Welcome to Cooking with Virginia!
Here you will find delicious and doable, seasonal, chef-driven recipes for home cooks along with tips, techniques, and stories. Each post features mouth-watering food photography, easy-to-follow instructions, and helpful hints for well-tested recipes from Southern chef, Food Network Kitchen Instructor, and James Beard award-winning cookbook author Virginia Willis.
You’ll also find Virginia’s signature stories chronicling formational childhood experiences gained baking in her grandmother’s and mother’s kitchen, her extensive professional experience from working in patisserie in a Michelin-starred restaurant, to the hot lights of food television, and her culinary centric far-flung travels. The recipes build on this practical knowledge and are written so that the reader feels that Virginia is by their side in the kitchen, as she walks the reader through surefire recipes that work every time. The recipes are rigorously tested and are essential, foolproof dishes you actually want to make and eat!
Bon Appétit, Y’all!
Virginia Willis
Lady Luck: Black Eyed Peas and Greens
Winter Greens Eating black eyed peas and greens on New Year’s Day is a special Southern tradition, and folklore says it brings luck and money
SPOILER ALERT: Chopped, Nuts, & Ice Cream Fiascos
SPOILER ALERT!! Nuts. There’s the whole nuts thing to begin with… I know you’re glad those are pecans featured in the photo above and not
Sippin’ on Southern Comfort
This week I was in Athens, GA taking classes at the University of Georgia Food Sciences Department.The weather today was glorious. The leaves have all
Bowls of Goodness
I collect bowls. I’ve got dinted and dinged up enamel bowls hanging in my kitchen. One of the older ones has a tiny hole in
Paris + Texas: Fall Recipes & Change is Good
Fall Produce While there’s absolutely nothing like a summer vine-ripe tomato or fresh sweet corn, have you ever considered that perhaps they wouldn’t be so
My day in NYC on 9-11
NYC on 9-11 This picture of my sister was taken in August, just a few weeks before the horrible tragedy in 2001. In 2010, when I
Surprises & Sweet Corn Ice Cream
Sweet Corn Ice Cream Corn is technically a vegetable, a grain, and a fruit. Wait, what? According to the Cooperative Extension Service, corn seed is
French Butter Cookies
I posted a picture of these cookies on Facebook and some folks wanted the recipe. It’s from my first book, Bon Appetit, Y’all! I’ve never
RIPE + A Bucket Full of Blueberry Recipes
See that one lonely ripe blueberry next to all the green ones still on the verge? It’s like the older girl in PE class in
Mother’s Day: Spaghetti with Venison Bolognese
One of my fondest earlier memories is of my mother teaching me to swim. She floated on her back and I held to her ankles