Cooking rice packets in a Thermos

A few facts led to embarking on this experiment: My 12-year-old son and I are both lazy uninterested when it comes to preparing entrees for him to take to school. Mornings are not a great time to do something involved, both due to a night-owl tendency on his part and the short window to get…

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Three creative ways to use up leftover marshmallow fondant

I made a couple of cakes for a school cakewalk last week, and ended up with leftover marshmallow fondant in four colors. Thinking there must be some reasonable way to use it up, I googled. The results were… uninspiring. Essentially, the advice was either to save it, practice with it, or use it as fondant.…

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ALDI product comparisons

We like ALDI and most of the products we’ve bought there. If you’re not familiar, it’s a German-owned grocery chain and almost everything they sell is generic. This is a lot like Trader Joe’s, and in fact, they’re both owned by the same German family. I often wonder how similar the generic products are to…

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Sponge Shortcake for Strawberry Shortcakes

We love strawberry shortcake in my house. We’re also not particularly snobby about it. Gourmet concoctions? We’ll take ’em! Those funny packaged sponge cakes from the grocery store? We’ll take those, too! However, if I’m going to go to the effort of making something from scratch, I’ll try to find the best recipe. We knew…

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Perfect Chewy Brownies

That’s right, these are perfect. Fight me. They’re based on these brownies and also these brownies and a whole lot of brownie taste-offs (fortunately, I have good friends who are willing to sacrifice their very bodies for the cause of brownie perfection). Photos to come if I can ever keep the brownies around long enough.…

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Unofficial Pad Thai Day

It doesn’t look like there’s officially (ha!) a Pad Thai Day (yet?) but this Google Doodle makes me want one… and they say, “In fact, it was today in 1945 that the tasty dish was announced the national cuisine of Thailand!”

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