Update on Blog

I hope you are liking all these new photos! Never occurred to me to take photos while cooking, so I'll try to remember now. I've added links to places I actually buy from. You can save oodles of money buying spices and extracts mail order. I've also added a few recipe sites I like to frequent.

King Arthur Flour - Used this flour as a kid when living in semi-rural Massachusetts. They have recipes and stuff to buy, all to do with baking! Also sell dried whole eggs, which is increasingly hard for the home baker to find.

Penderys - Spice company in Fort Worth for 100+ years. Warehouse in Dallas. This is the place to go for anything chili or hot and most other culinary spices. We've been getting spices from them since 1980 and have always been happy with them. If you want chili powder that isn't hot, I recommend the Fort Worth Lite or New Mexico Lite. Both are good and don't burn me (I hate hot). They often carry blends from the top chili cook off winners, and if you want hot sauce, you will be ecstatic (the names are pretty funny too). I highly recommend!

Penzeys - Also a great spice company with store fronts in several states including the one here in Minneapolis. While they have all the normal cooking spices, they tend to focus on spices for baking, be it casseroles, pot roasts or breads. I love their Old World Blend which is their equivalent of Lawry's Seasoning Salt. No problems with orders, I highly recommend!

Sourdoughs International - First, you have to be into baking bread. Next, you can't have a mother. Mom keeps throwing out my starters. Her argument is that they stink. They also make great bread. Prior to getting these starters, I was a Herman officianodo. Herman is a sweet sourdough that is best after about 2-3 months of fermenting. Lots of recipes for it since it was introduced around 1980. (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Herman-Sourdough-Starter/Detail.aspx). Made lots of bread and buns with that for about 3 years before Mom tossed out my starter. Time to advance. I bought the San Francisco, Giza, and Red Sea starters. I don't like the Red Sea one; just too sour. Otherwise, these were great starters and easy to keep going until Mom threw them out. {rolling eyes} I want to try the Russian one next since it works in a bread machine.

Spice Barn - Again, lots of spices, but the extracts are the real seller here for me. No problems with orders, I highly recommend!

Sweet Celebrations (formerly Maid of Scandinavia) - another old, local company under new management. No longer having a storefront, this is mail order only for anything you need for candy making or cake decorating that Wilton doesn't have. I haven't purchased from them since the change of management. I don't do too many cakes anymore.

Taste of Home - many of the recipes I make come from the Taste of Home Magazine. Many are also available at their website, so I've included a link. The recipes always work, but may not be to your family's taste. This is not haute cuisine folks, so don't expect it, but the Midwest now makes more than casserole with cream of something soup, although still popular. You can also buy past annuals from their catalog.

Southern Living - I love Southern cooking. It's not all fried chicken, biscuits and gravy. While I've never been a subscriber, I have all the annuals from the 80s and early 90s and recipes galore. You too can get these. They are cheap on Ebay now. I'm including the link to their site, because they continue to have new recipes that reflect current Southern cuisine; some of it is fusion, some just lower fat or different prep.

Epicurious - I don't care much for gourmet food, as I lack taste buds (loss of smell, no kidding). However, I do watch the show and some of the stuff is fast, easy and cheap to make. Pineapple Foster was just featured on Food TV this week and I'm trying it this weekend! The videos and illustrations make this site worthy of a visit even if you never make a recipe from here.

Cooks Illustrated - I was a charter member when this magazine came out. Wonderful illustrations and step-by step how tos. Lots of history of how things were developed or why you do this a certain way. The recipes sucked. They had too many errors. These were not inexpensive ingredients and after throwing out a third meal uneaten, I tossed my mags when they arrived. Sometime later, they must have added an extra editor to double check the recipes because I don't hear the complaints that once existed. I love the videos and explanations on this site, but many of the recipes cannot be directly accessed without getting a subscription. A pain, but there you go.

Land O Lakes - Large regional dairy. Some very yummy recipes here.