For some inexplicable reason, people usually put bacon (usually in the form of bacon bits) in their twice-baked potatoes. I don’t really get it; it isn’t necessary at all! Of course, if you like
bacon I’m sure it’s very nice, but that doesn’t so much work for me :D. Don’t worry, though, these potatoes have Sean’s seal of approval, and he actually likes bacon (weirdo). These aren’t as hard as they might sound–most of the prep time is actually just in the baking, which you don’t have to attend to much.
It’s Friday in Lent again, and lo and behold, I’m posting another soup. This one is so delicious I don’t have pictures for you–we were in a hurry, so I intended to take a picture of a bowl of the leftovers. Unfortunately, there weren’t any! Well, I suppose you could consider that fortunate, as it means three people polished off a single batch of this recipe.
| They’re quick, easy, and delicious (the only time-consuming part is if you want to really wait for the butter to soften properly). The dough is so well-behaved I’ve never had to roll out an uncooperative tortilla twice (which is a major improvement over the last version of this recipe, that’s for sure). I know, I know, not a very Christmas-y post to do a few weeks before Christmas, but these are still really good. 🙂 I don’t even bother topping them before I eat them, though of course you could make quesadillas or burritos or what have you if you like. |  |
| Making biscuits was always a fun treat when we were kids. I was always amazed at how all you had to do was add milk to Bisquick, and real dough would appear — and it was fun to work with, too! Of course, back then I thought of Bisquick as some kind of magical homogeneous substance that you used to bake, and flour and baking powder and sugar and shortening as rare arcane components tucked in the back of the pantry, only to be pulled out when required once or twice a year. 🙂 |  |
Hey there! Long time no see :D. And you still won’t get to see, since I’m just now moving in to our new place, so I don’t have pictures of anything (can’t get at my camera). I’ve been gone, as Jennifer mentioned, because I’m trying to move. You see, it isn’t that I lack the time to cook and bake … it’s that I’m trying to do it in someone else’s kitchen with someone else’s pantry (in this case, my maternal grandmother’s), and it’s really difficult to experiment under those conditions. However, I’m sick of asking Jennifer to cover for me, so here is a text-only post (for a while, until I get settled and make this and take a picture). In said maternal grandmother’s honor, however, I am posting a casserole that she has been making for this family since well before I existed. It is terrible for you, and looks odd, but oh boy is it tasty!
| Back in the days of yore, before the world of a gluten-free diet, Daddy would often take us to Red Lobster on our birthday. (Yes, “our,” my sister and I are twins!) I always got snow crab legs, and filled up on their fantastic biscuits before filling up yet again on my entree; my sister always got an order of mozzarella sticks for her entree, and filled up on that, and then I would fill up a third time on what she had left over. (Yes, I turned out to be the kind of undiagnosed celiac whose appetite shot through the roof, and she turned out to be the kind whose appetite plummeted through the basement; however did you guess?) 🙂 Daddy would mix things up with a little more variety, but he often got snow crab legs, too. Nowadays, of course, I can get snow crab legs from the store whenever I want, but it isn’t quite the same without those biscuits and mozzarella sticks. So here’s one of the two, at least! |  |
| So, let me guess what you’re thinking: Hey, there’s already a breadstick recipe up on this blog, isn’t there? They’re nice, fairly dense, have a bit of a crust to them, not bad at all if that’s what you’re after. In that post, I talked about my “last meal” at Olive Garden, and how I wanted to recreate everything in it — breadsticks, salad with croutons, ravioli. I like the kind of breadsticks I made then, nearly a year ago now, but they just weren’t like the breadsticks from Olive Garden — soft, chewy, light. And I wanted to make breadsticks like those. |  |
This is the version of Greek Salad that my family makes, and that I particularly like. Of course, as with many salads, it’s functionally “to taste,” so tweak away if you like different
proportions :-). I’ve filed it as a side dish on here, but it can be a good main dish when you put it in a pita bread.
| It’s hilarious, really: Hamburgers are yet one more thing I never cared for when I was a kid, but like just fine now. I don’t think it had anything to do with the burger itself; I just had a hard time eating a whole burger at once, which I was naturally expected to do, and I didn’t like so many ingredients appearing all at once on a strange and infrequent food. (I was a finicky eater; you may have noticed.) And I generally prefer chicken to beef anyway. But when my brother went on the gluten-free diet, and started eating beef patties or sandwich meats with “buns” made of two thick slices of cheese, I figured I’d better make some hamburger buns! 🙂 |  |
| When I think of these pretzels, I think of my friend Ginny. I don’t think I’ve mentioned her on this blog before, which is a shame, because she’s a great friend with a fascinating story: She’s among the many celiacs who get a false negative on the antibody test, but a positive genetic test. Long story short, when we met her she knew something was wrong with her, but had no idea what–and neither did any of her doctors. (We’ve all been there, haven’t we?) But the better my sister and I got to know Ginny, the more she would mention some of her symptoms, or we would mention some of ours, and we’d all start to get a little wigged out at how much we had in common . . . |  |
