Marie-Grace's Sweet Potato Biscuits

A sweet twist on an American classic?

I promised another sweet potato focused recipe in my last post, and here it is! I've had sweet potato cake, bread, and muffins before, but I can't say I've ever had the opportunity to try sweet potato biscuits before. 

Biscuits in general aren't a huge part of my diet, although they're staples of American cuisine, particularly as you wander further south. Don't get me wrong, I like them a lot! But they weren't a staple thing on our dinner or breakfast table growing up, so they're more like a fun treat I get to enjoy at restaurants or on the rare occasion I decide to make them myself, usually for a blog post like this. 

So, how do we make them?

Marie-Grace and Cécile Celebrate La Chandeleur at Hillwood!

A French tradition in 20th Century American Style!

Not far from the National Zoo, visitors to DC can swing by the Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, a beautiful historic home with an incredible amount of European art. Marjorie Post bought the property after her divorce from her third husband and arranged for the property to be turned into a museum after her death. Originally bequeathed to the Smithsonian, the museum is managed by the Post Foundation, and is a really lovely place to visit if you want something that’s a little removed from the hustle and bustle of the National Mall. The museum is also a vocal supporter of the LGBT community and hosts Pride themed events and has a delightful café on property as well. 

I’ve had tea at Hillwood before – a really lovely date with my fiancée the last time she visited me! – but I had never been inside the house proper before and have been meaning to do so since I moved here. So when my friend Ama sent me a link to their annual Crêpe Day celebration, I leaped at the chance to go look at some beautiful artwork and enjoy some hopefully tasty crepes. 

Read on to hear about how our adventure went?

Marie-Grace's Red Beans and Rice

My own twist on a classic from the Crescent City!

Like I've said, one of the best things about doing this blog is getting to try making things I never would have considered making on my own. We've gotten to try lots of food I'd never have thought about eating outside of a restaurant before, like the flan I made last weekend, or the nian gao. Anyone remember that one? Hands down the coolest thing I've made for the blog.

The thing is, sometimes my geographic location means making a truly authentic version of a classic dish is going to be difficult, prohibitively expensive, or just totally not going to happen. I'm not importing camas roots from Oregon for a Kaya post, for example. This one caught me off guard a little with how tricky it would be to find the exact right ingredients up north, but with a little creativity, I think we managed to pull this one off.

It's just not exactly your grandma's red beans and rice.

Marie-Grace's Shrimp Creole

Spicy, warm, and perfect for the middle of winter!

I think it's pretty safe to say that spicy food can be the perfect thing to eat year round. Sure, I like variety too, but spicy food is (perhaps surprisingly for some people) good to eat in hot weather, and nothing hits the spot like a good bowl of chili on a cold day.

But if you're tired of chili (as one of my frequent taste testers apparently is), I've definitely got a dish for you to try. Although it's not quite a one pot meal, it's close to it, and it doesn't take too much time or finesse to get right. It's also a dish with roots back to the early, early days of New Orleans, and it's definitely something Marie-Grace could have enjoyed with her father after a long day of volunteering at an orphanage, or exploring the city with Cécile.

Marie-Grace's Creole Tomato Salad

A tasty, quick to throw together salad featuring the best fruit.

When people ask what my favorite fruit is, I usually don't think to say tomato. Even though it's scientifically a fruit (anything with seeds is a fruit, a fact that shocked a few people I "ruined this" for), it's really hard not to think of the tomato as a vegetable because it's a lot more savory than sweet, and it's not something you'd think to eat for dessert.

But that definitely doesn't change the fact that they are delicious. Whether in sauces, salads, or just eaten by themselves, tomatoes and I have always gotten along.

As it turns out, the people in the good state of Louisiana are also fans of this tasty fruit, and have become well known for producing particularly flavorful tomatoes branded as Creole tomatoes that are so popular, they have their own festivals held in their honor. There's just one problem: the fruit known as a Creole tomato might not even really exist anymore!

Marie-Grace’s Chocolate Coffee Molasses Cookies

A cakey, old fashioned cookie with a great frosting!

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just kind of cursed when it comes to food from Louisiana. Most of the recipes I've made for Marie Grace and Cécile - well, okay, maybe not most, because we've definitely had some huge successes - have been time consuming and kind of disastrous to make, and so I tend not to feature these two as much as I should on the blog. That's kind of a bummer, because food from this neck of the woods tends to be pretty tasty, and I'd definitely like to find more room to showcase it here.

Unfortunately, this isn't one of the bigger success stories. While I did have some taste testers who were big fans of this recipe, it wasn't something I wound up enjoying much at all, and I don't think I'll be making these cookies again. That said, if you're into old fashioned cookies that aren't too sweet and have a very subtle spice to them, this might be the one for you! This particular combination just wasn't my favorite.

... And with that stellar introduction, let's move on to the recipe!

Marie-Grace's Chocolate Chess Pie

A tasty pie that's easy to make and suuuuper chocolatey!

Remember when I used to post about things that weren't desserts? Yeah, me too.

There's just something about trying out a new dessert recipe that's always caught my interest more than making something savory. I'd like to say that's because I've always been a more confident baker than chef, or that baking just comes more naturally to me, and both of those statements are true, but let's be honest: trying out new dessert recipes is fun because desserts are pretty universally delicious, and I definitely have a sweet tooth.

This one definitely embodies some of my favorite things in a recipe: it was easy to make, didn't require a lot of clean up and was super chocolatey! I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what on Earth a chess pie is - I know I was when I first found the recipe. All I can say right now is that you really should just click read more to find out, because I promise it's going to be something that at least a few of you might want to try out yourself!

Marie-Grace and Cécile's Traditional King Cake

Spoilers: this was kind of a disaster, but it seemed like a good idea at the time!

Mardi Gras - or some variation thereof - isn't a tradition that's unique to New Orleans, but I think when the holiday comes up, it's the first place people think of. It's another floating holiday, marking the day before Ash Wednesday and thus the official start of Lent, or one of the Christian traditions I've always been really lousy about actually participating in. Since observing Lent traditionally means making some personal sacrifices and changing your diet to something considered simpler and less rich, that means cutting down on things like butter, sugar and basically everything else delicious.

Mardi Gras is a celebration of everything that Lent kind of isn't, and is hugely popular in New Orleans. People go all out with decorations, parades and parties, and pretty much any piece of media featuring the city involves it in some way - even The Princess and the Frog takes place near and on Mardi Gras, and so obviously the two girls from New Orleans couldn't be left out of that party.

I'm sorry to say that this was kind of a culinary disaster, but after the effort I put into making it, I definitely wasn't going to keep my attempt to myself! Let's just say King Cake turned out to be a lot harder to make than it seemed to be.

Marie-Grace's Shrimp and Grits

We've found a tasty new way to change up fish night!

As I've mentioned many a time before, I am definitely north of the Mason-Dixon line. I hesitate to self identify as a yankee because I root for their arch rivals, but let's be honest, it's true. Because of that and the fact that before starting this blog, I wasn't a very adventurous eater, I haven't had a ton of exposure to southern food and somehow, I've lived my entire life without ever seeing grits in person, let alone actually trying them.

I know, I know. Crazy, right?

But Marie-Grace and Cécile have been helping me overcome my fear of preparing French food and expand my relatively limited knowledge of southern food. Since you can't get much more southern than grits, I figured this was a pretty good place to dive right in.

Marie-Grace's Bourbon Bread Pudding

Bringing a taste of New Orleans to the holiday season!

Now, I will be the first to tell you that I enjoyed Marie-Grace and Cécile's books quite a bit, and I definitely don't think the series should be overlooked just because American Girl picked a pretty obscure point in history to focus on. However, when it came to picking out what to feature with them for the holidays, I found myself shaking my fist in frustration that they didn't have a book focusing on how people in 1853 New Orleans celebrated Christmas. Meet Cécile starts at the end of the Christmas season, with Cécile and her mother taking down their Christmas tree and Cécile commenting on some of the things she looks forward to and enjoys during the holiday season, and Cécile's Gift ends in mid December, and there isn't much focus on what the two girls' families are doing to prepare for Christmas because they're all much more focused on finding ways to help people affected by the Yellow Fever epidemic. Obviously, this is a more important topic for the series itself, but when you compare it to the other girls having books that very clearly detail how their families celebrate winter holidays and traditions, it was sort of a bummer to not be able to immediately turn to the book or the collection and find lots and lots of inspiration there.

Obviously, that doesn't mean I gave up. After a lot of consideration, I decided to make a bread pudding for Marie-Grace, and a very different, equally tasty treat for Cécile, which you'll hopefully hear about tomorrow! I'd never even had bread pudding before making this recipe, and I was very pleasantly surprised by what we ended up with.

Marie-Grace and Cécile's Jambalaya

A wildly anticipated dinner from some surprising new additions!

I had thought that Rebecca would be the last doll I added to my collection for quite a while, unless by some miracle, I found a high paying job that let me have enough flexibility to grab an Addy, or I stumbled upon one at a thrift store, or inherited one from someone who didn't want to keep theirs anymore, for whatever reason. So when my mom informed me that she'd sort of had an impulse purchase "for the sake of the blog", I assumed she meant she'd bought a crazy new piece of kitchen equipment. Imagine my surprise when she revealed that she had managed to snag a Marie-Grace and Cécile at an incredibly good price thanks to a deal from the TODAY Show! They got here a few weeks ago, and we've all been eagerly awaiting a good time to feature them on the blog.

This isn't because we were struggling to come up with something to feature with them, but just because scheduling kind of prevented us from being able to do what we wanted. As soon as we knew they were coming, my dad and I wanted to make jambalaya, and this was the first weekend everyone was around to do it.