Butterscotch Pecan Chews Recipe

Butterscotch Pecan Chews. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

A perfect excuse to bake (as if you need one): Here's an easy blondie recipe with a surprise ~ no butter. Four eggs hold the brown sugar and flour together and pecans add texture. These bars can be assembled and baked up in under an hour. If they're not gobbled up still warm from the oven, wrap them up tight, refrigerate and send in school lunches throughout the week. Guaranteed lunchtime friend-maker.

Butterscotch Pecan Chews

Non-stick baking spray

4 large eggs

1 pound dark brown sugar

2 1/2 cups self-rising flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray 9 inch square pan with baking spray. 

2. In a bowl, stir together eggs, brown sugar, flour and vanilla until smooth and nearly lump-free. Stir in the pecans.

3. Pour batter into greased pan. Bake until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Remove to cooling rack, and cut into squares when barely warm.

Adapted from "Treasured Recipes of the Charleston Cake Lady" by Teresa Pregnall (Hearts Books, 1996)

Text and images copyright 2013, Lucy Mercer.

Christmas Alphabet Scrapbook Project

Christmas scrapbook. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 This is one of my Christmas treasures, created for us several years ago by my dear mother-in-law. It's a scrapbook using Christmas cards to illustrate a holiday alphabet. It can be a keepsake of memorable cards and pictures for your family through the years. Creating the Christmas alphabet scrapbook requires only a few items ~ a blank scrapbook, some glue, holiday photos and lots and lots of Christmas cards. (I can't bear to throw Christmas cards away, so each year I put them in a big plastic bag and then into a Rubbermaid container along with the Christmas ornaments.) Each year, I add to the scrapbook with pictures of the girls and memorable cards and holiday pictures from friends. I'm not a scrapbooker, so I can only imagine what someone with those skills and resources could bring to this project. I hope you give this project a try and make some memories for your friends and family.

Christmas alphabet. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 

 Text and images copyright 2013, Lucy Mercer.

Taste of Atlanta 2013

The many delicious bites of Taste of Atlanta 2013. Laura Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 A clear and cool October Sunday afternoon was the setting for Taste of Atlanta, a party with 90 of Atlanta's favorite restaurants set up in Midtown at Tech Square. You might assume, as I did for many years, that Taste is a grown-up event, but it's actually great for kids. My teenager enjoyed shooting photographs of food and people, and my 8-year old brought along her "autograph book" and snagged a few celebrity signatures. Both enjoyed trying new foods, from exotic produce like dragonfruit to deep-fried chicken and waffles on a a stick. My designated photographer assembled the collage, above, documenting all the bites from the afternoon.

Here are a few more pictures from our afternoon. I love street festivals where you can walk where there are usually cars.

Taste of Atlanta, Midtown at Tech Square. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 Little Bit tried her hand spinning Whole Foods' wheel of fruit and got a taste of ...

Laura Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Dragonfruit! She did a dance right there in the street, she was so happy!

Dragonfruit. Laura Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

In the kids' section, sponsors such as Legos and Dixie Crystals made sure that young ones were entertained with crafts including painting with apple stamps and making necklaces from candy.

Legos/Laura Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Apple stamps. Laura Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Apple stamp art. Laura Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

In addition to restaurants, many food products were present, including Southern favorite Duke's mayonnaise. Community Coffee gave away copious cups at their cafe.

Duke's Mayonnaise. Laura Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Chocolate mousse with salted nut brittle from The Spence. Laura Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

A Top Chef and a fan. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

The highlight for Little Bit was meeting Top Chef Season 7 winner Kevin Sbraga. The chef kindly signed her notebook and posed for a picture. Looking forward to Taste in 2014!

Text and images copyright 2013. Lucy Mercer.

Pansies and violas on the porch

Autumn containers on front porch steps. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

You may recognize these unique, hand-painted containers from a summer gardening project with the girls ~ buckets from The Home Depot, painted and personalized and filled with flowers. Near the end of September, the summer annuals were really past their prime, so I went to my favorite plant places and gathered up some wonderful cold-weather container plants like violas and pansies.

These purple pansies really caught my eye ~ I couldn't let these to go to another home ~

Purple pansies. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I think violas are the happiest flowers in the garden. Here, they're mixed with variegated ivy, to spill over the edge of the bucket.

Violas and variegated ivy. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

While I shop for plants, I use my smartphone to take pictures of pleasing arrangements on display. When I get home, I have a visual guide to replicate the design. I liked this combination of baby bok choy and creeping golden jenny. I set if off with violas and some variegated ivy, following the formula "a thriller, a spiller and a filler." The thriller is the focal point, usually giving height, the spiller trails over the edges of the pots, and the filler adds color and texture to the bulk of the container.

Autumn container plants. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

"Arctic White" flowering cabbages pair well with the variegated creeping fig and purple pansies, adding a cooling element against my red house. The containers are displayed on my front porch steps, so they are viewed from above and head on. As I walk down the steps, they look like giant unfolding roses.

 

Autumn containers. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 Text and images copyright 2013, Lucy Mercer.

Powwow at Stone Mountain Park

Aztec dancer. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

The last day in October turned out to be a perfect day to visit Stone Mountain Park for the annual Indian Festival and Powwow, the largest gathering of Native Americans in Georgia.I chaperoned a field trip while I was there, so my photographic journal is missing some key elements, such as a picture of Stone Mountain, the great quartz dome east of Atlanta  with the largest bas-relief carving in the world. But those can easily be found by using your Googletips. As for pictures that I did take, in between snaps of giddy kidoodles, excited to be out of the classroom, I snapped a few of the Aztec dancer family:

Aztec dancer. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Aztec dancer. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Aztec dancers. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Aztec dancers. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 Besides the dancers, the Birds of Prey show was fascinating, with lots of avian facts for the second graders to be quizzed on:

Birds of Prey show. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

And when we come back, I'll definitely try the Gator Nuggets.

Menu. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

It always comes back to food, always. Tell me about your day trips this fall in the comments below.
 

Text and images copyright 2013, Lucy Mercer.