Comments on: Romance and Cooking by Louisa Edwards

By: Emmanuelle

Emmanuelle — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:40:24 +0000

Doing the happy dance right now. DH thinks I’m crazy really but he(ll recover *g* !!
Thank you so much Louisa !!!

By: Louisa Edwards

Louisa Edwards — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:41:51 +0000

WINNER POSTED! The winner of my random drawing for the culinary-themed gift pack is:

Emmanuelle

Which is nice, because you’ve been such a faithful commenter! Congratulations!

Please email me at louisa@louisaedwards.com with your snail mail address, and I’ll send the swag right out.

Thanks to everyone who commented!

By: Louisa Edwards

Louisa Edwards — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:22:02 +0000

PJ – Thanks for posting the Cookie Candy recipe! After looking it over, I believe THAT’S what I’d like in return for a copy of the book. LOL

Laurie – I had a really similar kitchen mishap with potatoes au gratin and a Pyrex baking dish! Turns out, Pyrex is fine in the oven, not so good on the stovetop. The apple pie cheesecake sounds awesome, thanks for posting!

By: Laurie G

Laurie G — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:20:28 +0000

We had my husband’s partner over for a prime rib dinner and I had made roasted potatoes to go along with it. Unfortunately, I had transferred the potatoes to a glass baking dish and set it on a burner that hadn’t been turned off …yep glass shattered into the potatoes!

I do much better with desserts. Plus, I love apples especially in the fall!!

APPLE PIE CHEESECAKE
Crust
2 cups crushed gingersnaps 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Filling
3 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1 egg yolk ¼ cup whipping cream 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 medium firm tart apples, peeled and thinly sliced 1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Topping
½ cup all-purpose flour ½ cup packed light brown sugar ¼ cup finely chopped walnuts ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted

Heat oven to 350°. Spray a 10-inch springform pan with nonstick cooking spray. In a small bowl stir together all crust ingredients. Press into bottom and ½ inch up the sides of the pan. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes or until set.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar at medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes or until smooth. Beat in eggs, egg yolk, cream, 2 tablespoons of flour and vanilla extract for an additional minute or until blended.

In medium bowl, toss apples with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar and cinnamon until lightly coated.

Pour half the filling into crust, arrange apples over it, overlapping slightly. Pour remaining filling over apples. Bake 40 minutes.

In a small bowl, stir together all topping ingredients; sprinkle over cake. Bake 20-25 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Cool on wire rack to room temperature. Refrigerate overnight. Keep refrigerated.

By: PJ

PJ — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:08:50 +0000

Louisa said; “Do you think if I send PJ a copy of my book, she’ll send me a batch of Chex Mix?”

We might be able to strike a deal, Louisa!

By: PJ

PJ — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:06:47 +0000

Mmmm. Lots of great recipes. Here’s the one for Paula Deen’s Georgia Cookie Candy.

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
3 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Line a 13 by 9 by 2-inch pan with foil.

Combine the butter, peanut butter, sugar, and graham cracker crumbs in a food processor. Process until the mixture forms a ball. Press into the foil-lined pan using your hands or a spatula.

Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler over simmering water or in a microwave-safe glass dish in the microwave for 1 minute on high (100%). Stir. If the chocolate has not completely melted, microwave for 10 seconds more, then stir. Spread evenly over the cookie layer. Chill for several hours.

Bring the candy to room temperature before cutting into pieces. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

By: Louisa Edwards

Louisa Edwards — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:01:18 +0000

Love all these recipes! And the kitchen disasters sound all too familiar. Who hasn’t had some little (major) mishap while trying out a new recipe? Or even an old stand-by!

Buffie – Don’t you just hate recipes that expect you to know stuff already, like never to fry in a hot, dry pan? LOL

Brandy – I admire the plucky DIY attitude towards the self-rising flour; that’s something I wish I had more of. I tend to forget that pantry staples like self-rising flour are actually put together from OTHER pantry staples.

Jan – Mmmm…pone….

Jody – LOL at the purple creamed cabbage! I bet that was quite the decorative aspect of your tabletop. Thanks for the sweet potato recipe! I can never have too many ways to eat those.

Grace – Two of my favorite cooking shows actually aren’t on the FN (Hell’s Kitchen, Top Chef) but my other big love is: Iron Chef! Love the Chairman, love the chefs, love the format, love the secret ingredients, love Alton Brown…love it!

By: Grace Fonseca

Grace Fonseca — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:55:19 +0000

I love all the food network shows. I’m a pretty decent cook, but every one in a while I like to see what some of the celeb chefs come up with.

By: Jody F.

Jody F. — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:19:27 +0000

Our disaster was when we made creamed cabbage. We’d always made it before at Christmas using regular cabbage (the pale colored stuff) but this time we had to use purple. We thought for sure that after steaming the cabbage and adding the white cream sauce that the color wouldn’t be too shocking. Boy were we wrong! The color was reminiscent of Barney! It still tasted great and people liked it more for its very festive color.

Sweet Potato Pudding:
Ingredients:

•2 eggs, separated, room temperature
•1/4 cup butter or margarine
•1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
•1/4 cup milk
•1/2 teaspoon salt
•1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
•1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
•1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
•1 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes
•Caramel Sauce (recipe below)

Preparation:

In a medium mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Beat yolks in a separate bowl. In a mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar; add well-beaten egg yolks, milk, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and sweet potatoes. Fold in beaten egg whites. Turn mixture into a buttered 1 1/2-quart casserole. Bake at 350° for 40 minutes. Serves 4.

For the caramel sauce:
Ingredients:

•1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
•4 tablespoons flour
•1 cup boiling water
•dash salt
•2 tablespoons butter
•2 tablespoons cream
•vanilla, to taste

Preparation:

Mix sugar with flour in saucepan; blend well. Add water and salt. Stir while cooking for 6 to 8 minutes. If too thick add a little more water. Remove from heat; stir in butter, cream, and vanilla to taste. Drizzle over top of pudding.

By: Jan Hullum

Jan Hullum — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:10:04 +0000

I agree that cooking is an adventure, especially if you start out with an old family recipe that some old-fashioned great-great-grandmother used to cook with the “pinch of this, heaping tablespoon of that” method, and you, a modern cook, are left to work by guess and by gosh. In fact, my favorite fall recipe is one of those — called, in our family, “sweet potato pone.” (For nonSoutherners who may read this, “pone” is just an archaic word for something fried.) Because this dish has eggs, milk and sugar in it, it’s also called “sweet potato pudding” by some folks (not related to me). What you do is grate two large sweet potatoes (or three if they’re not that big). Then you mix, oh, about four eggs and however much white sugar you like (or brown sugar if you prefer), and maybe a cup of milk, and add that mixture to the sweet potatoes. If, when you stir it, it doesn’t look moist enough, then add some more milk. Stir in some vanilla and, if you like cinnamon, some cinnamon. I also like freshly grated nutmeg. Now this next part is important: Melt a stick of butter in a cast-iron skillet and pour most of the melted butter into the sweet potato mixture and stir. Then pour the whole deal back into the skillet and cook in a hot oven. If you’re still paying attention at this point, you’re wondering why it’s a pone if it gets baked in the oven. The answer is, you can cook it on the top of the stove if you want to. And if you do, you have to turn it over with a spatula to be sure it gets brown on the top (or what was the bottom before you turned it over). In either case, cook until the sweet potatoes are tender. This is a great alternative to icky mashed sweet potatoes with marshmellows melted on top although I have found that small children sometimes prefer the marshmellows. Do I get my “Can’t Stand the Heat” apron now? P.S. I loved the book!