October 25, 2012
When life gives you 30 pounds of apples, you…
…think of all the apple dishes you can and get to baking, cooking and eating.
My friend Dr. Rob was in town this weekend, and he picked gobs of apples off of his parents’ apple trees. That’s how I came into the apple treasure trove of the century.
I now have big plans for these little beauties. In fact, I feel like since I’ve inherited them, my whole life has revolved around them. See, you can’t just have 30 pounds of apples sitting on your counter and ignore them. No, I will not waste, thee, apples.
October 11, 2012
I’m currently watching the Vice Presidential debate.
Clearly, I need comfort.
Or maybe a shot of whiskey. Perhaps some online shopping. At this point, I’ll take what I can get.
Whiskey and shopping aside, certain foods have the ability to take the edge off. For me, it’s the foods my mom made for us as a kid, a plate of pasta or this, a big bowl of warm, savory soup.
Lucky for me, Washington State is made for soup weather. Our months of gray cloudiness have started. It’s dark when I wake up, and well on its way to darkness when I get home from work.
The fall and winter are really the best seasons for soup not only because of the weather, but because of the produce that’s in season. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, butternut squash, kale and chard are plentiful. Let me tell you something, folks, these are the best building blocks for amazing soups.
September 3, 2012
It’s Labor Day, the last hurrah of summer.
We’re spending the day in town. Casey’s getting ready for school to start this week — his first year of teaching. It’s exciting for both of us, and we’re glad this new chapter of our lives is starting. I have the day off of work, and I’m doing a bit of cooking and cleaning, and then we’re headed to a barbeque at my parents’ house.
Each morning feels more like fall. The air is crisp, and we’re no longer leaving the windows open 24/7. My cooking is starting to change, too. I’m starting to crave soups and comfort food, and I’m looking forward to trying some new recipes this year.
There’s still time for a few more summery recipes, and this is one of them. A pasta dish that celebrates the best produce of summer, without complicating it too much. It’s also light, yet filling, and easily made vegan if you need to.
August 30, 2012
Making jam is something I look forward to each summer. This year, I’ve been busier than usual. The jam I had made earlier in the season is long gone, and it was looking like I wasn’t going to have an opportunity to get my hands dirty again before summer was over.
I hear from folks all the time how they love homemade jam, but they don’t know how to do it, or that it seems too hard to do on your own. When I heard my friends Dawn and Roxanne express interest in learning the process, I jumped at the chance to teach them.
And I jumped at the chance to get a new cookbook, The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook. Oh, it’s a beauty. Really. Page after page is filled with gorgeous photographs and interesting jam recipes with unusual flavor combinations, as well as old favorites.
Since strawberries are a great price right now, we settled on the Grown-Up Strawberry jam recipe, which features Drambuie. Right before they came over, though, Dawn realized that Drambuie has honey in it. Since she is vegan, that wasn’t going to work. Luckily, there were plenty of other fabulous choices. The Strawberry Jam with Aged Balsamic and Black Pepper stood out to me. I already had some lovely aged balsamic, so why not?
Not only was this a jam class for Roxanne and Dawn, but I was learning something new as well. I had never made jam before without the addition of commercial pectin. I realized the recipes in the Blue Chair Jam Cookbook don’t call for pectin. Uh oh. What to do?
July 15, 2012
My Opa recently brought me some of his homegrown strawberries. He had so many, he needed to share. I was happy to take them off of his hands.
The beauty of homegrown strawberries is that you can let them ripen on the vine, yielding the reddest, sweetest, most strawberriest berries you’ve ever eaten. The problem with conventionally grown strawberries is that they’re often picked before they’re fully ripe, and are left to ripen off the vine. I mean, they’re fine, but their strawberry essence often hasn’t had time to come to fruition.
When life gives you strawberries — you guessed it — you make strawberry jam.
