Garden Update: Week 18

My poor little garden. The weather has not been kind to it. We had a really hot June and then a cooler and really wet July and now it's August and super hot again. The garden is not fond of this type of treatment. I have gotten a few little harvests of tomatoes and beans and peppers.

Despite my best efforts, almost the entire squash family of plants did not recover from the powdery mildew and I pulled up the dead/dying ones last weekend. The butternut squash is the only thing that seemed to look okay. I'm skeptical that it will actually produce a squash but we'll have to wait and see. It has lots of blooms but that's about it.

I dug around for potatoes too, the vines had all withered and died a couple of weeks ago. I found enough potatoes for one meal for us - they were bite-sized. The purple Peruvian were bigger but there were more of the la ratte potatoes. Again, I'm considering the weather in relation to this grow-fail. I don't know if I'll try potatoes again, maybe sweet potatoes since I think they grow in this climate a little better. We had the tiny potatoes roasted in the oven with olive oil, sea salt, garlic and rosemary.

The tomatoes are not doing much better, the horned tomato worms are every where and I've only been able to locate and pick off a few of them. The Roma tomato plant from the compost is doing the best, although the tomatoes are more the size of grapes than Roma's. I'm okay with that though. I have a lot of green tomatoes but not many without splits and a black spot or two. From what I can tell some of the plants have blossom end rot too. The green beans and the purple pole beans are blooming again, taste-wise I prefer the green beans but the pole beans grow really well.Hot weather has it's benefits, the peppers are exploding because they adore the heat. The golden bell peppers are huge and a couple might be ready to pick in the next week or so.

I have more Serrano peppers than I know what to do with and they are HOT.

My eggplants aren't not thriving, I did get one that was a decent size. There are a few more on the vine but I don't know that they'll make it.I'm going to try to plant a few fall crops in the next couple of weeks. I bought October beans, arugula, cauliflower, broccoli and rainbow swiss chard. The beans will be planted this weekend but the other things will probably have to wait until the first of September. Doug has a plan to make tops for the beds so once it finally gets cold I'll be able to turn the raised beds into cold-frame boxes.

Lastly, my second crop of figs is starting to come in. I grabbed a couple and just ate them in hand. They're a little smaller than the first crop but still tasty.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Applesauce Spice Bars

This is going to be short and sweet because I'm running low on time. This week's recipe was chosen by Karen of Something Sweet by Karen. As much as I love chocolate sometimes it's nice to make something that doesn't include me having to chop bittersweet chocolate. The bars were really, really good. The batter made a super-moist, tasty cake chock full of pecans, crisp apple bits and plump raisins. Doug got the job of peeling the apple with this contraption that he loves. I doubled the glaze and OMG it was soooo good. I told Doug "this tastes like fall" and it does, which makes me long for cooler days and Honeycrisp apples. A repeat recipe for sure, although next time I'll bake it in cupcake form to make it easier to share. Thanks Karen!

(These pictures might not look very appetizing but trust me, these were excellent!)

Baking helps me stay sane

Work has gotten to the 'busy' season. I've got deadlines coming out of my ears and the only thing that manages to keep me from losing my mind is baking and knitting. My baking/making plans this weekend included Fleur de Sel Caramels, pickles and chocolate macarons. As is well documented my plans sometimes go awry.

The caramel recipe is from Ina Garten, the combination of sweet and salty is probably my favorite taste. Everything went fine at first, butter and cream and caramelizing the sugar and corn syrup. The problem arose after the cream mixture and the sugar mixture met and boiled. I still don't have a candy thermometer (I have no good answer for why except I forget I need one until I need one) and I really needed a candy thermometer to gauge when the caramel was 'done'. Since I didn't have a thermometer I winged it. Oh and I winged it incorrectly, the caramel set in the fridge but never 'set' up as candy, it remained a hot fudge sauce consistency. So I gave up, poured the caramel into jars and called it fleur de sel caramel sauce. We had it over leftover brownies last night. It still tastes fabulous and would probably be a welcome holiday gift.

The pickles were a recipe found on the Gluten-Free Girl blog. I'm a fan of pickles and the recipe seemed pretty simple so I bought four enormous cucumbers at the market Saturday and went to town Saturday afternoon. They're currently 'curing' in a shoebox in the pantry until Friday and then I'll test one for the appropriate level of pickle-ness. At least they look pretty.Macarons were my plan for Sunday. After my first macaron fiasco that ended with my husband calling the would-be macarons 'fried chicken cookies' I was scared to try again. But this time I had the stand mixer and a better idea of what they should look/taste like and I used David Lebovitz's recipe. The egg whites took f o r e v e r to get stiff, making that much happier to be the owner of a stand mixer. It was a little difficult to get the almond mixture folded into the egg whites without taking the air of out the whites but I managed. For the life of me I couldn't find my plain pastry tip so I used decorative one and tried to smooth out the tops of the cookies with a knife. This was a 'learning' batch of macarons. The first batch baked a little too long and got burnt peaks. The last batch was much better, no burns and they were flatter. While the cookies cooled I made the filling, essentially a chocolate ganache. I could have eaten the filling alone by the spoonful, delish. After everything had cooled I made the little macaron sandwiches. They taste like macarons (based on my limited macaron sampling) and mostly look like macarons so I would call them a partial success. I have plans for more, this time with a pistachio base and a vanilla bean cream filling, maybe next weekend.I didn't pick up any flowers at the farmer's market, all the lines were packed, so instead I used some of the lantana and the dwarf sunflowers from my backyard.I'm still knitting on the Annette sweater, I swear it doesn't seem like it's getting any bigger. I might be knitting on it for eternity.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Brownie Buttons

A tiny brownie with a hint of orange zest and a white chocolate topping? Yes please. The bite-sized brownies were chosen by Jayma of Two Scientists Experimenting in the Kitchen.

They took almost no time make and they didn't require pulling out the stand mixer. So easy and so simple. The sugar got treated with orange zest while bittersweet chocolate, brown sugar and butter melded together on the stovetop. Then an egg, vanilla and the zested sugar was added and lastly the flour/salt combo. Baking time was around 15 minutes and then they cooled on the counter. The last step was melting white chocolate and then dipping the tops of the brownies in melted white chocolate. Delicious. Thankfully the recipe only made 16 because their size means you could start popping them in your mouth and not stop until you ate them all.

Keeping the kitchen busy

I spent another weekend feeling sickly. The sore throat from last week turned into a sore throat, runny nose, cough and headache. I felt terrible on Friday but got better Saturday as the day wore on. I still went to the farmer's market Saturday morning though. I bought more peaches, arugula, squash, little orange tomatoes and three huge and lovely sunflowers.Sunday I woke up bright and early and began the day by blanching peaches. I used some of them to make a peach crumble that was decent but not wonderful, I should have added milk to the dough for the topping but I didn't so it was a little dry and kind of blah. The rest I used for peach sorbet, based on this Alton Brown recipe. It's great, refreshing and light and perfect for August in Memphis.

The little orange tomatoes from the farmer's market got mixed with some smallish Roma's from my backyard, as well as backyard basil for a chunky tomato sauce. The recipe came from the At Home with Magnolia cookbook. I did add some ground up flax seeds into the sauce but it didn't really affect the taste. I got two jars worth plus a ziploc bag that I stuck in the freezer for future use.

For dinner Sunday night I had intended to make shrimp scampi but was missing a few important ingredients so instead I sauteed the shrimp in a tablespoon of olive oil with salt and pepper and then added some of the tomato sauce and served it topped with feta over fettuccine.

My knitting this weekend was focused on this little summer cardigan from Knitty. It's a fishnet lace pattern with seed stitch trim. I'm using Tahki Cotton Classic gifted from a friend. It doesn't seem to be going very quickly though or I'm just a slow knitter (which is probably true). I'm planning on doing 3/4 length sleeves if I have enough yarn. I was thinking about using maybe yellow or red buttons or some patterned ones. I love these lemon ones, I really adore the cherries but they're sold out. These orange daisy buttons from Repot Depot are another possibility.

Peach Butter? Jam? Compote?

I'm not exactly sure what to call this. I intended it to be peach butter but it didn't really turn out that way. The peaches are from the farmers market and some of them had gone south already so I had to toss them into the compost. With what was remaining (maybe 7/8) I blanched them to get the skin off and cut them up into bite-sized pieces. I added about 1 1/4 cups of sugar, a little almond extract, and the scrapings of 1/2 a vanilla bean. There was supposed to be lemon juice too but I forgot to add it. I boiled it for 10 minutes and it got too thick too quick, so I added about 1/2 cup of peach schnapps to thin it out. I'm sure orange juice or peach nectar would be fine too. Then I simmered it on medium/low for about an hour. The result is a very sweet (could have used a little less sugar) stewed fruit concoction. I think it probably more closely resembles a compote than anything. It's really, really good warmed just slightly and served over vanilla ice cream. Other possible uses include pound cake, parfait, waffles, etc. The color is a little off but that's because I forgot the lemon juice. Might try this again with less sugar and orange juice instead of the schnapps.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Classic Banana Bundt Cake

First of all, this week's selection was chosen by The Food Librarian, one of my favorite TWD baker/bloggers. She makes things that look so good I want to lick my computer screen.

I don't have a traditional bundt ban but I do have a rose-shaped Nordicware pan which I previously used for the Kugelhopf. And I'm positive this would have been pretty baked in that rose pan. However, I was making the bundt cake to share so I made it into cupcake/muffins instead, making it loads easier to transport.

Putting the batter together was fairly simple, dry ingredients, butter + sugar, eggs, etc. I did add a splash of almond extract and only had 3 bananas instead of 4 but those were my only changes.

Out of the batter I got almost 24 cupcake/muffins and one smallish loaf cake. The glaze was a super simple lemon juice and confectioner's sugar glaze, which didn't taste weird with the banana at all.I kept a few of the cupcakes myself, I ate one while it was still warm and oh-my-gosh it was good, very moist and bananay. The loaf cake went to a co-worker and the rest of the cupcakes were dispersed amongst my knitta friends. This recipe's a keeper.

Kind-of lazy and sickly weekend

The couch got a lot of use this weekend, I was laid up there, with knitting in hand for quite a while. I developed a sore throat Friday afternoon and was scared I was getting a cold so I started taking an over-the-counter meds in hopes of warding off any more sickness. Truly the sore throat and a two day long headache were my only symptoms. Saturday morning I still woke up early and went to the farmer's market. I bought peaches, red potatoes, figs, black-eyed peas, a bar of soap, coffee and some zinnias. I think I may try to make peach sorbet and peach butter later this week if I can find the time.

The zinnias are so pretty, it's too bad they only lasted about 15 minutes after I snapped this shot before the cats decided to see how they tasted.

Later in the morning the generous and thoughtful macaron fairy stopped by and brought me some macarons from Pix, which I had missed while in Portland because of their ice cream social. A few were broken because of traveling across the country but that didn't affect the taste, the margarita one and the one with chocolate filling tied for my favorites. I still intend on attempting to make macarons, even after my failure earlier in the year.

Saturday afternoon I watched Welcome to the Dollhouse for the millionth time. Kind of the female precursor to Napoleon Dynamite, only a little um, edgier? I worked on Woodland Shawl I started on my trip. And I developed cast-on-itis and started a garter stitch shawl with Sunshine Yarn in the Forks colorway. It seems to be pretty mindless and simple, which I wanted since the yarn is really variegated.

Last Tuesday was Doug’s 40th birthday and he really didn’t want a lot of fuss, so we went out to dinner that night and I planned on making his favorite meal this past weekend. He loves lasagna and requested a coconut birthday cake. The lasagna recipe is from Epicurious and is delicious. I don't normally cook with sausage but this made the dish. The cake recipe is from Ina Garten aka Barefoot Contessa, it calls for a grand total of FIVE sticks of butter - FIVE. I was confused at first, was this really a Paula Deen recipe? In the interest of heart health I halved the recipe and only made one layer. And then I forgot the cream cheese for the original frosting recipe so I just made a plain-jane buttercream frosting but with almond extract. We didn’t have any candles so I decorated the top with woodland creatures from my Bake It Pretty stash. He loved it.

Battered Suitcases Part II

So here's the second part of my Pacific Northwest adventure.

Saturday I got up early, planned my bus route and headed to Division/Clinton Streets where they were having a street fair. I had to change buses on this trip, not too much of a pain. though I had a mocha and a scone at Flying Cat Coffee and spent a good hour walking up and down Division Street. There were a few thrift stores and a few other random spots I poked around in. I picked up some vintage hankies at Time Bomb Vintage, had organic lemonade, watched the street parade and got a shot of the mayor of Portland riding a bike. Also this dude who was dressed as a ladybug...

Lunch was eaten at Little T American Baker, which was crowded (as any place would be on a Saturday at brunch/lunch time) but was sleek, modern and very affordable. I had quiche and a salad. Pix Patisserie was on my list to visit for macarons but they were having an ice cream social that day so I didn't get any macarons.

That afternoon I headed back to the Alberta neighborhood to go to Bolt and Close Knit. Both shops were small but filled with gorgeous yarns and fabrics. At Bolt I bought one of the Colette patterns I've been stalking online. I'm months, maybe many months, away from being able to actually sew this pattern but I can still look at it longingly. Close Knit was having a sale yet I still only bought one hank of yarn. Seriously. Lynsey and I met up again and grabbed a snack at Fuel Cafe (my snack was actually a huge spinach salad). And we ended up back at Random Order and this time I got a piece of strawberry rhubarb pie, which I later ate with my hand in my hotel room because I didn't have a fork.

Saturday night Ted's band, Satan's Pilgrims, played at Doug Fir, which conveniently was a part of my hotel. They were excellent but I left early because the combination of sunburn + alcohol made me a little woozy.

Sunday I had breakfast at Doug Fir before taking a cab to the train station to travel back to Seattle. Again a nice train trip, still no window seat though. My friend Regina picked me up at the station in Seattle and took me to West Seattle, where there's a beach and a string of restaurants/shops. We spent the afternoon catching up, having fish and chips, coffee and cake before I had to go check-in at the lovely Holiday Inn since I had a 6AM flight. It would have been even lovelier if room #706 had a been a little less 'rambunctious'.

I made it back to Memphis safely on Monday night, after a short delay in Dallas. My PNW trip was fantastic and I have such sweet and thoughtful friends to thank. Hopefully Doug will be able to come with me next time and maybe we can make it to the coast, I'm dying to go to Astoria (Goonies anyone?)