Since my kids are grown and away at school I don’t get the chance to practice my kid baking much anymore (although they do expect care packages).  Fortunately, I have friends and family that let me borrow theirs, so today I’m making cupcakes for my friend’s four year old pink girlie girl
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  The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.  I chose to make two different ones, one with chocolate and peanut butter pastry cream and one with chocolate and orange pastry cream
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Since I got the big enameled cast iron pots, I’ve been on a roasting kick, chicken, pork and a lot chuck so I decided to try something a little different than the usual pot roast or beef bourgionon and do a stuffed version.  Keeping with my plan to report the not so good as well
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Photo Recipe for Apple Cherry Strudel

Even though I know it isn’t very authentic I really enjoy the Olive Garden’s soup and bread sticks lunch, which led me to make my own version of the soup at home.  Of course it isn’t exactly the same as I tend to make my soups more substantial to the point they are often mistaken
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After making all that great Pesto for holiday gifts, I did sort of keep some for myself and found a great way to use it for a quick weekday meal.  It took about 15 minutes, just long enough to cook the pasta.  Considering all the basil, I’m counting this as healthy (ignoring the cream sauce
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I really love soups.  They are tasty, generally easy to make, great for using up leftovers in a way that doesn’t seem like the same thing again and most are pretty healthy (remember I’m trying to balance my natural inclination to the “no carbs left behind” plan).   I always thought that this would be difficult
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I know I haven’t always been kind to some of Rachael’s recipes, but this is one of my favorites.   I make it quite often and even follow the recipe You Won’t Be Single for Long Vodka Pasta Sauce pretty faithfully, which is quite unusual for me.  The only change I make is to start with
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Recipe for Cassoulet for Daring Cooks Challenge

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 7,100 times in 2010. That’s about 17 full 747s.  
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