A long time ago, I had a Home Ec teacher who explained there are three basic kinds of cookies: chewy, crisp, and cake-like. These old-fashioned oatmeal cookies are definitely in the cake-like group, soft and moist and full of flavor. They are also relatively healthy (though still with enough sugar that they definitely should stay…

I’ll admit it. For years, the only way I ever prepared butternut squash was to roast them whole and then scoop out the flesh from the finally softened peelings. Sometimes I would be so brave as to cut them in half, take out the seeds, and turn them upside down on a baking sheet to…

Sometimes, inspiration strikes and the results are even better than expected. The story of how this soup came to be is far too long for a single blog post. Just know that I was looking to make a flavorful, comfort-food type soup using some of the vegetables I had on hand. If it was healthy…

Part of my family and I were enjoying a pre-Valentine’s day simple supper of soup and bread, with the Chocolate Cherry Cookies I had made for the holiday. I mentioned that, if the cookies passed their taste test panel, I’d be putting them on this blog. Misunderstanding which part of the menu would be added, my…

Still trying to think of something sweet you can whip up as a valentine treat for friends or family? While these cookies aren’t heart-shaped (which confused one 3 year old briefly when they were introduced as “Valentine cookies”), they do have chocolate and sweet maraschino cherries, two ingredients just right for the holiday. I first…

Way back when, when our grandmothers did a lot of baking, they had some very basic cake recipes that could be tweaked into something special without a lot of effort. Taking a plain white cake and marbling in some chocolate to part of the batter was one of those things. This recipe does the same…

Whether in the late fall, when the first snow of the season may have started to fall or here, in mid-winter when the nights are still long and it seems like spring is still weeks and weeks away, the fragrance of something apple baking in the oven is a wonderful warming thing. Generally kind on…

Here is a hearty soup for a cold winter evening, perfect for vegans if you use vegetable broth, but still hearty enough for the most carnivorous family members. This warms up well too, so pack leftovers into single meal sized containers tot take to work or school for a quick warm up in the microwave….

I was looking for a dessert recipe that would use more than a cup of applesauce and would be something a little different than what I have recently tried. I remembered someone once talking about a “fabulous” applesauce pie they had had, so I started researching, not expecting to find many options. Wrong. A search…

Since today is only day 9 of this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas, it’s not too late to think about making some “figgy pudding” for those late cookie trays or mid-winter snacking. Yes, I know; figgy pudding should be steamed, but the original takes a lot of time and equipment to pull off. This adaptation…