Culinary Favorites From A to Z, The Blog

Seems I have been doing a bit of Harry Potter reading and writing lately and I was very excited when I stumbled across this cookbook, The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz. As someone who has spent years looking for Harry Potter recipes, I am excited about this cookbook.

The book is not actually published yet but you can pre-order it from Amazon (where it is already deeply discounted) by clicking right here. The publication date is September 18, 2010 and, if you order it now, Amazon will protect you with their pre-order price guarantee. If you would just like to read a bit more about the cookbook you can visit my page about The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by clicking right here.

It it is butterbeer your after, you might check What Is The Best Recipe For Harry Potter Butterbeer and if you want a Wizarding World of Harry Potter butterbeer stein, you’ll want to visit Serve Your Butterbeer At Home In A Wizarding World of Harry Potter Stein or Cup .

Finally if it is a new wand you be needing, check out where Wizards Can Buy Their Wizarding World of Harry Potter Wands or the collector’s edition Noble Harry Potter Wands.

Brenda
A Harry Potter Fan

Cupcake and apron lovers alike will love one of these personalized cupcake aprons! This one features my name and I think seeing it with my name makes it one of the best cupcake aprons around. It is absolutely amazing. Perfect, in fact for when I’m making a mess in my kitchen. 

The apron itself is a medium-length apron with three pockets for holding whatever you need to stash away while you are baking up a storm. It is a sturdy 35 percent cotton and 65 percent polyester twill, which is machine washable

Whose name will you be adding to your personalized cupcake apron? It would even be cute with ‘Cupcakes By Mom’ or ‘Cupcakes By Grandma’, wouldn’t it.

Quick Links:

Admittedly, we have a King and a Queen of the Grill in our house. That would be myself and my 16-year old son who loves to cook supper when it means putting the meat on the barbecue.

Therefore, my recent page dedicated to The Best Sizzlin’ Hot Barbecue Apron For Your Summer Parties has left me with a few ideas for a birthday gift for him. They would, of course, also be great Father’s Day or birthday gifts for a grown man, your King of the Grill!

Not only did I find a few fantastic grilling aprons, I also discovered Amazon’s best barbecue cookbook, a Weber’s cookbook called Weber’s Way to Grill: The Step-by-Step Guide to Expert Grilling.  It receives top-rated customer reviews PLUS Amazon has it at almost half price. I think combining it with a King of the Grill apron well, would simply be a perfect gift set for anyone who loves grilling, including my son.

Brenda

Quick Links:

Buy this King of the Grill apron for your King of the Grill.
Find The Best Sizzlin’ Hot Barbecue Apron.
Read more about Weber’s Way to Grill barbecue cookbook.

Are you looking for a yummy summer dinner menu?  You’ll find one on my page, Complete Make-Ahead Summer Dinner Menu & Recipes. It includes information about and links to my favorite recipes including:

The Best-Ever Hawaiian Potato Salad which has regular potato salad ingredients and a few bonus items. We love it, it is delicious and nutritious!

The Best-Ever Glazed Baked Ham which is actually a really easy recipe. There is nothing like a slice of ham baked with the bone-in. You will feel like you have encountered a slice of heaven.

The Best-Ever Country Seed Bread is a bread machine recipe that features flax seed, sesame seed, poppy seed and even whole wheat flour. It is our BEST bread machine recipe.  (If you don’t count the cinnamon rolls…)

The Best-Ever Hawaiian Punch is a punch recipe that is absolutely delicious, with or without the rum and it has absolutely NO relationship to Punchy of canned Hawaiian Punch fame. This recipe contains REAL fruit juice, a bit of grenadine and ginger ale. Perfect for summertime sipping.

On my summer dinner page, you will also find some fantastic red and white gingham accessories and some ants, the kind you might welcome on your picnic. You’ll also find a summer music recommendation and a couple of fantastic summer and barbecue aprons.

I hope the information I have gathered helps you put together an absolutely delicious summer dinner!

Brenda

Quick Link:

Complete Make-Ahead Summer Dinner Menu & Recipes.

If you love maple syrup the way I do and you love cupcakes, you will want to head right on over and read my latest page featuring a the best-ever maple syrup recipe for cupcakes. The recipe was found in a 2006 Country Living magazine and has been enjoyed ever since.  It uses, naturally, only real maple syrup and these cupcakes are definitely a treat.

Did you know that some people actually add bacon to a maple syrup cupcake? I’m not sure if that is my style or not but it sounds oddly interesting.  What do you think?

Intrigued as I am by aprons, I was lucky to find this one which refers to maple syrup addiction…while I really would not call my an addiction, I definitely do love maple syrup a lot.  (Something, maybe about how delicious the stuff is and the fact that we grew up in Nova Scotia visiting the sugar bush every single spring.)

I’m always on the lookout for new maple syrup recipes. How about you?

Click here to order your
Maple Syrup Addict apron
by foodshirts on Zazzle.

Yours in the kitchen,

Brenda

Quick Links:

Check out my maple syrup recipe for cupcakes.
Order this maple syrup apron from the artist on Zazzle.

Yesterday, I stumbled across a bevy of beautiful cupcake aprons and decided I must share them with you.  If you love cupcakes and do not already have a cupcake apron, you need to see these ones and I ask, what are you waiting for?

On my latest page, Crazy About Cupcakes? Tie on a Cupcake Apron, I chose to feature only a few of the very best cupcake aprons that I could find.  There are tons of them available but I wanted to present some of  the nicest ones and I think (I hope) that I have succeeded in doing so.

My favorite may well be a unique one from an artist at Zazzle whose store is named ‘blessedme.’  Blessedme created a bright and bold cupcake apron that can be personalized. Yes, that means that the apron she designed shown here reads ‘Cupcakes By Brenda’ but it could, because it can be personalized, also read ‘Cupcakes by Carma’ or ‘Cupcakes by Susan’ or ‘Cupcakes by Whomever You Like.’

I love the fact that on Zazzle once you find a design you like you have a few options. In this case, I can choose a regular-length apron or a long apron or even a child’s apron and I can pick between three colors, although I have to say I prefer this one in white.   

Anyway, if you love cupcakes and you love aprons, make sure you drop by and see what all the fuss is about. You know, don’t you, that a cupcake is just a pretty little muffin with a hat…

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda
Culinary Favorites From A to Z

Quick Link:

Have blessedme’s apron personalized for someone you know.
See my page full of the best cupcake aprons.

Exciting news, one of the very popular cookbooks by Janet and Greta Podleski called Eat, Shrink and Be Merry, has been chosen best Cookbook of the Decade for the years 2000 to 2009.  The book achieved this status based on Chapters/Indigo sales figures and the fact that it did so means that it outsold cookbooks by the likes of Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Ina Garten, Martha Stewart, Giada De Laurentiis and so many other celebrity chefs.  You can read my review of Eat, Shrink and Be Merry, by clicking right here.

Go Canada Go!

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda
Culinary Favorites From A to Z
Comfort Food Recipes & Cookbooks

Quick Links:

Read my review of Eat, Shrink and Be Merry.
Order your copy of Eat, Shrink and Be Merry from Amazon.

Discovered this interesting little volume last week called Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom. Penned in 2000 as a joint effort between Julia Child and David Nussbaum, it is a practical guide to Julia Child’s ‘essential techniques and recipes from a lifetime of cooking’ nicely updated for today’s kitchen to include modern equipment and methods.

Brenda
Culinary Favorites From A to Z

Quick Links:

Read my review & do the quiz at Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom Book Review and Cooking Quiz.
Buy Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom from Amazon.

Recently I read a page devoted to making perfect scrambled eggs without a teflon pan. I tried this method by Tandemonimom and, guess what, it works perfectly. I was thrilled.

I’ve long had mixed feelings about my t-fal pans and Tandemonimom used a frying pan from Calphalon’s Comtemporary stainless set which she has been using successfully for more than two years and which Amazon has listed for more than 35 percent off. I digress.

My real purpose for this post is to celebrate the creation of perfect scrambled eggs. If you want to make them too, check out her page at How to Make Perfect Scrambled Eggs – WITHOUT a Nonstick Pan.

Brenda
Culinary Favorites From A to Z

Quick Links:

How to Make Perfect Scrambled Eggs – WITHOUT a Nonstick Pan

Recently, I was gifted with the page formerly called ‘Comfort Food Headquarters.’ I’ve tweeked the title a bit to include more words that people are searching for like ‘comfort food recipes’ and ‘comfort food cookbook.’ This page should prove useful to anyone seeking comfort food recipes because it is packed with some of the best recipe and food pages on Squidoo.

Brenda

Quick Link:

Comfort Food Recipes & Cookbook Headquarters