I laughed out loud when I saw the name of my Secret Recipe Club blog for July: Why I Am Not Skinny. That’s a question I ask myself an awful lot, usually after a bowl of homemade ice cream or a third slice of pizza. I was seriously tempted to make Maxine’s crepes…lately I have […]
Stop everything. Make granola. Have you ever wondered why your homemade granola doesn’t give you joy? Why you don’t eagerly look forward to throwing it into your yogurt every morning? I am willing to wager that it’s because you made it too complicated. And you didn’t use enough coconut. Coconut is the surprising key to […]
I can remember the first time my mother ever added chocolate chips to pancake batter. It was basically the best thing that ever happened to Sunday morning breakfast, as far as I was concerned! In the intervening years, I have eaten more than my fair share of chocolate chip pancakes, and my conclusion is that […]
Can you believe it has been FOUR YEARS since Smells Like Brownies was born? Four years of delicious treats and meals (and some disasters), four years of learning to take food photos and learning new tricks in the kitchen. Time flies. Now, as many of you may know, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of […]
This past weekend, my nephew came to stay with us. He is just 3 weeks younger than Jake, so they have been lifelong buddies! Actually, they are about as different as can be: Jake loves animals and M is crazy about vehicles; M is a quiet daredevil and Jake is cautious but loquacious. And my […]
I was well into my 20s before I ever heard of shrimp and grits. In fact, I was a senior in college before I ever even tasted grits (why eat something gritty on purpose when creamy is so much better?). Clearly I had been missing out in a huge way. Shrimp and grits is a […]
Summersummersummersummersummersummersummersummersummersummersummersummer, tomAto, tomAto! COOOOOOOORN, COOOOOOORN. Haha. Maybe that was mean. (If you, like me, *unwillingly* watched and re-watched bizarre internet cartoons back in the early 2000s—but now look back on that time with fondness—and if not, then your current confusion makes me feel old and/or young.) But I kid. Anyway. Make some quiche! Quiche is […]
It was Mother’s Day a few weeks ago. Not to brag, but I had a pretty stupendous day! I should probably backtrack and mention that my husband isn’t big into celebrating special occasions and events, or at least that he doesn’t care whether holidays are celebrated on time. He is more of the mind that […]
Smells Like Brownies is turning 3! I can hardly believe it. So I thought I should share a bit of a throwback recipe with you. In fact, this is the first recipe that I ever altered on my own for any reason. It was the beginning of my culinary journey. All in the humble wrapper […]
A few weeks ago, I started doing the Cooking Cure challenge by the Kitchn. I didn’t actually make it very far, because the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my main problem was breakfast. I mean, I regularly make delicious and daring lunches with Sarah of Well Dined. And dinner at […]