Michael Makes Magnificent Munchable Melts

My youngest son is an idea man and a planner. I benefit from this nearly every day. Last night, while I was rattling around the kitchen, trying to figure out what to make for dinner, he offered to come up with a plan. Naturally I took him up on it and the result was a [...]

Sourdough Pizza Crust

With Laura’s Pizza Research Extravaganza going on right now, this seems like the perfect time to share my recipe for sourdough pizza crust.
We’ve gotten rather hooked on sourdough pizza crust in the past few months. I’m not sure that it is historically accurate (i.e. I don’t think that pizza arrived in this country until AFTER [...]

Olympus Honey Bread

Here is our ancient Greek sweet pizza, which we made from the sweet ingredients we didn’t feel we could include on our dinner pizza on the first stop in pizza history.

Amish Friendship Bread, Part 2

Little did we know that the Amish Friendship Bread recipe that we posted 14 months ago would become the most-viewed post on MSK ever. The comment section has grown to 130 comments, all full of great questions and creative ideas for variations on AFB. What amazing readers we have!
A few weeks ago, I got a [...]

Cardamom cream cheese peach braid

There are times when I make things that require precision and measurements, a certain faithfulness to a recipe. Then there are the times when I walk into the kitchen, poke through the fridge and the pantry, and a sort of happy accident occurs. This bread was a happy accident.
One night last week, I needed to [...]

Swedish Rye Bread

This delightful bread is part of the Christmas Eve noon meal tradition in Swedish homes of Doppa Gryta (Dip in the Kettle).  I’ll post the Doppa Gryta recipe later, but it involves cooking several kinds of meat in a large kettle, then serving the meat, and putting the kettle with the broth in the middle [...]

Christmas menus from Barb’s Kitchen, 2007

Okay, okay, okay, I’ll indulge Laura’s nosey impulses and share my Christmas menu.

Christmas Baking!

The month before Christmas is the best time of the year for baking, in our opinion. There are so many baked goods that are part of this time of year! The fragrance of cinnamon and bread and cookies wafting through the house is an important part of what makes it FEEL like Christmas! There are [...]

Dresden Weihnachtsstollen, or German Christmas Bread

My friend Tina grew up in Germany, and now lives here and goes to my church, so we sometimes get to sample her wonderful German cooking at potlucks. I asked her to share some German Christmas recipes with me, and here’s the first one. She gives the measurements in both metric and “our [...]

Amazing Raisin Pineapple Zucchini Bran Muffins

I was just playing around in the kitchen this morning and ended up making dozens and dozens of muffins–a happy accident. I actually merged and tweaked a couple of recipes and ended up with these muffins. They’re so moist and rich they don’t need butter or anything. They were delicious, hot out of the oven. [...]