Bobbing for apples.  Apple cider.  Caramel apples.  All fabulous, fall (and particularly Halloween) activities.  This last weekend, Boy and I got out of the house and out to the country to pick some apples.  We went to Gabriel Farm in Sebastopol and ended up coming home with 15 pounds of apples, and believe you me, [...]

Birthdays are full of presents, smiles, balloons, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and your favorite cake.  For most of my birthdays, my mom has made my favorite chocolate cake recipe – Toney Jepsen’s chocolate cake, to be precise.  Toney was a friend of my great grandmother and her legendary cake recipe has been passed down through the generations.  On [...]

Grocery stores are dangerous places to be when you’re hungry.  You can’t be blamed for your actions or how many goodies end up in your basket.  So of course, Boy and I couldn’t blame ourselves when we ended up with lemon poppyseed cake amongst our veggies and fruit.  And naturally that meant we had to [...]

With Christmas trees, stockings, and eggnog all around, Boy and I are getting in the holiday mood.  We’ve been watching all our favorite Christmas movies (White Christmas, Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Carol, Scrooged) and listening to some solid Christmas tunes (like the very excellent 1996 Nordstrom holiday collection – yes indeed, I’ve been listening to [...]

‘Tis the holiday season!  With Thanksgiving and turducken Toas-Tites behind us and Christmas a-coming, we find ourselves keeping with the celebratory theme with this week’s Hanukkah Toas-Tite.  So with a l’chaim and a happy Hanukkah (particularly to Girl’s step mom, little sister, and sister-in-law), we give you latke Toas-Tites! Hanukkah (or anytime) Latke & Applesauce [...]

For our second Improv Toas-Tite in honor of Top Chef, we had the words green, sweet, and fruit.  There are a lot of green fruits – kiwi, honeydew, avocado…but how many would do well heating up in a Toas-Tite with some kind of sweetness?  We decided to go a little more conservative on the green [...]

Boy and I are big Top Chef fans.  We’ve seen every season, plus the new Top Chef Just Desserts and the last Top Chef Masters.  One of our favorite challenges is the improv challenge. Here’s the scenario.  Tom and Padma (the judges) tell the contestants they get the night off – they get to go [...]

Another addition to our summer fruit series! Who doesn’t love a good cherry? They’re sweet, juice, and after you’re done, you can have pit-spitting contests. Boy and I took some lovely cherries and turned them into a cherry pie Toas-Tite. Ingredients 8-10 cherries (depending on size and your desire to really stuff the Toas-Tite sandwich) [...]

The second in our summer fruit series, Boy and I wanted to do something with figs to bring together their lovely sweetness with a touch of savory. Fig, Blue Cheese & Prosciutto Toas-Tite Ingredients 1 ripe fig (sliced into several pieces) 1 to 1 1/2 tsp of blue cheese 1/4 slice of prosciutto, cut into [...]

July 4th weekend – it’s all about fireworks, festivities, barbecues, and red, white, and blue.  For Boy and I, it’s red, white, and Toas-Tite (of course). American Pie, the Toas-Tite Way Ingredients 2 slices of white bread 2 nice and ripe strawberries, sliced Roughly 10 to 15 blueberries 1 Tbsp of cream cheese, spread into [...]