Seakettle

I recently needed to make an appetizer that could sit for 3 hours in a warm car, and it wasn't until a few days before that I realized just how heavily most appetizers rely on either refrigerators or ovens. [...]

I love cake-filled Easter eggs — they taste so much better than the hard-boiled variety! I love cracking them on the table and popping the cake out of the shell. That said, making these eggs is no small undertaking; this is a post of what I would do differently if making these crazy eggs again. [...]

Deb from Smitten Kitchen says people think she's crazy for re-creating grocery store snacks and until yesterday, I might have agreed with them. Why make your own Wheat Thins when you can buy magically delicious ones for $2 a box? [...]

I don't know when Guinness and Baileys became the official edible representation of St. Patrick's Day in my mind, but I suspect it was when we hosted our first St. Patrick's Day party. I struggled to find appealing green or Irish recipes, as I don't care for vegetables or corned beef and cabbage. (Greg made a great salad that disguised the corned beef and cabbage brilliantly in piles of potatoes, but they still didn't win my heart.) Besides, how many cute corned beef dishes can you actually make? [...]

Apparently what I like in an apple dessert is the addition of caramel and cheesecake! When making my flower-shaped apple cheesecake tart in the fall, I came across Paula Deen's recipe for these Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars. I had all the ingredients on hand for Valentine's day, so I cut the recipe in half and used my new red pie dish. I liked it so much that two weeks later I used the same proportions to make these bars in an 8 x 8" dish. [...]

Our goddaughter's second birthday was a Sunday-morning donuts-and-coffee celebration. The kids were adorable with their donuts, sugar rush and all! [...]

Today you can have your tea and eat it, too! [...]

Bird Seed Snowman [...]

There's this hilarious Friends episode where Rachel is making Thanksgiving dessert and mistakenly combines recipes for trifle and shepherd's pie, ending up with beef sauteed with peas and carrots between layers of ladyfingers and custard. Everyone else is revolted but pretends to enjoy it to keep Rachel from realizing she had ruined the dessert. Hilarity ensues, of course, when their deception fails, but the funniest part is Joey declaring, "I like it." "Are you kidding?" asks Ross. Joey replies, "What's not to like? Custard? Good. Jam? Good. Beef? Goooood." [...]

If you need to bring a dish to Thanksgiving dinner and still aren't sure what to make, I highly recommend Smitten Kitchen's butternut squash and caramelized onion galette. (I believe you can also find a new and improved version (improve on perfection?!) of the recipe in her new cookbook.) [...]