The Walsh Cookbook

These green beans are a staple of all our holiday meals, particularly Christmas and Thanksgiving. I have been making them for a really, really, really long time. The recipe is from the American Girl Cookbook (it was Felicity's recipe to be exact) and it's been a really, really, really long time since I had an American Girl doll, so that should give you some sort of time frame.   I stopped using the cookbook after a couple times of making the green beans and it disappeared a couple of years later. I don't remember what the original recipe was exactly but it has become something very simple, just a couple of ingredients with lots of flavor. I hope you enjoy and have a happy Thanksgiving!!!!!  Serves about 4 (depending on how much you like green beans) One year ago:  Crab and Brie Soup ,  Orange and Herbs Turkey Brine Two years ago:  Thanksgiving Stuffing

When my kids were little, I always made a traditional, cooked cranberry sauce (recipe here )--with one simple addition that Erin always demanded (that recipe coming up!).  One year I decided to try a back-of-the-bag recipe that called for all raw ingredients, and we loved it! Especially Erin; so now our family requires two cranberry sauces for every Thanksgiving dinner! Since we always seem to do an extra summer turkey dinner--usually on the grill, and with not quite all the fixings, this means that we make this sauce twice a year.  This year was an extra-special early Thanksgiving dinner, and we did do all the fixings, as it was a send-off to Keegan right before he went off to Marine boot camp on October 9.  He will be in boot camp through his birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, so we wanted to have a big family meal for him to think of and sustain him during some of those long, lonely days.   We had a big Thanksgiving feast on the pa...

Crack pie. I saw the recipe on Pinterest and was immediately intrigued. Why is it called crack pie? Is it because the filling cracks as it cools? Is it because it has crack in it?  Is it because it is so good you'll quickly want more? Now that I have tried it, I know it's because it is SO GOOD!  Growing up, I never really liked pecan pie until I tried a pecan pie made by a family friend, Rhonda Dodson. She made her grandmother's recipe which was a combination of two classic southern pies, pecan pie and chess pie. It was amazing! The inside was sweet and dense and custardy without the use of corn syrup. I have made several different recipes for pecan pies and found that I never like the ones with corn syrup. In my opinion, they are too sweet and leak out all over the place. You cut your pie and the next thing you know, you have pie crust in pie filling soup. Crack pie is somewhat similar to a chess pie, but also very different. This particular recipe comes from ...

It just about kills my mom when I tell her that I am cooking mushrooms for dinner. I refused to eat mushrooms nearly my entire life despite her best efforts. I would pick them out of anything she tried to hide them in. Now, I feel like I am playing catch up for all that I've been missing. Mushrooms are so good! I like choosing a couple of different types of mushrooms to put in the fettuccine because they all taste different, and they are all so pretty! The nurse practitioner I work with goes mushroom hunting on the weekends. The last time I made this pasta, I used a couple of chanterelles she had picked the day before. I'm won't lie and say I wasn't a LITTLE nervous about eating them, but I am still breathing and from what she has told me, she is quite experienced in chanterelle hunting.  This recipe is adapted from a recipe in the "Cooking Outside the Box: Easy, Seasonal and Organic cookbook". I bought it a long time ago from Anthropologie and th...

This is a great autumn side dish (or anytime side dish really!). The richness of the squash is nicely balanced with the lime and cilantro vinaigrette.  It makes a good amount of squash so if you're only cooking for a couple people, you could either cut the recipe in half, or re-use the leftovers. I used my leftovers in risotto with arugula and it was tasty!!!! This recipe is slightly adapted from the Smitten Kitchen blog.