Zucchini Bread*

 Before

After

My mom and I both planted zucchini and that was, I assure you, a tragic mistake. I may have planted two. Nobody needs more than one. And one to share? Probably about right. Already, I have a dozen of the squash ripening on ONE of my plants. At my mom's house the other day, I was rooting around in her garden (as you do) and pulled out a zucchini that was roughly the size of a three month old baby. You don't want to lose track of a squash for a week. They will balloon to Jurassic proportions overnight.

So I brought it home, because she was already dealing with more zucchini than she cared to, and really, squash doesn't taste as good when it gets that big. So I cut it up and made zucchini chocolate chip loaves. I've made 6. I'm about halfway through this one zucchini. Really, now.

I've immediately removed the loaves from my home, via friends and neighbors, and so far, I haven't eaten any. Of course, that could change, since six more loaves are in my future, though I'm currently out of chocolate chips so it will wait a little bit. I think I'll do four loaves and then make a couple dozen muffins.

Anyway, this bread smells so good, and looks so amazing, I'll share the recipe. It's an old recipe, not unlike other zucchini bread recipes, I have to guess. But it's the one my mom taught me, and it's a keeper. Same recipe for loaves or muffins, and the recipe makes two loaves.

This is a quick bread, and nothing could be easier. Mix dry ingredients together, mix wet ingredients together in a separate bowl, then combine wet and dry, add the walnuts and chocolate chips, then bake at 350 for 50 minutes (two loaf pans) or 25 minutes (muffins).

Dry ingredients: 3 c flour, 1/2 c sugar, 1 c brown sugar, 1 tsp each baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients: 3 eggs, 2 cups shredded zucchini (leave the skins on yum), 2 tsp vanilla, 3/4 c vegetable oil

1/2 - 1 c chopped walnuts
1.5 c chocolate chips

I use pam spray on two 9x5 loaf pans. Each is filled halfway, pre-baking, by this recipe. Yum yum!

(This freezes really well. I slice it first, so I can pull out a few slices at a time, and then wrap it in wax paper then aluminum wrap. Muffins can be frozen in freezer bags.)

* I had to look up how to spell zucchini. It is not, as it turns out zuchhini, zuchinni, or zuccinni. Just saying.

Donuts?

We woke up this morning to a rather blustery day....overcast and windy, it finally cleared up around 2pm and although it's glorious now, it was just gloomy enough to require a quick batch of 'homemade donuts' in the morning.

"homemade" in quotes because they start and end with these:

For some reason, a package of these biscuits has been in my refrigerator. Easy enough to make biscuits at home, I can't account for why I would have these....a monster sale? left at a potluck? I have no recollection. If these are your biscuits, and we just ate them, I apologize.

Anyway, pop open a package (or three) and separate the doughy disks. I heated some organic vegetable shortening (healthy! #winning!) in the electric skillet. I have no authority in these matters, but used the 375 degree setting, in case you are inclined to try these but are as clueless as I am.

When the oil was good and heated, I plopped all ten biscuit doughs right in, browned for a minute, then used silicon tongs to flip them and brown on the other side for a minute. I pulled them all out and onto a paper towel, then rolled them in a bowl of sugar/cinnamon mixed together. No idea how much of either, I keep an old jam jar full of it for cinnamon toast, and I just used whatever was in there. Repeat from the top, when serving my kids.

That's it. Seriously. I didn't even bother with punching holes. And you know what? Not bad at all. A tasty (and more importantly....easy) impromptu treat for a dreary morning!

 (yellow)

Do you have any idea how easy it is to make jam? I had some frozen blackberries from  one of many blackberry picking adventures. (I planted three black berries on the hill above the artichokes...oh someday i will have my own patch!) But in the meantime, I have good friends and wild berries to keep me busy. 

 There are great directions that can be found here for preparing and preserving your own fruit jams. But if it all feels too fussy, there's no reason you can't just do what I do, which is 1) take fresh or frozen-from-fresh blackberries. Around 6 or 8 cups worth. Bring it to a hard boil (meaning, when you stir it, the boiling bubbles don't go down) and add a packet of low-sugar pectin.

 Let it dissolve, stirring constantly, then add 2 or 3 cups of granulated sugar. Let it dissolve, stirring constantly, then I use a hand masher to mush it all up while it's cooking for another 10 minutes or so.

Then I spooned it into jars and let it cool, jar lids on. Let that sit on the counter. Convince yourself that it will never set, that you'll be left with berry soup at the end of the day. Come back in a couple of hours and be pleasantly surprised that it actually worked, and the jam is, in fact, of jam-like consistency.

So store without bothering to water bath preserve them, I just popped these jars in the refrigerator. They'll stay for a couple of months, good as fresh, but they won't last that long anyway, so it was a good solution. I could also freeze it, pretty much indefinitely.

There are all kinds of snappy ideas about adding lemon (acidity helps it set) or using sugar substitutes (only an option with low-sugar pectin), but don't let that stuff intimidate you. You can just ignore it (I do, and my jam is still fab : )

Sunny Sunday

This weekend was so beautiful.  Beautiful-beautiful-beautiful.  Sandals and t-shirts; soaking up lots of vitamin-D at the baseball fields; standing outside at 5:00 am in barefeet and a tank top, waiting for our pup to...do her business...it was glorious!  It won't last (and I'll be grateful when the rains come, I am so sensitive to drought-like conditions!) but it was amazing and wonderful to throw open all the windows, and settle into our home.  The weather dictated spring cleaning, and I obliged, in-so-much as I cared to. :)

(There was a moment, after the sun went down, when it reminded me so much of being a teen-ager, I swear...I'm going to try to describe it, but it may be particular to my own memories:  if you've been at the beach all day, and then you come home and it's not a hot summer night, it's just a regular summer evening that cools down, and then you realize that your shoulders and your cheeks are still warm from a day in the sun, and you're still wearing a beach cover up and a swimsuit with flip flops, but it's colder now, and the cool evening air only seems colder than it is, because of the salt water from the ocean drying on your sunburn...that feeling?  You know that feeling?  I totally had it last night! ~ and yes, I totally thought of my friend Tracy :)

The "teen" feeling quite stopped there, my friends, as I spent most of the morning in my kitchen!  I stocked my jars and my buckets with flour and sugar and oats and seeds.  I made pancake mix and muffin mix and corn bread mix.  And then I cooked...

 I'm pretty sure I've perfected my Laurel's Kitchen granola recipe.  We LOVE it with LOTS of nuts (this batch has walnuts, almonds, and sunflower seeds) and LESS wheat germ.  It is crunchy and beautiful, and absolutely perfect with Greek yogurt and a teaspoon (read: tablespoon) of honey.  One of Tommy's favorite treats is to dip a banana in honey and then roll it in granola.  He calls it 'banana pop crunch' and I am so glad to have a fresh batch.

 As I was pulling the granola out of the oven and cooling it before storing it, I was also browning some ground beef with a jar of our summer-tomato-sauce to add to the calzones (below), and I was also getting ready to rinse some assorted soup beans and cut up potato and carrots for the crockpot.  (The soup was finished for lunches today, and it was yummy!  No recipe, just throw any root veggies and dried beans you like in the crockpot with either 6 - 8 cups of chicken or beef broth ~ a mix of both, for us, because we didn't have enough of either, plus some plain water, because we really didn't have enough of either! ~ some salt and pepper and a couple of bay leaves with oregano and whatever spices you like, then cook it on low for 8 - 10 hours (9 for me!).  I added chicken sausage, heated through at the end, for Erik and we loved it.)

 My favorite pyrex bowl.  But I say that about them all...

 I used the calzone recipe from Gina, and it worked like a charm!  (If you're at all interested in learning to make for the first time, and/or expanding your bread repertoire, I highly recommend her whole series that she's been writing!  I've made the Miracle Bread too, and you better believe I'm dying to try her sweet dough and the freezing method she describes...)

 They were really just for the boys, and while they cooked, I whipped up a dressing for the grilled ahi salad Erik and I had for dinner...AND lunch.  :-/  The dressing is delish ~ just equal parts lemon juice and dijon mustard, a few tablespoons of olive oil (I guess; I don't measure), salt and pepper to taste, and some diced onion (red is better, but, theme here, we didn't have red so I used white) all whisked together.  I use the same dressing for most salads, with some added crushed garlic.  

It was the perfect meal for the sunny day.

I could have added the obligatory long-shot of my completely destroyed kitchen, as you know that I cannot cook even the simplest meal without a total catastrophe from top to bottom, but the calzones were so beautiful...let's leave it that, shall we?

Tell me...what's happening in your kitchen?  Are you enjoying your weather...whatever it looks like?!

Perfect October Treat

Applesauce Muffins

4 cups flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

2 t baking soda

(Mix all, set aside)

Cream together:

1 cup butter, softened (yes, 1 cup.  Shut up.)

2 cups sugar (yes, 2 cups.  Do it.)

Add:

2 eggs.

2 cups applesauce

1 tablespoon vanilla

Add dry ingredients, stir until moistened.

Option:  Add 1 cup raisins.  I put it up to a vote in my household.  No raisins.

For some reason, on my recipe card, I have written:  "Raisin tip:  Pinch of flour to coat before folding in."  I've never used this tip, but I find it hilarious that it's documented here.

Fill lined muffin tins.  This recipe made 2 dozen good sized muffins.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 - 25 minutes.  These smelled AMAZING while cooking.  The aroma actually caused Erik to ask me if I was making apple pie.  Erik really appreciates my cooking, in general, but he loves when I get bit by the baking bug.  We always have the same conversation, where he comes in and gets faux-beligerent about the amount of time it's taking something to cook, and then I explain that I'm just obeying the laws of physics.  

In this case, I downplayed these muffins just a bit.  First of all, I was not so sure about the 'batter'.  This was not a pourable consistency, in the least.  It was quite dense, and had to be spooned into the liners.  Plus, I'd never made these before.  I have NO IDEA where I got the recipe.  Perhaps it came from you?  I just don't know.  Plus, I used applesauce that I had made myself.   So.  You know.  I just couldn't be sure what would be coming out of the oven.

 

Turns out?  They are delicious!  I've got three little mice who tell me so.  It took them a half dozen muffins to be certain, but their thoroughness is appreciated.

Potpourri

On more than one occasion over the last two weeks (the most obvious being this weekend, of course) I've had reason to think to myself that life is sweet and fragile and, no matter how much you're hurting, how much your life can change in the blink of an eye, life does go on.  And so it should be.

So much to do in the kitchen these days...most days I'm up by 5 am making bread and I go straight in after work for preserving the veggies from the garden and the fruits gifted to me by all the thoughtful people in my life.  I love my people.

So many tomatoes!  Pizza sauce and pasta sauce.  I really need to figure out the pickles.  I need more hours in the day.  Still on the list:  spiced pear preserves and pickling some of these cucumbers. 

I wish you were here so you could smell this cooking.  It smelled so yummy and savory while it cooked up and simmered there.  Looking at the stove, I also wish, while you were standing here enjoying the aroma, that you were holding a sponge.

A perfect dinner for our lovely three-day weekend that just passed.  The weather was so glorious, all weekend!  (this is the recipe, seriously, no amounts, just do it!)  Chopped romas (and plenty of them!) fresh from the garden and still warm by the sun; basil, fresh from the garden (and lots of it!); minced garlic mixed in; and then covered in some olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Let it sit, covered, to stew in its own glory.  I let it sit all day while I went to work on Friday!  Then I came home and cooked up some sweet sausage and boiled some spaghetti noodles and I don't mind telling you...it was heavenly.  So simple, so fresh, so YUMMY.  Fresh, homemade bread didn't hurt.

In between The Kitchen Chronicles, Erik and I took the boys to the park to ride bikes and eat ice cream (I'm a fan.  Particularly novelty ice creams.  Never met one I didn't want to eat.  Just saying.)  and I gave blood.  More blood!  I just did apheresis two weeks ago, and Erik said I was crazy, but they called twice asking for whole blood and it seemed like they really wanted me to go.  I thought there must have been a run on blood, but they said, not really, it's just a busy time for accidents and lots of donors are on vacation, so, you know, they need you.  You should donate.  I got a t-shirt!  Which is probably the least they could do, considering I just found out that the hospitals will pay $600 a pint for my ultra-rare blood type.  I'm not looking to eliminate the middle man, but I did wonder for a second if I could turn this into some sort of cottage industry for extra cash.  Is that wrong?

Thank you SO MUCH for your kind words these days.   <3  <3

Counting Cans

I have a cupboard in the garage where I store "extra" food...you know, things I've bought in bulk at Costco, or things I've "stocked up on" because they were on sale.  That sort of stuff.  It's mostly canned foods, too, with some packages of pasta and mac n' cheese thrown in for good measure.  (What would Laurel think?!? ;)

I had the occasion to clean out both the kitchen pantry, and this garage cupboard, over my Spring Break (girls gone wild!  what what!) and let me tell you, it was quite eye-opening.  First of all, I might not have purchased the cans of black beans on sale at Safeway (10 of them!) if I had realized that I was still working my way through a box of 8 cans of black beans that I had purchased at Costco.  Can somebody 'splain to me who exactly needs 18 cans of black beans?  *sigh*

Look at the cute lime green shelf liner I put into the kitchen pantry!

On the other hand, it did compel me to make a black bean soup which was delicious.  I ate it for dinner...breakfast...lunch...snack...dinner again.  I suppose if you wanted a vegetarian version, you could leave out the bacon (why?  why would you do that?) but here it is, somewhat modified from the back of a back of dried beans (yep.  I've got dried black beans too...apparently, I can never have too many black beans): 

Simple Black Bean Soup
1)   Cook a package of bacon in a stock pot.  (I cut the strips up using kitchen scissors.  It was an awesome way to make diced bacon!)
2)  Drain the fat, then add 3 diced carrots, 3 diced celery stalks, 1 diced onion.  Cook 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3)  Add crushed garlic (to your preference), and 1 teaspoon each of the following:  oregano, thyme, cumin, black pepper.  Stir it all together.  Cook 5 more minutes.
4)  Add a can of chicken broth (15 oz), 3 tablespoons of tomato paste, and 3 cans of black beans (do not drain the beans).
5)  Simmer on medium-low heat for about 30 - 40 minutes.  The recipe was for soaked beans, and to cook 2 hours until it thickens.  But, with the canned beans that come in their own thicker juice, I found that it was ready within about half and hour.

You can add salt and more pepper to taste, but we ate it just like that, with a smidge of cheddar cheese, or you could add some sour cream and chives.  Ooohhhh! Diced tomatoes!  Next time.  Homemade bread didn't hurt, either.

Three down...15 to go.  Wish us luck.

The One That Goes On Forever

There are so many interesting things in this book, and I find it endlessly fascinating how much of it could have been written today, 35 years later.   

When you start thinking this way, your life can never be quite the same.  If we are concerned with wise use of resources, food, for example - this is a cookbook, after all - appears in a new light.  One of the best arguments for serving whole, fresh, unprocessed foods, like homemade, whole-grain bread, is that this practice conserves what is most precious in food - its nutritional value.  When you refine away nutrients you have to replace them somehow, and a whole industry spring sup to manufacture vitamin supplements, at high cost to you, high profit to them.  Processed foods are not just unhealthy; they are wasteful, even before you consider the cost in elaborate packaging and competitive advertising.  In 1974 we Americans spent 10 billion dollars on packaging, five times the amount that the World Food Council in Rome estimated it would take to stave off famine for nine months.

This was written at a time when about 15,000 people (most of them children) were dying of malnutrition each and every day.  Can you imagine what dollar amount might be attached to packaging and advertising today?  And, at the same time, the number of children dying of malnutrition has reached 41,000...per day.  But the fact is, this "call to arms" issued in Laurel's Kitchen (if you will) embodies so many of the very same health, social, and political issues I am thinking about today.  Pathetic, don't you think?  To think of the wasted opportunities; to have come so far, in so many ways, and yet continue to have so many of the same exact (but now even more exacerbated) problems.

*************************************************
Kelly gave a heads-up that some of the nutritional information has changed since 1975.  You only need count the number of times Laurel's Kitchen maligns The Incredible Edible Egg to know she speaks the truth!  :)  There's an entire section at the back of the book that gives a cross-referenced and color-coded matrix of how make complete proteins.

Oh, my aching head.

But then I read something about beans and corn, and that was enough for me.  Have I mentioned that we are not fancy?  If I waited until I was totally sure about what to do and how to do it, I can promise you that we'd be eating Hamburger Helper and Doritos until the end of time.

Cornbread is so easy to make.  And it just tastes good.  Sue me, but I care.  I make it quickly from scratch using this recipe, which is pretty much exactly like every cornbread recipe ever written:

• 1 cup corn meal
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Mix together these dry ingredients, then add 1 egg, 1 cup of milk (I use non-fat), and 1/4 cup honey (oh, the honey!!) and 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil.  I fold it all together with a wooden spoon, just until it's mixed, and then pop it in the oven in a greased dish at 350 degree F for 30 minutes.  I now use an 8"x8" glass casserole dish.  I finally found one (I've looked for over a year!) at a thrift store for $3. I think if you're willing to purchase it new, it should be no problem to pick one up anywhere, anytime, but I was willing to wait.

Here's a little tip:  I put all the dry ingredients into a bag (I make up about a half dozen at a time), and when I want to make cornbread I just grab a bag, dump it in a bowl, add the wet ingredients, and cook.  I write on the bag which ingredients need to be added (1 egg, 1 c milk, 1/4 c honey, 2 T oil) and the bake time and temp.  That way, I never have to refer to a recipe.  I can reuse the bags many times, also.  (PS, do you see the size of my honey in that picture above?  Seriously, I love me some honey.)

But see, here we have fresh, nutritional ingredients, and it's such a simple recipe, there's no need to buy a box of mix.  Speaking of which, I bought 25 pounds of dried pinto beans at Costco for around ten dollars.  Twenty five pounds!  I gave the woman who cleans my house about one-third of it, and I still have more beans than you can shake a stick at.  I love how deliberate you have to be when you work with dried beans.  You have to think of it hours ahead of time, even though it's no more work than opening a can.  It doesn't take any energy to soak them, but you can't come home and think, hey, I'll whip up some dried pinto beans in 15 minutes.

The last thing I did, for this particular meal, was I made some whole wheat tortillas.  Totally easy, google it, you won't be sorry.  The kids love to help make these...they roll them out, then pass them to me and I actually roll them out, then we pop them on an extremely hot griddle (do not underestimate the importance of a well-heated, dry surface) for a minute on each side.  Perfectly perfect.  (I can do this in 20 minutes, start to finish, with about half that time spent just waiting around....er, finishing the beans and grating cheese I mean.)

Tommy had ordered a quesadilla for school lunch, and he had thrown it away (thrown it away) because it had beans in it.  Holy cats.  So I made him these.

And he loved it.  I just mashed some of the beans with a bit of water, spread them onto the tortillas, and added cheese.  He's also eaten the beans (not mashed, just plain) with a sprinkle of cheese.  He did it to please me, but both boys have grown to like them quite a bit!

I just ate mine on a plate (no tortilla needed when you have cornbread, though I enjoy them immensely both ways!) and I added some plain Greek yogurt, too, because I like to live dangerously.  (And because I can never eat the sour cream before it goes bad, so this is a fine substitute.)

The four of us can destroy a pan of cornbread.

So, there you have it.  Everything made from ingredients that I bought in bulk, and made from scratch.  And it may look like work (which, compared to picking up a box of Jiffy cornbread, a package of whole wheat tortillas, and a can of beans, it certainly is) but it's such a good kind of work.  And it's only really work the first time I did it.  I'm all about setting up a system to minimize my aggravation in the kitchen, so I spend some energy that first time coming up with the exact right order to do everything.  We've had this meal, in it's entirety, twice...and I've had some combination of bean-leftover for lunch at least five times.  Yesterday, in fact!  So I feel good about the quality of the food, the taste of the food, and, just as importantly given how all this started, way up there at the top, I feel good that I used a minimum of packaging.

Sparkles Not Optional

So, so, SO much to say, never enough time to say it!  The bathroom is done (!) but that has to wait because what I really want to remember right now is Scotty's new recipe.

You will need a bowl, a clementine orange, chocolate chips, and "sparkles" (granulated sugar :).

First, drum up a customer.  Or three.  Each serving is custom made to order!






Then, place the orange in the bowl.

A handful of chocolate chips should do the trick.







Only use the freshest ingredients!

Sprinkle liberally with sparkles.

Deliver fresh at the drive through!







*******************************

You know, I saw this picture come through the download, and I had to laugh.  How many pictures do I have, of this kid sitting barefoot on my counters?  (Let it be a warning to you, when you eat at my house!)  When Scotty was "Star of the Week" at the pre-school, they asked me to bring in 8 or 10 photos of him and his family to put up on the special bulletin board.  They pointed out to me that of the dozen pictures I brought, eight of them were of Scotty and/or Scotty & Tommy, playing, sitting, or working on the kitchen floor, from a bird's-eye (mama's eye!) perspective.  It's so true!  We all spend so much time in this kitchen!  Partly because our house is so small, it's one of the few places to go to, but mostly because it's where the action is at.

Before Christmas: My apples, gifted from my friend Monica's tree, were lazing about the counter. They are so hideous! Look at them! Utterly lacking charm, don't you agree?





After Christmas: Behold the glory of my apples, nestled into the light-aqua enamel colander**! These apples are practically art.






I was going to preserve these apples as more apple pie filling, but then I found this Apple puff pancake recipe...and I think we all know how this story ends. Twice.

Although Erik and I decided many weeks ago that we would not exchange presents (we somehow managed to treat ourselves to the very few things we already wanted, and we have to admit that there was nothing else that we needed, so the decision was drama-free), my parents were inspired to pick up a bag of kitchen joy from Williams-Sonoma, a pair of plaid canvas high tops (a la Converse), and this beautiful Le Creuset piece. (My mom, knowing it would be a crucial part of my ability to enjoy this present, immediately reassured me that it was half off!).

Well, obviously, it's beautiful just the way it is! BUT, filled with Apple Puff Pancake? It's a real showstopper! (Kitchen tip: Whenever you have a baking/casserole/pot/pan whatever that feels unredeemable after a particularly raucous meal (burnt on? no problem!) just set it to "soak" and pop a dryer sheet into it. You know, like 'bounce'? It can even be previously used in the dryer, and this still works. Let it soak for a bit, then use it to wipe down the offensive dish. Go ahead and try it, then tell me if it's not a miracle!)

** My mom was totally riding my ass about this colander. "Who cares what color is?!? It's just a colander! It's nothing! You act like it matters! It doesn't matter!" So, picture all that, all screechy and naggy. Super fun, right? The whole time I'm debating (light-aqua? or red? one each? hmm....now we're talking!) she's talking herself out of the cutest dang cake plate I've ever seen. Creamy ceramic, with brown toille-styled roosters painted on it? Swoon! She can't pay 50 bucks for it though (but you can bet if it started at 60 dollars but was marked down by 10, she would have seen it differently...that woman loves a sale! You should see her when I whip out my 15% off educator's discount card at Joann's.) So I said, that's okay ma, I have two cake plates at home, and you can have one...and we'll just see how much 'looks matter' when you're choosing between the smokey-purple sleek glass plate versus the sweet, clear glass, flower-embossed plate. Of course she picked the beautiful flower-embossed! Who wouldn't! (And of course I let her!) Two days later? I teased her about picking the cutest plate, and her response was, "Oh, who cares? It doesn't matter what it looks like; it's just a cake plate." Seriously? My cake plate is "just" a cake plate; yours, officially, is adorable.

V

We had our own visitors last week, and it was with great sadness that we saw them off after only a few precious hours. I "met" JD on message boards in 1998 or so. I was smitten from the start, and I confess that she has always remind me of a girl Erik!

They proved that, once again, I was completely right, when at dinner they sat across from each other, speaking what appeared to be a completely different (and completely incomprehensible) language, while her husband and I frowned at our pasta and tried to ask questions.... Intelligent questions, like "Wait...what?" and "Huh?"

I, of course, got JD in a bear hug in the driveway, before she could even get out of her car. Having spent some time together, in the online sense, she was not surprised and had braced herself for the inevitable. I completely, and inappropriately, tackled her husband next and, I hesitate to share, I may even have patted his back before letting him go. Oh dear.

Fortunately, they recovered! They were burning up vacation time so they left DC and spent the week here in San Francisco, and the surrounding areas. We only got them for the one night, so I did what I always do...cooked way too much food, made them take a bag of homemade snacks back to their hotel with them, plied them with wine, and generally talked them blind before begging them to spend the night.

Either my kids or my cooking sent them on their way, may we never know which one it was! :) And if you're reading this, JD (or Bill!) we adore you both and we thank you SO MUCH for sharing your vacation with us!

Our dinner involved tomatoes from the garden and pesto from the garden that I had made and froze, and apple pie using the filling I had preserved from our apple-picking adventures. Is it wrong that I'm so happy that none of it made us sick? Success! haha Not even kidding.

In order to use the apple pie filling I had to make a crust, which reminded me of three great tips.

The first, which I learned in college but did not use last week, is that if you don't have a rolling pin you can use a wine bottle. I didn't own a rolling pin until 2002, but, somehow, I've always managed to have a bottle ~ or two! ~ for just such an emergency. *cough*

The second tip is in the picture. A pie crust is just about the simplest thing in the world to make. A cup of flour, 1/3 cup shortening, a pinch of salt, and a few tablespoons of water. Mix it all together, and though it will be a crumbling mess, you should just ignore that, turn it onto a smooth surface, and roll away! I use a silicon mat (tupperware brand! because, apparently, it's 1973 in my kitchen!) and then I put a piece of wax paper over the top, between the pin and the dough, before I start rolling. That piece of wax paper is a miracle. You just totally pretend like the crust is not breaking apart, sticking to the pin, or tearing through the center. And, soon enough, it's not doing any of those things anymore!

The third tip, I used for the first time that night, was to cover the edges of the crust (around the entire circumference of the pie) with strips of aluminum foil. If the edges of your crusts ever cook too much, getting dried out and darkened while the rest of the pie crust remains light and flakey, this foil tip will change your life.

So, in summary, when you come to my house, you will get a homemade meal (that may or may not make you ill) and my kids will force you to play Yugi-Oh cards before making you want to put a pencil through you're own ear (to stop the noise! please! anything to stop the noise!) and then I will squeeze you ~ hard ~ and hold onto your leg to keep you from leaving. The porch light is on. What are you waiting for?

It Might Even Be an Apple Cell!

Tommy had a school project that was due. Yesterday. So we went ahead and started it last night. *blush*

He had to make a model of a cell ~ it could be plant or animal. I printed out a color picture, with labels, of his choice (plant) and we talked about the different parts.

I learned a lot!

He used that sheet to make a plan for the model...a cake, with strawberry frosting for the base. Natch. Fruit roll ups for the nucleus and the vaculoe and green pieces cut for the chloroplast. Gummy worms for the mitochondria, fruit snacks and/or hard candies for the chlorophyll and nucleolus and also whatever that thing is called, the one that splits and makes a new cell? That thing. Sprinkles for ribosomes. And licorice for the hard cell wall; orange gel for the membrane. Piles of tiles for two things I can't recall.

See? I learned a lot! So did he, actually, and he's quite excited about his model.

And so it happened that we had caramel apples for dinner. Again. *cough* On Sunday I was too busy admiring my new pottery to actually cook something. And last night, well, I don't actually have an excuse! It's just that caramel apples are good.





This weekend I also went through another 30 or so apples, making applesauce. Why haven't I always made applesauce? Seriously, what is easier than this?

Peel and core 12 apples; slice them thin-ish-ly. It's a word!
What kind of apples, you say? I used a mix from the apple orchard...some fujis, some granny smiths, golden delicious, and even a few braeburns. Sweet apples are good ~ they don't have to be bitter greens.

Because I used the sweeter apples, I didn't add any sugar. I put in some cinnamon (judging by the color, I may have been a bit heavy-handed with the spice!) and 1/2 cup of water with all the slices into the slow-cooker on high.

Then I lived my life. It was at least four hours, as many as six hours, later, when I remembered the apples. I dumped them into a bowl, ran a masher through them (though a fork would have worked!) and then put them in pint jars in a water bath. I made two batches worth and got 5 pints.

Bob's your uncle! Let's just run through that again: peel/core/slice apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Slow cook on high with 1/2 cup water, 3 to 6 hours. Mash. Enjoy. I will never buy applesauce again! Plus, Tommy won't eat store bought applesauce, but he loves this stuff.

I'm giving a couple of jars to my brother; his girls eat applesauce until somebody gets hurt. And, judging by the seemingly bottomless box of apples in my kitchen, I'll be making at least two more batches. And then I'm open for suggestions!

Where Were You, What Were You Doing?

It's one of life's sweet quirks that the Mexican flag is created when you make salsa.







I had basil and tomatoes from the garden, so on Tuesday night, after a Monday night spent knee-deep in apples, I made salsa and pesto and put it all into a hot water bath for canning.

The salsa is more of a 'pico de gallo', which is how I like it. It makes a great dip for tortilla chips, and it also acts chutney-like with baked chicken.



I wish I knew where the recipe I used came from. Miss Pippa sent me this adorable recipe binder, with these little beehive cards (LOVE) and I keep it next to the computer ~ when I'm not using it in the kitchen ~ and when I'm poking around, if I come across something I'd like to try, I write it onto a recipe card.

So I have this recipe for salsa, and no way to attribute it. :( But I ate some today at lunch (alas, with chicken and roasted veggies from the garden, instead of chips!) and it really tastes so great. So I'll share, with my modifications.

1. Dice all the tomatoes sitting on your counter (7-8 cups worth)
2. Peel a white onion and cut into wedges. Throw wedges into the food processor. Pulse a few times.
3. Mince a bulb of garlic.
4. Chop one jalapeno pepper, under cold running water. (The oil can burn your hands.) I prefer a very mild pico de gallo salsa; if you care for even middling-heat, you could easily triple this.
5. Juice of a lemon.
6. Chop up a bunch of cilantro (the size they had at the produce stand...it looked pretty standard, like what you'd get at a grocery store).

Combine all ingredients, add salt and pepper to taste.

If you're going to eat it now, put in the refrigerator for at least an hour. I made this much because I didn't want my tomatoes to go bad before we could eat them all (I worked for these!!) but I certainly wouldn't have done so much if I wasn't canning it; it would never get eaten before it went bad. This made a quart jar and 5 big-mouth pint jars. Adjust accordingly! I'd easily halve or quarter this recipe for a more modest portion.

And here I've added the salsa to the four pints of pesto and the six quarts of apple pie filling. We'll call this the "fall cupboard". Behind the closed door is the "summer cupboard", with homemade apple butter, blackberry jam, plum jam, and even one jar of raspberry jam, compliments of my friend, Monica.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Little House, am I right?

Edited to Add: *Please* check the comments section for how to preserve pesto! I wouldn't want anyone to get sick because I think my new cabinet is "cute"!!

I've got another few pounds of orange/green tomatoes turning right now on the counter. I'm thinking I'm set for salsa. I'll probably eat some, but I'll also make a couple quarts of spaghetti sauce. Then I'll pull in more tomatoes. I've never tried to ripen tomatoes like this before, so I'm trying to do it in stages, in case I'm doing something wrong. If the weather cooperates, I'll be finished with the garden by Halloween.

This week was typical Bay Area fall weather. Flash-flood worthy squalls on Monday, high sun with light breeze on Tuesday (perfect!), foggy Wednesday morning, then that burns off to balmy and mild for the rest of the day. Tomorrow? For all I know, hail. And another earthquake. We had a couple of those last week too. Not enough quake to get me to move from what I was doing, but a little something-something to keep us alert on the near-anniversary of the '89 Loma Prieta that left us stranded and blacked-out for days.

I just read on that link that the earthquake was 6.9 (I had 7.1 in my head?) and it lasted 10 - 15 seconds. Huh. Does everybody remember where they were/what they were doing when that quake hit? Because I have to say, I would have guessed it was over 30 seconds in duration! I mean, 30 seconds doesn't sound like very long, but when you're whole world becomes a rocking box, it's an eternity. And yet, here we are...where half of that is long enough to burn down a neighborhood, destroy a bridge, and flatten a freeway.

I was just trying to figure out what got me onto the Loma Prieta, and, oh right, the weather. As a native Californian, one of my pet peeves is that, whenever it gets "muggy" outside, somebody somewhere is going to turn to you and say, "Earthquake weather." Arrrgggghhhh. Shoot me!

Okay...where were you, what were you doing?

Apple Apple Apple

What to do with 52 pounds of apples? First, I left 12 pounds at my aunt's house. Hardly made a dent. Tommy loves the apple peeler/corer/slicer. His new favorite snack is "apple rings". Between the four of us, we ate another 6 apples this first day of Operation Apple.




I also peeled and cored some apples. I know some chickens that are going to be super happy to see me today! This might look like a lot, but you haven't seen the floor beneath the peeler... I've probably mentioned how I completely destroy the kitchen whenever I'm cooking.




No joke, I could be boiling water, but the second I get the pot out, it's on. Add something like "preserving apples", and forget it. Dishes and pots and ingredients everywhere ~ every available counter space, the floor, flour on the cupboards, the walls.



It's crazy.








But then there's that moment, when I'm ready to push up my sleeves and clean it all up.







There's no feeling like a clean kitchen, especially if it was monumentally filthy just an hour before!





Have you ever gotten head to toe covered in filth ~ like a few days camping with no facilities, or a serious garden overhaul that involves mud, sweat, and tears?






And then, after you think you just can't get any dirtier, you hop in the shower and sluice it all away? This is the kitchen equivalent of that feeling, when you're out of the shower and into your pajamas? You know that moment?





Only this one is even better, because instead of a ring around the shower that needs scrubbing, this one comes with jars of apple pie filling as a souvenir. Much better!

And yes, I know that's a lot of apples in there. I used Brit's recipe** for the filling and preserving, but I learned how to make apple pies from my mom. My last few pies have been positively anemic compared to usual, because I've been trying to squeak out a pie with just 3 or 4 granny smith's. (This is what the typical recipe might call for, in fact.) But to make my mom's apple pie, you'll want to double that. And so I did.

I also managed to make a mountain of baked apples. 15 pounds down, 25 to go!

** When I wrote to Brit and asked for her recipe, she was knee-deep in Turtledash mayhem, so rather than asking me to wait until she had time to transcribe her recipe, she sent me a link to this photo and asked if I could read the recipe card from there.... yep! I was cracking up. And making plans to share all future recipe swaps via a photograph. Isn't she clever?! Also, how much do you love that recipe card, "from the kitchen of Shirley"? Swoon!