One of the lingering after effects of the The Summer of Abigail is pepper jelly. Abigail turned Edie onto the wonders of an afternoon snack consisting of crackers, cream cheese & pepper jelly. When Edie realized I could make this for her, she immediately put it on my “to be canned” for her list, right behind pickled peaches. After sampling several versions of it, she further decided I needed to get Mollie’s recipe (which was actually her mother’s recipe). A quick email to Mollie’s mother Carla and I had it in my hands.
Category: recipes
What to do with tomatoes.
I have two gardens this year, the usual one in the yard as well as an ‘off-site’ one in the community gardens. Both have tanked this year. Squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs and deer have feasted mightily. The deer took out both the taller netting we put up to stop them as well as kicking down the wooden fence on one side of the community garden. It’s become a free range buffet to those beasts. The on site garden hasn’t fared much better. Two gardens and all I have to show for it is a bowl full of cherry tomatoes and a handful of peppers. Even basil, supposedly so easy to grow anyone can do it, has been devastated by bugs. The Malabar Spinach I planted has failed to take off because it hasn’t been hot enough. (It did not get out of the 80’s once here the entire month of August.) Major garden fail on every level. I’m considering not having a garden next year, because the amount of work, not to mention money I’ve dumped into harvesting practically nothing is beyond frustrating. Continue reading
The beverage of summer.
There are two quintessential Southern beverages – sweet tea and bourbon. We are fans of both here, so while there is almost always bourbon on hand, sweet tea tends to only be around during the summer months. I start making it at some point in May, storing it in my fiesta ware pitchers in the fridge, where it’s on hand until the weather starts demanding hot tea as an afternoon pick-me-up. Continue reading
Remember this in January.
I first came upon stuffing tomatoes last summer, when my über green thumbed friend Stephanie shared some of her bounty with me. Resembling bell peppers, stuffing tomatoes are thick walled, hollow and generally juice free.
It’s summer squash season.
Summer squash is every where this time of year. While it’s an easy addition to any meal, I’m always looking for new ways to serve it to avoid everyone groaning at the answer of “squash, that’s what’s for dinner”. Inspired in equal parts by a summer squash recipe someone gave me years ago cut out of a magazine as well as one of my favorite lentil soup recipes, I whipped this up for dinner the other night. It turned out so well that I grabbed the camera for a quick shot to share with you all. We will definitely be eating this for dinner again soon and so should you.
Granny’s Crab Soup
We took off to Baltimore this past weekend. Generally I’m not so hot at making time to visit with anyone outside of the particular branch of the family tree we are staying with, but one of the beauties of summer is that we have enough wiggle room in our schedule to have long weekends. Which means being able to make time to see people we really want to see.
Strawberry Rhubarb “Pie”
As the banner strawberry season continued, I started looking for ways in which we had not yet eaten our bounty. Edie suggested strawberry rhubarb pie. I still had a tub of the creamy frozen delight that was otherwise known as strawberry ice cream fail that would pair wonderfully with a pie. However, as I found myself in the kitchen the other afternoon, I realized I just wasn’t in the mood to make a pie crust. I know I claim they are easy peasy, but I had spent the better part of the last two days working in both gardens, finally getting them both in for the summer growing season, I had picked up the house and had a batch of bread rising. Pie just seemed to be slightly overly ambitious for one afternoon. Continue reading
Mrs. Cape’s Pimento Cheese.
At the outset of last week, I realized if we were going to eat dinner, I was going to have to do some planning (and cooking) ahead. I wanted several options for meals we could just grab and go, making life a little bit easier. One of those options was pimento cheese. Continue reading
This week’s go-to potluck item.
We spent Memorial Day weekend mostly around the homestead in a blur of outdoor band concerts, impromptu potluck dinners with neighbors and a float down the river. There was an attempt to make home made ice cream that failed spectacularly when I realized way too far into the process that our ice cream maker was no longer of this world. I tried googling how to make ice cream without a maker but I didn’t realize until a few hours later it was probably too far along to really salvage. We now have a big plastic tub of frozen creamy strawberry mix in the freezer that is quite lovely with warmed pound cake or lemon cake fresh out of the oven at a potluck.
My first cookbook.
The first cookbook I was ever given was the Nancy Drew Cookbook. I think it was a Christmas present one year, but I can’t really be sure. I remember cooking breakfast out of it in the old farmhouse my parents sold when I was 7. The blue dot on the cover is a color of paint used for the sets one of my professors volunteered me to design for the Miss Glomerata pageant one year in college. (The Glom is the college yearbook that apparently required a beauty pageant in its honor.) I have no clue how it landed on the cover of my oldest & dearest cookbook.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 