I love cooking in a crockpot – especially in the winter. It’s wonderful to put something together in the morning before leaving the house and come home to a cooked meal, ready to eat. This recipe is strongly South Western based and is super flexible. Serve it as is as a fantastic one-bowl meal … [...]

For the first post of 2011 I’m going to jump right in with a recipe that’s not only a Southern tradition, but is a yummy AND healthy way to start the New Year. In the South, it’s a tradition to eat black-eyed-peas on New Year’s Day; it’s supposed to bring luck and prosperity. In my [...]

Up until a few years ago I was skeptical about split pea soup. I didn’t dislike it … I just didn’t like it very much. Then a friend of mine encouraged me to try it again and so I made it. And I tweaked my recipe and made it again. And again. And now it’s [...]

When I was a kid, I loved brussels sprouts.  I loved them just plain, boiled, and with a little butter on top.  I’m pretty sure it had something to do with my mom calling them “little cabbages”.  I was in love with miniature food I think – brussels sprouts were little cabbages, broccoli were little [...]

Before I get into the recipe for this – and it’s a very easy, but very important recipe – I have a confession.  Or a realization.  I realized that while I’m pretty good at taking the process photos of a recipe, I fail miserably at taking photos of the finished product.  A few days after [...]

Let’s get the definitions out of the way first.  This dressing is not “salad dressing”.  This is dressing the way we Southerners use it:  a bread based side dish that is baked in a casserole and NOT stuffed into the body of the bird.  In other words if you cook your stuffing outside of the [...]

This is another one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants recipes that I came up with when I was (a) desperate for a quick and easy salad dressing and (b) tired of bruising my knuckles trying to get the last of the dijon out of the jar. (Hey, that stuff is spendy and I’m not gonna throw away [...]

The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home [...]

A lot of people have a hard time figuring out meals – how to choose side dishes, how to know what goes with what, etc. I get asked how I choose my side dishes a lot; it’s something people seem to have a particularly hard time with. Maybe this will give some insight into how [...]