Get ready for it. I am doing blueberries this month. While I am not a huge fan of raw blueberries there is something about a blueberry cooked into a pie, buckle, cobbler, crisp, muffin, Danish pastry, jam, sauce, or whatever I can cook it into, that I just love. I went to the market yesterday and they had baskets of blueberries. Not the overlarge, relatively tasteless blueberries that have regrettably become common lately. But real blueberries: small, sweet, delicious. And now I have two quarts of blueberries to use up! I am starting simple and classic: ...
Baking
LEMON RASPBERRY QUICK BREAD
Once I have successfully tried a new method I like to see if it works well in other dishes. In this case I am using the "reverse creaming method" to make a moist, and densely crumbed quickbread flavored with lemon and filled with raspberries! "Pop it in the oven!" "Toss it in the oven!" "Throw that in the oven and give it a quick bake!" Why are TV chefs so violent with their cooking? After I have spent good time carefully putting together a dish the last thing I am going to do is carelessly pop, toss, or throw it anywhere! What am I going to do is to think about how the ...
STRAWBERRY RHUBARB BARS
Fresh strawberries and diced rhubarb are baked into a traybake or "bar cookie" filled with the flavors of Spring. For an extra pop of flavor, freeze dried strawberries are ground up and added to the crust. It's a quick and easy early Summer treat. I spent three weeks perfecting this recipe, taking it from "Okay" to "Yes!" And now I have procrastinated writing about it for another week. Honestly if I take any longer on this the strawberry and rhubarb season will have passed! Perfection is like that. Sometimes searching for perfection gets in the way. You need to step back and relax. ...
MEMORIES OF SPRING WITH STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
Memories of Spring and Strawberry Shortcake lead to a 2 layer Strawberry Shortcake made using the reverse creaming method for a cake that is soft and tightly crumbed. Food is inextricably intertwined with our selves. It is energy for our bodies, carrier and creator of our deepest emotions. A smell can send us back to places, times, and events long past. Isn’t it odd though how that memory road only goes one way? With no effort at all the smell of a food or dish will transport me back to the past and the memories so strongly bound to it. All too often, however, I can remember a ...
OLD BAY AND CHEDDAR BISCUITS: STAND BACK RED LOBSTER!
According to my daughter, these light and flyffy biscuits overloaded with cheese and richly flavored with Old Bay Spice Seasoning give the Biscuits from Red Lobster some serious competition! What do you think? When we moved to Singapore in 1999, my oldest daughter was 13. Over the course of the next 11 years I watched all three of my girls transistion from childhood through high school to young adults. There were many milestones and many traditions, one of the most memorable of which revolved around suitcases. Sometime in May, every year, we would board a plane home to the United States ...
LEMONGRASS AND GINGER YOGURT CAKE
Here I am mismashing all the different flavors and baking influences of my life together again. This is really where “fusion” cooking comes from. Once you have lived somewhere the flavors become a part of your life as much as pieces of the culture become a part of your person. In this case, pound cake (American) met Yogurt Cake (French) and they asked Lemongrass and Ginger (Southeast Asian) to join the party! This is not an overly sweet cake, and the flavors are subtle. It makes a wonderful afternoon snack, pairs well with ice cream or, do what I do and, eat it for ...
BREAKFAST PIE
What is Breakfast Pie? It is the pastry of pie, the spices and crumb of coffee cake, the fruits of summer and a little healthy oatmeal thrown in for good measure. Eat it cold or warm it up. Eat it plain or top it with vanilla yogurt. It’s the best breakfast ever! What is Breakfast Pie? It is created from some of the best moments of my life. The inspiration for this pie came from my Instagram friend and fellow Asheville Baker, Jill Worthy of The Worthy Baker She posted a picture of her award winning Breakfast Pie on Instagram which went right to my heart, leftover pie ...
HOW DO I MAKE THAT? A THREE LAYER “NAKED” CAKE
TRICKS AND TIPS FOR MAKING A THREE LAYER "NAKED" CAKE Pinterest Fail. We’ve all been there. Looked at something on Pinterest or Instagram and thought, “I could do that” but then it turns out harder than it looks. My most memorable fail? Mirror Glaze. That turned out to be much harder than it looked! Recently I took an online cooking class with Christina Tosi. Chef Tosi is widely credited with popularizing the Naked Cake, a cake with multiple layers and minimal icing. She says it’s because she isn’t a decorator, she is “just” a baker! In fact the icing is not all that minimal. ...
THE EASTER “SUG-CUTERIE” BOARD: AN EGG-CELLENT SHELLECTION
Think outside the basket this year and make a "Sug-Cuterie" Board of Easter Candy. A dazzling array of sweets inspired by the Charcuterie Board trend of the past few years, it will be the star of your table! Growing up, Easter was one of my “Big Three”. Christmas, Halloween and Easter: each is full of anticipation, tradition and ultimate reward! Easter started with Palm Sunday. After a church service filled with song, my sister and I paraded up to the altar to be gifted with a long piece of palm frond, which we waved and curled into shapes before letting them dry in a corner of our ...
MEYER LEMON BARS
Some time, during the 27 odd years I lived outside of my home country, a new lemon came to town and it was all people could talk about it. I came back to the United States and I remember thinking “What’s all the fuss about a Meyer Lemon and what is a Meyer Lemon anyway?” Every year, when Spring rolls around, I start seeing posts on social media from friends and other foodies who are so excited that their Meyer Lemon trees are producing orange-colored lemons for their enjoyment. This year was no different except this year my local supermarket had them in stock. This year is ...
