Remember back in January when I said I’d write about some of the cookbooks I had acquired at my cookbook swap? I’ve finally gotten around to cooking out of some of them! Continue reading
Category: recipes
Preztels with Mollie
This past weekend found us packing up & heading over to see the Smiley’s this weekend, where we frolicked in their back yard all day Sunday. Continue reading
Food Preservation Success. And Tofu.
I’d read in one of my food preservation books that I could freeze eggplant. I was slightly curious while worried it would turn mushy in the freezer. I do make a few batches of eggplant parmesan every summer, popping leftovers in the freezer for winter consumption, but I had never put up plain eggplant. I decided to try it with one – if it didn’t work, no biggie. Continue reading
Something not soup.
I love to make big pots of soup this time of year. The house just feels cozier with something good smelling simmering on the stove all afternoon, you know? However, given that the habit of making a big pot of soup for dinner starts sometime in October, it begins to wear thin with some members of this household about this time of year – sort of like the grey sky or the weather forecast with the words snow or ‘polar vortex’. They’re just done with all of it. It certainly doesn’t help that I expect said pot of soup to serve as dinner a few days in a row as well as maybe even some lunches during that stretch. Change is needed and the easiest place to make it happen is the dinner table. Continue reading
World Community Arts Day, 2014
Distance doesn’t have to be an obstacle in approaching World Community Arts Day. Thanks to modern technology, we can interact with people all over the world without leaving the comforts of our home. As the discussion of what & how to approach a project took place via Facebook posts, USPS delivery of handwritten notes, recipes & art projects to each others’ doorsteps, it occurred to me that this was our community project. Despite the distance from Virginia to California, my friend G & I were making concrete connections as well as virtual ones without having to leave our homes. Continue reading
It’s fun to fondue!
It’s no secret that the people who inhabit our neighborhood use any sort of excuse to host a get-together. As the snow continued to accumulate Thursday, Dahlia sent out an email asking if anyone else thought this was cheese fondue weather. Our thoughts may have been more along the lines of, good gosh let’s get out of this house and drink with other people, but hey, fondue worked. A few emails (and phone calls) later, we appeared to have a plan. Continue reading
Sort of in season.
Grandma’s fruitcake cookies are a holiday staple here. Which probably has you asking why I’m blogging about them in February, because everyone knows fruitcake is clearly a December holiday treat and not a February holiday treat. In the hustle & bustle & multiple cookie swaps that were December, the cookies didn’t get made. We had fourteen dozen cookies on hand – we didn’t need any more. As we don’t share these cookies well there was no way they were getting made for a swap for us to only have a few left on hand. No, we need the entire batch all to ourselves. Continue reading
Garden thoughts in January.
I like to plant tomatillos in my garden every summer for a variety of reasons. For starters, I love salsa verde, which is made of tomatillos. They are also a wickedly cool looking plant to have in the garden, because of their dramatically hanging fruit which look like little lanterns.
I just spent a few hours over several days looking for a good shot of a tomatillo plant, combing through the last four years of summer garden shots and that is the best shot I had. And it’s not even mine, it’s Leni’s (from summer 2012). Continue reading
That Apple Pie Jam I keep babbling about.
My friend Wynn shared this recipe for Rum Raisin Apple Pie Jam with me somewhere around my second bushel of apples this fall. It looked interesting, so I gave it a whirl. I followed the recipe to a T, with the exception of the sugar. 9 cups of sugar to 6 cups of apples? That made my teeth hurt just reading it. I cut the sugar back to 2 cups and used some of the excellent dark rum Peter brought Pat from Guatemala. Continue reading
College Football Food.
Saturday’s plan was to sit and watch college football most of the afternoon & evening, which never fails to inspire me to cook a big pot of something and maybe even bake a batch of bread to go along with whatever is in the pot. This Saturday, with it’s line up of conference championships, inspired me to make some recipes from college friends. That and some Double H andouille sausage I picked up at the Holiday market. Pat asked if I was going to make gumbo with the sausage. Considering I have at least 3 different batches in the freezer and it not being a favorite of at least one household member who says watching football with her parents is sort of like this beer commercial, I decided against it. She was already in for a long day of football with us (First SEC Championship, then the ACC & Big 10 games) and I didn’t want to antagonize her. Besides, gumbo takes time – not just the time to chop all those vegetables, make a broth and a roux, it needs to simmer for a few hours and is really best after all the flavors have had time to meld – next day gumbo is way better than fresh gumbo. Instead, I went for jambalaya, which is infinitely easier and far quicker. You can start chopping your veggies and an hour later, your jambalaya is ready to serve. Not so with gumbo. Continue reading
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 