Bastille Day in Pictures

Vive la France!

Pastis- like the old French men like it!

the farmer claimed these were a red pepper/ tomato hybrid

either way, these were perfect for a Ratatouille. The trick? Cook the vegetables seperately and reassemble at the end to avoid sogginess

Ratatouille the following day

wishing these were melons de Cavaillion

Le Clafoutis aux Cerises

Whole Lemon Tart

Another Birthday!

In this season of birthdays, my brother was next. His birthday seems to lose some of its sparkle due to the inconvenient time of year; in France it was usually the last day of school- in the US, friends are away on vacation. But this year we tried to make it an affair and the boy did end up having 4 different birthday cakes within a few weeks. I'll admit that this awesome cake idea was all Kris's doing while we browsed the Toy aisle at Target. The boys' recent obsession with a new video game and a GI Joe The Movie action figure on clearance made for a fun and tasty cake:


Confused? Here's a snapshot from the game Just Cause 2:


Not bad right?
I know my brother favors a cream cheese frosting but I wasn't feeling carrot cake. I did a little research and decided to go for a Hummingbird cake which is made with crushed pineapple, coconut, walnuts and mashed up bananas. This is one SWEET cake! The frosting includes 2 packages of cream cheese and 2 POUNDS of powdered sugar! I stopped short of the full amount of sugar and will cut out even more of it next time. Still, this cake was really moist and delicious. We ate the whole thing in a few days (still tasty later!) and by "we" I mean, 4 of us. My mom, who eats like a bird and very rarely has sweets, had this for breakfast. twice.


We also had a proper Birthday dinner on the porch. On the menu: fancy burgers, jalapeno poppers, onion strings, homemade steak fries, and panaches.

It was nice

Praise Summer- It's Peach Jam!

It has been hot hot HOT in Virginia. Days have been reaching the triple digits and my office just lost air conditioning- so there is clearly no better time to fire up the stove and make some jam!

My first batch of jam was back in May at my boyfriend's parent's house at the height of strawberry season. There had been a death in the family and having never been through this kind of situation before, I wasn't quite sure how to help the family cope. I figured that I should turn to something I was familiar with; food, and hoped that jam might bring some momentary comfort. The jam was a success and I made a second batch as soon as I got home- you know, to hone my new found skillz.


This past weekend the boyfriend and I spent a solid 4 hours in the car in what should have been a 2 hour trip. Yes, I know it was the 4th of July. The point is, between Chesapeake, VA and Nag's Head, NC there are a lot of fruit stands & farmer's markets and the haul we brought back just about made up for the hassle. I got 5 pounds of peaches, a homemade tomato vadilia onion salad dressing, a handmade peach basket, 2 pounds of the juiciest tomatoes and Kris had his first BLT ever ($2.50 and on Wonderbread) and it might have been the best one I've ever had.

Peach Jam came about this time as a started slicing up peaches for a cobbler and realized that I really didn't want another baked good or sweet. How about preserving those juicy North Carolina peaches for later, say February when I'm about ready to hang myself waiting for the weather to heat up! And let me tell you, I already know this jam is gonna do the trick because the first taste of this jam re-defined Peach Jam. I have obviously never had peach jam made from scratch before because this was an experience. My brain's entry for peach jam used to include "sweet", "dense" and "hint of peach flavor", now it's been re-catalogued as "juicy", "peachy" and "bright". Yes, it's still very sweet, but sweetness is no longer the distinguishing characteristic. This will of course depend of the type and ripeness of your peaches, but if you use your brain (make this in season) and taste buds (ripe but not bruised peaches), you too are in for a treat.

Peach Jam
Adapted from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving 2009

Makes 8 half pints

• 1 quart of not overripe peaches (about 10 peaches)
• 7 & 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1/4 cups fresh lemon juice
• 1 pouch liquid pectin

Start by peeling and cutting up 1 peach at a time onto a cookie sheet. Using a potato masher, mash the peaches (not too much!) and measure them out into 1 cup increments until you have 1 quart (or 4 cups).

Combine the peaches, sugar and lemon juice in a large dutch oven or pot. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Add the pectin and bring the mixture to a hard boil. You'll know it's a hard boil when stirring the mixture doesn't lessen the bubbling. Let it boil like this for 1 minute.

Add the jam to the sterilized jars and process as usual, boiling the jars for 10 minutes and letting them sit in the water for 5 minutes before removing. Can be stored for 1 year.

If you need a tutorial on jam making, here is a very handy one complete with pictures!

juicy

Fresh Mint Ice Cream and a Birthday

I've wanted a kitchen garden or at least an herb garden for as long as I've been cooking. And it just hasn't happened yet. I have had too many dried up basil and mint plants and too many dark kitchens. But through no effort of my own, I am now the proud owner of a huge forgotten mint plant and a gargantuan basil plant growing in containers on my porch. Ah to reap the benefits of other people's efforts!

This recipe calls for 2 cups of lightly packed fresh mint leaves, or 80 grams. Now if a recipe gives me weight measurements, that's what I'm gonna use, but 80 grams of mint is A LOT OF MINT. I plucked as much mint as I thought the plant could possibly spare and we got very close to 80 grams.

Look at all that fresh decliousness!

Letting the mint steep in some whole milk. And presto chango! You got yourself some intense mint ice cream:

The flavor of this ice cream really did take me by surprise because it was unlike any mint flavor I had tasted before. I guess I've never had fresh mint anything! Or at least not this variety of mint. It was oddly intense and yet not overpowering. Truly delicious and very much worth plucking my plant almost to death.

Gotta eat it quickly! The Washington heat has been oppressive this year.


Fresh Mint & Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Makes about 1 quart
Adapted from this recipe in David Lebovitz's Perfect Scoop

• 1 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• Pinch of salt
• 2 cups (80 gr) lightly packed fresh mint leaves
• 5 large egg yolks
• 5 ounces finely chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
  

Warm the milk, sugar 1 cup of the cream and salt in a small pan until hot to the touch. Add the mint leaves and stir to immerse. Cover, remove from heat and let steep for about 1 hour.

Strain the mint-infused milk through a mesh strainer into a medium saucepan. Press on the mint leaves to extract as much flavor as possible, then discard the mint leaves. Pour the remaining 1 cup heavy cream into a large bowl and place a strainer on top.

Rewarm the mint-milk. In another bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mint mint liquid into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrap the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir mixture constantly over medium heat with the heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir into the cream. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker. Meanwhile, melt the chopped chocolate either in a double boiler on the stove top or in short increments in the microwave. Drizzle some of the chocolate into the mixer as the ice cream churns and use the rest to line the bottom and sides of the storage container.


Last weekend marks the 1 year anniversary of getting my cat Maggie. As I don't know her real birth date, June 21st will have to do! Kitty treats, a pat of butter and a not very welcomed party hat were on the menu. Happy Birthday Maggie!

Hello! Remember me?

Hey! It's been ages! How have you been? Me? Yeah, I know, I've been out of touch for a while. But you know how it is - life - it got the better of me. From just reading my blog, one would think that I went to China and never returned. I have so much to tell you and we have so much catching up to do! Here is an attempted recap in pictures:

Since Hong Kong, I visited my parents in Hainan, China for Christmas

At the walking street in Sanya

A chocolate Terracotta Army

We stayed at a beautiful hotel

We relaxed- I acquired some mad Scrabble Skillz

We stayed at "The Windiest Villa of them all"



I'm not sure anyone slept that night. We were up and gone by 7am.

We spent a few days in Beijing

We saw the Forbidden City

It was much colder

Leather boots were not a good idea for this weather

We saw the Great Wall

It was even colder

We celebrated the New Year

On our last day in Beijing it snowed

We visited the Temple of Heaven

We took goofy pictures

Back in the states the New Year was in overdrive. The boyfriend and I celebrated 5 years by going to Boston. My hard drive died and all that remains of the trip is a silly video:

Soon enough, we both quit our jobs and were headed back for Virginia. Someone had a Hipster themed Birthday to celebrate a quarter century and the exodus from New York:


Next thing I knew, my unemployed butt did the responsible thing and flew half around the world to:

Australia!

And once I get all the pictures back from that journey (read: also lost in hard drive failure) I'll see about posting some more information on that amazing trip. But there has also been a lot of cooking and eating since Hong Kong! And I hope to catch you up on that too. I'm back to being employed and I must say- It's good to back home in Virginia.

Sanya, Hainan- China