I worked outside today in my gardens cleaning out dried vines as well as plants that had been zapped by the two mornings of frost we had last week. Considering we are into October already, the weather is still comfortable but just chilly enough for a hot bowl of soup. I didn't want to spend an excessive amount of time…

I made a meatless taco salad when my daughter Lisa invited her friend Niki, who is vegetarian, over for dinner. The recipe came from a vegetarian cookbook that I purchased when Dick and I attended a Hallelujah Acres nutritional seminar in Tampa, Florida. Serve it with a cluster of grapes and chunks of zucchini oatmeal bread…

For a few years, I have been on a hunt for a set of vintage pyrex mixing bowls in graduated sizes sporting colors of yellow, red, green, and blue. They aren't extremely rare, but the price tag isn't cheap. When Dick and I camped at Itasca State Park after Labor Day Weekend, we drove into Bemidji one day and stopped…

I picked some herbs today from my garden… basil, spearmint, and flat-leaf parsley…  that made such a pretty bouquet in an old gravy serving dish.      I used some of the fresh basil leaves to make some basil mayo to top some quinoa bean burgers I made for lunch today.  To complete the meal, I served a little glass custard cup…

The cold spring, with a snowstorm at the end of April, delayed planting my garden two weeks later than normal and the rabbits or deer continually chomping off the tender tops of my zucchini caused me to think that fall's first frost might arrive before I was gifted with any zucchini.  However, the plants have begun…

I just returned from Elk River where  I attended a bridal shower for my sister Rita's daughter, Jenni. My youngest sister, Marlene, baked and decorated the absolute cutest bride cookies. She cut the cookie using a dress-shaped cookie cutter, spread it with icing, fashioned the skirt overlay from rolled fondant to give it dimension, tucked tulle underneath the overlay to make…

This cake recipe is so simple because the topping bakes in the oven at the same time as the cake. Just a quick sprinkle of chocolate chips while still warm from the oven and you're done. It was a $400.00 prize winner in a Better Homes and Gardens April 2000 Recipe Contest.      Chocolate Chip Upside-Down…

This is the brand of marshmallows that I used in the brownie cookies that I made the day before yesterday. They come in both regular-size and miniature… perfect for a cup of hot chocolate on the cool autumn days that are ever-so-subtly beginning their entrance. 

I couldn't resist taking a nibble… allright a bite… out of this oh-so-yummy brownie cookie with a marshmallow layer topped with chocolate icing. It looks so doggone cute that it must be time-consuming to make. Not at all… so simple. The recipe came from a 2004 issue of Martha Stewart Kids Magazine.   Marshmallow Brownie Cookie Makes about 2…

To understand the purpose of the lunch in this photo, you will need to read my entry regarding "Lunch with John" where every Monday at 12:25 on the KLKS Radio Station north of Brainerd, one of the radio announcers opens his lunchbox to see what his wife has packed for him that day. I challenged myself…