Hey y’all, We’re back in the kitchen today for another Kitchen Keeping chat with my friend Lisa at Clutter Café.
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When I met Lisa at our first blogging conference, I knew right off we were soul food sisters. She loves to cook, eat and gossip, the perfect ingredients for a fruitful friendship. I also knew Lisa had to live north of the Mason-Dixie line when she admitted that her taste buds had never experienced Chick-fil-la. What the what? No worries, we took care of her initiation into CFL’s official waffle fry membership.

Lisa creates so many amazing dishes for her two hockey loving kids and her hubby aka “rock star” computer guy who keeps her blog under construction with new techy ideas. I’m so thrilled to have Lisa share her kitchen tips and laughs with us today so grab your cuppa and let’s welcome Lisa to Kitchen Keeping. Hey friend, what’s “cookin good lookin?”
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I am so flattered to be asked by Marsha to join her Kitchen Keeping series. I met her at Blog Life University in Atlanta last year. I was completely out of my element, being from New Hampshire and all. I’m pretty sure you need a passport to go down South. It really is a different world! We New Englanders are completely high strung and are known to be impatient and rude. We also do everything fast. Talk, eat, drive…Everything! Mix rude and impatient with fast driving and you’ve got an adventure!


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Southerners seem to be laid back, easy-going, hospitable, friendly and a bit eccentric. From my experience, they are big on entertaining, decorating and classy parties. I think of mint juleps, fancy hats and “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” Totally my kind of people!

Before Marsha and I actually met, I remember looking around the room and sizing everyone up, I love people watching. I saw Marsha at another table and I remember thinking how absolutely gorgeous she was. She has the prettiest skin ever! Turns out she was also sweet, kind, talented, and fun-loving. I was so fortunate to be able to get to know her. I always enjoy seeing how she’s decorated and what kind of entertaining she’s up to.

Awe Lisa, you are too kind. Thank you sweetie!
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If you could change one thing about your kitchen what would it be and why?
It would definitely be bigger and I’d love a big Viking stove. That would absolutely be in my dream kitchen. Last year we downsized, and my new kitchen is quite a bit smaller than my old one. I really miss the open concept I use to have. I liked being able to see everything. We spent a lot of time in there. It’s still the hub of everything, just with a bit less room. I’ve had to get a little creative with the space. Downsizing the kitchen did force me to make some decisions as to what was necessary to keep and what to store elsewhere and what to get rid of. That wasn’t a bad thing though. I had a lot of “multi-tasking” items, floating around!
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I don’t know about your previous kitchen but this kitchen is absolutely gorgeous.

Tell us about one of your cooking “oops” you know like when you added salt instead of sugar and how you created a mess into a masterpiece.

I hate to admit that I make quite a few “fails” in the kitchen. Typically breads are an “Epic” fail for me. Anything with yeast is my sworn enemy! When my dough comes out right, it is definitely cause for a happy dance. Unfortunately, now that Nina, my daughter helps me in the kitchen, there are a lot more “oopsies”. It’s the best way to learn. Recently, Nina made cookies with melted butter instead of room temperature butter which turned out to be one, giant tray of chocolate chip cookie brittle. Not so good as a cookie, but it was buttery and delicious and worked great crumbled on top of vanilla ice cream!
Nina may have just created a new ice cream topping “cookie brittle!”
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You’ve just been entered into a baking contest and the grand prize is $10,000. What would your signature dish be and why?

My giant peanut butter sandwich cookies. I only make them once a year. Probably because it takes a full year to work off the calories from one of those massive treats! I could make them smaller I guess, but where’s the fun in that? These sandwich cookies are like big, chewy, Nutter Butters the size of your fist that you can barely get your mouth around. They are OMG delicious and sinful. Ok, now I’m craving them.

Pretty Pleezzz send me a batch! I promise to eat every crumb!

What are two yums you can’t live without in your fridge or pantry?

Any sweet and salty combination is my downfall. I make chocolate covered potato chips and store them in the freezer for those days when people should “back off!” You know those uncontrollable mood swing days where you laugh and cry and must eat chocolate covered potato chips or the world as you know it will cease to exist?
On a healthier note, I do love fresh popped popcorn tossed with Nutritional Yeast. It sounds gross, but if you haven’t tried it and are looking for a healthy, fiber loaded snack, go get some! It tastes a bit like nacho cheese popcorn, without having to go to the gym afterwards with orange fingers.

LOL! Chocolate covered potato chips and nacho cheese popcorn…that’s some good snackin!
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What is your favorite kitchen gadget?

Hands down, I cannot live without my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. This was the first gift my husband ever got me over 20 years ago and it is still going strong! I’m totally NOT a jewelry, flower kind of girl! Something for the house is always a hit with me.
I probably use it daily for everything from mixing cookie dough to shredding chicken to mixing pizza dough (that I can make!). I cannot live without it! It has served me well through the years and since it was such a special, thoughtful gift from the love of my life, it always brings me great memories of the holidays and special occasions we’ve shared together.
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Since there’s always something baking around here, I included a quick little cookie treat that’s great for bake sales, parties, holidays or gift giving. It’s a great little Valentine snack. I hope you enjoy it.
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Thank you again Marsha for including me and thank you for taking the time to spend with me in my kitchen. Enjoy!

Lisa, thank you so much for chatting with us today and sharing a spoonful of  flavor into your life. Be sure to hop over to Lisa’s blog, Clutter Café and check out her scrumptious recipes. You will definitely want to save some or “all” in your recipe file.

Yields 2 dozen

Quick Little Cookie Treat
Save RecipeSave Recipe

Ingredients

  • Refrigerated Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (2 tubes) or 1 Batch Homemade Tollhouse cookie dough
  • 2 Bags Reese’s Peanut Butter Hearts (or cups)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375F
  2. Spray a mini muffin tin well with nonstick cooking spray
  3. Put 2 tablespoons of cookie dough into each cup and bake for 9-11 minutes.
  4. After 2 minutes place a heart (or cup) on the top of each cookie and gently press.
  5. Let cool completely. Remove from tin and enjoy!
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