Cookology

Nature's Yucky

An Antidote to Holiday Cookies 

The Nature’s Yucky! three-book chil­drens non-fic­­­tion series fea­tures ani­mals doing what we humans per­ceive as gross behav­iors. My co-author Karen Shragg and I then describe how these yucky actions help the ani­mals sur­vive. Karen likes to cook and does a lot of exper­i­ment­ing, whip­ping meals togeth­er. Since she likes cook­ing so much, we include a kid-friend­­­ly recipe in

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies 

Read­ing my books, you could be excused for think­ing I’m a food­ie. I’m not — I just like to eat! And so do my char­ac­ters, appar­ent­ly. Food and recipes play a role in many of my sto­ries, includ­ing all three Pump­kin Falls mysteries.

Honey Peanut Butter Popcorn Balls 

Author Gen­nifer Chold­enko con­tributes this recipe, which is just right for autumn, Hal­loween, or curl­ing up with a good book. Have you read her Orphan Eleven yet? It’s num­my, too. Hon­ey Peanut But­ter Pop­corn Balls ½ cup hon­ey 3 T peanut but­ter 2 T water 4 T but­ter 12 cups pop­corn 1 cup salt­ed mixed nuts Toast­ed Sesame seeds (option­al) 1. Melt hon­ey, peanut

fried rice

Fried Rice and Ohana 

Imag­ine a clus­ter of smil­ing keikis, (kids), sit­ting around a cal­abash filled with mouth-water­ing Hawaii local-style fried rice. Shar­ing deli­cious food from a cal­abash serv­ing bowl is a Hawaii tra­di­tion. As it does every­where around the world, not just in Hawaii, eat­ing meals togeth­er cre­ates com­mon bonds for every­one, chil­dren and adults alike, solid­i­fy­ing the feel­ing of ohana, or

Melanie Heuiser Hill

Cardamom Scones 

I adore books that have food details. I like to know what the char­ac­ters are eat­ing. Even bet­ter, I like to know what they’re cook­ing and bak­ing. And if there’s a food or feast that plays a promi­nent role in the plot, I’m hooked. Turns out, these are the sorts of books I enjoy writ­ing, as well. My nov­el, Giant

Connie Van Hoven

For the Love of Pickles 

Know some pick­le crazy kids? I do! A favorite birth­day din­ner that my grand­kids request is Pick­le Pas­ta (recipe below) — not the cold pas­ta sal­ad vari­ety, mind you, but warm but­tery noo­dles dot­ted with briny pick­les. My daugh­ter cre­at­ed this sim­ple but oh-so-sat­is­­­fy­ing dish dur­ing her col­lege days when the cup­boards were some­times near­ly bare. I guar­an­tee you will

Carrot Soup

Carrot Soup 

Car­rots are most often served raw in our home due to our sons’ pref­er­ences. But five years ago at the library we found the book Car­rot Soup by John Segal.

An Autumn Salad from Karen Cushman 

I must admit I’m more of a free-form cook. I don’t real­ly fol­low recipes but adapt them to what I have on hand or what my cre­ative juices are call­ing for. Usu­al­ly. The fol­low­ing recipe I love so much that I make it as sug­gest­ed except for the squash. I do love del­i­ca­ta. I don’t know where the recipe orig­i­nal­ly came from — I

rice pudding

Lucy’s Easy Vanilla Bean Rice Pudding 

Read­ing Ahead rec­om­mends McDuff Moves In, a pic­ture book about a res­cue dog’s search for a new fam­i­ly, writ­ten by Rose­mary Wells and illus­trat­ed by Susan Jef­fers (The Gryphon Press, 2019). This recipe is includ­ed in the book and fea­tured here with the per­mis­sion of the publisher.

beef chili

Cozy Reading Chili 

We’ve been out­side enjoy­ing the sum­mer and fall weath­er, but now it’s time to set­tle in for a win­ter’s worth of read­ing. Enjoy this yum­my chili while you read.

Sarah Aronson

Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding 

Just Like Rube Gold­berg author Sarah Aron­son shares her recipe for a yum­my, sug­ary treat, one that she believes Rube Gold­berg would have loved because he was a fan of Cool Whip.

Pumpkin Muffins 

Author Melanie Heuis­er Hill believes that Gram, from her book Giant Pump­kin Suite, would be bak­ing these pump­kin muffins this month.

Woodcut frog by Claudia McGehee

Squashed Fly Cookies 

My British mom was fond of mak­ing these for us as chil­dren. It is a cook­ie (or “bis­cuit” if you live in the UK!) she knows from her own child­hood. The moniker may sug­gest an unusu­al, rather dis­agree­able ingre­di­ent, but in real­i­ty, no insects were sac­ri­ficed for the dough!

Potato Latkes

Potato Latkes 

One of the tra­di­tion­al foods served at Han­nukah cel­e­bra­tions, this recipe for Pota­to Latkes will have your nose twitch­ing and your mouth water­ing! Hap­py Hannukah!

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