It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, years actually, but it’s good to know my blog is still here, just waiting for me to cook something. And while I may not have been posting over the last few years, I’ve still been busy in the kitchen, still using every pan in the house. However, over the last 9 months, I’ve been especially busy in the kitchen, due to the “virus,” which shall not be named, since everyone knows what I’m talking about. Luckily, I love to cook, so having to cook more has not been a hardship. Instead, I’ve had a chance to play with new ingredients, along with certain standbys that everyone hunkered down under our roof, enjoys. The standbys include: split pea soup, enchiladas, refried beans, peasant bread (from Bread Toast Crumbs, by Alexandra Stafford), tuna casserole (with potato chips on top), and my dad’s chili. We’ve eaten a lot of grilled cheese sammys, hot dogs (veal hot dogs from our favorite Polish market), with and without chili, hamburgers, and simple pastas. But we’ve discovered black garlic, kimchi, truffle salt, smoked butter, red Chinese sausages (which look like red hot dogs, but taste completely different), and ground prime rib, to name a few things. I’ve also traveled to a lot of new cities around the good ol’ USA, and even made it to Paris, France, with my hubby and parents almost two years ago. Can’t wait to share that foodie adventure! And then there are the new cookbooks I’ve purchased, too many to list for now, but I’ll get to them later. (I know, it’s a tease, but I really did buy too many to just list them all out at once, where’s the fun in that?)

For now, I want to share a little cooking adventure I’ve started with my youngest daughter, Sophie. I finally got my hands on “Snacking Cakes,” by Yossy Arefi, of Apt. 2B Baking Co. blog, and after reading through the recipes with my daughter, we decided to bake our way through the book, Julie and Julia style. We started with the Swirled Jam Cake recipe today. It was even easier to put together than it seems. Probaby took us a total of 5 minutes to mix up the batter, dollop the jam on top, and swirl it in. Easy peasy. And it turned out beautifully, as well as delicious! So first recipe down and it was a winner. Tomorrow, we’re baking the Buckwheat Banana Cake, because we have waaay too many over ripe bananas! Wish us luck.