Creme Anglaise (Vanilla Custard Sauce) In a bowl, whisk together 4 egg yolks and ¼ c. sugar; set aside. Over low heat, stir ½ c. each milk and cream until hot. Whisk half the hot milk mixture into the eggs. Add it all back into the sauce pan, whisking constantly. Continue whisking over low heat until thickened. Stir in 2 t. vanilla. Chill to thicken further. Great on pound cake, dessert crepes, fruit. Makes 1+ cups. Quick & Easy Butterscotch Sauce In a saucepan over medium

These don’t exist on the internet. They were a late discovery by Don from the House of Majoras. Only a partial list of ingredients are on the scrap of paper salvaged from some of Mary Ann’s notes, but combined with David’s memory of watching his mom make them, it was enough to recreate one of the Majorases’ childhood favorites. These are the cutest little crescent-moon shaped sponge cake “bites,” dusted with powdered sugar. I was totally smitten when I made them the first

These simple cookies, my very first copycat recipe from the early ‘90s and based on Keebler’s Danish Wedding Cookies, were a best-seller at the bakery. We kept wrapped logs of dough in the walk-in so we could just slice and bake them every morning. If you want them to be more biscochito-like, add 1 T. of coarsely ground anise seeds and skip the powdered sugar. Makes 4 - 5 dozen. In a food processor, grind until fairly fine . . . . . . . . . . In a large mixing bowl, be

Gourmet magazine first printed this recipe by Celia Barbour in November, 2005. I’ve been making them at Christmas ever since. The original recipe is fastidiously fantastic and probably worth all the trouble, but honestly, even with the shortcuts I use, they’re very very good. "’You really have to wait,’ says Barbour. ‘After a couple of days, the cookies' texture becomes lovely and melting. Earlier, they are good, but later, they're transcendent. Honest.’ Barbour likes these

Makes 8 - 12 whoopie pies. In a large mixing bowl beat together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beat in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sift together and add slowly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In a separate bowl, make the frosting by beating together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . → → → → ½ c. (1 stick) butter, soft ¾ c. brown sugar 2 large eggs ¼ c. molasses ¼ c. buttermilk 2 c. flour 2 t. cinnamon ¾ t. baking sod

These little melt-in-your-mouth pucks of spicy glazed deliciousness taste like a cross between a muffin, a cupcake, and a donut. Makes 48. In a large bowl, cream together until fluffy and smooth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Add one at a time and beat in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In a large bowl, sift together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Add in alternately with the flour mixture until blended well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We sort of inherited Kurt* when we opened Texas Nation in Marble Falls in 2008. In high school, he’d worked for Cecil’s, the seafood restaurant that preceded us in that space. We also hired his girlfriend Amber as a server, for holidays only, as she attended Texas Tech during the school year, and we hired Kurt’s best friend as a dishwasher. They were all solid workers, young and eager and innocent, and for that we felt pretty lucky. We were learning quickly that with the exce

What I’m about to confess is not vogue. It’s outdated and won’t receive applause, especially in a cookbook, but here goes: I think some commercially-prepared dishes are better than homemade [ducks the flying eggs and tomatoes]. Many apologies, but let’s look at cake mixes, for example. If you are an expert baker with years of baking experience/knowledge under your apron strings (like Pinball Kerri, p. ___), you can probably make a scratch white cake that is moist and del

. . . . inspired by Macaroni Joe’s in Amarillo, Texas After graduate school at WT in Canyon, Texas ended, my friendship with Danielle that had blossomed over a cup of coffee early in the fall semester continued. We spent many a long lunch at Macaroni Joe’s during my frequent sojourns from Lubbock to Amarillo, and also later, when I moved back to Amarillo while I was finishing up my dissertation at Texas Tech. Danielle’s favorite entree at Macaroni Joe’s was the Shrimp Cap

When you run a business, no matter how positive you try to be, the negative feedback can overwhelm you. I would get completely bogged down with it. At every restaurant we had, I would at times spend weeks fixated on a single plate sent back, or one phoned-in complaint. Or even a 4-star review. Forget the praise from a thousand happy customers who thought we were doing a great job; it was the discordant hate-songs of a few dissatisfied customers that ran on a loop in my brain.

When we stumbled upon an empty space at Lubbock's Cactus Alley in February 2006, formerly home to La Cumbre Mexican restaurant, we knew instantly it was perfect for Manna Bread & Wine. We spent the next five months obtaining a liquor license (yes it took us that long!), doing minor renovations, buying furniture, decorating, and getting city inspections. The decor in the cozy, eclectic little dining room at Manna was cobbled together mostly with thrifted items. The bentwood ch

I make no apologies for the frequency with which coconut appears on this website. Serves 6 - 8. Make the crust: Preheat the oven to 350°. In a food processor, pulse together into crumbs. . . . Add in, mix well, then press into a deep pie pan and bake for 10 minutes; cool . . . . . . Make the filling: in a medium saucepan, whisk together in order and cook over low heat until thick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Remove from heat and stir in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This was my mom's favorite pie. She went by "Bubbles" her whole life, and that's what my kids called her, so that's what I called her. But the last dish Bubbles cooked in her Brookdale apartment in Lubbock wasn't pie, it was gumbo. It was April 2020, and her senior living center was still in lockdown. Queen of Tarts, our bakery, had been permanently closed for a few months, and King Street Pub and other restaurants were not yet back to being allowed to operate at full capacit