• Cheese biscuits

    Although I wasn’t thrilled with Paula Deen’s fried chicken recipe, I have no complaints about her cheese biscuit recipe. It is easy to make, it doesn’t require any special tools and the biscuits are fantastic. Another reason to love this recipe? I accidentally added the cheese at the wrong time this time and the biscuits […]

  • Fried chicken

    In honor of my husband’s birthday, I decided to face one of my cooking fears and break out the Fry Daddy. Yes, it’s time for some fried chicken. Since I only had a vague idea of how to make fried chicken, I turned to (who else?) Paula Deen. Unfortunately, her recipe seems to have been […]

  • Macaroni and cheese

    Macaroni and cheese may be the world’s most perfect food. Or at least the most perfect food item that doesn’t contain sugar. Kraft mac&cheese will work in a pinch, but homemade is soooo much better. And while I do enjoy the occasional Gruyere-fontina-cheddar-and-cavatappi (with or without bacon), sometimes you really just want elbow macaroni with […]

  • Fiesta fruit salad

    I have this awesome cookbook I got when I was in San Antonio a few years ago (I think I may have actually purchased said cookbook at the Alamo), called Los Barrios Family Cookbook. In it is a lovely recipe for a fruit salad with chile powder. But it calls for cantaloupe (ew!) and about […]

  • De-volumizing serum?

    Why is it that there are 100 different products to add volume to your hair, and none to get rid of it? The reason I’m asking is that my hair — which starts out straight and normal-ish each morning — grows to 80s-era Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader size every afternoon. Not exactly what I’m going for. […]

  • Ridiculously easy chicken tacos

    You are going to need some very special skills to make these chicken tacos. Namely: the ability to open a jar (or find a cute boy to do it for you) and the ability to push a button. So, those without opposable thumbs, sorry. Seriously, these are so easy to make it is almost embarrassing. […]

  • Chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting

    As you may remember, my mom made me a Ding Dong cake for my birthday. Well, kind of. The thing is, I love the combination of chocolate and marshmallow. So I didn’t really care about having the chocolate ganache at the top. I just wanted lots of marshmallow-y goodness all over. This chocolate cake recipe […]

  • Smith Island cake

    As some of you may know, the official dessert of Maryland is the Smith Island cake. The original is a yellow cake with chocolate icing and has somewhere from six to 12 thin layers. But I took a peek at the Original Smith Island Cake Co. and it appears they make all types of cake […]

  • Mexican pinwheels

    Hilary and Aaren would kill me if I didn’t post this recipe soon. So here we go. But don’t think you are going to get the recipe without a story. One of the cookbooks I use quite frequently (mainly because it has a lot of my mother’s recipes in it) is the Severna Park Newcomers […]

  • Just breathe

    I was swimming tonight (only 1500 yards, because I got there late) and thinking about this article I read in the New York Times that talks about the importance of breathing and rhythm in swimming. It actually took me a long time before I could swim freestyle for any length of time for basically that […]