Category Archives: Cookbooks

Julia’s Vichyssoise

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This creamy, easy soup tastes like a dream. So elegant…so Julia.

Today would have been Julia Child’s 100th birthday! In her honor and as part of the many celebrations going on today, I made another of her fabulous and easy dishes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This is perhaps one of the easiest soups of all to make…Vichyssoise, or cold leek and potato soup.

According to Julia, this is an American invention, made by taking a base Master recipe for leek and potato soup, making it with stock instead of water and adding cream, then chilling. It couldn’t be simpler to make and it is stunningly delicious. Here’s how I made it based on her recipe. Continue reading →

Bourbon-Mustard Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Butternut Squash Salad

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A match made in heaven...Bourbon-Mustard Glazed Pork Tenderloin and Roasted Butternut Squash Salad. Yes indeed, I'm gonna make these two together again!

This week we’ve had quite a warm spell and my plans to make either my recipes for either split-pea soup or chicken noodle soup—soup being one of my favorite meals this time of year—went by the wayside when the temps went up to the mid-60’s and then 70 degrees. Really? In January? This time last year most folks here were racing for the grocery store like the non-snow savvy southerners that we are, trying to out-buy each other in the milk, bread, salt and chili-making ingredient categories, and battening down our hatches for what turned out to be a significant snow storm that shut Atlanta down for several days….not that it actually takes snow to do that, as you already know if you live here!

Continue reading →

Old Fashioned Ice Box Cookies…They’re a Cinch!

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With dough on standby in the ice box, you can make this many in about 10 minutes...gotta love it!

Starting to feel that teensy bit of panic set in? Trying NOT to look at the calendar and realize that the holidays start NEXT WEEK? Thinking over all that was on your “To Do” list and is rapidly moving to the “No Way” list? I’m with you.

Just slice these up ever so quickly....

While I have been diligently making things for gifts and yes, buying a few little items as well, I’m beginning to realize that I haven’t really wrapped anything, and that some of those goodies I wanted to make are just too time consuming to contemplate at this juncture. Exit the supposedly “easy” and enter the “effortless”…at least by comparison! This post and my next will feature recipes for some things I made over the last two nights that make terrific quick gifts, good fun and great eating. Continue reading →

A luscious little soup

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The minute it gets cool and fall-ish like last weekend, my mind switches over to soup mode, and although it’s warming up again here where we live, it’s never too early to make a great soup…especially one that’s just as good warm as it is hot.

This spicy peanut and sweet potato soup checks a lot of boxes for me: 1. it’s savory,  2. it’s spicy,  3. it’s a teensy bit sweet, but in a savory sort of way (does that make sense?),  4. it has a teensy bit of Asian flair to it, too  5. also a teensy bit of an African flair to it,  6. I’ve used the word “teensy” too many times, haven’t I?,  7. leftovers freeze and reheat well, if you have any leftover,  8. it’s healthy, but it doesn’t necessarily taste “healthy,”  9. it’s easy to make,  10. it’s great for a light lunch or dinner,  11. it uses up a lot of items I have in my pantry and from my CSA box.
Need I say more? Continue reading →

D-Con, D-Book Festival and Some De-licious Sliders

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A sailing machine of some sort...anyone know what this is, besides amazing?

Not sure, but I think these folks may have just come from a dip in the pool after walking the 1/2 mile parade in the heat!

It’s D-weekend (sorry, I couldn’t help myself) and a lot is going on in the big city. We decided to try something new and headed downtown to see the Dragon Con Parade, which kicks off the world’s largest fantasy/SF convention, held annually in Atlanta, GA, on Labor Day weekend. Sci-Fi and Fantasy fans come from everywhere, donned in their finest Star Wars, Star Trek, Road Warrior, Alien, Thunder Dome, Ghost Busters, Harry Potter (or at least we saw Snape there), Dr. Who, and any and all other related costumes you can possibly think of, and some you couldn’t imagine. We saw a working replica of a truck from Thunder Dome that some 10 people were riding, and a time machine. There’s some serious money laid down for this, people! Continue reading →

Confessions of a Cookbook Addict

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I am a cookbook-a-holic.

There, I’ve said it out loud…well, sort of. I know many of us have lots of cookbooks and/or love to read them, but I’ve kind of taken it to the extreme. In fact, they are running me out of the house.

My unorganized reading table of cookbooks, food mags and Ree Drummond's new book.

Sure, I have my favorites, and they rotate sometimes. I have some very old ones, hand me down ones and some found at yard sales. I have some by famous chefs, some by famous cooks, some from other countries and some from little churches, schools and Junior Leagues. And In addition to the ones I own, I’ve read a bunch that I checked out from the library. It’s like some kind of a jones or something, every now and then…mostly now…I have cravings to read a new cookbook, essay or magazine about food like others have cravings to eat some chocolate. What can I say? I’m kinda weird that way. Continue reading →