Dinner with Kirsten

It’s cookie season!! I’m starting out slow this year, with a simple recipe my sister made a few years ago. I remembered it because of the distinctive cardamom spice. There’s no other flavor like it, really. 

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My family knows how to pull together a great Thanksgiving. Sure, the dog may have helped herself to mashed potatoes and my Dad called the security company to keep the firefighters away in case of an alarm (how many years in a row have I set it off?), but everything came together for a beautiful […]

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My sister bought me a bundt cake pan as a present years ago, and I absolutely love it. But, I’ve only actually used the pan a handful of times. I lugged it from Nebraska to New York, then from my apartment to Geoff’s, and it has been sitting neglected in his cupboard ever since.
Every […]

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No matter how elaborate a feast my sister and I prepare every Thanksgiving, there are those in our family who will mutiny if there are any traditional dishes (like green bean casserole) missing. Unfortunately for them, my sister and I love to experiment (and hate using cream-of-anything soup). So I’m always on the lookout for […]

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I’ve made and sampled a million different pumpkin breads, most of them tasting about the same. That’s why I pounced on this recipe – it’s different. It doesn’t knock you over the head with spices or turn into a dark brown loaf, but instead bakes up into a delicately flavored moist and dense quick bread. […]

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Happy Halloween! I made these cookies on a whim one fall, and everyone in my family was amazed by how well the pumpkin and chocolate flavors worked together. Moist pumpkin pie spiced cookie is packed full of chocolate chips and walnuts, then topped with vanilla icing. Now we make them as a signature baked good […]

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When my parents first bought the land that is now Vala’s Pumpkin Patch and Fall Festival, a pick-your-own pumpkin farm, they planned to sell strawberries. They planted acres and acres of the finicky sweet berries, placed ads in the local newspaper and sold them to whoever showed up. As an extra revenue booster, Grandpa Ernie […]

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Trifle is a traditional English dessert first created in the 18th century to use up leftover cake and cream—the word “trifle” means whimsical or of little importance. The traditional English version involves sherry- or fruit juice-soaked sponge cake, spread with jam, covered in custard and topped with whipped cream. American trifles commonly add fruit to […]

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I discovered, through the course of random conversation, that Geoff had never had a homemade cinnamon roll. This boggled my mind! When I was young, my Grandma Lois would alternate between making cinnamon rolls and kolaches almost every weekend.
Grandma Lois was not a recipe filer by nature. She owned hundreds of cookbooks full of dog-eared […]

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