175 Best Multifunction Electric Pressure Cooker Recipes by Marilyn Haugen (cookbook review)

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I have a lot of cookbooks. At last count — which was just before sitting down to write this review — there are 54 cookbooks on my kitchen bookshelf. And that doesn't even include the literally hundreds of cooking magazines I've collected throughout the years.

In addition to learning techniques and tasty treats from all those cookbooks, I've also learned that it's rare to find a cookbook in which every recipe turns out fabulous. 175 Best Multifunction Electric Pressure Cooker Recipes by Marilyn Haugen, which I recently received free for review, just might be one of the rare ones. 

Click to read the review

Sweet treat made from garden goodies: Summer Squash Streusel Muffins

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summer squash streusel muffins

My oldest daughter has been generously sharing with me the bounty of her garden, especially the abundant zucchini and summer squash. I have a couple zucchini dishes I regularly count on — Chocolate Zucchini Bread and Zucchini Cobbler in particular — but hadn't yet found a pleasing way to prepare summer squash as a sweet treat. (My husband eats squash only when hidden in baked goods... so the need for such was real.) I recently came across a summer squash bread that came close to...

Click for the full recipe in Grandma's Recipe Box...

Friday briefs: Squash, cinnamon rolls, and Instagram weirdos

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SQUASH
Many successful gardeners — my daughter Brianna included — recently began seeing the bountiful fruits (and veggies) of their spring and summer labors, picking, pulling and happily harvesting this and that from their yards.

I'm not a successful gardener. I am, though, happily awaiting the right size and right time to pull and prepare the two — count 'em, two! — squash I did manage to grow in my woebegone garden of sorts.

zucchini and summer squash

Woot! I'm celebrating the wee bit of success for this black-thumbed gardener wannabe. (Truth be told: I'm pretty sure they grew only because Brianna started them for me at her house then passed along pots with the babies for me to plant and finish the job.)

 

CINNAMON ROLLS

It has never resonated with me when friends (and strangers and social media connections) mention eating entire containers of ice cream or cookies or bags and boxes of chocolates all on their own, being literally unable to stop themselves. Because I'm not all that in love with sweets. I've never really gotten...

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My (uneventful) week in photos

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I haven't done much of anything worth writing home about about on my blog this past week. Which, in all honesty, is okay with me. Sometimes busyness and booked calendars are highly overrated (not to mention exhausting).

Even with nothing much on the agenda, though, I did manage to take — and in one case, appropriate from my daughter's Facebook page — photos of the nothing much marking my days. Following are a few such markings from my past week.

bear yard art
A chainsaw-crafted set o' friendly bears a neighbor recently...

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Beat-the-heat treats (a Friday Flashback feature)

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A few years ago, I posted a piece on chilly treats for hot days, noting how darn hot it was in the desert while visiting my grandsons (which at that time meant just Brayden and Camden as Declan was yet to be). Today it's desert-style hot at my house. In the mountains. And I'm craving something cold, something to beat the heat here at home.

I figure much of the country seems to be suffering a hot spell as well, and though I can't share an actual treat with each and every one of you as I would like, I can share the directions for doing so on your own. Preferably with grands.

Here it is: Today's Friday Flashback, featuring a few tasty ways to cool you and yours. Enjoy!

BEAT THE HEAT TREATS
Originally published July 16, 2013 (with names updated to my grandsons' real names, as I recently revealed them here):

The temperatures in the desert during my visit to see Brayden and Camden were, as I expected, ridiculously high. Spending time in the pool or at the water park was a great way to stay cool, but because we're not fish, other ways to chill out had to be devised.

frozen treats

Yesterday, the last day of my visit, Megan offered a frozen treat...

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Easter goodies

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Easter goodies

Easter goodies!

I have at least a few of my family's traditional recipes for nearly every holiday posted in my Grandma's Briefs Recipe Box. Not for Easter, though. I suppose it's because our traditional breakfast is the Easter eggs we colored a few days before along with blueberry muffins and sausage or bacon. Easter dinner has always been, like most folks, ham and the typical ham accompaniments. No recipes needed.

That said, I do have a couple non-edible Easter goodies on my blog. Goodies I've shared in the past, but the time is right to do so again. That would be these:

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Now in the Recipe Box: Best Basic Brownies

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basic brownies from scratch

Over the past three decades or so, I've tried and tweaked more brownie recipes than I can count. They never turn out the way I want. Too dry. Too mushy. Too hard around the edges. Too much trouble. Then along came a recipe that was close and after a few tweaks resulted in just what I hoped for: the best basic brownies. This is my tweaked recipe. It's... Continue reading in the Recipe Box.