Category: Food

Baking and cooking my favorite old and new recipes.

Indian Pudding

This post brought back memories of my grandmother’s cooking skills.

Laurie's avatarA Taste of Morning

Indian Pudding is a traditional New England dessert which can be traced back to the 18th century. I developed a  fondness for it when I lived in the Boston area. For some reason, though, it is relatively unknown outside of New England.

Here is a brief history of the dish …

When British settlers moved to this country they brought their Hasty Pudding recipes with them. I’ve never had Hasty Pudding, but apparently it is a dish made from wheat cooked in water or milk until it develops the consistency of a porridge. Wheat was in short supply in New England, so the settlers adapted to the new world by substituting corn meal – which they called Indian flour. Being along a trade route with plentiful molasses and spices, they embellished the dish with these flavorful additions as well as with dried fruits and sometimes nuts … and thankfully, the…

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Never Send Cookies in the Mail

chocolate chip cookies
Homemade cookies!

I usually start my blogging with a photo. I take lots of pictures of all kinds of things and I came across this cookie photo which reminded me of how I had this great idea to send cookies to my son last year.

He lives in Florida and his family (us) all moved north and left him. So I feel guilty and last year I got this idea that I would give him a taste of home – a blast from the past – and send a box of my chocolate chip cookies. He would love that!

I am tired of cooking and baking. I really don’t enjoy it much these days and would prefer to have my own personal chef whip up something and serve it to me. Comes from all those years of BEING the personal chef to everyone else I guess. But the cookie recipe is from my old Betty Crocker cookbook and it makes a ton of cookies. There would be plenty to keep for ourselves too. I always like the idea of killing two birds with one stone.

So I made the cookies, found a box and began packing them up. I put 2 cookies together in a baggie, then layered all the baggies between packing paper – the kind with air bubbles that pop if you step on them. I needed a bigger box. I kept bagging and layering and filled a big box and as I was doing it I thought that Nick had better LOVE this gift. It was a pain in the neck.

So between the baking, cleaning up, finding a big enough box, packing it, addressing it and taking it to the Post Office and paying to ship it, I learned a valuable lesson.

Do not ever do that again.

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Baking Cookies in Muffin Tins

pans of cookie dough
Ready to Bake

Now that the cold weather is back I am beginning to want to bake and cook more. I made chili the other day and a quiche yesterday. Now, at this time of year,  it’s a good thing to warm the house by using the oven so I have more incentive to make food.
I wanted to share a easy and fast cookie recipe for peanut butter and chocolate lovers.

  • Buy peanut butter cookie dough (or make your own)
  • Use small muffin tins and add pieces of dough like in my picture.
  • Bake – I think @ 350 for 10 minutes – until they are cooked.
  • As soon as they come out of the oven, push Reeses candy (or any chocolate or candy) into the center of each of the cookies. (You’ll have to unwrap them while the dough bakes!)
  • Let them cool a little and take them out of the pan using a knife.

I used to make my own peanut butter cookie dough and that tasted best, but the store bought stuff is super simple and the kids don’t really care.

It’s a nice way to warm up the kitchen.

On The Table

table setting
A Special Meal

My daughter and her family were coming for dinner one weekend and I snapped this photo after I began setting the table. My neighbor had given me those little lavender flowers and I wanted a photo of them.

My daughter has a hyper-active dog. She is mid-size and looks a lot like a black lab and she is very naughty- at times.

On this particular day I had made cornbread to go with our meal. It was on the kitchen counter and the dog helped herself to it while we sat on the porch talking.

Back in April she did the same thing at my daughter’s house with her birthday cheesecake that I had spent good time making!

We ate our meal without any cornbread.