Double Crust Chicken Pie

I’m not sure exactly where this recipe originated. I got it from my mom a long time ago, and I’ve modified it some to simplify it because I’m lazy. This is a great meal for a cold day – hot, full of carbs, and very rich. This uses baking mix (a.k.a. Bisquick) but if you…

Sweet Roll Dough

This is a super easy dough that I use for crescent rolls every holiday dinner. The kids love these, and I don’t complain about it either. The dough can also be used for cinnamon rolls and other pastries very easily. Ingredients 5 to 5 1/2 cups all purpose flour 2 packets yeast (instant is probably…

Blueberry Tart

With recent advances in automated harvesting technologies, blueberries are really inexpensive. I remember when they were $3-4 per pint as a good price – now you can frequently find them in the stores for half that. I really like blueberries, but generally only either very fresh just off the bush, or baked in desserts. Here’s…

Chocolate Cheesecake

This is, without a doubt, the best chocolate cheesecake I have ever had. I make this recipe at least a couple times a year, and we always manage to eat the whole thing within a few days. This recipe is adapted from Luscious Chocolate Desserts by Lori Longbotham. I haven’t found any bad recipes in…

Sourdough Bread

My wife grew up in the San Francisco bay area, so she’s always had a thing for sourdough bread – especially the “extra-sour” varieties. Unfortunately here in rural Minnesota it’s hard to get anything resembling real bread at all, let alone a true sourdough. So about ten years ago, I started experimenting with sourdough. I…

Strawberry Cream Cheese Pie

It’s May, and strawberry season is just getting started. Today strawberries were $1.88 per pound at our grocery store, and I couldn’t resist. Here’s a pie recipe that I’ve been making for years because it’s just really tasty. The cool cream cheese combines well with the fresh strawberries, and the cooked topping makes this a…

Bagels

Ok, so I don’t live in NYC, or anywhere near there. I’ve never had a “real” New York bagel. However, I can sure tell you that those things you get in the plastic bag at the grocery store in the refrigerator section that are called bagels, aren’t. I’ve tried several times to produce a good…

Slow Rise Spent Grain Bread

My previous post described a quick bread recipe using some spent grains leftover from beer brewing. Here’s a slightly more involved recipe for a slow-rise bread that also incorporates spent grains. I’ve been doing a lot of slower rise yeast breads over the past few years. The concepts that Jim Lahey pioneered with his no-knead…

Baking with Spent Grains

I’ve been doing some beer brewing recently – in the past I’ve had ok luck using malt extracts, both dry or liquid. But this Christmas I got a partial-mash kit as a gift, so I thought I’d give it a try. Pretty simple to do, but in the end I wound up with about 4…