Last summer, I socked away a gallon-sized zip top bag full of handpicked blackberries in my freezer's ice bin (that side of the kitchen isn't plumbed, so we can't hook up the ice maker). Those berries have been there since August, a visual reminder that it was once summer and that warm weather really does exist.
Just about every summer, I manage to squirrel away at least one bag of fruit for winter use, be it peaches, blueberries or blackberries. However, every year, I waste an awful lot of mental energy trying to find the exact right time to actually use my frozen bounty. I finally broke down this weekend, using my berries to make a big, bubbly cobbler with a biscuit-y topping.
I'm curious, does anyone else struggle with using the foodstuffs they've frozen or preserved?
Last Friday, I used my lunch hour to get my haircut. I've been going to the same woman for cuts for the last year and a half, a personal best for me, as I tend to get antsy with stylists and move around. Sylvie is French and despite many years in the US, still speaks with a charmingly thick accent and often stops cutting to further articulate her stories with hand gestures.
We found ourselves on the topic of Thanksgiving and she started to tell me about the dishes she was planning on making. Bragging a little, she said that her sister-in-law always asks for her recipes. When she's ready to transcribe, pen in hand, Sylvie will start rattling off her dishes in French, never revealing her cooking secrets in a way that anyone, the sister-in-law included, can understand.
I've never understood the people who hold their recipes close to their chest, refusing to reveal their secrets with friends and family alike. I'm of the belief that food is something to be shared and that includes the tools used to prepare tasty creations. Are your recipes open source or state secrets?
Making do in tiny kitchens is all the rage these days (I'm glad to hear that what I've been doing for years has suddenly become the trendy thing. I knew if I waited long enough, I'd become hip!). Deb of Smitten Kitchen recently posted about how she makes due in her petite cooking space and just today, New York Times recipe tester Jill Santopietro launched a video blog that features the ways in which she makes do with just two square feet of counter space.
In the first episode of Tiny Kitchen with Jill Santopietro, Jill makes a calvados cocktail. The episode, which clocks in at a very web-friendly four and a half minutes, features a great tip on how to make simple syrup without dirtying a saucepan as well as a good substitute for a citrus reamer (when you're working with 11 square feet, you've got to eliminate utensils where you can).
So far, I'm totally charmed by this unassuming little video podcast. I'm looking to seeing more from the Tiny Kitchen.
It's Meyer lemon season and I am delighting in their tangy flavor (the appearance of these lemons makes the onset of winter a little more palatable). My grandmother had a Meyer lemon tree in the backyard of her house in Woodland Hills, CA and the first whiff of their signature scent (a little more floral and sweet than a conventional lemon) always takes me back to her kitchen.
Friday night, I was home alone and in need of some dinner. I considered heading down the street for some takeout Thai but having eaten out a whole lot last week, I determined to do something at home with ingredients already in the fridge. Surveying my options, I came upon a bag of Meyer lemons, a third of a package of linguine, some ancient creme fraiche, some already-grated Parmesan cheese (I realize it's a foodie sin to buy it pre-grated, but sometimes it's just so much easier) and a bag of must-be-used arugula.
Those ingredients started a bell in the back of my mind jingling and I dredged up a memory of a recipe that used those components in Amanda Hesser's Cooking for Mr. Latte. Finding the book in a stack in the bedroom, I cooked up what became a delicious and easy solo dinner. The recipe is after the jump.
Whether you call it filling, dressing, or stuffing (and whether you know that, to some, there is a distinction between each); whether you make it from sourdough, cornbread, or white bread (or spelt if you're sensitive to wheat or are Ancient Roman); whether you embellish it with chestnuts, oysters, cranberries or chorizo; no Thanksgiving table is complete without stuffing.
It plumps up in the roasting turkey's cavity and then cozies up to the finished product on your plate -- and both benefit, as your taste buds do (though your waistline doesn't), from a generous dousing of gravy. Like meatloaf, there are as many recipes for it as there are cooks to prepare it, and, also like meatloaf, nearly every cook thinks theirs is definitive. To its fans, the reason we call it stuffing is not the technical definition -- a working understanding of which could be "any food that fills, at least theoretically, a cavity in another food" -- but the obvious fact that you "stuff" it into "your face."
Sometime early last month, I went out to Linvilla Orchards in Media, PA with a friend to pick apples. I came home with an overflowing half bushel box, awash in good intentions. However, life got in the way and I let the apples sit for longer than I would have liked. They got a bit mealy as the sugars turned to starch and so the only treatment for them was to turn them into applesauce and apple butter (two things I love, so I wasn't particularly sad).
Years ago, when I first started making applesauce, I would labor over the apples, peeling, coring and chopping them into fine pieces. These days, my technique is a little more slapdash. I do still core the apples and I chop the quarters into smaller bits. But I skip the peeling part altogether, which saves an amazing amount of time and hand cramping.
Instead, I cook the apples down (with lots of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and lemon zest) with the peels still attached. When I'm able to mash an apple piece with the back of a wooden spoon, I take the whole mess off the stove and run the apples through a Foley Food Mill. It purees the apples into a nice, even sauce that still has some good mouth feel and gets rid of the peels at the same time. It's really easy to boot. If you make a lot of applesauce (or stewed tomatoes or peaches) this tool will become an invaluable addition to your kitchen gadgetry.
When I'm in the kitchen, my cutting board is one of my best friends. I use a large, sharp knife and quickly (but carefully) chop my way through my onions, celery, potatoes or peppers. However, I have a good friend who prefers to ignore the cutting board for everything of the large job, instead using her fingers and a small paring knife to make fruit slices, potato wedges and carrot rings.
I tend to think of that 'in hand' slicing as a kitchen technique that comes from an earlier era. I can imagine my Auntie Tunkel standing in her tiny rowhouse kitchen, slicing root vegetables directly into a roasting pan, using a callused thumb to catch the blade on the other side of the turnip or rutabaga. My own mother is somewhere in between, having used the same old cutting board for so many years that she's worn it thin in the middle, nothing like my own hurried smash and chop.
Are you a cutting board devotee or an in hand slicer?
Last week, I got to cook with my sister. She's a musician who lives in Austin, TX when she's not on the road, so while we check in with each other often, we don't manage to work it out so that we're in the same city frequently.
We didn't grow up cooking together, our parents (mostly our mother, to be honest) did the bulk of the food prep for the years we lived in the same house. I left for college in 1997 and when I moved back for six months after graduation in 2001, she was long since gone. However, having learned to cook from the same people, I've found that we have an innate compatibility in the kitchen that makes cooking together a joy.
Last Monday night, we didn't make anything particularly fancy, just some onion-spiked turkey burgers and a vast pan of sauteed veggies. I mixed the ground turkey and formed it into patties, as she washed and chopped the broccoli and cauliflower. She opened the fridge as if she were in her own home and rooted around for toasted sesame oil, Braggs and little sweet red chili sauce. It delighted me that she was so comfortable and that we could move around my two-person, galley kitchen with such ease.
After dinner was over, we headed back into the kitchen to clean up and I found myself wishing that these moments of cooking, eating and cleaning together came more frequently than two or three times a year. Sadly, during this phase of our lives, it is just not to be.
Do you have a person in your live with whom cooking is a joy? Do you cook with them regularly, or is it a rare occasion that you find yourselves in the kitchen together?
After a day of travel, Scott and I got home to our apartment last night just before 1 am. The changing time zones and the hours spent locked in a fast-moving metal tube had us totally thrown off and we were both ravenous when we walked in the door. Getting to bed was high on my mind, but I knew that we both needed to eat something or sleep would be impossible.
Opening the fridge, I saw that I had done a good job of emptying it out prior to the trip. Thankfully though, I had had the good sense to leave behind half a done eggs and the tail end of a loaf of bread. Pulling out a cereal bowl and a small frying pan, I quickly beat the eggs and poured them out into the pan. I shoved the bread bag in Scott's direction and said, "Toast, please." I stood at the stove, barely conscious, stirring the eggs with a silicone spatula. As I moved the eggs around the pan, I realized that it had been a week since I cooked a thing, a rare occasion in my life.
Soon enough, the toast popped and the eggs were done. We sat at the table for a few moments, eating eggs in companionable silence. It was a meal that took no more than 15 minutes from conception to completion and yet it was still warm, filling and lovely welcome home.
I grew up with a Salton, five-cup yogurt maker. As far back as I can remember, it was always tucked into the back of one of the kitchen cabinets. However, it never got much use during my childhood, as it was more of a relic from my mom's earlier, pre-children, hippie days than an active appliance. When I was 9 or 10 years old, at a moment when we were in need of drinking glasses, she cannibalized the yogurt maker, and pressed the milk glass cups into service around the dinner table. We continued to use them that way for years (I think that my mom even picked up a second yogurt maker at a thrift store at one point, just for the glasses).
Three or four years ago, I happened across a similar yogurt maker at a thrift store. I bought it, despite the fact that I had no active interest in making my own yogurt and my kitchen was already woefully overstocked. I tucked it up on top of my kitchen cabinets and didn't touch it again until last week.
From the time I was 11 years old, when I was sick, I would be allowed to stay home alone. I loved the freedom of having the entire house to myself, and despite my coughs and sniffles, would often take advantage of the solitude to do a bit of kitchen experimentation. My favorite thing to make was homemade hashbrowns. I didn't know much about the properties of frying back in those days, so I never used enough oil to get a crispy mound of shredded potatoes. Instead, I'd end up with a pile of grey (albeit, still tasty) potato bits.
Last Friday, a friend sent me a link to the xkcd cartoon you see above and it immediately made me think of those days at home, sneakily making hashbrowns. How about the rest of you? Anyone else have a home-sick-from-school specialty?
In recent years, my mom has become increasingly difficult to shop for. She has been working at reducing the amount of stuff in her life and so doesn't want the knick knacks and gadgets that we once plied her with. So I've had to get creative and find ways of letting her know what I appreciate all that she does for me without filling her house up with things she'll just get rid of. Here are some of the ways I've given her clutter-free food-related gifts. Bake! My mother tries to eat healthfully, but she can't resist certain homemade, chocolate-based treats. This is a great way to go if you live far away from your mom and still want to put a personal touch on her gift. A batch of freshly baked granola (packaged in an easily recyclable plastic container) is also a good way to go. Jams and jellies make good Mother's Day gifts (as long as your mom likes that sort of thing). You can either make up a batch yourself (Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam would be seasonal and delicious) or head to a local farmers' market to pick up a couple of jars.
Draw up a personalized gift certificate for a food-related service. I realize that this might sound like an idea straight out of the third grade, but the offer of a pot of soup, deliverable on demand or a monthly loaf of freshly baked bread is something that is certain to make many a mother swoon.
If your maternal figure is a gardener, a collection of herb seedlings from a local nursery would surely delight her (in my family, this particular gift is reserved for my dad on Father's Day). It is a gift that produces all spring and summer long, and when the season ends, can be uprooted and delivered to the compost pile.
Many a mother likes to entertain. Tell her that next time she wants to throw a cocktail party or backyard cookout, you'll be there to be head shopper, chef, server and cleaner. It might just be the first time in years that she'll get to enjoy her guests at her own party.
What other ideas do you have for clutter-free, Mother's Day gifts?
Somehow, I have managed to avoid bake sale participation in my life so far. Growing up in the days where homemade food was almost entirely banned from schools and classrooms, holding bake sales as fundraisers was never much of an option. However, I have always loved the concept of a bake sale and if asked these days, I would happily participate (and possibly even help organize).
For those of you who have real-life bake sales coming up, our sister blog DIY Life wants to help you make the most out of it. They've put together a post all about bake sales and how to make them as successful as possible. They offer a selection of useful tips, including a reminder to make sure to have a variety of treats at all price points, so that you can grab the buyer who just wants a small snack, as well as the buyer who wants a full-sized dessert for an upcoming potluck. If you're looking for a good cookie recipe, might I suggest The Best Cookie in the Galaxy, which is pictured above.
For those of you with in the trenches bake sale experience, what are your tricks and tips? Any sure bet winning recipes?
Christopher Masto, the man behind the occasional video series, "Does it Go With Tea," (which we featured back in February) offers a quick tutorial on how to make a chai latte at home. While it's not a traditional method for chai, it does offer a good way to whip up a Starbucks-esque beverage in the comfort of your own kitchen (useful knowledge in these days of rising prices).
I think the best takeaway tip from this video is that recommendation to froth the milk prior to heating. I have the very same immersion milk frother, and I always heat the milk before trying to froth it, mistakenly thinking that I would lose all my froth in the microwave. It's nice to now know a better way to do it.
One of the things I've always wished for was to live someplace (be it apartment building or neighborhood) where I really knew my neighbors. I'd love to have people in close proximity with whom I could have dinner, or drop by with a baking project gone right. Unfortunately, I've yet to find that.
Craig LaBan, the restaurant critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer lives on a close, friendly block (just like the one I would like to find for myself). In yesterday's food section, he writes about how his family has teamed up with two other families on the street to take turns cooking dinner once a week. It started because they all had kids on the same swim team and would arrive home on Monday nights exhausted and with nothing on the stove. They determined that each week, one family would make enough for all three, so that the parents would get a break from cooking two out of every three weeks.
The project has had benefits beyond simply providing dinner. It has exposed their kids to a variety of foods that are not typically found in their home kitchens and has brought the families even closer together. While they don't eat the meal together (I imagine no one has room for three families to sit down to dinner together), they all acknowledge that they shared meal experience has made them less like neighbors and more like family.
Whether you call it filling, dressing, or stuffing (and whether you know that, to some, there is a distinction between each); whether you make it from sourdough, cornbread, or white bread (or spelt if you're sensitive to wheat or are 
I grew up with a Salton, five-cup yogurt maker. As far back as I can remember, it was always tucked into the back of one of the kitchen cabinets. However, it never got much use during my childhood, as it was more of a relic from my mom's earlier, pre-children, hippie days than an active appliance. When I was 9 or 10 years old, at a moment when we were in need of drinking glasses, she cannibalized the yogurt maker, and pressed the milk glass cups into service around the dinner table. We continued to use them that way for years (I think that my mom even picked up a second yogurt maker at a thrift store at one point, just for the glasses). 
One of the things I've always wished for was to live someplace (be it apartment building or neighborhood) where I really knew my neighbors. I'd love to have people in close proximity with whom I could have dinner, or drop by with a baking project gone right. Unfortunately, I've yet to find that. 
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