When times are lean, we might have to eat some things simply because they’re inexpensive. Massive amounts of ramen, for example. But, if you are the kind of person for whom hot ketchup soup - by which I mean a cup of hot water with ketchup stirred into it - is a regular part of your diet because you are just a very cheap person, at least have the decency not to walk into Food Whore’s Restaurant and order the components for it to “scam” a free meal and the right (or perceived right) to then hang around the restaurant and work on your laptop.

It’s true that weddings are supposed to be for “grown-ups,” but there is nothing wrong with a little nostalgia on your big day - and yes, the big day should be something special for the grooms, as well as for the brides! This basically means that you should be able to indulge in whatever your favorite celebration foods are, regardless of how untraditional they are.

Cute Overload uncovered a Twinkie-covered groom’s cake that is chocolaty and oh-so-cute, with tiny tuxes painted on each of the cream-filled sponge cakes. In fact, it’s hard to say which is more appealing: the main cake or the decorative ones. I’m guessing that all but the most die-hard chocolate fans will be leaning towards the Twinkies.

Eating in bed isn’t the best idea because of the potential for getting crumbs all over the sheets before you sleep in them, so instead of taking actual cupcakes to bed with you, the sew-on cupcakes of the I dream of cupcakes blanket from Uncommon Goods are a better choice.

The delightful little pink-frosted cakes are the focal point - helping you to “dream of cupcakes,” as the blanket’s border suggests - of the all-cotton throw, which is made entirely out of recycled fabric. Of course, eating a cupcake before bed (not necessarily in it) will probably help you to dream of sweets at least as much as the blanket will, so consider adding a few drops of pink food coloring to your next batch of cupcakes to coordinate. And make sure you don’t take any crumbs with you after you’ve eaten.

The New York Times ran an article this week about traditional Irish soda bread - or rather, they ran an article that discussed how the loaf presented as “traditional” in the US is often not. The author’s loaf had butter, sugar and eggs in it, as well as raisins, and turned into a very cake-like loaf. I myself am guilty, to a degree, of making a less-than-traditional loaf. I don’t use butter or eggs, but I usually add a bit of sugar, caraway seeds and raisins. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, it is good to know that the Irish soda bread that I typically make is a variation on the standard, not the standard itself.

The article hinted at the fact that the traditional recipe used only flour, buttermilk, salt and baking soda, but for some reason failed to include the recipe (it did include the cake-like version, however). I thought I’d step up and fill in the gap. I took out all the extraneous ingredients from my usual recipe and whittled it down to a plain, basic traditional loaf.

The bread is best when it is warm and comes out of the oven with a crisp crust and a tender interior. It is easy to taste the buttermilk in the loaf, but it is very plain bread. I like it with soup, where it can sop up broth, or cut into slices (I often simply pull pieces off the loaf) and topped with butter or jam. Irish butter is usually salted and will taste better with the bread than unsalted butter.

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“Who’s gonna turn down a Junior Mint? It’s chocolate, it’s peppermint -it’s delicious!” — Kramer, Seinfeld

I know one person who does not like the combination of chocolate and mint, but to be fair, he does not care for peppermint-type flavors in general. Doubtless there are a handful of other people who also do not care for the combination, but the vast majority of people simply adore it. The freshness of mint complements the rich and intense taste of chocolate (particularly of dark chocolate) and makes the two a winning pair.

Junior mints and York peppermint patties are two of the best examples of this flavor combo, but Maida Heatter’s Chocolate Mint Sticks might even be better. The little bars are dense, but tender, and intensely chocolaty. On top of the chocolate layer is a thin glaze of peppermint, which in turn is topped with a drizzle of melted, bittersweet chocolate for contrast. It tastes like a little candy bar, only better.

As if the outstanding flavor weren’t enough, the “sticks” are even better when they are cold, so store them in the fridge or freezer and use them as a treat to cool off with on a hot summer day (or a hot winter day, if you have also been experiencing this year’s rather odd temperature shifts!).

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It has been a while since I have posted a yeast bread recipe. This isn’t because I haven’t been baking them, however. I have simply been sticking to old favorites for a while, like Sourdough and Country White Bread, and have been working on a new baguette recipe that I really like (not ready for prime time yet, sorry!). What this all boils down to is that I have been in a bit of a rut and was finally kicked out of it by a box of cinnamon raisin granola. The granola was so good that after running through a box of it for breakfast (and snacks), I decided that I needed to make some cinnamon raising bread for toasting in the morning as a replacement.

Cinnamon and raisins obviously played a role in the bread, and I went for a fairly plain loaf, rather than doing the slightly more traditional cinnamon spiral. Since granola is a whole-grain product, I also decided to go with whole wheat in my bread. I used both whole wheat flour and white whole wheat flour, as I wanted to maximize the amount of whole grain in the bread but didn’t want the texture to be too coarse, which can be a fault of whole wheat-only breads. I used honey, instead of regular sugar, to add some sweetness to the bread, and I used both buttermilk and butter to ensure that the finished loaf had a hint of a buttery taste to it. The buttery taste is a good feature in bread meant for toasting.

All in all, the bread turned out to be very satisfying. It wasn’t too heavy or dense because I gave the bread a long time to rise a develop small air pockets as the yeast did its thing. The final loaf also had the tenderness that the relatively low gluten (lower than regular flour, anyway) whole wheat flour provides. The cinnamon was mild in the untoasted bread, but came out beautifully in the finished product. I wish now that I would have tried a few slices of french toast with the loaf, but the call of the toaster was just too tempting and just about every single slice ended up there.

Butter, jam and peanut butter (not necessarily together) are my top three toppers for toast made with this bread, but use whatever strikes your fancy. But be sure to toast it. It’s well worth it!

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