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pickles

I have been making pickles. It is really satisfying. Here we have spicy green beans, spicy carrots and maraschino cherries. The cherries are the real thing—made with maraschino liquor—nothing like the candied ones you buy at the supermarket.

Since making these I made another batch of spicy carrots, using purple carrots and spicy asparagus. I like my pickles spicy I guess, because thus far I have put hot peppers in every jar.

My main source and reference has been "Canning for a new Generation". In addition to being packed full of delicious recipes, the author made it easy to get past my fear of "doing it wrong" and killing all of my loved ones with rampid case of botulism.

Pickling cucumbers are in season now, so they are next up on the list, and I have plans for okra when it comes into season in august.

I am very much enjoying summer this year. Lots of park days, camping, hiking, bikes, happy hours and brunch out doors. Here is to summer!

chocolate and vanilla

I made these chocolate cupcakes with vanilla butter cream for my friends going-away party. I don't care for chocolate cake, but my friends seamed to think they were delicious. The recipe is from "vegan cupcakes take over the world". I improvised the frostig. If you want to try them yourself, the recipe is the same as "just chocolate cake" recipe on the post punk kitchen website.

good-bye jeremy + julie, they are of to massachusetts. jeremy was the lucky recipent of the brown and teal socks.

cinnaholic

i had a shopping/lunch day with maggie and her boys, and we went to cinnaholic in berkeley, they have yummy gourmet (vegan) cinnamon rolls. all the topping are too sweet for me so i just got a classic roll, but isn't this tiny roll that kai got super cute?

i also got to spend time with little kole.

holiday hot cocoa

just like the christmas jam, i decorated these jars with supplies that i had around the house. i wrote the directions for mixing the hot cocoa underneath the gingham paper. you can see it when you remove the ring. i punched little moose shapes out of plaid patterned paper and adhered them to various key tags that i had. the circle tags have "soy hot cocoa" written on the back.

soy hot cocoa

Ingredients:

2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup cocoa (Dutch-process preferred)
2 1/2 cups powdered soy-milk (i found it in the bulk section of my local natural foods store)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or more to taste

method:

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and incorporate evenly. In a small pot, heat 4 to 6 cups of water.

Fill your mug half full with the mixture and pour in hot soy-milk (or your preferred non-dairy milk). Stir to combine. Seal the rest in an airtight container, keeps indefinitely in the pantry.

 

christmas jam

I had grand plans of designing custom gift labels, and I actually did design them, but for numorus reasons they never got printed. I ended up decorating the jars with some handmade papers that I had around the house. I think that they came out really nicely in the end.

perogies + romanian tomato salad

I made some perogies with my roommate and our friend. we topped them with sauteed mushrooms, and we also made romanian style tomato salad, and a cabbage salad.

Romanian tomato salad is really good and super easy, so i am going to share the recipe. I learned to make this w/out a recipe, but I have found this one from Taste of Romania to be very authentic. After you have made it once or twice you can just throw it together sans-recipe. It is really important to use ripe and firm tomatoes, and I always include radishes and I think that they add a lot. I also just chop everything and toss it in a bowl, but i included the directions for plating it all up really nicely.

ingredients:
2 large (ripe and firm) tomatoes
salt to taste
1 tbs olive oil
1 tsp apple cider or red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tbs fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 onion
1 garlic clove, crushed
(if you want to be like vanessa, add sliced radishes)

method:
- wash and slice tomatoes
- on 4 flat salad plates, layer half slices of tomato so that they overlap slightly (1/2 a tomato per person)
- sprinkle tomatoes with salt to ttaste
- in a small bowl, make vinaigrette with oil, vinegar, slat, and parsley. dribble over tomatoes.
- in a seperate bowl, mix onion with garlic, sprinkle mixture over tomatoes.
- let stand in refrigerator for 15-30 mins. before severing.

pumpkin soup

i made quick and easy pumpkin soup. the recipe calls for canned pumpkin, but it would be even better if you used fresh pumpkin.

:ingredients:
2tbs earth balance (or other oil)
3tbs flour
2tbs curry powder
4 cups veggie broth
3.5 cups pumpkin puree (or 1-29oz canned pumpkin)
1/2 cup soy creamer
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sugar

:method:
- in med. pot, cook flour in earth balance for 1-2 mins
- add all other ingredients
- simmer 10-15 mins
- if soup is too thin for your tease you can add a sprinkle of instant potato flakes

Edit: my roommate wanted you to know that this is his recipe, and that we made the soup together. In fact it was mostly him, I just measured the soy sauce and sugar.

jam making

- the result of a rainy weekend.
- it was my first time.
- i had help form a friend.
- it was his first time too.
- we made marmalade and a few jars of pear.
- i borrowed the big pot from my neighbor.
- i wanted meyer lemons but they haven't shown up at the farmer's market yet.
- neither have the blood oranges.
- after spending all that time in the kitchen, we had chips and guacamole for super.

cofee in calistoga

I resently spent a weekend in calistoga, and after drinking folgers in the hotel room, was delighted to find this local roaster selling at the farmers market.

stone soup

I had a bunch of veggies that needed to be eaten up, so i made a veggie soup with red lintels. I love soup.