Handy Dandy Kitchen Tip

A couple of days ago, I was showing a friend this nifty little trick I have for cleaning sticky gunk off of dishes. She stopped me mid-sentence and said, “You ARE going to write about this, right?” I hadn’t thought about it before then, but here I am, writing about it.
For years I’ve used my [...]

Basic Pie Crust

We thought it might be handy to have a really basic pie crust recipe here, for those of you who don’t own the old Betty Crocker cookbook (and all 3 of you should try and find one soon! ) I am drawing this one from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I’ll give [...]

Vegetarian-friendly recipes

Both of us have a number of vegetarian friends who cruise this blog and we’re adding a category of recipes called Vegetarian/Vegetarian-Friendly. Over the next few weeks we’ll be going back through the archives and tagging appropriate recipes for this category.
I’ll also be adding notes and suggestions to recipes that are NOT vegetarian recipes that [...]

FAST and easy individual pizzas

Here’s a quick tip for those last-minute dinner panics. We were experimenting last week with a kids’ recipe book version of non-yeast pizza dough. We had made our batch of dough, and discovered that it wasn’t going to be enough. So we needed a fast alternative–with not even a morsel of bread anywhere in the [...]

Wow! Talk about Customer Service

If you’ve been reading this blog for any time at all, you know that the one appliance that I use DAILY is my Kitchenaid mixer. I finally burned out a mixer last June and had to get a new one. I bought directly from the Kitchenaid site, rather than through a dealer or a store. [...]

Uh-oh, my turkey is still frozen and it’s Wednesday night!

If you just realized, with enormous panic, that your turkey is still rock hard in the deep freeze and it’s NOT going to thaw in the fridge overnight, take a deep breath. Is it possible to thaw a turkey fast? Right now, fill up the kitchen sink with enough cold water to completely submerse your [...]

Very simple, very easy Thanksgiving Table Decorations

I’ll admit right up front that I’m not much for doing a lot of decorating. I can’t ever bring myself to buy flowers or a centerpiece for a holiday meal. I like a nicely-set table as much as the next person, but to me, the REAL decoration on the Thanksgiving table is the bounty of [...]

Is this your first Thanksgiving dinner?

Will this be your first American Thanksgiving ever? Are you trying to read recipes in English when English isn’t your first language? Or maybe, is this the first time that you’re in charge of cooking Thanksgiving dinner? I’d like to clarify something….

Planning a timeline for Thanksgiving Dinner Festivities

I don’t know very many people who aren’t really, REALLY busy at this time of year. Years ago, I got caught way short on time at Thanksgiving, realizing on Wednesday night that my turkey was still frozen solid in the deep freeze. So….I’ve developed a timeline that helps keep me a little more sane. (I [...]

Pesto-red onion Hamburger Pockets

It’s a new invention!
I didn’t feel like grilling burgers out in the snow flurries, so I tried something new.