Flashy Produce Bags

The whole family is really ready for spring this year...the boys are literally jumping off the walls with all their pent up outside energy and like a sad April Fools joke it is snowing outside today. So, rather than enjoy actually spring weather I'm preparing for the growing season and the arrival of our CSA bounty and start of the farmer's market.

Last year I quickly threw together some produce bags so that when the big box of veggies did arrive I was able to quickly throw everything in cotton, breathable bags and get it into the fridge. It made things alot easier on 'box day' but the bags were made from such a flimsy fabric that they fell apart over the course of the harvest season and they didn't always protect the veg. from the harsh refrigerator conditions. So, this year, I took a little more time and made sturdier, thicker bags with pretty labels.
To make the labels I printed (mirror image) text onto iron-on transfer paper and ironed it onto twill tape. The bags are made from old tablecloths that I had long ago cut up and stored in the deep, recessed corner of my fabric stash cabinet. So, I'm very happy to bring them a new and thrilling life in the refrigerator.
In all I made six bags..3 larger ones for greens and smaller bags for herbs and vertical veggies like carrots and beets. I suspect I will need more but I ran out of old tablecloths! Got to do a bit more digging through the fabric weeds multipying in the studio.

Holiday Sweeting

There has been some sweets-making this year, though it was round a different bend. I found out recently that I have an intolerance to wheat and gluten. So, after feeling sorry for myself I decided to get into gluten-free holiday goodies. Let's just say, it's a good thing chocolate is wheat-free! I made some bon-bons, some macaroons and some peppermint bark and I was mighty proud of myself if I do say so. Let me know if you are interested in any recipes. I will say they were, overall, much easier than "baking" baking. Score one for the wheat-gluten challenged!

Beautiful Things

Beautiful ceramic objects are such a weakness for me. I am perfectly fine at resisting them when they are in a typical retail environment (though I do admire them for long periods of time) but set them out at a yard sale or thrift store and I my senses take leave of me and I find myself proudly parading them home. The 12 days of Christmas plates are no exception. Found them at a fancy thrift store, the kind where things are hand-selected, and I went weak in the knees.

I did rationalize it by saying they would make a great gift for my mother-in-law but, as my husband said with a knowing smirk, "she would never really have occasion to use them." At which point I started taking them out of their box saying, "Oop. Guess we will have to keep them." Now I just need an equally playful but elegant dessert so I have an excuse to pull them out. Well, there are 12. Come to think of it...I may need to plan a holiday party.

Birthdays are Fun

I have the impression that I'm a difficult person to buy gifts for. I don't usually have a straight answer regarding 'what I want' but I love gifts that are fun, creative, and beautiful...usually in the opposite order. While I LOVE gift-hunting for things or experiences that fit that description most of my loved ones groan. My husband is one of the exceptions, he is superb at it. After hemming and haa-ing about getting an ice cream maker he surprised me with this ice pop maker. I'd never even heard about it before but it is fantastic. You keep it in the freezer and then make up your own ice pop mixture so that it only takes 7 minutes to freeze the ice pops. So much fun for kids!

And, not only that...it's a great way to use up nearly *done* fruit or other things that might be wasted. The ice pop above is made from *ready to toss* watermelon mixed with sugar and lime..THAT'S IT! No other, icky ingredients. I'm not a huge popsicle person, they are usually too sweet for me but this changes my attitude. I feel like I can experiment and make them a little healthier. I'm also thinking that I can make seasonal ice pop, maybe I'm crazy but I'm thinking something peppermint for the holidays! Right?! You hear me, I think.

He also accompanied the maker with this recipe book.
It includes this sangria recipe (perfect for a summer barbeque!) and...one for cappuccino, which was the second kind we made using some coffee left in the french press after breakfast.
I'm not saying run out and get one...it is a space-taker in the freezer and it is another unnecessary item in the whole consumerism wheel BUT I will say if it would be something you use that I've tried it and tested it and we like it. There are some issues with freezing yogurt, which is too bad because I have dreams of making yogurt and fruit ice pops and every mixture HAS TO have sugar in the recipe...something to do with the chemistry of freezing it properly. So, those are the caveats. Will keep you updated on any future ice pop adventures!

Thx

Inspired by a friend who went for it and by this blog of the original, I'm giving thanks.

Dear: Farmer's Market--Thanks for giving me fresh raspberries to fill the boy's mouths so that I could take a bite of the world's most delicious cheese and have the time to savour it and purchase more to take home.

Dear: Friend so dear to my heart--Thanks for once saying oh so gently 'turn toward the joy', it really stuck with me and I remember it alot. It helps me shift perspective and step back from the tough stuff and notice the joyful, good stuff. I think about it all the time and it makes me think of you. I could do without the longing for you that also accompanies thinking of you but I understand they are inseparable.
Dear: Other friend so dear to my heart--Thanks for leaving the phone message saying 'you are like a breath of fresh air and I'm so glad I got to breathe you in'. I feel good remembering that message and think about it when I feel stale as day old bread.

How to Make a Tomato into Candy

Tomato season is in full bloom and lest I be buried under a mountain of tomatoes I've been cooking them up every which way I can. We now have salsa, pasta sauce and stewed tomatoes in the fridge and freezer. Every meal is accompanied with a fresh cut up tomato or some caprese salad, even when it's not quite appropriate. But my favorite, by far, has been roasted tomatoes adapted from a friends' recipe. As we get cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes and regular tomatoes in our CSA I've been roasting all the cherry ones as soon as we get them then they sit in the refrigerator until I get inspired about what to pair them with. Here is the recipe:

*oven set to 275 degrees
*about 2 pints cherry tomatoes cut in half
*mix together: 1/4 cup olive oil, 1.5 T balsamic vinegar, 2 chopped garlic cloves, 2 t sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.
*toss everything together and arrange the toms, cut side up on a sheet pan
*bake for 2 to 2.5 hours checking when they start to carmelize and concentrate
*eat them and smile at their amazing sweetness and the little twinge they bring to the jaw muscles

Yum!

Grandma Renie's Freezer Jam

When my grandmother got wind of our family strawberry picking adventure, she dug up her jam recipe and mailed it to us. My grandmother's jam is not just any jam. For starters, she freezes it (which means less hassle and a quicker cooking time) but also...it is gorgeous. Most importantly, though, are the memories attached to the taste of this jam. Every summer of my childhood we all trooped out to my grandparent's lake cabin with no agenda any bigger than fishing and swimming in the lake. We always wore ourselves out completely without touching anything that included a battery carriage. And, we ate my grandma's good food. How she had enough food to feed me and my siblings and all of our cousins is beyond me.

Her jam was always a staple. It tastes to me like the feeling of waking up with all the energy and enthusiasm of childhood, looking forward to getting back into my bathing suit and scouring the shore for more rocks or beating my cousin to the inner tube. It tastes like the sound of my mom laughing so hard she let out a snort or the quiet, breathy whisper she used when exchanging juicy gossip with my aunt.
When the recipe arrived, I knew that I wanted jam-making to be a family event and I casually mentioned it over dinner one night. My oldest got very excited and kept asking to make jam, MAKE JAM. So, finally we did. He was adorable and is truly a great cooking companion...crushing the strawberries as if his life depended on it and narrating his every move to me the whole time. Needless to say, sharing this with my own child was really special. The passing on of food traditions is one of those things that feels very grounding to me. I feel I'm truly passing on all the beautiful and complicated moments that make up a family history...and sealing them in a jar.
So, here is it grandma renie's freezer jam: (quick note, grandma swears by Certo but next I'm going to search out an alternative pectin just for refining the taste a little. I know, I know, I can't help it.).

-5 cups crushed strawberries
-6 cups sugar
-1 teaspoon butter
-2 Tablespoons lemon juice
Bring to a boil and cook for 7 minutes. Keep stirring.

Add envelope of Certo and boil for one more minute.

Then: Grandma's tip--take it off the heat and let it set for a while so you can stir it and avoid the fruit all falling to the bottom. Fill your jars and when they are completely cool, set them in the freezer.

Picnic Time

I noticed recently that my wedding gifts tend to be food-centered--table runners, napkins, coasters, etc. I think there is something about new love that is equivalent to indulging in good food. There is certainly alot of romance in good food. Whatever it is, this is the latest addition to my food-centered wedding gift list.


It's a picnic bag with roll-out placemats inside...everything you need for a picnic except the food. I also threw in a neoprene wine bag (though it occurred to me afterwards you could sew in a wine pocket!). As they live in California I hope it gets some use.

I imagine wildy romantic things about newlyweds, actually I do this with most people who don't have children. They must have SO MUCH FUN cooking together--their heads tossing in laughter, soaking up amazing non-toddler music, running carefree through fields to get to the perfect picnic spot on a rock in the middle of the countryside, feeding each other strawberries and wine when things get out of hand...like in the movies. Is that what it is like, I don't remember anymore? Of course, they probably have jobs and bills, too, children didn't invent those things.

The redemptive cheesecake

After my disastrous coconut cream pie made for New Years, I was searching for a dessert to redeem myself in the kitchen. I feel fully vindicated after baking up this amazing cheesecake. It is from the Tom Douglas cookbook, Seattle Kitchen. While living in Seattle I would occasionally treat myself to a dinner at one of his restaurants (usually when my parents were visiting, it was my starving twenties after all). He is a lover of Seattle and all of its culinary delights and his cookbook is living proof of that love. This is the chevre cheesecake and while it sounds odd to have goat cheese in a cheesecake the result is incredible...not too sweet with enough of a bite to it that gives it great depth of flavor. He calls for blackberries but I worked with what we had and soaked frozen blueberries in lemon juice and sugar for a few hours while the cheesecake cooled.

A Better World Cafe

I'm having one of those moments when I get a little mushy and glowy about my town and how great and special it is. Mind you, never in my imagination would I have dreamt of saying this about a place in New Jersey. But, it is true, I live in one of the better places I have found in all my travels. Of course, much of this is due to the fact that we've settled in here as a family and that has opened us up to different kinds of experiences and worlds. But, another part of it are things like this new cafe.

A Better World Cafe serves local, organic food most of it grown within a 50 mile radius with fair trade coffees and teas. None of the food is served in or on anything disposable and in order to reduce food waste you pick your own portions. The cafe also hopes to bring good, environmentally-friendly, healthy food to as many people as possible by offering a free meal option and the possibility to work for one hour in the cafe in exchange for a meal. As if all of that weren't enough, it is run by a non-profit organization that runs a culinary school and job training program for low-income folks. I know, a million great things at once. It is currently operating, lunch-only, out of the quilt room in our church but the hope is to spin it off to its own location when it builds support. The social justice mission at our church is really strong, we've built housing for foster kids, supported the development of a Ten Thousand Villages store, and have lots of other ideas brewing. It's the kind of stuff that makes someone ambivalent about organized religion (like me) start getting active in a church. Another thing I never dreamt of saying.

Group Projects

The title of this post would be more sentimental if I weren't already on the edge of emotional overload. Had an exceptional weekend this last one. Took a solo trip to Michigan for a friend's wedding, my first solo trip since becoming a parent. And, it wasn't just a friend's wedding it was one of my dear gamma girls' wedding. Gamma being the pretend sorority that formed around like-minded, strong-willed women friends from college. Nothing against real sororities, we just happen to be a fake one. We've a love for each other that spans breakdowns and loose ends, life shattering events and life affirming ones.

And, gammas are pretty big on group projects and rituals, I must say. This being our latest, the collective cookbook. We all pulled together great recipes, decorated the 'snot' out of them (as has been said), slipped them into plastic sleeves and into a three-ring binder that I then created a fabric cover for. We also tucked in some extra sleeves so it can grow as her life as a married woman grows.
(Yes, I stole the decoration from the Joy of Cooking. I used freezer paper for the writing.
And, this apron was thrown in to boot. EVERYONE, except me, immediately saw the vintage apron and went in a naughty direction. (Not sure what that says about me.)) The gifts were given in moments stolen from the wedding reception. And with hands held in a circle we also bestowed wedding blessings. In full, a recipe for soulful living.
And, not just that! I was surprised to find that there was a gift awaiting me! The quilt kits that I sent out had been oh-so-creatively used to perfection. The resulting 8 quilt squares made up a vibrant and positively artistic baby quilt for my youngest son. This pictures doesn't do it justice whatsoever. But, there are birds and peekaboos and umbrellas and puffy letters and sunrises and hearts and as much loving as a sewing machine can stitch up.

The Michael Pollan Experiment

You already know that I'm obsessing about the Michael Pollan, aka Mr. Persuasion, article for the NYTimes magazine from a weeks back.  Well, it convinved my husband and I to undertake a little experiment.  This discussion of the decline of home cooking and suggestion that eating only home cooked food could potentially be the best diet out there.  So, with that in mind we decided that for two weeks we would not eat sweets unless they were made at home. 

Now normally, this would not be a big deal for me and I might have just not eaten sweets for two weeks without noticing.  But something odd has happened to my body chemistry.  Perhaps it's all the calories lost while breastfeeding, but I suspect that when my body gave birth to two children with my husband's DNA mixed in there I somehow acquired his incredible sweet tooth. So, after a panic attack when I realized this meant no Oreo cookies for two weeks (oh, the mint ones from Paul Newman, soo good.).  I proceeded to crack open The Bible of cookbooks, The Joy of Cooking.  This book has it all including how to 'donutize' your muffins...we didn't do that but you had better believe I thought about it.

The husband went straight for Nigella Lawson's "How to be a Domestic Goddess."  He started it all by making her cream cheese brownies.  And, I'm glad he didn't listen to me when I was saying 'cooking chocolate is tricky, I don't know honey.' because they were gorgeous.  We also indulged in peach pie, carrot cake cupcakes, angel bars, hazelnut and dark chocolate cookies, and my personal favorite chocolate mousse pie (Oh Yeah!).  It was a nice experiment and near the end of the two weeks the husband was making cream cheese brownies all while holding the baby and he was even playing around adding maple syrup and dried cranberries (delicious!).  He is also convinced that he lost weight, I'm not so sure.  We never actually weigh ourselves so it's all vague impressions.  But, regardless, it was a great experiment and strengthened my confidence about baking good things.  Thanks Michael Pollan, you are both a blessing and a curse. 

The Good, Good Taste of Naptime

With my oldest in daycare and my maternity leave going until late September, this summer naptime is, wait for it...ME TIME! Not that naps are at all consistent or even all that long and there is always laundry and housecleaning and all that other stuff. But, on occasion, naps will extend beyond the time it takes to keep the house humming. And, lately this has happened more than once. I hope I didn't just jinx myself but there you have it. At the same time, our CSA is in full swing and the refrigerator is chock full of amazing greens and assorted vegetables. As a result, I've found myself reaching for this cookbook a lot lately, Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair. Cynthia is an instructor at Bastyr University in Seattle and an editor of Mothering magazine. The cookbook is full of information on foods good for breastfeeding moms and for just-eating babies. But, the recipes are also good and tasty not just healthy. I highly recommend it. And, who can resist the cover, made by the amazing Nikki McClure! With my pockets of time I was also able to sit down and read this article on Urban Homesteading in this week's NYTimes magazine. And, the article included a great recipe for a lemon tart. Now, I have a tart pan but I didn't even know it. I had to go to the Williams Sonoma website to see what a tart pan looked like in order to be sure that what I had was the right thing. My confidence in baking is so low. But, I'm getting there. So, I cooked up this lemon tart and I love it! I did substitute my own recipe for the pastry crust because I wanted to use the Cuisinart, which makes it so easy. And, the magazine's recipe had a great tip for rolling out the dough--stick it between two sheets of cling film. It's brilliant, it sticks to nothing and you can roll it as flat as you'd like. The tart itself is very rich and next time I might remove the lemon rinds because they can be strong but overall it was very good.

Memory Picking

It started out a little sketchy. The baby had been up every two hours all night long, big brother didn't want anything for breakfast, by the time I got to my little mug of coffee it was cold, then it was screams of bloody murder "No Wellies" as he didn't want to wear his rain boots. But, I had pumped for the baby and we decided that despite the mud, I and my oldest were going strawberry picking at our CSA farm before the day got too hot. So, we jump in the car with the welly boots finally on and Papa's new CD in the player. It's quiet as we drive, just the music and then I hear him start quietly naming trucks...digger, front loader, backhoe, delivery truck, amby truck (ambulance), and off he goes. Until I hear a very quiet tractor and when I glance back he is asleep.

This song comes on, by Irish songstress Lisa Hannigan, and somehow everything slows down and a softer pace takes over.

I don't know if you write letters or panic on the phone. I'd like to call you, all the same. If you want to, I am game.

The song ends and I repeat it again. I keep doing this until we get there.

The farm has a serious hustle and bustle to it, too much for our new pace. I hear men discussing their latest marathon run in that macho-eco-warrior way that drives me nuts. My lovely son says, "Sing koopaburra (Kookaburra)" and so we start singing as I pick strawberries and he eats them. We are the only ones singing, he starts in on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. We finish picking and eating the strawberries and stay to play in the mud. I am covered and he is covered. He loses a boot in a mud puddle and neither of us care. We are laughing as I try to put it back on. As we walk back to the car, we are two muddy friends at the end of a great adventure. I don't feel 33 going on 34, I feel 2. I'm not tired, I'm refreshed. And, this is why we do all the other stuff...to be the ones singing in the mud puddles and strawberry fields. Driving home we blast Sesame Street songs:

Happy's such a neat emotion, it'll give your feet a happy motion, if your toes get tired rub in some lotion, and you'll feel swell, so come join Elmo!

Can I preserve this moment? Because I want to occaisionally run to the pantry, pull it out and breathe it all in again, like summer peaches. Maybe when I am 43 going on 44.

Now, about that pie!

It is strawberry season here and Strawberry-Rhubarb pie is my absolute favorite pie, really the only one I actually get cravings for. I'm not a big baker but I did go ahead and bake this pie this weekend and (da-da-da!) I even made the crust myself. It's something I've not undertaken for nearly a decade because it turned out SO BAD the first time. I adopted the philosophy of my neighbor who says, "Pillsburry just does a much better job than me." I got my recipe from SimplyRecipes.com and it turned out great. (Her recipe is much more meticulous than how I wrote down her recipe, so if that is your style I recommend searching her site for her version.) The pie crust wasn't even that hard to do and I got that "this is entirely handmade" good feeling. After all that, however, I forgot to wear my apron! I know, how is that possible?
So, here it is. Enjoy Spring!

Filling:
3 cups rhubarb cut into 1/2 inch pieces (trim the outside stringy layer)
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons quick cooking tapioca
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated orange peel (I subbed in lemon and liked it alot)

Pie Crust

1) Preheat oven at 400 degrees, mix rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, tapioca, salt and rind and let sit for 10 minutes.
2) Turn into pastry-lined pan. Top with other pastry, trim edges and cut slits to let steam escape.
3) Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Reduce to 350 degrees for another 30-40 minutes and cool on a rack.
4) Enjoy it hot (it will be runny) or let it cool for a more solid pie filling.

For the crust:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 teaspoon salt
4-6 Tablespoons ice water

1) cut butter and freeze for 15 minutes to 1 hour
2) Combine flour, salt, and sugar in food processor and pulse to mix. Add the butter and pulse 6-8 times until it is coarse and pea-sized.
3) Add ice water 1 Tablespoon at a time pulsing until it clumps together (pinch it and if it stays together it is done. If not, add more water and continue pulsing)
4) Remove the dough and place on clean surface. Shape into 2 discs kneading just enough to form discs but with bits of butter still visible. Sprinkle flour around the discs and wrap in plastic wrap, refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.
5) Remove from fridge and let sit for 5-10 minutes. Roll out on a floured surface to a 12 inch circle. Check that it is not sticking to your countertop or cutting board. Place in a 9 inch pie plate and trim sides.
6) Add in the filling
7)Roll out second crust, place on top and cut a 3/4 inch overhang. Fold overhand under the bottom pastry and crimp. Score top to let steam escape.

Up next, I gotta do something about this, what a mess:

More Birthday Goodness

It's Papa's birthday! I decided that he also needed a birthday crown and added the ambulance more for the pleasure of our truck-obsessed two year old...who decided he also needed to wear his birthday crown if Papa was wearing his, though he knew it wasn't his birthday.

I also made this disasterous-looking cake that was truly gorgeous tasting. It's a cool whip frosting. Sounds awful but it is amazing. Truly amazing. Just make your own regular chocolate cake into two rounds. Then, the frosting is 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 package INSTANT pudding (my mistake was not using instant pudding mix and trying to correct for this mistake in various ways), and 8 ozs. cool whip. Mix together the pudding mix, called for milk according to pudding directions, and sugar. Then add the cool whip folding it in. It sounds odd but it is light and less sugary than regular frosting. Frost between the two rounds and on the top and sides like normal. I prefer it refrigerated a little bit. Fantastic!

Here is the crew enjoying it all. I also splurged on an odd but kind of great gift that I saw mentioned on Loobylu. It's a monthly subscription to funky t-shirts. It is pricy but I recently cancelled a credit card (you are upping the interest rate 100%, no thanks) and cashed in on my "points" that I didn't even know I had. Thanks American Express. Chumps.

A little unleashing

With all of my sewing stuff packed up, my husbands asks, "What will you do with all your creative energy?" Turns out I'm unleashing it on my coworkers. I'm lucky enough to work with people from a gazillion different backgrounds...pakistan, egypt, germany, israel, it goes on and on. And, we all love celebratory potlucks. So, my supervisor and I decided to have a New Year's heritage potluck where everyone brought a food item from their heritage or family tradition.

It was so great, great, great! We had everything from empanadas and mulled cider, to a german stolen bread (below). I wimped out and brought monkey bread (recipe is too easy to even admit to in the baking haven of blogland) instead of the Minnesota-traditional Caramel Rolls. I had to weigh the fact that I currently have a total of 12 inches of countertop with which to roll out dough.

Holiday Look Back

The handmade holidays rocked the house this year, at least for me. It really is more enjoyable to give a gift that you put time into rather than money. My sister, however, seriously takes the cake. She not only made me amazing bath salts and a stencilled maternity top but also pulled off making her own perfume with spices including cardomom. It's incredible...I wasn't even aware that one could homemake that! On top of that she gave beer she had brewed herself...not to me, of course. But, really does it get more hardcore than that!?

One thing I didn't share before the holidays was a gift for my sister that I didn't want her to know about. It is actually an idea that I stole from her (she is pretty good at this stuff, no?). I pulled together my favorite recipes, typed them up and printed them on nice paper that I put into a small-sized three ring binder. I covered the binder with a fabric cover and used iron-on letter for the text. I actually intended the title to be sweet, like "oh, little nibbles that constitute love bites" but realized too late it sounds more like death metal music. Thankfully, she forgives my shortcomings. I ended up stealing this idea from her because the cookbook she gave me (which is called 'oven light'...so clever) is actually on my list of things I would grab if the house were on fire. That is how great it is. I use it more than most of the cookbooks I have.

Gift baking

Granola tastes better when it looks so cute.

I finally got around to packaging the food gifts for my dad before I ship them off next week! I grabbed some containers to make it kind of a double gift. Wahoo, here come the holidays!

Breakfast is covered...forever

Finally, a handmade man gift!! I decided to make my dad's gift a kind of book-readers companion type thing. It was sparked by a suggestion by Beth. Along with the Sherlock Holmes collection he wanted I'm adding a custom made mug with a photo of his grandson on it (similar to this), some biscotti (yet to be made), fair trade coffee, and my sister's granola. The granola was completed this afternoon and is officially my new breakfast till the end of time. It's sooo good and better yet, simple. My sister is a vegan who loves food and she has perfected the craft of cooking/baking. It's very impressive. I knew her granola was good but I had forgotten HOW good until making it today.

I've already divided the full batch into a section to stay with us and the remainder for my dad. I think this is the handmade world equivalent of holiday shopping where you come home with more that remains unwrapped than ever gets wrapped. If you are interested in this recipe, let me know and I will check with my sister. It's a little bit of a secret recipe but I can try.