Patricia (Technicolor Kitchen) and I are at it again. She and I are having so much fun thumbing through our cookbooks, choosing our task, and baking goodies on our bucket list.
We both decided that this week we would bake from The Sono Baking Company Cookbook. This is one of my newest purchases and I have read it from cover to cover. I love this book and there are very few recipes I do not want to try. I cannot wait to make them all. Patricia chose to make hers with chocoate chips (I entertained that idea, but decided against it) and although she says the chocoalte was a bit too bitter, I kind of like the idea of bitter and sweet.
Who doesn’t like Cinnamon Bread (with raisins, chocolate, nuts)? This is every bit as good as a cinnamon bread you would buy in the best bakery. I swapped out the white flour for whole wheat pastry flour and it was airy and light and perfectly balanced. The second day, we toasted it and slathered it with salted, organic butter. Comfort food at its best!
If you’ve noticed a theme here (other than pies), you’ll notice a love for the nuts+pie combo. Perhaps it’s a contrasting textural thang, or maybe it’s a way of rationalizing eating so many pies (i.e. nuts are healthy, right?) At any rate, this pie is a tropical breeze in a pie shell, using macadamias for crunch on top of sweet vanilla pie filling. It’s a good one from Epicurious. Enjoy!
Weeknight dinners can be daunting if you are working all day or chasing kids around after school. We have been in the middle of basketball season, which means, three nights a week it is chaos at dinnertime. Mostly because the kids are starving by the time they get home. 
I am an A+ eater and a B- cook. Sad, but true – I’d be so much better off if it were the other way around. I have a couple of A+ dishes in my repertoire, but by and large, I haven’t had the time to hone my kitchen skills. Having to bring home the bacon and cook it too is hard work! So I’ve eaten out as much as I’ve eaten in for the last 20 years. Nowadays, I’m trying to reverse the trend.
I was a lucky little girl. My neighborhood friends were envious when my mom invited me to be in the kitchen with her. It was during our kitchen sessions together that she taught me the tricks of the home-cook's trade. By the time I was 12 years old, I knew how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch. I realized later in life that not only was I creating one of my favorite meals, I was practicing the art of French cooking. 
