Joy Wilson's Blog, page 56

Homemade Chili Cheese Fry Bake

This week I’m taking my dinners on the couch.  “Taking my dinners” makes it sound like someone is bringing me dinner.  I should say, this week I’m piling quinoa and leftovers into a bowl and plopping down on the couch for a fright.  

It’s October. It’s spooky season. It’s me sitting on the couch trying to steel myself through The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix. I have a tender heart but I love to see if it can handle a scare.  I’ll tell you, the amount of times I have to pause a scary show makes me a truly unbearable television partner.

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Let It Be Sunday, 293!

Hello friends! 

Welcome to another fine Sunday in the human experience. The skies in New Orleans are clear and blue. It feels like finding money on the ground.  Your heart instantly races and you look around to see if this found money can, in fact, be yours.  Yep, snag it fast. That’s this day:  look around but it is, in fact, ours.  What a thrill!  

This week I’ve been testing recipes for the next few weeks on Joy the Baker.

Continue reading Let It Be Sunday, 293! at Joy the Baker.

Baking 101: How To Test Your Oven

Hi friends! 

Before we formally set off on all of our festive fall and holiday baking, let’s take a minute to talk about one of the baking questions I’m asked most frequently. The question is simple but the answer might surprise and can improve your home baking really quite a lot. 

Q:  What’s the best oven for baking?  

A:  I think the best oven for baking is the oven you know.

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Apple and Cheddar Pandowdy

There are two things happening on my Instagram right now. Everyone is either apple picking or giving birth to very precious human babes. There’s truly no in between – it’s either your cutie masked face with your apple haul or it’s your cutie newborn all precious and perfect.  If your life is at all represented by my current feed then wow, congratulations on your apple bounty and/or congratulations on your baby. Either way, you really did it! 

Now… I’m mostly here to help with the apples.

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Let It Be Sunday, 292!

Hello dear friends. 

I can’t even tell you how many corn chips with hummus I’ve eaten in preparation for writing this post. Nearly an entire bag while watching a few episodes from season 3 of The Office. It’s a cleanse of sorts. 

I found myself thinking back to the first Let It Be Sunday post I’ve ever written. What was that like?  Turns out it was like this.  But more distinctly I remember when I felt like I had to talk about more than just baked goods and bourbon.  It was here, late August five years ago when James Foley was murdered.  I felt like… gosh I can’t pretend like the world isn’t happening.  (Joy the Baker) 

Now?

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Dutch Baby

Friends, hello!

We’re staring down the weekend and, for us lucky ones, it’s shaping up to be one of those perfect fall weekends. It’s that kind of early fall when you appreciate the perfection of cooler temperatures, the leaves are changing, and everyone you know is off apple picking.  I mean… that’s the most idealized version of our current reality but let’s hold on to pieces of it for our sanity. 

This weekend I want to get us from wakefulness to pancake in the shortest time possible… without having to put on a mask.

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Let It Be Sunday, 291!

Hi friends! Good Sunday morning to you. Let’s breathe it in. Let’s take a moment for ourselves.

I had a bit of a cry last Friday.  It was the sort of cry that starts off about one thing (I was sad about the passing of Justice Ginsburg because it’s hard to lose a great American) and then I was just crying about all that we’ve lost this year. I’m not much of a crier but I feel especially torn apart by the news cycle and our current reality. 

And yet here we are, on a Sunday where the sun shines and the coffee is hot.

Continue reading Let It Be Sunday, 291! at Joy the Baker.

Olive and Feta Irish Soda Bread

Friends can I show you the bread that I’ve been making all quarantine behind the scenes?  

It’s the sort of recipe that seems too simple to actually work. Suspiciously easy and unbelievably comforting – that’s the combo I’m after. I also expect my recipes to be super versatile in case I want to add cheese by the handful to the dough. Here’s the thing – I want it ALL and that can’t be asking for too much. 

Truth be told, this is just an Irish Soda Bread.

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Let It Be Sunday, 290!

Hello friends, good morning to you! It’s the 290th Let It Be Sunday post. That’s plenty right? Let’s keep it moving.

I had the best intentions of writing you a breakfast recipe this week but time just slipped through my hands. I spend much of the week preparing for the first Virtual BakeAway class.  More than fifty of us made apple pies together yesterday morning and it was a major success.  I say that with humility. 

I had a truly wild thought trot across my brain this week and it was this: holiday gifts.  Can we handle it?

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Let It Be Sunday, 289!

Hello friends!

Another week and let’s take a slow breath about it. Are you ok? I think the better question is, how are you, really? So much is on fire and tinted in red. There’s snow. There’s riots. There’s everything that this year is.  And yet, Tron is sleeping in the basket that is too small for him and people are still falling in love and butterflies still find the flowers so – life is everything all at once, always. 

This has been a longshort week.

Continue reading Let It Be Sunday, 289! at Joy the Baker.