For the last King Cake of the Season I wanted to do something a little different, so I made King Cake Balls. They were fun to make, and they came out really well. Here's what to do. You'll need: 1 box Duncan Hines yellow cake mix (don't forget the 3... Continue reading

When we moved in our house needed lots of TLC inside and out, and there wasn't much in the way of landscaping. This is what it looked like when we first moved in. One of our recent project was putting in a brick patio. We started building it this past... Continue reading

I've always loved the idea of King Cake, but I've never really loved the taste of King Cake. A lot of King Cakes tend to be on the dry side. Most also have colored crystallized sugar on top, which looks pretty but has a gritty texture. Last year I made... Continue reading

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies Makes about 30 large or 45 small cookies These are some of my very favorite cookies. They're based on a recipe from Williams Sonoma Essentials of Baking (my favorite baking book), and I bake them any time I get a chance. I baked them last week for... Continue reading

For the 1st LSU game of the season we had some friends over to watch the game. Patrick was in charge of the hot dogs, brats, and beer. And I made blackberry mint juleps (thank you, Martha Stewart) and LSU sugar cookies. I made the dough the night before from... Continue reading

If you live in or around Baton Rouge and have not yet tried Fat Cow I recommend that you do so immediately. In my opinion their hamburgers are the best in Baton Rouge, no contest. It opened up about 2.5 weeks ago, and today I went for the 6th time.... Continue reading

This is my beautiful Mawmaw Joyce (and Pawpaw Aubry) -mother of eight, grandmother of twenty-four(?), great-grandmother of... many. Every Friday morning for years my grandma has folded bulletins at the church with several other ladies. This is a recipe she passed on to me from one of her bulletin-folding friends.... Continue reading

These are delicious little cookies that you can make on a whim with things you probably already have on hand. They take about 25 minutes from start to finish and make 25-30 bite-sized cookies. They’re wonderful with coffee or tea. I found the basic recipe in Cookin’ Up A Storm... Continue reading

Once the herbs were dry I picked the leaves off the stems ... and stored them in spice jars labeled with the contents and date. I got these pretty little labels in my Christmas stocking and have been waiting to use them. Santa got them from Anthropologie. I ended up... Continue reading

This summer our herb garden exploded with basil, sage, rosemary, thyme, and oregano (the tomatoes and cucumbers in the vegetable garden not so much). So, I decided to dry some to store for the winter. Here's what I did: Cut whatever fresh herbs you want to dry, wash carefully, and... Continue reading

This can serve as an easy, quick, and elegant appetizer fit for company or just a cool summertime snack. I love the blend of savory and sweet with the freshness of the mint. Here's what you do: All you need are three ingredients: prosciutto, fresh mint leaves, and pears. Really,... Continue reading

With the hot weather I've been wanting to cook light, refreshing dishes, so last night I made an orzo salad with grilled shrimp. It was super easy and quick. Here's how to make it. Ingredients: 1/2 package orzo pasta (or whatever kind of smallish pasta you have) 1/2 c. pesto... Continue reading

Yet another crawfish dish (this may be the last one for a while) we made was a crawfish omelette. This morning I realized that there was yet another bag of crawfish tails that I'd forgotten to clean and freeze, so we threw some crawfish tails, leftover mushrooms from the boil,... Continue reading

The next dish we attempted was crawfish carbonara. We still had a LOT of crawfish! It was very rich, but very delicious. Here are a couple of photos and the recipe below (similar to recipe from Ralph Brennan's Seafood Cookbook). Sauce before tossing in egg yolks and pasta. Ready to... Continue reading

To accompany the crawfish braid we made a simple shrimp and crawfish remoulade salad with lettuce, shrimp, leftover crawfish, hard-boiled eggs, and remoulade dressing. I used a modified version of the Remoulade Sauce recipe from Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook (my version below). Remoulade Sauce Ingredients: 1/2 an onion... Continue reading

By the time we got to the 4th and 5th sacks of crawfish at the Easter crawfish boil everyone was full. We peeled most of the rest until we couldn’t take it anymore and then just pinched off the tails. We ended up with LOTS of crawfish. Usually we make... Continue reading

This past Sunday my husband and I had a big family crawfish boil - our first family holiday at our house. We boiled LOTS of crawfish, and everyone ate, drank, and was merry. The fixin's Live crawfish Getting ready to start the crawfish races! The crawfish were not motivated to... Continue reading