My Texas Kitchen

I’m Susan Apple Graass. I live in Dallas, Texas with my husband Jim. We are proud parents of four young adult children, one daughter-in-law and our first granddaughter. While raising our children, I enjoyed cooking meals from scratch for our family dinners. This is how we connected at the end of our days filled with school, extra-curricular activities and sporting events. And now, I have this wonderful opportunity to share my collection of recipes with you! Growing up in Louisiana, I learned to cook and sew with my mom and sisters. We enjoyed southern cooking for our neighbors and cousins. We always had a house full of company. Since my mom came from a big family with over forty first cousins, we had lots of aunts and uncles. We spent many hours visiting on our front porch too. I made cornbread just about every night for dinner to go with big pots of red beans and rice, chicken and dumplings or shrimp boils. In high school, my best friend Leslie and I baked Black Midnight Cakes out of Betty Crocker’s cookbook. We always doubled the White Mountain Icing recipe to assure plenty of this white, fluffy concoction. Also, I loved baking birthday cakes for my friends at St Vincent’s Academy. This was big time fun for an all-girls Catholic high school! After TCU graduation, I operated my dress business Susan Apple, Inc. for twenty years. While managing this growing business, I continued to enjoy baking and cooking. Winning the Best of Show with my ‘Blue Ribbon Lemon Cake’ was the year that Oprah Winfrey was in Dallas to film her show at the State Fair of Texas. Afterwards, ten ‘best of show’ cooking contestants and I were invited to compete in Oprah’s cooking contest and walk on stage for the opening of The Oprah Winfrey Show. What fun! A friend and I auditioned to compete on 'Bobby Flay’s Dinner Battle'. We were selected for the Dallas Food Network show and won! My hope is that you will try my recipes and enjoy sharing them with your friends and family!