I’m a Louisiana native, who loves to pass a good time with family and friends. We share recipes, favorite restaurants, and interesting blog sites, but most importantly we eat a lot of delicious food!
Passionate about sharing old recipes; believes that recipes and the stories that surround them are a great way to remember the traditions that bond families and friends.
Share your recipe, special tradition, or favorite restaurant so we can all ‘pass a good time’!
Hugs from Home: Recipes & Stories 
Deb Tolar
November 18, 2009 at 6:47 pm · Edit
This is the recipe you asked for. Got it out of a mag., not sure which one. But these are really good and crunchy. Even though I normally don’t like crunchy cookies, I love these.
Coconut-Cashew Crunchers
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. sugar
1 c. butter, softened
1 teas. Vanilla
1 egg
2 ½ c. Flour
1 teas. Baking soda
½ teas. Salt
2 c. flaked coconut
1 ½ c. chopped cashews
Heat oven to 350. In large bowl, beat sugars, butter, vanilla and egg with Electric
Mixer on med speed until creamy, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt.
Stir in coconut and cashews.
Onto ungreased large cookie sheet, drop dough by ¼ cupfuls about 3 inches apart:
Flatten slightly.
Bake 12 to 16 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 2 min. Remove from
Cookie sheet to cooling rack.
These are great crunchy cookies.
Review by Eat Local Memphis
http://www.eatlocalmemphis.org/2010/05/15/totally-sweet-grass/
Totally Sweet (Grass)!
What’s the word?
One of the best things that has happened since I started writing this little blog is that more and more people have been giving me recommendations about their favorite or cool new places to eat. I love getting this info, both because it gives me insight on new places to go and because it is other people doing what I like to do, talk passionately about the food they like.
Cash, Gas, or Sweet Grass, but nobody rides for free.
Down on Cooper is a new place that is quickly becoming a favorite of a lot of people. I’ve had friends, coworkers, and people that read the blog all but drive me over to Sweet Grass and drop me off. After all the excitement and hype about Chef Ryan Trimm’s new low-country spot, I obviously had to get over there. Lucky for me, K wasn’t on the clock last night, so we were able to make it a date.
We called ahead and reserved a table and headed down to Midtown to find out if the word on the street was true. It was a good sign when I walked in and saw about 6 people I knew sitting at different tables across the restaurant. Enough build up, on to the food.
You must choose, but choose wisely
The menu is broken up into 5 main categories – small plates (appetizers), medium plates (dishes with about 4 ounces of protein aka meat), larger plates (with a more traditional 6 ounces of protein), side plates, and the pretty accurately described sweet plates. After we got our drinks (Rose and Pellegrino), we set to figure out how to narrow down all of the great choices into a meal that we could handle. We decided to pick something from each category just to be thorough. We’ve taken to throwing around the excuse of, “we have to, it is for the blog,” when we go a little crazy!
Good things come in small packages
We started things off by ordering from the small plate menu, and we chose the highly recommended Oyster Stew (to be precise, the Charleston Oyster Stew, Yukon Gold Potatoes, Benton Smoked Bacon and Scallop Cream).
It is going to be difficult for me to ever order anything else from the small plates, because I want to get more of this. The combination of the cream, the salty, fatty bacon and the nice big oysters was off the charts! It had a sauce that you wanted (and I did) to sop up with the bread, and it was just a great little dish for K and I to split. Did one of us (kind of) jokingly ask if we could lick the plate? I’m not saying.
This surf is on my turf
After the awesome stew, K and I chose to share a couple of items to share for entrees. First up was the medium sized Pan Seared Sea Scallops, which came in a creamy sauce with a tomato risotto (I think this is all right!). The scallops were West-Philadelphia-to-Bel-Air fresh and seared to perfection. The whole dish was incredibly appetizing, and it made for a very flavorful, light entree.
For our turf portion of this shared meal, we were wooed by our server’s recommendation of the pork special for the evening. I was having trouble deciding between the special and the Osso Bucco that a friend at the next table told me to get, so I heeded our server’s advice that I could get the Osso Bucco the next time (which, I hope, will be soon).
The special was a Pork Loin wrapped in Pork Belly served with broccolini in a caramelized bourbon sauce topped with a green tomato relish. Holy cow pig! I normally opt for seafood over pork, but this was a great choice. The loin was cooked just right, so that when I paired a thin slice of pork and a small piece of the belly, I got a strong, hugely flavorful bite. The pork loin really soaked up the delicious sauce, which really pushed this over the edge. Score a point for broccolini, as it is almost the cousin of asparagus and broccoli. It was great with the sauce.
Excellent, gnarly, sweeeeeeeet!!
To finish off the experience, we wanted to get in on one of the sweet plates. Since K is a professional, I put the pressure on her to make the choice. She was able to get it down to 2 choices, the apple pie and the peach cobbler. Again, we trusted our server, and he led us down the road towards the apple pie (technically a Deep Dish Sour Cream Apple Pie).
The pie was served cold with a scoop of vanilla gelato and fruit on the side. It was great, the apples were sweetened very well, the crust was strong, and the sour cream added a new dimension to a classic favorite. One of the things I like about great chefs is the ability to take things that are so traditional and normal and make them their own. This was the result with this great apple pie.
Chef to table
One of the coolest parts of our date was that in addition to great service and awesome food Chef Ryan Trimm was out and about in the dining room talking to all of the guests. He made a stop at our table and chatted with us after our appetizer and again as we were eating the pie. Since pie is one of K’s passions and it is her profession, they were able to talk shop a little bit. It was an incredibly personal touch, and it was great to see the thought that Ryan and his staff put into the food and the experience.
It is this kind of thing that makes Memphis a special town, everyone knows somebody that knows somebody, all the way until you know everybody. More than great food, I love M-town because we have incredible people. Ryan and his folks at Sweet Grass get that and act on it. I’ll be back, oh yes, I’ll be back, and I hope I see you there!
-Thomas
Kathleen,
Thank you for sharing the cheesecake recipe. It sounds delicious and easy to make. I may try it this weekend. Uncle Mark loves cheesecake.
I too saw the movie Julie & Julia too and LOVED IT . . . a blogger’s dream.
Aunt Patti
Oh I got that Mini Cheesecake recipe from allrecipes.com. I got the application on my iPhone, and it’s great! I highly recommend it.
Mini Cheesecakes
These little cheesecakes are perfect for gifts or parties, and they are delicious! You can use mini muffin tins or regular-sized ones, and you can make all kinds of fun variations by adding different fruit of other ingredients, and using different cookies or crunchy treats for the crust!
Ingredients:
1 12-ounce package of vanilla wafers
2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 21-ounce can of cherry pie filling
Directions:
Take the cream cheese out of the fridge and put it on the counter so it will start getting soft. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and line muffin tins with paper liners. Crush the vanilla wafers. Put 1/2 tsp. (can vary depending on how thick you like your crust!) crushed wafers in each paper liner. Beat cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a mixing bowl until SMOOTH (you don’t want lumpy cheesecake!). Fill paper liners almost to the top.
Bake for 15 mins. and cool. Place a tsp. of cherry pie filling (or your choice of topping!) on top of each mini cheesecake, enjoy!
**Completely Unrelated Side Note: if you’re looking for a good mother-daughter/feel-good/cooking movie, I highly suggest Julie&Julia! I saw it with my mom, and we both loved it!
Gut Buster Brownies
My kids love anything chocolate…and gooey…and messy!
Here’s an easy, fun recipe for brownies:
Ingredients:
1 family size box of fudge brownie mix
3 large (ginormous) Millionaire chocolate bars
1 small package of white chocolate chips
1 small package of toffee chips
Directions:
Follow the directions on the box of brownie mix and save the batter. Spray 13 X 9 baking pan with oil. Pour half of the brownie batter into the pan. Lay the Millionaire chocolate bars over the batter. Spread the remaining brownie batter over the chocolate bars. Sprinkle the toffee chips and white chocolate chips over the top of the batter. Bake according to the brownie mix directions.
Enjoy!
This recipe sounds so wonderful! My husband will love it. I’m going to make it for July 4th.
THIS SOUND SODANG GOOD I CANT WAIT TO DO IT FOR MY 77 YEAR OLD FATHER,. WHEN HE VISITS HE ALWAYS WANT TO KNOW WHERE HIS BROWNIES ARE.LOL SO THIS WILL BE A GREAT TWIST FOR HIM. BUT I DO NOT KNOW WHAT MILLIONARE BARS ARE WILL YOU PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME? THANKS
Here’s a vegetarian, EASY, low-cal, recipe for on-the-go families:
Black bean burritos
Ingredients:
2 cans – black beans
shredded lettuce or spring mix
1 large tomato
1 large onion
1 avocado
1 package of whole wheat soft tortillas
shredded cheddar cheese or taco blend cheese
sour cream (optional)
1 small can of sliced jalapeno (optional)
Heat black beans over medium heat until warm. Warm tortillas in microwave according to the package directions. Fill each tortilla with black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, chopped avocado, cheese and any other toppings you desire. Enjoy a fresh black bean burrito. So good for you and easy! Just serve it all with some chips and salsa for a no-fuss dinner!
Kim,
Thank you for sharing this recipe; it sounds delicious. We are having it for dinner tonight. It will be the perfect dinner for a hot summer night.
-Patti