Julia Child’s French Bread

This is my first month being a part of the Daring Bakers, a super-cool group of bloggers who take on new and exciting baking challenges each month.  In past months, they’ve tackled Lemon Meringue Pie and Yule Logs.  February’s challenge was Julia Child’s French Bread, hosted by Breadchick Mary of The Sour Dough and Sara [...]

Italian Chicken and Vegetable Soup

 This soup is one of the easiest soups I’ve ever thrown together.  It is a Paula Deen recipe (but no butter this time).  My mom “discovered” it, and passed the recipe along to me.  I served it with hot, crusty bread.  It was great!  I don’t have any good pictures this time because I was [...]

Two Memes

I’ve been tagged for two separate memes, and I’ve really been procrastinating with my responses.  But here they are, finally, so for the few of you out there reading that don’t know me in real life (and maybe even if you do), hopefully this will help you learn something new about me.  I really wanted [...]

Starbucks Chocolate Cinnamon Bread

Chocolate and cinnamon, two of my favorite ingredients! I don’t think I’ve ever made any baked goods combining those two ingredients, and boy, was it time. Apparently I have been missing out. Why haven’t I done this before? Chocolate and cinnamon go great together, and I will be seeking out more [...]

Mediterranean Chicken Fettuccine

Whenever I come across a recipe in a magazine, I tear out the page, and place it in a “Recipes To Try” binder, organized by Chicken, Beef, Dessert, Breakfast, and Other.  The categories probably need a little more refining, but that worked at the time I made my binder about 4 years ago.  My Recipes [...]

Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes

Since I live in Houston, it is only fitting that I love Tex-Mex.  Love love love it!  Cheese enchiladas, sizzling beef and chicken fajitas, tortilla chips, salsa, guacamole, queso, lime, cilantro, fresh flour tortillas….yum!  There are so many restaurant options here for Tex-Mex, so we usually make our decision based on what kind of dinner [...]

Sun-dried Tomato Chicken Roll-ups

I really like sun-dried tomatoes and surprisingly, The Picky Apple does too.  I gravitate toward dishes containing sun-dried tomatoes in restaurants, but always forget that I could be cooking with them at home.  When I saw this recipe for Sun-dried Tomato Chicken Roll-ups back in January on Celeste’s blog, Sugar & Spice, I knew I [...]

Heart of Darkness Brownies

My husband (Picky Apple) surprised me on Valentine’s Day with two new cookbooks.  It was really the perfect gift, as I keep adding cookbooks to my Amazon cart for “pretend” orders.  (Do you do that with online shopping, or is it just me?  Add all the things you want to your cart, just for fun….then [...]

Spaghetti and Meatballs with Homemade Red Sauce

Spaghetti and meatballs is one of my favorite comfort foods.  Considering how much I love it at home, I should really think about ordering it more often when dining out at Italian restaurants.  I tend to overlook spaghetti and meatballs in favor of a more “exciting” dish, but maybe I’ll give it a chance next [...]

Valentine’s Dinner

The Picky Apple and I are not the type to go out to dinner for Valentine’s.  In fact, we normally don’t really celebrate at all, which is a little strange considering that Valentine’s day is also the “anniversary” of our very first date.  That’s right.  Our first date was on Valentine’s Day.  Ten years ago, [...]