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…
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…
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…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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,…
This soup is one of my go-to lunch soups, especially as the weather gets colder. It’s dead simple to make, keeps well, freezes well, and can be jazzed up multiple ways to keep it from getting boring.
This tomato sauce is at the heart of a good number of the dishes I make on a regular basis as well as being a go-to for a quick and easy dinner when the meal plan falls through. I always want to keep some in the freezer, so it’s something that I make every time…
Skip directly to the recipe It’s tradition in the South to eat black-eyed peas in some shape or form for luck in the new year. Some places make Hoppin’ John, a mixture of peas, rice, and pork or ham. In Texas, you couldn’t watch a New Year’s Day bowl game without Texas Caviar, a bean…
We have a weekend routine around here since we bought the house. Every Saturday Zach makes breakfast (including his amazing buttermilk biscuits) to fuel us for whatever house or yard or landscaping related project we’re tackling. There’s always something to be done; rocks to haul, mulch to spread, seeds and bulbs to plant, a shed…
