In My Kitchen Lately

In New Orleans, the King Cake is traditional fare for Mardi Gras.   It's just not decadent enough for me, though, in those last days leading up to the penance of Lent.   For our Mardi Gras party this year, I made this double fudge praline cake.   It's a homemade three layer chocolate cake, with chocolate ganache in between the layers and around the outside of the cake.   Then, I made pralines with toasted pecans.   Instead of dropping the mixture to make small pralines, I poured the whole batch over the top of the cake.   Yeah, really.   It's my favourite cake.

I don't fry often, but we had homemade chicken strips (after they soaked in buttermilk).

Finished strips

What fried chicken meal would be complete without homemade buttermilk biscuits?!


Enjoying a biscuit with Georgia cinnamon honey.   Biscuits with butter: bread for the meal.   Biscuits with honey/jam: dessert

When I don't have time for yeast dough cinnamon rolls, I just make rolls using my biscuit dough.   The kids don't complain.  This is before the icing:)

Chocolate Creme Meringue Pie--majestic peaks of meringue

Mini apple and cherry pies with teacher/school decorative details.

Mini pies bagged for Teacher Appreciation/End of Year giving

Comments

Post a Comment

Your comments are welcome!

Popular posts from this blog

First & From Without

Image
"Is she in there?" "I think so.  Should we knock?" This was part of the conversation from my fellow teachers outside my classroom door the morning I returned to work, two months after the birth of my first child.    My locked classroom door.   I managed to get into the building with no contact with others, cover my window on my door, and lock myself in for a good cry.    I did not take separation from my baby very well.   I called my husband and told him I just couldn't stay.   He called the personnel office and asked about my leave options.   Then, he called Mama.    "I know it's hard, Joey, but you have to let her face this; she just has to do it." Later, when I talked to Mama, she told me how she felt when she took me to my first day of school.   She said leaving me at that poor, old south Louisiana school building was one of the hardest things she ever did.   She said she cried the whole way home.    Mama always had t
Read more

Master Bedroom Challenge: {pretty, happy, funny, real}

Image
This week, Leila at Like Mother, Like Daughter , announced a Master Bedroom Challenge: Make Your Bedroom Beautiful and Useful .   It was a perfectly timed challenge for me.   As part of the Reasonably Clean House series at the blog, Leila recommends beginning the process in your master bedroom.   Her reasoning is right on target, as I've learned after nearly sixteen years of keeping --or trying to keep--our house.   Our bedroom is last on our list to work on in this house.   Since we moved in over a year ago, we've worked on all the other rooms .   Now, it's time to start making the master bedroom come together.   It's a large wonderful space.   My mama always said the problem with a bigger house/space is it is easier to clutter it and you aren't as wise with organization.   She was right.   Lot of corners and spaces to "store" things in this room until I get to them.   Plus, the kids love coming in to play, as it's the only room that still has wa
Read more

Our Schooling Journey--The Dry Version

Image
In my earlier post about our children going to public school after home schooling exclusively, I shared our  first day experiences in my usual voice.   At the same time, I was working on this post.   This is a more matter-of-fact post that lays out our personal experiences in a very cut-and-dry manner.   That wasn't my mood last week, but now I am ready to re-visit the topic. Our Reasons for Choosing to Home school:   From my classroom experience and research, I understand that American public schools, with the best of intentions, teach too many topics, too early.   It is overwhelming to look at the amount of objectives (those specific skills/tasks you want children to master) at each grade level.   For example, I still firmly believe--and this is shared by experts who know more than me--that the math topic, re-grouping ("borrowing" from old school days), should be introduced in third grade.   In most states, it is always introduced in second grade. People mistak
Read more