Addy's Peach Pie

The secrets of making a good pie crust will be revealed!

I know I've kind of fallen off the face of the earth around here over the last week or so. You can blame a certain Marvel movie for that - and if you haven't seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier yet, what are you doing? Go see it! - because this is the first time one of my genuine favorite characters of all time has had a more central role in the film, and not been entirely unrecognizable. You go, Bucky! Now if only DC would give me the Nightwing movie I've been waiting for my whole life.

Anyway, last Friday was not only the premiere of my new favorite movie, but also my grandfather's 80th birthday! I've mentioned before that he is quite the fan of pie, and since his birthday and Addy's are relatively close together (Addy's was on the 9th), I decided I couldn't pass up this opportunity to give piemaking another shot!

Even if I was more than a little intimidated by the process.

Kailey's Lava Mug Cake

A ridiculously tasty treat that takes less than ten minutes and two bowls to make!

While most people probably only pay attention to April 1st more than most other days in April because of April Fool's Day, for me, it's my younger sister's birthday and that's always what I think of before even vaguely considering playing a prank on someone. She's back at college right now, so real birthday celebrations will have to wait until she gets home, but for the time being, I think I've got something she and anyone else who needs a chocolate fix will really, really enjoy.

Seriously, these things are delicious.

I usually feel bad for telling her about what we've been doing for the blog while she's at school because it's not like I can just mail her the soup I made for dinner, or the chicken I baked, but this is something you don't even need a stove to prepare. It's an incredibly quick recipe that's ready to eat almost immediately, and if you're anything like me, you'll start wanting another one pretty much as soon as the first is gone.

Kit's Pasta and Peas

A surprise discovery that turned out to be an old family favorite! ... For some.

Continuing my adventures in making authentic, historical recipes, we decided to head backwards in time to the Great Depression, partially because Kit Kittredge has officially joined my rapidly expanding collection, but also because I found a neat little cache of recipes that I thought could be fun to try out.

Depression era food is probably just as difficult to sell to people as 40's wartime food, and 70's casseroles that sound like someone effectively dumped the contents of a pantry into a dish and hoped for the best. I know a lot of people make faces when I mention it's something I'm interested in, and I'm pretty sure it would be a hard sell to get certain friends and family members over for similar dishes. That being said, I've been enjoying the results, and I think some of the mystique and terror associated with cooking during these two eras has started to dissipate.

I'm sure some of my taste testers will protest that fact, but what can I say? Maybe I'm learning to overcome my picky eating habits.

Emily's Smothered Sausages

Your courage, your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us victory!

I've been promising a post like this for quite a while. Most of my other posts focusing on Emily Bennett have talked about food that - while British and tasty - she might not have been able to eat for the better part of her childhood, and every time I do one, I promise the next one I do... and then promptly chicken out and go with something that looks and sounds far more appetizing.

But today I finally make good on that promise by bringing you a recipe from a cookbook my grandmother purchased at The Imperial War Museum in London featuring war time British recipes! I mentioned in one of my last posts that the IWM is one of my favorite museums and I honestly have to say it's probably the best I've ever been to. Unfortunately, it's undergoing a major renovation right now and is therefore closed until July, so plan your trips to London accordingly!

This probably isn't the tastiest looking thing I've ever made for this blog, but I have to say, it actually wasn't too bad! It's quick, something different, and proof that I probably wouldn't have starved to death while living off what I could throw together with rations.

Samantha's Deviled Eggs

Spoilers: they're labor intensive, but an incredibly pretty, tasty way to make an elegant looking treat to eat!

My sister was home on break from college a week ago, and while she was home, I asked if she'd be interested in taste testing some recipes for the blog, and mentioned that I had been wanting to do deviled eggs. She very enthusiastically supported that idea, and a few days before she had to go home, our schedules finally aligned and I was able to make good on that promise with what were pretty tasty results, if I can get away with saying that.

Deviled eggs have a surprisingly long history. They're a dish I'd never really spent much time pondering the origins of, but in doing my usual poking around for information, I discovered that while they weren't called deviled eggs, a boiled, stuffed egg has been appearing on people's tables at least since the time of Ancient Rome! The Greeks and Romans were some of the first Europeans to domesticate chickens, and apparently they started getting creative with egg preparation not long after they had a steady supply of them. The "deviled" name caught on in the 1700's, and versions of the dish are enjoyed by people around the world. Since they have been and still are so popular for so long, there's nothing necessarily specifically linking them to people of the Victorian Age (or Edwardian, as Samantha was more properly a member of), but I think we can all agree that a dish that takes a lot of time and effort to prepare and looks so elegant that they'd be right at home in that era.

Addy's Coconut Tea Cake & The Liebster Award!

A yummy cake that totally deserves the fame and popularity of any other tea cake!

As you can see by the title, this post is going to be something of a joint one! I've already discussed my fondness for coconut at length, so when I discovered this recipe for Emily Dickinson's Coconut Cake from The History Kitchen, my interest was piqued! The History Kitchen is a great blog that produces a ton of exceptional material from the pictures to the incredibly well researched recipes. Someday, I hope my blog can be that successful and polished!

I thought this recipe in particular was interesting because I've never heard of coconut being a tea cake option before, and because I had no idea that Emily Dickinson was such a prolific cook! While it's true that she spent most of her adult life in seclusion, she apparently still baked, cooked and sent out goodies to her neighbors with some frequency, making her a beloved figure even if people didn't know her personally. Because she spent so much of her life isolating herself from others, her poetry didn't become popular until after her death. The first collected edition of her work was published in 1889, and the first largely unedited edition was published in 1955.

Because of this, I spent a long time debating which character should host this post and had the best connection to Dickinson's life, and decided to go with Addy because while she might not have read any of Emily's works until she was an adult, they were still contemporaries (Emily would have been in her thirties when Addy was ten) and this recipe is not far off from a cake Addy might have enjoyed or made herself. It's certainly not a complicated one, and apart from the coconut, the other ingredients are extremely basic and are probably already in your pantry!

Part two of the post (which is actually what I'm going to be starting off with) is a slightly unusual topic for this blog, but there was no way I was going to sit out on the fun! I was awarded by Robinhoo from Audra's Elements of Style with...

Nellie's Irish Soda Bread

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

While St. Patrick himself probably wouldn't love how modern people choose to celebrate his feast day - he was kind of a giant stick in the mud, by our standards - my family traditionally tries to get together and do something festive. My grandmother likes to make corned beef and cabbage for my grandfather, and while it might not be an authentically Irish dish, it's the Irish American version of bacon and cabbage, and is thus totally legitimate to eat on St. Patrick's Day, or any day you feel like honoring any Irish immigrants you might have in your family. Don't let the naysayers who half read a Wikipedia article fool you!

One of our favorite traditions is making Irish soda bread, and this year, I got to be the one who made it! I was a little intimidated to be the one in charge of making this family favorite, but I am pleased to report that everything worked out very well.

There's only one character to host a post like this, so I'm very pleased to formally introduce you to...