As Irish eyes start smilin’ at this time of year, I always seem to break out the Guinness for recipes in my kitchen. I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t really like drinking Guinness straight up, but in cooking it adds a whole new depth and dimension to so many things. Sausage Coddle, Oatmeal Quick Bread, Bangers and Mash, Caramel Sauce. And that holds … [Read more...] about Guinness Brownies
Plain Cake
Most of the older community cookbooks I have, even some reproductions of recipe books and “housekeeping manuals” from the 18th and 19th centuries have a recipe for Plain Cake. Sometimes it is used as a base for other things, like trifle, but mostly it just sits there on the page between the other more elaborate cakes. Easy to ignore or just flip past. This has been in … [Read more...] about Plain Cake
Creole Daube
Creole Daube is one of those recipes I have seen in Louisiana community cookbooks for years and often marked with a little sticky note flag. Those recipes are usually the short and sweet type written by home cooks who could undoubtedly make it blindfolded. You know, a list of ingredients then directions like “brown meat, cook trinity, add tomato sauce, serve.” It’s always … [Read more...] about Creole Daube
Street Corn Chicken Chili
The weather, here in Memphis at least, is in its strange cold/warm/rainy/chance of snow phase. I mean, it is 60 degrees one day and 25 the next. We’ve had the hunkering down January, but we are not quite in spring is coming March. So warm soups and chilis still totally appropriate, but maybe not so much the hearty beef stews and heavy braises. So I present a great bowl of warm … [Read more...] about Street Corn Chicken Chili
Decadent Cherry Chocolate Cake
Ahh, February and thoughts do turn to love…or at least chocolate. Partnered, single, somewhere in between, everyone deserves a treat on Valentine’s Day. I can be a sucker for any of the themed foods that come out for any holiday. Pumpkin spice Oreos? Yep. Peppermint kisses? Finishing the Christmas bag now. Heart shaped ravioli? Give it to me! I am not necessary a celebrator of … [Read more...] about Decadent Cherry Chocolate Cake
