Baking
Cardamom and Persimmon Cobbler
Y’all, this is my new favorite dessert. I love cardamom — peppery, citrusy, bergamoty — and Fuyu persimmons — floral and sweet and crisp — and together they have made the most wonderful prize: cardamom persimmon cobbler. I started with my mom’s peach cobbler recipe and made it a little fancy. Upped the fruit content,…
Read MoreStrawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting
The best part about making these strawberry cupcakes is how the smell of strawberries fills the kitchen when you’re making the strawberry puree. When I was a kid, we’d visit my great-granny every summer in east Tennessee. Most of the time her trailer smelled like Ivory bath soap, with a soft undercurrent of mildewed plastic.…
Read MoreCornbread Waffles with Black Beans
This used to be something I’d make often for dinner when I was vegetarian. Cornbread waffles with black beans, sour cream, salsa and avocado are a fun and cheap meal. Healthy and wholesome, too! Make big, standard sized waffles and serve them like a tostada with all the toppings piled on top. Or make mini waffles…
Read MoreTaco Pockets! Homemade Hot Pockets
I’m calling these “taco pockets” because it has a nice ring to it, but they’re really just homemade Hot Pockets. Except I don’t think Hot Pockets has a “taco” flavor; or at least they didn’t start out that way. I know because I used to eat a shitload of Hot Pockets when I was in…
Read MoreSweet Potato Banana Bread
Having a kid has made me have to try harder to be better. Not that I wasn’t already a pretty good person, generally, but it’s made me think a lot more about what I eat — and drink — how much sleep I get, how much sugar I eat … and how much much I…
Read MorePeanut Butter Jelly Bars
These peanut butter and jelly bars are a great kids’ snack to keep around! Sweet enough to interest them, but not full of refined sugar. Whole grain oatmeal, dried fruit, peanut butter — these are wholesome as hell, y’all! Chef Baby likes these for breakfast sometimes, or for a snack to take to the park.…
Read MoreTexas Chews
Texas Chews were the cookie we always made at Christmas to leave out for Santa, because everyone knows they are Santa’s favorite cookie, duh! My mom got the recipe from her mom who maybe got it off a Domino sugar box or from the Texas Pecan Commission. When I googled the recipe a couple weeks ago to…
Read MoreSpicy Black Bean Empanadas
Watch the Empanadas Recipe Video on YouTube! These spicy black bean empanadas are filled with black beans, corn and some sauteed vegetables but the star of the show is the empanada dough. My empanada dough is made with cream cheese and butter which makes it very flaky and tender. I add a little cornmeal, too,…
Read MorePumpkin Muffins
This recipe for pumpkin muffins was (mildly) adapted from the Joy of Cooking. It may be more correct to even say it was just barely adapted, and only by accident. By accident because it turns out it is very hard to bake pumpkin muffins (or anything) while you are wearing a Freddy Krueger glove, so many…
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