Food Diary

There’s a short list of things that I can eat by the gallon full and I’m here to swing my arms in the air and tell you this is iiiittt!  Rice pudding.  Hello, sweet lover.  There is divinity in the simplicity of this dessert.  It’s rice – double cooked with sweetened milk, stirred to thickened, stirred until you’ve worked yourself in a trance.  Spooned into generous portions and chilled with patience. Continue reading Brûléed Earl Grey Rice Pudding at Joy the Baker.

Pour over coffee – sometimes written as pourover – is a style of making coffee that coffee enthusiasts love. But you don’t have to be a coffee fanatic to give it a try because it’s just a simple way to make a good cup of coffee. Pour overs don’t require a machine, and you will only need a pour over dripper – which resembles the basket inside a traditional drip coffee maker – that can be placed on top of a cup or carafe to brew your java. How to Brew a Pour Over Coffee Step by Step Step 1: Place a filter in a pour over dripper and fill it with your coffee grounds, then place it on top of a cup or carafe. Step 2: Bring 1 cup of water to a boil for each cup you intent to brew. Step 3: Remove water from heat and pour a small amount over the grounds to moisten them. Step 4: Slowly pour the rest of the hot water over your grounds, filling the filter and replenishing it as needed until the whole cup is brewed. You will likely need to refill the filter 2-3 times. Your fresh coffee will

Bread pudding is classic comfort food and most of these custardy delights are baked – and served – in large casserole dishes. This “family style” format is perfect when you have a big crowd to serve, but it’s not the only way to bake bread pudding. This recipe is for Muffin Tin Bread Puddings, where individual bread puddings are baked in muffin cups. These single-serving puddings are just the right size for an after-dinner treat and they’re very easy to transport if you plan to take your dessert on-the-go. The recipe starts out like almost any bread pudding, with cubed bread added to a custard mixture flavored with vanilla and cinnamon. I used plain white bread for this particular bread pudding, but richer breads such as challah and brioche are always excellent choices. I also added raisins to the mix. Not only do raisins go well with vanilla and cinnamon, but they plump up and become more tender as bread pudding bakes. If raisins aren’t your thing, however, feel free to leave them o

Hello dearhearts,   It’s been a wallop of a week for me between exciting work projects, trying relationships, and deeply sad family loss.   I’m hoping that this Sunday offers a settling of heart, mind and body for me and… while I’m making wishes for myself, I have the same hopes for you.  Essentially, I hope we all can just sit down and close our eyes for a spell.   Putting this post together is one of my favorite tasks in a week. Continue reading Let It Be Sunday, 160! at Joy the Baker.

The Instant Pot might have been one of the popular holiday kitchen gifts last season, but the Dash Mini Waffle Maker has consistently been a best seller this year. The pint-size waffle maker is just a bit bigger than the palm of your hand and produce 4-inch waffles that are almost too cute to eat. It comes in a variety of colors and has a price tag right around $10 – making it a perfect impulse purchase, whether you’re shopping online or see it in the store. As a waffle fan with a Belgian-style waffle iron that I really like, I wondered how the Dash stacked up to its full size competitors and ordered one so I could give it a try. The waffle iron is so small and lightweight that it almost looks like a toy at first glance, but the waffle iron has a surprisingly heavy duty nonstick iron inside once you open it up. It has an indicator light on the top that lights up when you plug in the machine, then clicks off when the iron is hot. It does not have a on-off switch or any audible indic

After having spent 30 minutes listening to my (almost) eight-year-old daughter telling a joke, I can tell you with a 100% certainty that she’s got a talent for comedy. Someone apparently told her this joke in school and she tried explaining it to me repeatedly without ever reaching the pun. It was the funniest thing I’ve heard in years. And she refused to give up and just kept at it. Something about blood dripping in a dark room and an old woman peeling tomatoes (although I think it should be blood orange, but don’t tell Elsa). While I was literally ROFL with her, I had this revelation that this is it . This is the meaning of it all. As good as it gets. Total presens, laughing so my tummy hurts together with someone I love unlimitedly. Life peaks here. So here is a suggestion. Whip up a couple of good spreads, fill a tray with veggies, shut off your phone and sit down with someone you love and tell each other jokes tonight – with or without a pun. About these spreads. The pink one i

Whole grains are an important part of a balanced diet, so it never hurts to include them into your recipes when possible. These Buttermilk Whole Wheat Waffles are made with white whole wheat flour, which makes them a better choice for your daily breakfast than some other waffle recipes. Despite their high whole grain content – something that might make you worry that these waffles with be dense instead of delicious – the waffles still bake up to be crisp on the outside with a fluffy interior! The batter for this recipe is easy to put together and can be made up in just one bowl. It uses white whole wheat flour, along with a generous dose of buttermilk, vanilla, melted butter and a bit of sugar. Whole wheat flour is made using the whole grain of the wheat, including the outer bran. The bran is typically brown or reddish, which gives whole wheat flour its brownish color.  White whole wheat flour  is made from a variety of flour where the bran is extremely light in color and has a much

I feel weird that I called it a "minestra." That is the Italian word for a mixed vegetable sort of soup, think minestrone, and it sounds way more intriguing that way right?! I skipped the pasta here, though you could totally add it or some brown rice or shredded chicken to fill it out if you're into that sort of thing. I have a tough time with salads when it's chilly out, so this pot of goodness serves as an alternative to pack in the vegetables. It is made of easy, pantry staples and some easy to find produce. Boring on its own (sell it, girl!), as brothy, all-vegetable soups go, so a heavy hand with the parmesan croutons is necessary. It tastes better the next day, so lunch leftovers or delivering it to a sick friend is encouraged.  BUTTERNUT + KALE MINESTRA // Serves 6 Inspired by Williams and Sonoma I understand wine and vinegar are not often subs for each other, but I hate when I have all but one ingredient. It's winter, I stock red wine in the cool m

Skillet cookies – with their gooey centers, crisp edges and shareable size – have been steadily gaining popularity over the past year or so. They’ve gone from unusual dessert menu item to a treat that many people bake at home. You can make a skillet cookie with almost any cookie dough, including prepared dough, but Trader Joe’s decided to make things even easier with their new Deep Dish Chocolate Chip Cookie. The 16-oz cookie comes frozen, in it’s own baking dish (not a skillet, but close), and ready to become your next quick-fix dessert. The cookie is pre-baked and includes instructions for heating it up in either the microwave or in the oven. While I’m usually a proponent of using the oven to cook frozen foods, I strongly recommend that you use the microwave for this one. Since the cookie is fully baked before being frozen, baking it a second time in the oven tends to dry it out a little bit, making it more of a “large cookie” than a gooey-in-the-center “skillet cookie.” When you m

One night. 350 dinner party hosts. Hundreds of guests in 25 countries and 50 US states. And one cookbook: Pretty Simple Cooking . On February 17, 2018, hundreds of people gathered worldwide to cook a meal using recipes from the same cookbook (our new book!), Pretty Simple Cooking . And what an event it was. Comments have poured in about how guests felt connected not only to family and friends, but to others all over the world. No mention of liberal, conservative, Christian, agnostic, pro this or pro that…the Pretty Simple Dinner Party became a way to celebrate some of the pretty simple good things in lives all over the world—food, family, friends! For Alex and I, who fiercely believe food is the great uniter, it was one of the most meaningful nights of our lives. (Save our wedding day and the birth of our son  Larson , of course.) Alex and I first dreamed up the idea as a worldwide cookbook club—a party where each person cooks a different recipe from the same book. With cookbook