Cooking Group Tonight

I have another cooking group meeting tonight. I'm the lucky one who gets to host it tonight. The theme is Southern cooking. We originally wanted to do Cajun but thought we should broaden it. I originaly volunteered to make beignets. They are similar to a donut and are very popular in New Orleans. I couldn't get them to work. I think two factors contributed to this: 1. I've never had a beignet so wasn't sure what they should look like. 2. I'm terrible at using yeast. I think my yeast didn't activate. Because I know nothing about yeast I wasn't aware of this before I continued with my recipe.

What I did come up with was tasty just not pretty. It tasted like a deep fat fried sugar cookie dusted in powdered sugar. Not really what I was going for but Dave and I had no problem finishing the batch throughout the week.

So I decided to make Pralines. This was no cake walk either. I ruined my first two batches. I think the author of the recipe is from the south where it is a lot more humid. I had to adapt the cooking time for our dryer climate.

I'm a little anxious for the party tonight. I tried to limit it to 14 people. I think the final count is 17. Yikes. I hope everyone can fit comfortably in my little house.