I’m a big fan of the Smitten Kitchen blog. I have been following her almost as long as she has been posting. Fabulous recipes, easy to make, with some entertaining commentary along the way. She’s also written several cookbooks, one of which features in today’s blog post.

I’m not sure why, but I always think of caramel corn as a holiday treat.  Maybe that’s because it was often something my mother would make around Christmas time. Or maybe because I vaguely remember her making “caramel corn balls” (a little bigger than a baseball) to hand out one Halloween.  But there’s no reason you can’t have caramel corn year around…

When I was a kid, after church on Sundays, my family would often eat out at Elmer’s.  I always had (and honestly, still do) one of two entrees.  I’d either have the German pancake [insert link to blog post] or I’d have Eggs Benedict.  The classic, with the layer of ham, poached eggs, and piles of beautiful Hollandaise sauce, all served over an English muffin.  Back in my youth, there was no nonsense about adding things like avocado or crab meat to Eggs Benedict…

Ah, summer…so much variety available in terms of fresh fruit and berries.  And my favorite way to eat a fruity dessert is in the form of a crisp.  For the uneducated, a crisp is a baked dish where the bottom layer is fruit or berries, sweetened as desired, and the topping is a combination of butter, brown sugar, and oats or nuts.

I love strawberries.  Which is why I planted a bunch of them in my deck garden this year: Tristar day-neutral (ever-bearing) strawberries, among the sweetest and most flavorful I’ve ever tasted.  And of course it follows that I love the summer dessert, strawberry shortcake.

“Quesadillas…aren’t those Mexican grilled cheese sandwiches?” Yes. “No, wait, they’re nachos in sandwich form.” Also, yes. More importantly, they are quick and easy to make, delicious, adaptable, and almost universally enjoyed. Do you really need me to tell you how to make a quesadilla? Probably not. Is that going to stop me? Definitely not.

During the heat of the summer, I find it hard to eat. This is always an odd sensation, since at most times, I like eating above most other pleasures. But in the sticky heat of a Pacific Northwest summer, food is unappealing and if I manage to eat a normal meal, heavy in my stomach. But. Humans still gotta eat.

PI Day and St. Patrick’s Day come in quick succession, which is perhaps why I was thinking about pie.  And then green pie.  Which naturally led to Grasshopper Pie.  Thinking about pie led to googling about pie.

The last time I asked my mother to refresh my memory on the details of her deviled eggs recipe, she told me eggs, mayo, salt, pepper, and ground dry mustard.  Then she reminded me that her recipe was straight out of the Betty Crocker cookbook.  I checked my own Betty Crocker cookbook, and sure enough, there it was.

Both my brothers married very well.  By that I mean, not only do they have lovely and talented wives, but in both cases, my brothers have become better men because of their wives.  Okay, there might be a few other factors, but really, I credit the wives.  My youngest brother still lives in California with my favorite sister-in-law, but they do come up to visit on the holidays, and she brings with her a delightful and easy dish, Cheesy Potatoes.

I know, it’s tradition to cook a whole turkey, display it triumphantly to the family on the table, and then return it to the kitchen for carving.  Okay, maybe some people carve at the table but my family switched to kitchen carving many years ago.  Cuts way down on the hassle and mess (and also, the public embarrassment if something goes awry).

As Thanksgiving draws nigh, I thought I might share a couple family favorites, among them my special cranberry sauce.  It doesn’t have a fancy name…yet.  It doesn’t have a fancy name yet, but I’ll take suggestions in the comments section.  This recipe was gifted me by a co-worker at my old job.

As a child, I did not much care for meatloaf. My mother did make it regularly, and I did eat it (because she made us eat everything she put on our plates; even broccoli; and sauerkraut; and fish) but I did not enjoy it. As with many things in life, my culinary tastes have evolved with age and I now think my mom’s meatloaf is absolutely delicious.

I believe I spoke in a previous blog post about a lovely cinema I used to frequent, often for midnight showings of new movies. Among the amenities of this now-defunct theater was an in-house restaurant, which meant you could order off their menu from inside the auditoriums. In addition to the delicious Seven Layer Bars which I couldn’t get enough of, my other favorite of theirs was a spinach artichoke dip, served either with chips or with grilled flatbread. Forget the chips…I ordered a double portion of bread every time, called it dinner, and went to town.

It interests me how much my taste has evolved since I was a child.  I assume this is true for everyone.  Of particular interest for today’s post is the fact that as a child, I did not like legumes.  Well, except for peanuts.  And peanut butter.  But my mother’s split pea soup?  I could choke it down but I certainly didn’t like it.  Chili?  Not only was it full of beans but the spice profile was also not to my taste (that hasn’t changed…cumin is nasty).  And my mother also occasionally made a vegetarian dish she called Cheesy Lentils.  Like the split pea soup, I could eat it, but I had to force it down.

When I was a child, my mother often made the ultimate in easy comfort food, creamed chipped beef.  (I know, I’ve also claimed that macaroni and cheese is the ultimate comfort food.  I don’t see why I have to have just ONE ultimate comfort food…) Also when I was a child, you could get this dish at most any restaurant that served “American food.”  These days, I don’t think you can get this old favorite anywhere…at least, I haven’t seen it on a menu in many years.

Right up near the top of the “America’s Comfort Foods” list has to be chicken pot pie.  Hard to say whether it beats out macaroni and cheese but the precise hierarchy can be a debate for someone else.  For today, we’re going to talk about chicken pot pie.

Why is there no ham in hamburgers?  Is shepherd’s pie made of actual shepherd?  These are the questions that plague me in the sleepless dark hours of the night.  So, I did some research.

In recent years, I’ve cut down on the amount of meat I eat and really ramped up on the number of eggs I eat.  This means that if I don’t want to get bored of eggs, I need multiple egg dishes in my recipe repertoire.  Poached eggs on toast: deee-lish.  Dutch baby (it has three eggs in it, so it totally counts as an egg dish): divine.  Scrambled eggs with omelette additions (such as the Denver scramble, with peppers, ham, and cheddar cheese): yum.  And quiche.

My mother decided fairly early on in motherhood that she wasn’t going to allow her children to grow into picky eaters.  This resolution might have been driven in part by dealing with other parents’ finicky children when my mom did some daycare for awhile.