It’s been a little over two weeks since I completed Whole30. It wasn’t easy, but I’m so glad that I did it and I’m really happy with the results. So far, I’ve dropped 15 pounds but the biggest difference has been losing 6 inches off my waist and 3 inches off my hips. Hello, smaller pants size! The only other time I’ve ever lost this much weight was when I did Weight Watchers about 5 years ago. That took a lot of dedication and point counting and feeling hungry most of the time. What I really liked about Whole30 was just being able to eat without counting calories or feeling like I was supposed to starve myself to get results.

It’s also been very illuminating to find that even when you can’t have grains, sugar or dairy, there is still A LOT that you can eat. Before this I honestly didn’t think it would be possible to go even a single day without bread or sugar or potatoes or cheese and now I barely give those things a second thought. I’m not going to lie: I rolled my eyes while reading how Whole30 would change my entire relationship with food. But now, a month and half later, there’s absolutely no denying that it has.

That said, I have a cookie recipe for you today, so it’s not like I’m going to completely stop eating the way I used to! I know I could if I really wanted to or if it was medically necessary, but the truth is that I still like bread and sugar and potatoes and cheese and I don’t want to give them up completely. Whole30 isn’t supposed to last more than a month. It’s a cleanse so that afterward you can reintroduce those foods and actually see how your body reacts to them and then you can decide what is and what isn’t right for you to eat. I’ve slowly reintroduced these things back into my diet and so far I haven’t have any major negative reactions.

So what now? For the time being, I plan to keep following most of the major principles of Whole30 and Paleo. But since eating dairy doesn’t negatively affect me, I’ve been re-incorporating small amounts of dairy like yogurt and cheese back into my daily meals. I’m basically following a form of Paleo called the Primal Blueprint. BUT one day a week I let myself “cheat.” This is mostly so I don’t have to give up eating at my favorite restaurants. It’s one thing to go a whole month without Mexican, Indian or Greek food, but not being able to eat my favorite foods ever again would just be too depressing to think about. This way I get a treat, while still eating well the rest of week and benefiting from that. I may not lose weight as fast, but that’s ok with me. I know from experience that denying myself or feeling guilty about eating “bad” food only leads to more unhealthy eating.

Having a cheat day also means this blog won’t go totally Paleo or gluten free since I can still treat myself if there’s something I really want to make. Like these cookies! These cookies aren’t technically Paleo since they contain sugar, but they are grain-free and dairy-free. They’re inspired by my absolute favorite peanut butter cookie recipe but since I had to get rid of all my peanut butter I decided to try these with almond butter instead.

I have an iffy relationship with almond butter. I really didn’t like it at first. I’ve gotten used to it now, but I don’t want to eat by the spoonful like I did with peanut butter (this is probably a good thing). But it turns out, if you mix almond butter with some sugar and few other ingredients and bake it into a cookie it’s delicious! I had given up my precious nutella along with my peanut butter but then I found this natural, lower sugar Chocolate Hazelnut Butter at Target and that is something that I have to stop myself from eating by the spoonful so I knew it would be the perfect filling for these cookies.

If you don’t have almond butter feel free to use peanut or whatever kind of nut or seed butter you prefer. To make these even faster, leave out the Nutella altogether and just stir in a handful of chocolate chips or cocoa nibs. I used unrefined sugars like cane sugar and maple sugar, but if don’t have those in your pantry, regular old white and brown sugar will work fine.

These cookies could not be simpler to make. Seven ingredients. One bowl. No mixer. Easy to assemble. 13 minutes to bake. If you’re looking for quick and easy treat, you can’t go wrong with these almond butter cookies.

I’m not going to lie: for most of my life I’ve hated salad. Mostly, it’s the lettuce. It’s so limp and flavorless. I’ve never had a true BLT because the lettuce was always the first thing to be discarded from any sandwich. But earlier this year I realized the problem wasn’t all lettuce it was just iceberg lettuce. So I put aside my lettuce prejudice and tried a bunch of other kinds of lettuce only to discover that they’re not that bad. Especially once you add a bunch of veggies, cheese and dressing on top.

Since making that discovery I’ve implemented a weekly Salad Night where we eat a very large salad, usually topped with chicken. It’s a simple but filling dinner on nights when I don’t feel like making much effort and it saves us from ordering pizza like we used to. It’s been especially great while we’ve been doing the Whole30 because it’s one less meal I have plan out every week.

This is a tasty salad, but there’s not much to say about it because, well…it’s a salad. The point of this post is really to say: YOU HAVE TO MAKE THESE CARNITAS. Seriously. Stop what you’re doing, go to the grocery store and buy the biggest pork shoulder you can find and make these carnitas. The recipe only has a few ingredients and it’s incredibly simple to make. The pork is slow-cooked in the oven, but you could easily skip the foil packet and make it in a slow cooker instead.

I’m not posting the carnita recipe here because you should head over to Heat Oven to 350 and get the recipe. The only change I make is to add 2 teaspoons of chili powder to the spice rub. It adds a bit more spiciness, if you like that sort of thing. Once you make these carnitas, they will become a regular addition to your dinner menu. Brandon once asked me if I could make them every night and I don’t think he was joking. So now I just make as much as possible and we spend the rest of the week incorporating the leftovers into other meals like this salad.

This simple salad has tomatoes, red bell peppers, carrots and chunks of avocado, plus a nice big helping of cheese and carnitas on top. You can add whatever else you like, roasted corn would be a great addition, for instance. I topped the whole thing with a dressing made with fresh orange juice, lime juice, chipotle peppers and a little bit of honey. It’s tangy and spicy and a little sweet and I think it complements the spices in the carnitas and makes them even better.

]]> https://backtothecuttingboard.com/dinner/pork/carnita-salad-citrus-chipotle-dressing/feed/ 3 4428 https://backtothecuttingboard.com/dinner/slow-cooker-pork-spare-ribs-spicy-peach-mango-bbq-sauce/ https://backtothecuttingboard.com/dinner/slow-cooker-pork-spare-ribs-spicy-peach-mango-bbq-sauce/#comments Tue, 17 Sep 2013 13:31:41 +0000 https://backtothecuttingboard.com/?p=4412 One interesting aspect of Whole30 has been adding a lot more protein to my diet. In the past, I didn't eat much meat during the day, for the most part defaulting to smoothies, toast, cereal/oatmeal and sandwiches (usually PB&J) and for dinner I'd usually make some kind of chicken or fish (occasionally pork or beef) that was served alongside pasta, rice or potatoes. So when I started Whole30 and I couldn't eat any gluten, grains or starchy vegetables I basically had to start over. I never had a problem planning dinners but breakfast and lunch was hard to figure out. It quickly became apparent that when I ate meat and/or eggs during the day, I had a lot more energy and felt much better. Despite that, it's been a big adjustment, since the meats I prefer (bacon, ham, lunch meat) have added sugar or chemicals so I'm not allowed to eat them. To keep my energy up during the day, I've mainly been eating a lot of eggs for breakfast and then chicken or tuna for lunch. I also add spinach to either my eggs or a smoothie since leafy greens have a lot of protein. Even after almost a month, I can't say I love eating so much during the day, so I'll be very happy when I can get my protein from Greek Yogurt, peanut butter and bacon again. ]]>

One interesting aspect of Whole30 has been adding a lot more protein to my diet. In the past, I didn’t eat much meat during the day, for the most part defaulting to smoothies, toast, cereal/oatmeal and sandwiches (usually PB&J) and for dinner I’d usually make some kind of chicken or fish (occasionally pork or beef) that was served alongside pasta, rice or potatoes. So when I started Whole30 and I couldn’t eat any gluten, grains or starchy vegetables I basically had to start over. I never had a problem planning dinners but breakfast and lunch was hard to figure out.

It quickly became apparent that when I ate meat and/or eggs during the day, I had a lot more energy and felt much better. Despite that, it’s been a big adjustment, since the meats I prefer (bacon, ham, lunch meat) have added sugar or chemicals so I’m not allowed to eat them. To keep my energy up during the day, I’ve mainly been eating a lot of eggs for breakfast and then chicken or tuna for lunch. I also add spinach to either my eggs or a smoothie since leafy greens have a lot of protein. Even after almost a month, I can’t say I love eating so much during the day, so I’ll be very happy when I can get my protein from Greek Yogurt, peanut butter and bacon again.

I do like being able to eat more meat at night, though. And it’s especially nice not feeling like I always have to choose the low fat or lean option. I’ve been experimenting a lot more with my dinner protein so that I’m not just eating the same chicken and fish all day, every day. Brandon loves ribs and has been asking me to make them for…years now? But I’ve never even eaten ribs and cooking them seemed pretty intimidating. Plus, whenever I’ve seen people eating them, it always looks so messy. My OCD does not like messy food.

But I’m really glad that I finally told my OCD to stuff it. It turns out Brandon was right (sigh, I hate admitting that) and that pork ribs are really freaking good. Also? They’re so easy to make! I was imagining it to be big ordeal, but you only have to rub them with some spices and put them in a slow cooker for 6 or 7 hours. That’s it! After slow cooking for 7 hours, these ribs are super tender and juicy and perfect. Then you slather them with sauce and pop them under the broiler for a few minutes before serving.

Now, the ribs are really good on their own, but I think it’s the sauce that’s key. It’s not quite Fall yet and there’s still lots of summer produce to go around, so I wound up with a bunch of peaches and mangoes that were on sale and this barbecue sauce was the perfect way to use them up. This recipe is completely Paleo, so there’s no added sugar. The fruit provides plenty of sweetness, with lime and vinegar for tartness and then jalapeno and spices to add a nice spicy kick. The ribs are coated in the same spices that are in the sauce, which makes everything extra delicious together.

It would be easy just to eat ribs, but I knew I had to get some vegetables in there, so I served them with my favorite recipe for greens. I generally find kale and spinach too bitter but this recipe cooks the greens down in a tangy and sweet mixture that balances out all the bitterness. The ingredients might look a little weird, but when they’re all cooked together it comes out delicious. The best part is that this recipe works with just about any kind of leafy green vegetable like spinach, kale, chard or a combination of your favorites.

These slow cooker pork spare ribs are comfort food at its finest. They’re perfect if you’re looking for a simple set-it-and-forget-it recipe to make while you’re at work or out enjoying your weekend. The barbecue sauce can even be made the day before to save more time. Just make sure you have a lot of napkins on the table when you serve these ribs, you’re going to need them.

Well, hello there. It’s been awhile. I hope you all had a nice summer! You might remember (but you probably don’t) that I mentioned in my previous post that work was overwhelming me. Well, it kind of took over this summer and since this blog doesn’t exactly pay the bills I had to put work first and get all my projects done. As of last week I finished everything and now I can finally get back to a more normal posting schedule.

Work hasn’t been the only overwhelming thing that happened this summer, though. I decided to challenge myself to do something that I never thought I could do. As of today I am 24 days into Whole30. If you’ve never heard of it before, that means that for 24 days I have eaten no grains, no dairy, no legumes, no white potatoes, no unnatural additives or preservatives and no sugar or any sweeteners (like honey or maple syrup) whatsoever.

It sounds daunting, doesn’t it? As someone who previously ate some kind of grain and/or potato with every meal it sounded almost impossible. I mean, just look at the Desserts category in my recipe index to see how much I love flour and sugar. Here’s the weird thing, though. It really hasn’t been that hard. There are certain things about this program that are frustrating but it hasn’t actually been difficult to stick to it for the past 3 weeks. I’m rarely that hungry and removing sugar from my diet has removed all my usual cravings. I’d say the second week was when I was feeling worst, but since the beginning of the third week I’ve been feeling good. I can’t really say that I feel that much better than before I started on Whole30, but I can tell I’ve lost weight (not just weight but actual inches off of my hips and waist) and I rarely have heartburn, which was becoming a daily occurrence before I started.

Whole30 is basically a extra restrictive form of Paleo. Real talk: I used to scoff at things like Paleo and the gluten-free craze that’s been going on. I know that some people are actually allergic to grains and have to eat gluten-free but I never really understood why anyone would choose to go gluten-free. This experience has shown me that my body doesn’t need grains or refined sugar and that I actually feel (and look) much better without them. Dairy, though? I miss dairy. A lot. The main thing I miss is Greek yogurt and cheese. I miss cheese so much!

This isn’t meant to be a diet, I think it’s more helpful to think of it as cleanse or a metabolism reset. It’s also helpful to remember that it’s only for 30 days. If I want to go back to my old way of eating, I totally can. The really weird thing is that I don’t think I want to!

One of the eye-opening (and quite frustrating) parts of the program is going to the grocery store and seeing that sugar is in EVERYTHING. That means I’ve had to make my own salad dressings, sauces, mayo and chicken broth. Is there any good reason why chicken broth needs sugar in it? That also means I can’t have bacon or ham because it always has added sugar. It even means that I haven’t been able to take my usual vitamins and calcium supplements because they have added sugar.

So what have I been eating? Mostly vegetables, fruits, eggs and meat. I thought it would be limiting, but I’ve been surprised to find that removing certain foods from my diet has made it much easier to meal plan and to cook. I also finally joined a local CSA which has helped keep food costs down (the first week when I only shopped at Whole Foods was SO expensive) and has given me new and different vegetables to try out each week.

This summer vegetable soup is courtesy of my CSA box. I’ve been missing my very favorite Chicken Tortilla Soup so I decided to Paleo-ify it. It still has the tomato base and shredded chicken, but I replaced the tortillas with thinly sliced squash (zucchini would also work) and I added a bunch of other summer vegetables like peppers and green beans (which are allowed on Whole30 and seem to be fine for Paleo but you can omit them if you want). I would have used corn if it was allowed, so I went ahead and added it to the recipe for all the grain-eaters out there. If you have other vegetables that need to be used up, you could throw those in, too. This soup pretty spicy, but you can make it milder by omitting or reducing the jalapeno and red chili flakes.

If you’re like me and you can’t wait for Fall to get here, but it’s still 90 degrees and you’re swimming in summer vegetables, this is the perfect soup to help make the transition from Summer to Fall.

Life has been really busy lately. Well, no. I should say work has been very busy lately and it’s been bleeding into my life. I love my job but sometimes it can be tough to remember why when I’m still sitting at my computer trying to finish coding a website at 9pm. Despite the long hours, I almost always feel like I’m never getting enough done, which leads to mentally beating myself up about not working hard enough/being good enough, etcetera, etcetera.

A couple of weeks ago I finally realized that is not the way I should be doing things. In fact, I realized that the all negative mental energy I was carrying around was actually making me less productive. So I decided to start over. Instead of being anxious about starting on something (because maybe it’ll be too hard or it won’t be good enough) I’m making an effort to just get started already and just do the best I can. Also, in a effort to make everything not all about work, I’ve been rewarding (aka bribing) myself when I do get big stuff done. This new attitude has helped me immensely and this past week was especially productive. So as a reward I’m gave myself a relaxing weekend of absolutely no work and these malted chocolate chip waffles.

I’ve had this idea floating around in my head for ages. It’s inspired by these great Malted Blueberry Waffles from one of my favorite food blogs, Heat Oven to 350. I happened to see some chocolate malted milk powder at Walmart one day and I immediately knew what I wanted to do. I tested the recipe a while ago but it wasn’t quite there. This weekend I finally tested it again with a few changes and the waffles turned out just like I had hoped.

The malted milk powder gives these waffles a subtle malt flavor that tastes great with the chocolate chips. Despite being made with chocolate malt powder, these waffles aren’t actually that chocolaty. I just wanted to make that clear so people don’t go in thinking these waffles are going to taste like a brownie or something. That said, the chocolate chips add more than enough chocolate flavor to satisfy the choco-holics out there.

I love the combination of cherries and chocolate and I just happened to have a bag of cherries that needed to be used up, so I cooked them down into a sauce along with some maple syrup to make a delicious (and even healthy) topping for these waffles. The cherry sauce can be made ahead of time and it also tastes great swirled into Greek yogurt or as an ice cream topping.

These simple but decadent chocolate chip waffles really were the perfect reward after my busy week. They’d be great for a lazy weekend brunch, breakfast for dinner after a long day or even as a quick late night snack when you’re craving chocolate. To borrow a saying from one of my favorite TV shows, sometimes you just gotta Treat Yo’ Self!

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Have you ever had one of those terrible days that just won’t end? Yesterday started with the wonderful surprise that my beloved coffee machine wasn’t working. After much futzing around and ultimately going through the 5 stages of grief for my dead coffee machine, I plopped down in my office chair to try to get some work done. This was followed by a giant cracking noise. At first, I tried to ignore the sound, hoping it wasn’t a big deal. Then, almost comically, I leaned back in the chair and the ENTIRE back fell off along with half of an arm. Thankfully, I was able to borrow my boyfriend’s chair for the rest of the day but things didn’t really improve after that. I was waiting for the maintenance guy and the UPS guy and neither showed up. Add to that some annoying tech issues with my business and not feeling particularly inspired (or even awake) enough to finish a project and you have the recipe for very bad, no good, pretty terrible day.

On days like this I dread making dinner. In fact, I’d normally just give up and go my favorite Mexican restaurant to drown my bad day in a margarita. But Brandon and I have been exercising and trying to eat better so we didn’t want to undo all of our progress. Instead, I pulled out my go-to recipe for bad days. It’s cheesy and satisfying but also fairly healthy (at least compared to an actual Mexican restaurant).

This was originally a Weight Watchers recipe but I don’t recommend making their version because it is just about the blandest casserole you will ever eat. This is my version which I’ve developed over several years, adding more vegetables, more cheese and lots more spice. The filling is a mixture of shredded chicken, vegetables, spices, two kinds of cheese and sour cream which is all layered between tortillas. The whole thing is topped with more cheese and baked until it’s melted on top and crispy around the edges.

This recipe can be thrown together in a few minutes and you can even cook the chicken a day or two before to save even more time. It’s full of things that you most likely already have in your pantry, fridge and freezer. The vegetables are canned or frozen, but you can easily replace them with fresh versions. I frequently use fresh corn and tomatoes in the summer when they’re in season.

This version is not as low fat as the original, but it tastes a lot better and that’s what matters most to me. If you’re looking for something easy and satisfying after a long day, this recipe will help you end the day on a high note.

]]> https://backtothecuttingboard.com/dinner/mexican-chicken-casserole/feed/ 12 4135 https://backtothecuttingboard.com/breakfast/blueberry-cheesecake-yogurt-muffins/ https://backtothecuttingboard.com/breakfast/blueberry-cheesecake-yogurt-muffins/#comments Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:30:28 +0000 https://backtothecuttingboard.com/?p=4271 Hey there, I didn't really mean to take a whole month off from blogging but after two weeks I just decided to go with it. Sometimes you just need to take break to recharge! I wish I had the time or energy to be one of those bloggers that posts multiple times a week, but I need to accept that I am not one of those people and do what's best for me instead of feeling bad about it. Sometimes I forget that this is supposed to be fun and not something to stress about. I'm really grateful to everyone that has stuck around. I'll do my best to keep on my normal weekly schedule from now on! Anyway, just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. I have several recipes in the pipeline and a bunch of new ideas for things I can't wait to test out. But for today, I wanted to post a recipe which I've made at least 4 times in the last month. I seriously can't get enough of these muffins! They're based on a recipe I found on pinterest that originally used strawberries. At the time I had a large carton of blueberries from Sam's Club so I was looking for ways to use them up. I also had a large container of blueberry Greek yogurt, so I substituted the milk called for in the original recipe with blueberry yogurt to give these muffins even more blueberry taste. ]]>

Hey there, I didn’t really mean to take a whole month off from blogging but after two weeks I just decided to go with it. Sometimes you just need to take break to recharge! I wish I had the time or energy to be one of those bloggers that posts multiple times a week, but I need to accept that I am not one of those people and do what’s best for me instead of feeling bad about it. Sometimes I forget that this is supposed to be fun and not something to stress about. I’m really grateful for everyone that has stuck around. I’ll do my best to keep on a normal weekly schedule from now on! Anyway, just because I haven’t been blogging doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking. I have several recipes in the pipeline and a bunch of new ideas for things I can’t wait to test out.

But for today, I wanted to post a recipe which I’ve made at least 4 times in the last month. I seriously can’t get enough of these muffins! They’re based on a recipe I found on pinterest that originally used strawberries. At the time I had a large carton of blueberries from Sam’s Club so I was looking for ways to use them up. I also had a large container of blueberry Greek yogurt, so I substituted the milk called for in the original recipe with blueberry yogurt to give these muffins even more blueberry taste.

The best thing about these yogurt muffins is that they’re sort of like coffee cake, but in muffin form. They’re assembled in layers starting with muffin batter, then blueberries, then a creamy cheesecake filling topped with cinnamon streusel, then you start over again with more batter, blueberries and a final sprinkling of struesel on top. If this sounds involved, don’t worry. You get into a rhythm and it only takes 5 or 10 minutes, tops.

I health-ified these slightly by using coconut oil (or you can use canola oil). I also used non-fat yogurt and low-fat cream cheese but feel free to use full fat everything if you don’t care about calories. Either way, these muffins are delicious!

If you’re not into blueberries these yogurt muffins would be really easy to customize with your favorite berries and yogurt. Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries or even cherries would work. And you can add even more flavor with different kinds of yogurt. I love combining lemon and blueberries, so I’ll be trying these muffins with lemon yogurt next time.

I’m pretty sure I’ve stated before that I’m not a fan of the warmer months. Spring is pretty, but here in Tennessee it’s mostly just a few weeks of nice weather before it turns into a 90 or 100 degree hell-scape for four months. But there is one thing I like when it gets warm: I can finally drink smoothies again! I know some people drink them all year round, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to make a smoothie when it’s 30 or even 60 degrees outside. It’s the same reason I rarely make soup during the summer. It just doesn’t sound appetizing. But now that it’s warmer, I’m happily back to my smoothie-a-day habit which makes lunch time so much easier.

I am very particular about smoothies. I’ve been making this particular version for a few years now and I had to try a lot of different recipes before I figured out how to make a smoothie with the consistency that I like. I hate smoothies that are thin or liquid-y. My smoothies are thick and creamy like a milk shake, sometimes I have to eat them with a spoon because they’re too thick for a straw. In fact, if you reduce the milk in this recipe, it’s almost the same consistency as soft-serve ice cream or frozen yogurt.

I’ve found that making smoothies in a food processor actually yields a creamier consistency than a blender because it churns the ingredients instead of just blending them. Also, I don’t have one of those crazy expensive “it can blend an iPhone!” blenders and my crappy blender has a hard time with the frozen fruit. The food processor blade has a much easier time cutting through everything. Obviously, this smoothie can still be made in a blender if you don’t have a food processor, but you’ll probably need to add a little more milk so it’s easier to blend.

The key to this recipe is quite simple: frozen bananas! I’m sure you’ve seen posts or other recipes about the magic “ice cream” that’s just made with frozen bananas. Well, this is the same concept. But the great thing is that as long as you put double the amount of strawberries (or whatever fruit you want) you don’t even taste the banana. It’s only there to thicken the smoothie and make it creamier. Besides bananas and fruit this smoothie only has a few other ingredients and I use honey as a sweetener so it doesn’t contain any processed sugar.

My grocery store recently had four cartons of strawberries on sale for 5 bucks, so I snapped them up and froze them as soon as I got home. After about a week of strawberry smoothies, I got a little bored and decided to experiment. I had found a new kind of low fat cream cheese made with Greek yogurt (which is healthier than regular cream cheese) at Walmart so I decided to throw some in there. I absolutely love the slightly sour tang that it adds to the sweet strawberries!

I was also craving chocolate, so I mixed together a little nutella and chocolate syrup and milk to make a fudgy topping. This sauce is SO good. I wouldn’t put it on my smoothies everyday, but if you want a healthier snack or dessert that still tastes very indulgent this is the perfect topping and tastes great mixed into this tangy strawberry cheesecake smoothie.

Below the recipe, I’ve included a few other smoothie variations that I make regularly, Pineapple-Strawberry and Pineapple-Coconut with Spinach (you don’t taste it at all!), but you can use pretty much any fruit or berry you want. You can also use any kind of non-dairy milk like coconut milk. The only constant is the banana since you need that for the consistency. Otherwise, you can have fun with it and make lots of delicious flavor combinations.

Do you ever get obsessed with a certain food and eat it every single day for weeks or even months? This is not a rhetorical question. I’m genuinely wondering if I’m crazy or not. I do this same thing with new music or TV shows on Netflix, so it may just be my personality to become obsessed with things. In this case, I’ve recently rediscovered my childhood love of cinnamon toast that my mom used to make for me. My new favorite afternoon snack is cinnamon toast with a cup of my favorite Earl Gray tea. I cannot get enough, even though I know that eating bread with butter and sugar on it everyday is not the healthiest thing in the world. Eventually, I’ll get tired of it and move on but I can tell I’m not anywhere near that point yet.

In the midst of the cinnamon toast obsession I was browsing through my grandmother’s recipe box again looking for inspiration. I don’t intend for all the recipes I post here from now on to be from her collection, but I have to say, it’s very handy to have that resource when I’m feeling uninspired about what to make. I came across a recipe for Chess cake that was obviously a popular recipe (the original baker made photocopies to give out because so many people asked for it) so I decided to give it a try.

If you’re unfamiliar, Chess pie is a simple and traditional Southern pie with a sweet, buttery filling. This “cake” is similar, except I can’t call it cake, it’s a bar. The texture isn’t cake-like at all, it’s chewy and gooey and buttery just like a soft, fudgy brownie. It’s a blondie! This is one of those recipes that has sort of weird magical (okay, actually scientific) properties where it separates into layers as it bakes. The key seems to be folding whipped egg whites into the batter at the very end and that somehow bakes into a bar that has a buttery crust on the bottom and sides, a soft, chewy center and a thin, crackly crust on top.

The very weird thing is that when I was researching other Chess cake recipes almost every single one (even on reputable sites like Epicurious!) called for a box of cake mix. Now, I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t made a boxed cake mix before. Or even that I haven’t made a boxed cake mix almost entirely so I could eat that wonderful cake batter that is full of delicious crack (or something). But I started this blog to learn to cook and now I try to make things from scratch when possible. It takes maybe 5 extra minutes to make these chess bars from scratch than it would if you used a mix and this way you know exactly what ingredients are going into the recipe.

The original recipe calls for sprinkling powdered sugar on top of these bars. But due to my current obsession, my first thought when biting into one of these bars was: Cinnamon! These bars are so soft and buttery that I knew they would be even better with a cinnamon-sugar topping, so I immediately made another batch. I’m definitely a bigger fan of the “Snickerdoodle” version of these Chess bars, but feel free to replace with powdered sugar if you don’t like cinnamon. Both versions are delicious!

I was recently given my grandmother’s box of recipes, most of them handwritten, probably many, many years ago and it’s been really fun going through it and seeing what her favorite recipes were. My mother also had a similar recipe box filled with cards and magazine clippings that I look through periodically. Cookbooks are great, but I love taking one of those meticulously written recipe cards out the box and trying to decipher the tiny, perfect cursive handwriting; trying to follow the sometimes very opaque directions; chuckling at old-fashioned ingredients like “oleo.”

Sometimes I think there is too much importance placed on “original” recipes. I love finding a recipe and knowing that it was made the same way for years and years by my grandmother or my mother or hundreds of people’s grandmothers and mothers. I love having a whole boxes of recipes that have been passed down over and over. Maybe my mom got that recipe from her sister. Or maybe my grandmother got that recipe from a friend. Maybe they never even got a chance to make it, but they still liked it enough that they sat down with a pen and a recipe card and wrote out all the instructions and added it to their collection. They wanted to make it one day; to share it with family and friends, to pass it on again.

I’m lucky enough to have those recipes now and I’m lucky enough to have this blog which makes it even easier to share these recipes and pass them on to even more people. That’s why I’ve decided to start a series where I’ll be going through these collections and finding fun recipes to share. Maybe I’ll update them and put on a new spin or maybe they won’t need any changes at all. I just know it’ll be fun to discover and play with these old recipes as I go along.

This first recipe in the series comes from my grandmother’s recipe collection. She apparently liked this recipe for cheese crackers so much that she saved it twice. The two cards have slight variations but are pretty much the same. These are very simple crackers, but what I like about them is that they have Rice Krispies added to the dough to give them an extra crispy texture when you bite into them. Made with extra sharp cheddar, they taste almost exactly like Cheez-its to me. I can see why my grandmother saved this recipe twice. These cheese crackers are delicious and addictive. If you wanted to impress people with homemade crackers, they’d make a nice party appetizer along with some kind of spread or dip.

These couldn’t be easier to make. They take about 30 minutes start to finish, have only a few simple ingredients and are endlessly customizable. The original recipe is for cheddar crackers which are very slightly spiced with cayenne pepper but they were so simple to make that I whipped up another batch with garlic instead of cayenne and then a third spicier batch with pepper jack cheese and Tabasco sauce. These crackers could be made with just about any soft cheese that you can think of and mixed with any spice or herb. Have fun and make them your own!