I usually avoid Trader Joe's on the weekend, if I can help it. It's just too crazy, unless I can get there early. But I braved it on Saturday because I just knew there was gonna be more fall items. And we've definitely got another mega-round of fall products on shelves in the PNW. …
Although Trader Joe's has been trotting out lots of non-dairy frozen dessert options over the last couple of years, it's interesting they went the standard dairy route for their Horchata Ice Cream. Sure, rice milk isn't necessarily known for rich creamy mouthfeel, but using regular dairy in this one and with a cinnamon forward…
The spice profile in Mexican chorizo makes it a love-it or hate-it proposition. While I love the the zing of vinegar with chiles, paprika, cinnamon and cumin, my husband would just as soon not. You can mix the chile paste mixture into ground pork or turkey, and as I discovered last week, you can (and you…
Tradition is just something you do more than once, said some cynical person sometime somewhere. Well, if that's the case, this Not Cross Bun loaf is now tradition. I've made it three times, and damn if it isn't simpler than shaping individual hot cross buns. And without a direct connection to Good Friday, you can have…
Apple Pie Spice, Pumpkin Spice, Chai Spice. They're not all the same, yet at this time of year, people will slap any old label on a spice blend with a lot of cinnamon in it to make it sound new. We're keeping it honest today -- this is Apple Pie-spiced thanks to a Penzeys sample, but what…
You're surviving on Pinterest, aren't you? These first few weeks of January are hard. You're back to eating the way you should, getting more exercise, but you're eyeballing that lasagne with the stretchy cheese, living vicariously through images of pizza dip and cream cheese brownies. I see it in your pins! You know what, I'm right there with you. Yesterday, I wanted a bag of Doritos like nobody's business. And after dinner, I've been finding myself wanting a little something sweet. Not a full blown dessert, just a little something. These little spice cookies fit the January agenda -- sweetened mostly with dates and applesauce, spiced with a little cinnamon (and high in fiber!).
I've mentioned before that Betty Crocker's Snickerdoodles are a mainstay of my holiday baking repertoire. It's a cookie I've loved since I was a kid and it's one of Wolf's favorites, too. While he was in NYC this weekend, sending me jealous-making photos from Momofuku Noodle Bar and Il Laboratorio del Gelato, I was in the kitchen whipping up these cookies. (Good man, he brought me some Milk Bar cookies).
With just a quick tweak, you get the cinnamon you're expecting in a snickerdoodle, but with a slow building smoky heat from the chipotle. Two additional changes I do make to the original recipe -- add 1/2 t. vanilla and up the salt to 1/2 t. as well.
Betty's, but one better.
I just can't seem to get on the pumpkin bandwagon this year. Everywhere you look, things have been pumpkin-ized. It's not new, Starbucks has done a pumpkin spice latte for years, I can remember 31 Flavors doing a pumpkin pie ice cream when I was a kid, but I must be spending too much time in the aisles at Trader Joe's, because I already have pumpkin fatigue. Pumpkin spice chai, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancake and waffle mix, pumpkin macarons, pumpkin yogurt, pumpkin cream cheese. Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin (Marsha, Marsha, Marsha)! And I know when you saw these muffins, you thought pumpkin, right? Nope. Sweet potato. Chipotle and cinnamon-scented sweet potato corn muffins.
It's July. While the rest of the country is baking, I'm baking.
After investing last Sunday morning in baking pane Toscano, this week, I wanted something quicker, something between a 3-hour commitment and the half hour drive to Top Pot for a pershing. I've been thinking about non-pizza uses for pizza dough. So, first stop, pizza…
Inspiration comes at the oddest moments. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do, still laying in bed, is a scroll-through of email, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to see what happened over night. Sunrise is at 5 something now, alarm goes off at 6, and there is zero chance I'm getting out of bed before that. On one of those scroll-throughs, Chronicle Books was doing a Twitter contest to win a signed copy of the Humphry Slocombe Ice Cream Book