Each year brings new life, new challenges and of course, new resolutions. Each of us tries to improve our lives in some way, and hopefully to touch the lives of others in a more profound way. It’s the time of year that we take stock of ourselves and our lives, then resolve to make certain changes over the next twelve months.
In that spirit, let me share my New Year’s resolutions with you.
In 2008 I resolve to…
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It seems that unlike many of my peers, I haven’t focused on the sweeter side of life much around here this year, and although it made it pretty easy to pick the top five sweet dishes of the year, it also meant there wasn’t much to choose from. For my money that means I’ll have to do better in my effort to bring you some tooth-achingly good treats over the course of the next twelve months or so. At least one per month, I’d say, though there may be more.
In any event, the following is a list of my favorite sweet dishes from 2007:
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As I said yesterday, I’m in the middle of repairing all of those annoying special characters along with the overabundant several couple of spelling errors I’ve found along the way. I started yesterday with my first post of January 11th 2007, and have finally managed to plug along into July of last year.
For those of you with whom I share a blogroll, please have no fears, the blogroll code will be reinastalled just as soon as I’m done with this rather tedious mission.
For those wondering if I’ve been doing any actual cooking while this process is in motion, take heart! I should have a recipe posted by the end of the day, and I have another planned for about two days after that.
Well, I’m back to proofreading and correction. I hope to see yopu all with a new recipe and some really good photos by the end of the day.
Thank goodness this is the last update I have planned for the foreseeable future. I’m really loving this new design. What are your thoughts on it?
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We all have our weaknesses. For Shawnda at Confections of a Foodie Bride, it’s chicken, for Lis over at La Mia Cucina, it’s frosting. For me it’s duck.
I’d meant to present you all with lovely pictures of a nice roast duck today, but for me the third time was definitely not the charm. The last two efforts were overdone, this time I managed to under cook the blasted thing and render it flavorless. At least it wasn’t chewy. The roasted root vegetables were incredible. I suppose I could have showcased those, but both my wife and I liked them so much that I plan on making them next week, and I’ll post on them then instead.
That leaves today as a day to go through all of the old posts here and repair the wonky characters that appeared when I upgraded the database. While I’m at it, I figured I might as well fix any spelling errors I come across. (There are more than I’d like to admit, let me tell you!)
Once I’ve done that, I’ll be adding a few more features to the general layout, such as thumbnails for the archives, a fix to the new menu system. (I hope you guys have been enjoying that!) and my wife and I are going to rearrange the categories to make finding what you’re looking for a bit easier.
I hope you all had a very merry Christmas!
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Today I would like to extend our warmest wishes and heartfelt thanks for all who have visited us since last January. It’s been a good year for us, and I hope and pray that it was a good year for you and yours as well. No matter what your beliefs or creed at this time of the year, I wish you peace, happiness and a safe and prosperous new year.
If possible, I would give each and every one of you a gift this holiday season. Since that is obviously implausible I’ve done the next best thing and rolled out the new site design in leu of a gift. I hope you find that it is much easier to use and more pleasant to look at, it’s taken a long time to get all the bugs worked out. There are still a few places in this design that need attention, but it’s in a stable enough state to go forward on its way into the future.
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It’s funny to think that this blog didn’t even exist at this time last year. In fact, I was still toying with the idea of doing it at all. Now I can’t imagine what I would do if I wasn’t. Christmas is nearly upon us, with the last of the pressies safely in the hands of the good people at FedEx and my house in complete disarray in the wake of a reorganization project, I find that I’m looking rather nostalgically back over the past year.
Over the past 12 months I’ve made some discoveries, lived some amazing tmes, and met too many wonderful people to mention. I’ve gone from 4 visits per day in my first month of writing to over 200 visits on an average day from people all around the globe, all with different reasons for visiting. some of these people are old friends now. They’ve stopped by and left their warm wishes, we’ve gone on to emailing each other from time to time, and hopefully one day I’ll get to meet them. the rest I will never know, but I appreciate them just as much. they’re why I keep doing this. So to all, a heart felt THANK YOU, from my wife and myself, with best wishes for this holiday season and a wonderful new year. I hope you enjoyed what you saw and that you’ll pop in again.
With the chaos of the season surrounding all of us, and with the already announced new design for this site going live very soon, there is sadly little time for cooking, so I thought I’d look back over the recipes for the year (Well over 130 of them!) and highlight a few of my favorites. I hope some of these dishes find their way to a table near you sometime soon. Read more…
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What is a cowboy cookie? Where did it get its name? I have no idea, but if you ask me, this is just about the best cookie you’ll ever get yer grubby lil’ paws on, and I can’t exactly send you warm holiday wishes from the great state of Texas without sharing the recipe for these incredible cookies. Honestly, they’re so good that you’ll want to tie on the feed bag for more than one or two.
O.K., enough with the western slang already! You’re in Texas, we get the point!
These are not the official Laura Bush Governor’s Mansion Cowboy Cookies, but rather a recipe received from an Airman (of unknown rate and rank) stationed in Minot, North Dakota, and to be honest, I like this version better than the First Lady’s, simply because it’s not as sweet. Having said that I have to tell you that they are still very sweet, chocolaty and nutty, with just a hint of coconut flavor hovering somewhere in the background. The oatmeal gives these cookies a very satisfying texture, and if you try hard enough you can convince yourself that there might just be something healthy about them. (Oatmeal lowers cholesterol, right? Right!!!)
And in the spirit of the Holidays and in respect to Texas herself, I just had to make one monster of a cookie. This is something we did as kids, when there wasn’t enough dough left to make a full sheet of cookies. Mom would make two really big ones, just to keep the natives in line.
Yup, it’s the same plate! did you used to make a couple of monster cookies at the end of a batch? do you still give in to the temptation at times? You should!
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‘Tis the season for giving, cheer, gifts, and cookies with a resemblance to snowballs. Today I present you with a double helping of Holiday cheer, from our home to yours. Both of these cookies are guaranteed to warm your heart, and one will warm your tummy as well! Don’t let the resemblance fool you. These cookies may look alike on the outside, but the differences between them are like night and day. (Or chocolate and vanilla, as the case may be.)
Though I’ve posted My Aunt Thelma’s Tea Cookie recipe before, I really can’t do Christmas without them. They are a Holiday staple in my household, as they have been for the past 25 years and I doubt they will be going anywhere soon. These little treats are the ultimate in decadence, and should be eaten without remorse for what they will do to your waistline. It is Christmas, after all!
Be warned, the Brandy Balls are intended for mature audiences. These are a no bake cookie, therefore they hold about 90% of the alcohol content they were originally given. The flavor is intense and eating too many before driving is discouraged by both the management of this blog as well as state troopers anywhere in the country, not to mention M.A.D.D.
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This was initially slated to be one of 12 cookie recipes for the Holidays. Instead it has become December’s first Kitchen Disaster. I should have known from the recipe that these cookies would never work as promised from the recipe at Food Network. I would have been right to follow my instincts. Why I decided to pick a recipe from Giada DeLaurentis is beyond me. I should have known that an Italian cook wasn’t going to have great success with a native American fruit like blueberries.
Instead of the beautiful blue flecked cookies shown there, we ended up with these mutant sons of the monster from the Blob. Not only were they unappetizing to look at, but these cookies wouldn’t have been all that great even if I had followed my first instincts and used the berries while still frozen. (Which would have made them prettier.)
So Giada, you let me down. I’ll remember that the next time I see a recipe on your show that makes me go “Ooooooh!”
I’ve included the recipe just in case a more talented cookie maker can find a way to repair this mess. As always, my thoughts are right near the end. Ciao.
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There are things out there that are just too cool for words. this is one of them, and it includes a great eggnog recipe to boot!
Have fun!
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