Easter Embarrassment: 3 Easy Candy Recipes

White Chocolate Cherries

Isn’t it funny how the most mortifying moments of your life are some of the most vivid images your memory conjures? I haven’t been able to pick up Easter candy for the last 40 years without recalling one of the earliest times I embarrassed the heck out of myself (I wish I could say it was the last time I did it. Unfortunately, there have been many opportunities since then to top myself). I was young (really young) – and it was the first time I got to go into a store by myself. READ MORE

Recipe: 3 Easy Easter Candies

Karmic Celebration: Strawberry Almond Ice Cream

Don’t you hate it when life gets in the way of the things you really want to do? It has been six months since I was last able to play with my food and tell you about it. That’s far too long, but three jobs and writing regular blog entries just became a little too much to do all at the same time. Something had to be postponed for a little while. Unfortunately, the blog lost out. Sigh.

Well, now Job #3 is gone and it looks like Job #2 could be a fond memory in the near future. I said I wouldn’t pick the blog back up until I escaped from The Land of the Eternal Blue Light, but sometimes Karma hands you something that makes you want to celebrate. I won’t bore you with all the details, but here is the quick, self-indulgent rundown:

I belong to a volunteer organization. About a year ago, we were on the hunt for a paid staffer to run the show. The headhunter committee brought us their final candidate, who proceeded to set off every warning bell and siren I have installed in my body: self-importance, duplicity, passive-aggressiveness (in short, I thought he was a creep and a jerk). Being the person that I am, I forcefully voiced those concerns. I was in the extreme minority. In the end, the person was hired by a vote of 64-2 (yes, I was one of the two). The two dissenters were then ostracized, vilified, and our emotional stability was even questioned. I didn’t quit, but I faded away from the organization.

Fast forward 11 ½ months. The staffer ended up being let go and escorted out of the building for doing exactly what we said he would. Oh yeah, he then lobbed a grenade to try and inflict as much damage on the volunteer organization as he could while he was being let go.

I know it’s childish and petty, but I laughed out loud when the news reached me. It was that hearty, superior kind of laugh that comes when you know you’ve been vindicated. Actually, I think I did a little “I told you so” dance too (OK, maybe they were right to question my emotional stability afterall). Even though I feel bad for the organization, I couldn’t help it. Now the people who were doing the vilifying are dumbfounded as to how it could have turned out this way. All I can say is that Karma can be a real bitch – unless it works in your favor, then it’s kind of cool.

Being in such a festive mood, I decided it was time to break the seal and get back to blogging. If you are a food blogger, you know that there is no such thing as just running to the kitchen and whipping something up. Nope. Plans have to be laid out; notes must be made; stages must be set; and photos must be taken. It’s an undertaking requiring precision and planning. This entry didn’t go that way. Once you get out of the habit, it’s amazing what you forget. It may take an entry or two before I get my sea legs again, so forgive the errors and omissions.

So what does all of this have to do with Ice Cream? Why, what else would you celebrate with? I mean, one part-time job was shed, the other is quickly fading, I have time to blog again, and (best of all) Karma really is the great equalizer…

Recipe: Strawberry Almond Ice Cream

Pilgrim Food: Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Bread

We all have that inner voice that drives us. Whether you are led by your faith in a higher being, your political and philosophical ideals, or the almighty dollar, we are all pulled somewhere. Sometimes that pull leads you on a physical journey to find more understanding about the thing that compels you. I have been on such a physical journey to find enlightenment – to Graceland. Of course, it wasn’t my journey. I was eleven, and I was forced to go on a family vacation.

Yes, I can admit it now – my family was one of the original blue-suede-shoes-set that traveled to the hallowed city of Memphis for the first anniversary of the death of its most famous son, Elvis Presley. I understand that now you can tour the inside of the mansion – see the Jungle Room, the pool, everything. Not then. We waited for over three hours in the hot August sun just to walk around gravestones of the Presley family and then walk back down the driveway.

People were fainting left and right (I’m not sure if it was the heat or they were overcome with grief – I always hoped it was the heat). At eleven years old, I can remember thinking that if this many people were falling over, then why were we still standing in line? But stood in line, we did. I think this was probably my mother’s favorite family vacation of all time.

While we were there, you would think that we could have tried some of the great cuisine of the city, but, no. It was nothing but fast food, although we did get some barbeque – from a chain restaurant. That’s the family I grew up with – not a culinary adventurer in the bunch. Except me.

I’m not sure where I got it, but I have become quite the foodie. I even started a gourmet cooking club a few years ago. I don’t have any formal training, but that hasn’t stopped me from exploring the food that excites me. Of course, all of that is easier when you have a disposable income.

We’ve been hit pretty hard by the economic downturn. It has meant giving up our favorite foodie haunts: cutting edge restaurants, the gourmet food store. Shoot, even a trip to the regular market gets a little hairy from time to time. But I try to live by the old adage: When life hand you lemons, make limoncello. (You can make lemonade if you want - but if things are that bad, I’d rather be liquored up.) That’s where Inexpensive Eating was born.

I really began my blog as a way to fill the hours while my kitchen and bath design business was in the dumps (there are only so many revisions you can make to the same bathroom drawing before you start to go insane). Having no money for exotic (or even non-seasonal) ingredients means that getting creative is the only way I have to cook. Turns out, that it’s a blast! My creativity (and my foodie soul) is re-energized by coming up with original recipes. The fact that other people seem to like them too is just icing on the cake.

In honor of this new pilgrimage that I have begun, I thought I should come up with something that connects the memories of my youth with the path I’m on now. As ashamed as I am to admit it, one of the things I adored from my childhood (and still eat occasionally) is a peanut butter and banana sandwich. And can there be another food that more embodies the Elvis Presley experience? Personally, I can’t think of peanut butter without thinking of chocolate. And chocolate goes great with bananas too!

So as a means of making this flavor combination more appealing to a wider set (at least those who live outside of the rural south), I decided to roll them all together into a dessert. It hits every comfort food button that is installed in my body. It really has become one of my new favorites. I hope it is yours as well.

I also hope that you find the thing that sets you on the path to begin your pilgrimage – even if it does lead you to Graceland (or Dollywood, or the Liberace museum…)

This isn't our pilgrimage, but it sure looks familiar. Thanks to Mona over at Itawamba Connections - it's her traveling grandmother, Beck, standing at the gates of Graceland in the late 70's..  

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Bread