For Mom

One reason for my baking persistence is my grandmother. We all called her Mom (long story). She has been gone almost 3 years now and she is still sorely missed, especially around the holidays. My grandmother loved to feed people and she loved to bake! The holidays were her favorite time, she cooked constantly.

She worked in the fields here in Miami in our so-called winter. Because of her, I discovered my love of sun-ripened tomatoes and strawberries. I can still see her picking up the largest tomato she could find and saying " this would make a great tomato sandwich!"

Needless to say when I bake I feel closer to her. So I will probably mention her quite often.

Annual Cookie Party Part 1

This year I will be attending my cousin's annual cookie party and I need to bring 10 dozen, yes 120 HOMEBAKED cookies. I, however, have a 5 year old and a 9 month old plus live 2 hours from my cousin, so in considering my cookie choice I thought what is the easiest, yummiest cookie I can come up with?

My favorite cookie (probably favorite dessert) of all time is just a simple old chocolate chip with nuts and the best recipe I have found is the Toll House recipe. To pep it up a bit for the party I will add some orange zest and probably eliminate the nuts just in case of nut allergies and it is more cost effective because of the quantity of cookies. I just think chocolate and orange make a great combination.

Top chocolate & orange finds so far:

1. Newman's Own Organics Orange Chocolate Chip Cookie
2. Pepperidge Farm Orange Milano
3. Lindt Bar Intense Orange Dark Chocolate

Anyway, I will be making the dough (with my hot pink mixer) ahead of time and freezing in logs so I can just slice and bake when the time comes. Let the baking begin!!

To Explain and Disclaim

Well here it is I'm finally beginning my blog, it has taken about two weeks to gather my nerve, so I'll just jump right in. Here is my disclaimer right off the bat I am by no means a baker or a writer! I have dabbled in some cookie baking (big cookie fan) as well as an occasional cake (ditto) or quick bread, but I have long desired to bake a good hearty loaf of bread or develop some cake decorating skills.

So after I have gathered some more nerve, I thought maybe I can jump into this the same way and just blog about it. I warn you there will be A LOT of mistakes, I can cook a pretty mean meal but when it comes to baking it is quite a calamity, so much so that my husband has begged me to give it up.

The plan is to try out some old and new recipes, using my one of my favorite kitchen tools my hot pink mixer, once a week and document it. In addition I might occasionally mention a favorite kitchen tool or interesting fact I have discovered in my perusing of all things kitchen/food. My goal is to develop some skills along the way as well as increase some self confidence, in and out of the kitchen, while not increasing my waistline as I am trying to whittle it down. Here goes!