• Award-winning bourbon chili

    Toby doesn’t cook much, but he does make chili. In fact, he was already an award-winning chili chef when I met him. Of course, the award may have had a little to do with the fact that the judges were Marines and the chili contains bourbon. But this chili IS good. And pretty easy to […]

  • Red velvet cupcakes

    You know what today is, right? Arizona’s 99th birthday! What better way to celebrate that — and that other holiday — than red velvet cupcakes? You need cake flour for this recipe, and I thought I had a whole box. Then I picked up the box to measure it and realized I only had about […]

  • Barbecue sauce – 2 ways

    I wanted some Eastern North Carolina-style vinegar barbecue sauce for the pulled pork, but I figured I couldn’t buy it in Maryland. Then, when I started looking for a recipe, I realized it is super easy to make — as is what I would call “normal” barbecue sauce. I ended up making three kinds: Eastern […]

  • Slow-cooker pulled pork and coleslaw

    When I started thinking about our Super Bowl party, I immediately decided I wanted to make pulled pork and chili. Toby has an award-winning chili recipe and will be posting that later. But I thought the slow-cooker would be perfect for the pork. We had slow-cooker pulled pork sandwiches at Matt and Hilary’s house a […]

  • More Super Bowl cookies

    Remember the polka-dot helmets? I figured out a way to turn those polka dots into the Steelers logo: I didn’t take a lot of photos of the frosting and decorating process with these because it was the middle of the night and I wanted to get them done. But basically I just made polka dots […]

  • Cheesehead macarons

    Don’t worry, I didn’t forget the Packers! I was just having some trouble with the lemon curd I made earlier. I tried using the “teal” color from the Duff jewel colors pack, but it turned it blue. So don’t do that. So… the lemon curd I made tastes amazing. Unfortunately, it didn’t thicken properly. I […]

  • Steel Curtain macarons

    Are you ready for the Super Bowl? I’m totally not. But I do have some cookies, so that’s a good start. The first cookies I made today were Steelers macarons — yellow shells with chocolate ganache. I used the same recipe and method for the macaron shells I used during the 12 days of Christmas […]

  • Sunday nachos

    You know how that guacamole salad is all fresh and healthy? These nachos are basically the opposite of that. I love them. We call these nachos something else in our house… but I am going to call them Sunday nachos, because I specifically remember eating them for lunch on Sundays. And I think they could […]

  • Super Bowl cookie preview

    I’m planning to make — and post — Super Bowl macarons on Saturday, so if you are interested in doing the same, go ahead and separate some eggs now so your egg whites can age. This weekend I did a practice run with my sugar cookies, using the general decorating method used by Bridget of […]

  • Cheese crisps – two ways

    We’ve been trying out some Super Bowl recipes, but not all of them have worked out that well. Sorry. That’s why we tried them early! But I figured cheese crisps are always a winner. Yes, most people call them quesadillas. But in Arizona, we called them cheese crisps. Not sure why… other than they are […]