Thursday, August 6, 2009
Pasta!
If there's something better than fresh, home made pasta topped with rooftop grown basil and farmer's market tomatoes and garlic I don't know what it is. Lucky for me, we had a party last weekend and it was the perfect opportunity to break out the pasta maker and get cranking...mmmmmmm
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
a brief word about cupcakes...
there are admittedly some really delicious places to have cupcakes made for you in this town. One of them (Trophy Cupcakes and Party) has always been my favorite for their moist, fresh tasting cupcakes. I have been let down in the past by their larger and generally more well known competition (Cupcake Royale) with dry tasting, albeit beautiful, cupcakes. However, Cupcake Royale seems to be aware of their weakness and lately have been advertising their "more moistey-er" recipe. As it happens, my little sister celebrated her birthday last week and gave us the perfect opportunity to sample the new Royale cake.The verdict? Looks (er, tastes) like perhaps Royale has learned their lesson - fresher is always better!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Still Jamming
The haul last Sunday was apricots, peaches, nectarines, a few apples and some lingering cherries. We made quick use of the more smooshed apricots and turned them 8 jars of jam and I canned a quart of the cherries whole... total cost $6.00 (for the jars). Mmmmmmmmm...
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Preservation
In life, there are always moments that we would give almost anything to go back to, sometimes to correct an error, or perhaps just to relive a perfect time. Come summer in this rainy town, I get an almost irrational desire to preserve anything and everything fresh and reminiscent of summer in sight for just that purpose. In November I know, thanks to my exploits of yesterday and this weekend, I will be scooping sour cherry filling into a pie shell and with the first bite I will be right back in July...
Canning is intimidating and scary to many people - when I discuss it, newcomers to the wonderful world of self-preservation (haha...) often express anxiety that in order to perfect the art they would need a sci-fi sanitary kitchen, loads of expensive fancy equipment and decades of skill and practice. I assure you this is not the case. There is in fact an abundance of easy DIY canning advice available right here on the internet. Many of the sites look like they haven't been updated since the 90's but canning technique sure hasn't either so I suggest a quick google and you'll be off (there are even some sites which appear to have been edited/created in the last decade)!
In my household's most recent canning exploit: my roommate made full use of her bartering skills (and employment at a chocolate factory) to obtain three flats of local organic raspberries at the farmer's market and I contributed my knowledge of a sour cherry tree growing on public land about a block and a half from our apartment. The raspberries were transformed into delicious jam, made with agave nectar in place of sugar (only possible through the use of a pectin which is calcium rather than sugar activated) and the flat or so of cherries we managed to collect made three pint jars of pie filling and two half pints of delicious jelly...I almost can't wait for cool weather to start making use of my stockpile!