This is my new blog. I've kind of outgrown the food blog I started with my friend Debbie, Cooking With Rachael & Friends. I still plan to work on it, but my enthusiasm as a Rachael Ray fan has been waning, surprisingly in direct correlation with her rising popularity. I enjoyed watching "30 Minute Meals" when she was shy and giggly, now she's bigger than life and a lot louder. I'm still a fan, just in a different way. I hope she will do more "Tasty Travels" shows, I enjoy watching the combination of travel and food together. (I’m very excited about the new episodes of "No Reservations" with Anthony Bourdain. The Travel Channel had a preview of shows to come, and they included New York and Tahiti.)I’m hoping this blog will be a little like that…a bit of life in Texas with my cooking projects thrown in. Debbie suggested I take a different direction and blog about Texas cooking. I also wanted to do a "what it's like out here" kind of blog so hopefully this will combine the two ideas.
Today I harvested some of the pears from our grapefruit pear tree. It’s been quite humid and I was afraid if I left them on much longer they would rot instead of ripen. I ended up making a crostata with a crumb topping. The Texas tie-in is that I got the base recipe from Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks, the latest issue (Easy Pies). It’s the little 5x7 magazine you find at the grocery store check-out. The last Pillsbury Bake-Off winner is a Texan, which is what got me interested in the magazine in the first place. I threw in some cinnamon and raisins, and used a streusel instead of plain almonds.
