmother to make snickerdoodles…
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What better way to celebrate the Summer Solstice: Strawberry Crunch Cake!
Strawberries. Sweet, luscious, red through and through strawberries. They herald the summer season of fruits, and do so delightfully as we move to the longest day of the year. Happy Summer Solstice! Here we are at the longest daylight of the year, which means twilight here until nearly 9:30 p.m., tons of fireflies, and I’m…
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Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
The Spring Song in Vermont! When the rhubarb hits the farm stands, you know the first strawberries will be close behind. The two spring treasures are a perfect balancing act – the berries sweet and vibrant, the rhubarb tart and sour. The good news is that both the strawberries and the rhubarb freeze beautifully, so…
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New England “Featherbeds,” an old fashioned Potato Roll with a New Attitude
Light and fluffy, full of flavor, and the secret is the potato boiling water! When I was a kid, my mom made bread most weekends. The rest of the week, we survived on the grocery store loaves. But her breads were always delightful, the stuff of memories, and the smell of loaves baking always takes…
