Lavender Blackberry Cake – Or Why I’m a Cook, Not a Baker
Adapting Sally’s lavender blackberry cake to gluten-free taught me what cream cheese does structurally. A redeemed disaster, plus the recipe I should have made.
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Texas-Style Margarita Mix (For When You’re Actually Throwing a Party)
Here’s the thing about me and margaritas: I love a well-made one. Same with a good paloma. Fresh lime juice, real grapefruit juice, decent tequila, none of that bottled neon-green stuff sweetened with corn syrup. Our local Mexican restaurant in Alpharetta makes them properly: fresh-squeezed citrus, balanced sweetness, no shortcuts. When I’m out and the…
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Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas
If you read Sunday’s post, you already know what these are doing here today. If you didn’t, the short version is: I’m a Texan, it’s Cinco de Mayo week, and I’m cooking what I actually cook on Cinco de Mayo, which is Tex-Mex, made by a Texan, with full honesty about what it is and…
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Bean and Corn Tostadas: A One-Person Meal Hack
Zach travels for work 6-7 times a year. Cooking for one is hard. Most recipes make too much. You end up with leftovers for days, or you waste food. It’s easier to just make something simple and quick. But I still want it to be nutritious. Balanced. Something that actually feels like a meal and…
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Jalapeño Popper Chicken
Who doesn’t love a jalapeño popper? (For the uninitiated: jalapeño poppers are jalapeños stuffed with cream cheese, then wrapped in bacon and baked or grilled until the bacon is crispy and the cheese is melted. They’re addictive, rich, and the perfect combination of creamy, spicy, and smoky.) Now imagine that flavor stuffed into a juicy…
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The Cookies I Bake When Everything Is Too Much
I baked these cookies on Saturday. The day Alex Pretti was shot and killed by ICE thugs in Minneapolis. These are my comfort cookies. The ones I make when I need the repetitiveness. The rhythm. When I need to not think about anything past the next 8 to 12 minutes. I don’t actually make cookies…
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Southern Style Cornbread
This is my grandmother’s cornbread recipe, halved for smaller households. She made twice this amount in a 12-inch skillet, feeding a family of six plus whoever showed up at dinnertime (which in rural Texas was often neighbors, cousins, or people from church). This version makes enough for 4 people, or 2 people with leftovers for…
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Collard Greens
In the South, collards are a staple side dish, but they’re also a New Year’s Day tradition: My Meemaw (my East Texas grandmother) always made collard greens, black-eyed peas, and cornbread for New Year’s Day. Every single year, without fail: greens for money, peas for luck in the coming year.
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Zucchini-Potato Latkes
Tomorrow is the first day of Hanukkah and I’m taking a break from Christmas cookie making to pop together some latkes for a friend. I’ve been wanting to make this recipe from Smitten Kitchen for a while and today seemed the perfect day for it. I’m a huge fan of Deb’s recipes and she’s never…
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Dirty Vodka Martini & Blue Cheese Olives
Back before Covid, I had a standing Monday-after-work-date with a friend. We would meet up at our favorite restaurant bar, halfway between our two houses, order 2 dirty vodka martinis with blue cheese olives, and split a spinach salad with steak. It got to the point that when we walked in the door at about…
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Overnight Chicken Stock
A while back I posted a recipe for Instant Pot chicken stock, and I still use that recipe once in a while when I need chicken stock quickly or I need to make multiple batches for a big cook. In the last couple of years, though, I’ve gone back to my old stand-by of overnight…
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Tuna & Rice Bowl
Right before the Covid lockdowns started a couple of years ago, we were starting to see “poke” shops popping up everywhere around here. If you’re not familiar with it, poke (pronounced poh-KAY) is a Hawaiian dish of raw fish served with soy or sesame oil and maybe green onions or seaweed. It’s a very simple,…
