Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Matcha Filling

By Lynne March 15, 2012
Four chocolate cookies with green frosting on a plate.

St. Patrick’s Day will be here in less than a week on Saturday, March 17, so I thought I would get my green recipe posted in a timely manner. Actually, only the icing is green and it is made with Japanese matcha green tea powder, but what the heck, it’s green, right? Do they have St.…

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Lamb & Shrimp Kabobs with Red Harissa

By Lynne March 4, 2012
A plate of food with meatballs and sauce.

I love lamb in all its guises. So when I ran across this Lamb & Shrimp Kabobs with Red Harissa recipe in an old copy of Bon Appetit magazine from July 2011, initially I was aghast. Lamb and shrimp? What were they thinking? I was horrified, incredulous, OMG it was so weird. Then I looked at…

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Twisted Cookies ~ With Rolled-In Sugar

By Lynne February 26, 2012
Six golden-brown, twisted pastries on plate.

My Mom and I made Twisted Cookies for the first time in 1959 from a recipe printed on the inside of a cake yeast wrapper. My Mom made bread from scratch, without a recipe, and this tricky and unique recipe using yeast was right up her alley. When I left home and married, this recipe went…

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Cauliflower Steak with Mushrooms & Hee Hee

By Lynne February 15, 2012
A plate of food with meat and vegetables on it.

Ok, let’s get the obvious out of the way first: what in the heck is Hee Hee? I first learned about Hee Hee when I was watching Mario Batali give a cooking demonstration on YouTube. Hee Hee is that little salad garnish he puts on top of the food that makes it look more interesting and…

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Valencia Salad with Oranges, Serrano Ham and Manchego Cheese from Grace-Marie’s Kitchen

By Lynne February 12, 2012
A white plate topped with salad and fruit.

Something very exciting happened recently – the Grace-Marie’s Cooking School at Bristol Farms web page is now featuring my photographs. Grace-Marie and I are so thrilled!! Below is a picture of the web page from their art department. You may recognize some of the photos. Sorry it’s not very clear -you can see it better on…

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Orange Salad with Avocado Green Olive Salsa

By Lynne February 2, 2012
A white plate topped with sliced oranges and salad.

When I moved into my new house in June 2011, I was very happy to have all the mature trees, rose garden and an established lawn. The back yard had two big palm trees and two smaller green leafed trees which provided really nice shade. Well, I was busy moving in and unpacking, then working and…

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Natural Light Food Photography Class with Christina Peters and Amy Paliwoda

By Lynne January 30, 2012
A plate of oranges on top of a table.

This past Saturday I had the great pleasure of attending the Natural Light Food Photography Class taught by professional food photographer Christina Peters and prop, still life and set stylist Amy Paliwoda. The class took place at Christina’s Marina del Ray studio and there were 10 of us students, which was a great student/teacher ratio. Amy…

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Wheat Berry, Green Olive & Roasted Pepper Salad

By Lynne January 23, 2012
A bowl of food with vegetables and feta cheese.

I decided to make this Wheat Berry, Green Olive and Roasted Pepper Salad after paging through the January 2012 issue of Sunset Magazine. It featured several absolutely gorgeous salads made with grains, which reminded me I had a package of Bob’s Red Mill Soft White Wheat Berries languishing in my cupboard. Plus I have to laugh…

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Spicy Sausage Pizza Stuffed Mushrooms

By Lynne January 15, 2012
A close up of stuffed mushrooms with meat and cheese

Do you have your plans all ready for Super Bowl Sunday? Your guest list and your shopping list for all those goodies you’ll be chowing down on during the game. If you invited me to your house and had these little bits of pizza heaven stuffed in a mushroom waiting on the table, I would be…

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Homemade New England Common Crackers

By Lynne January 8, 2012
A plate of biscuits and a cup on the table.

When I was writing my post about New England Clam Chowder, I kept running across the instructions that it should authentically be served with Common Crackers. I had no idea what they were. After all, I grew up in Minnesota, lived in Chicago and moved to L.A., where I have been ever since. I went to…

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Top 10 Recipes of 2011

By Lynne January 1, 2012
A close up of some bacon wrapped shrimp

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope 2011 was as great a year for you as it was for me and Cook & Be Merry. To everyone who visited my blog, Thank You. And to all my great commenters, you are the absolute best! You make my day and make my blog so much more interesting. I…

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Bacon Wrapped Dates with Chorizo & Goat Cheese Plus Beautiful Christmas Bokeh

By Lynne December 29, 2011
A plate of bacon wrapped dates on top of a green leaf.

The week before Christmas I received an advertising brochure in the mail from my local Ralph’s Market with coupons and appetizer recipes. The photograph that accompanied this Bacon Wrapped Date recipe was taken really close-up, and if you didn’t know what it was, you never could have guessed. But the bacon was shiny with oil and…

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Welcome to Cook & Be Merry

A woman with glasses smiling for the camera.Hello! My name is Lynne Hemer, and I am a woman obsessed with food and cooking, in search of new, unusual, exotic, and sublime ingredients and recipes. I love reading cookbooks, taking cooking classes, going to restaurants, photographing food, and blogging about it all! I hope you enjoy my website as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Feel free to contact me at lynne@cookandbemerry.com

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