(This is my latest article for The Spirit World, a blog in the Well Fed Network family) To me, Valentine’s Day is vibrant red and cinnamon flavored. Without that bright and bracing flavor, I have not really DONE Valentine’s Day. As such, I feel that anything presented as Valentine’s specific should be dark red and...

If you are following along, you saw in my Blood Orange Petit Fours post that I tried a new recipe out and didn’t really like it. I guess it looked OK because I have been getting quite a lot of hits on that post since: 1) I posted it, 2) it made it on the...

As you know from reading some of my previous posts (here), I live in a super tiny village called Wales in central Massachusetts USA. We do not live the fast life here; we enjoy the quiet and solitude of the woods. One of the things I like about the people who live in this region...

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have a new cookbook called “Tried and True Cookies”, recipes from AllRecipes.com contributors. There are quite a few of the old home favorites and several iterations of various types of cookie to choose from. As I was thumbing through the book, I saw a group for lemon...

Back in December, during my cookie baking furies, I noticed that AllRecipes.com was running a photo contest for cookie photos. I had fresh cookie photos so I entered (see shot above) not really expecting to win because the AllRecipes site gets a huge amount of traffic and there were sure to be many great submissions....

The full five senses gluttony that is Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday is celebrated in Poland and other eastern european countries on Fat Thursday (TÅ‚usty czwartek in Polish) (The last thursday before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent). This is a Christian tradition (that has pagan roots, as so much of Christianity does) where all...

I have a love/hate relationship with Irish Soda Bread. The stuff you buy in the store here in New England around St Patrick’s day is filled with raisins and caroway seeds, neither of which my family likes. I hate having to pick the seeds out of my teeth, even though they have a nice flavor....

As part of our holiday baking, we had to make gingerbread cookies. The holidays are not the same without that spicy aroma and their cheery little faces! I didnt make up a recipe for this, I figured that this sort of thing had been optimized over the millenia of cookie baking. I used this somewhat...

I set out to make some cute little thumbprint cookies and take a few pics. What happened was, well what happens when you dont follow recipes. As I was making the dough, I remembered that I had some guava paste in the refrigerator. I had also found some sweetened coconut earlier when I was rummaging...

Yes, we already made our first christmas cookies.I think the most gratifying part of the year in terms of baking and especially making cookies is around Christmas. I mean, when else can you make WAY too many cookies and send them to friends and relatives. If you made “July” cookies and sent them out, people...