Pantry Revisited

I'm late with this post. It's Christmas season. Give me a break. I'm stressed like the rest of you! It's what. . .three days until Christmas and I'm not ready. Today I went to Walmart. Not Walmark. Not Walmarts. Just Walmart. (You might have to be southern to know what that comment actually means). Traffic was backed up for miles. Everyone is out shopping and they are driving crazy!! My grocery list was two arms long. Walmart did not have everything I needed of course, so tomorrow will be another trip to Publix for more supplies. You would think a big snow is headed my way if you saw my list of food. But it is just Christmas fixins! On top of all that, I need rehab. I am totally addicted to homemade chex mix. Addicted I tell you! I started eating it this morning with my pumpkin spice coffee before I ate my cereal. Then the hand continued to go into the chex mix every half hour or so the rest of the day. I'm making more tomorrow. The maple mustard thighs were s...

Happy Holidays and a big thank you to all of you who cooked with me this week! I am the hostess this week for our Barefoot Bloggers group. We cook with the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, enjoying every delicious morsel her foods provide for us. After much deliberation, I chose Ina's Croissant Bread Pudding. I chose it for three reasons. First, because I love bread pudding, second, it seemed a festive thing to make here in December, and third, since we are in the midst of the busiest season of the year, I knew it would not be too time consuming. I made two additions to the recipe. I added about a teaspoon of cinnamon and about 1/2 cup of pecans, for the simple reason that I love cinnamon and pecans. If you are having guests over this month, don't hesitate to prepare and serve this. You cannot go wrong with this bread pudding. It is the yankee's favorite dessert and he complimented me not once, not twice, but after each bite. He did say, however, that the pecans did not add a...