'S Wondra-ful, 'S Marvelous

My friend Adrianne introduced me to Wondra. It's a quick-dissolving flour made specifically for thickening gravies & sauces. Granted, I do like using a roux for this purpose, but I'm generally too lazy and just throw flour into my gravy. Wondra is nicer than flour because it really does dissolve quickly. Just make sure if you don't mix it with water first that you wisk as you add it...or you will still get some lumps. ANYWAY...thanks to Adrianne for this great tip! I used it tonight when I made gravy to go with our roast...the gravy was AWESOME.

If any of you (including you, Adrianne) are Wondra aficionados, please share any tips or tricks of the trade. I'm still new with this stuff.

(Don't forget to post your menu for the week...I'm doing two posts today, so the Weekly Menu is right below!)

Pretty Easter Centerpiece

My good friend and neighbor Adrianne has done yet another beautiful and impressive thing that I'll never get around to doing. It's a good thing for you I have talented friends to shake things up a bit on the blog. :)


Adrianne grew some grass...no worries, this grass is legit. It's wheat grass and it's beautiful. I mean, it is SO PRETTY! And a great idea for an Easter centerpiece. For easy-peasy instructions, click on over to Design Mom. She says it takes about 1-2 weeks for the grass to grow. Since Easter is 1-2 weeks away, it's perfect timing for you to get your own basket of grass growing! Your Easter guests will be mightily impressed.

And since this IS a food blog, I suppose you can always grind your grass up and drink it. Um, yum? Probably not. But anything that tastes that yucky has got to be good for you, right?

A Chocolate Valentine for You!

Time for your chocolate valentine! Seriously, what is Valentine's Day without chocolate?


Adrianne made this beautiful Chocolate Ganache Tart (click for recipe) today. She even shared a few slices with us! Adrianne and I did a little taste test during the photo shoot...it's sooooo rich and sooooo good. I'm going to be a good girl and eat ALL of my dinner tonight...don't want to miss dessert!

Featured Recipe: Banana Crumb Muffins

My friend Adrianne sent me this awesome Banana Crumb Muffin recipe. Cate and I made them last night. They're awesome. Nuf said.

Featured Recipe: Pumpkin Cheesecake

I know Thanksgiving is over, but as I was eating a slice of the pumpkin cheesecake I made last week, I thought I better tell you just how good the recipe is.


My friend Adrianne sent the recipe to me and it is AWESOME. A great cheesecake and super easy to make. You don't even have to do a waterbath when you bake it, which earns lots of extra points with me.

One quick note: make sure you don't overcook it...I took mine out a LITTLE late and the crust was a bit overcooked in the corners. I did a little research and found that you take a cheesecake out of the oven when the center 3-inches of the cake is still jiggly. Mine was firm, so I could have taken it out earlier and had better crust. Regardless, the cheesecake was great!

Kitchen Tips: Soft Brown Sugar

The other night I was thinking it's been a while since I did a "Kitchen Tips" post...then later that evening a friend stopped by to borrow some brown sugar and was excited about the piece of bread inside my brown sugar container. Tah-dah! A post!


Want soft brown sugar? Just throw a piece of bread in the container. That's it. Simple, easy, cheap. I change it out, oh, I don't know...hardly ever. I use white bread so no funny little grains fall into the sugar. The bread never gets moldy and the brown sugar always remains the perfect consistency. Just a little something I learned from my mama at a young age.

My friend Adrianne's scienctist husband tried to explain why it works to us...he said the explanation really wasn't complicated, but I think Adrianne and I only caught a couple words...like "the bread won't go moldy" and "there's a scientific reason it works" - good enough for us cooks. :)