No Yard Sales, A Cooking Slump – So Why Not Take Up Knitting?

Maybe because of the unbearably hot and humid weather, or my yardsale radar is down, but I am in a complete slump here with no place to pick cookware.  As a result, my cooking has completely gone into the yips, and my waistline expanding from the uninspiring take out food and BLTs (after all, what is summer without a couple of BLTs with Jersey tomatoes).  As a substitution, and perhaps as therapy to get myself back into some kind of creative groove, I have begun the process of re-teaching myself to knit and crochet.  As a young girl, I have many fond memories of crocheting, knitting and embroidering pillows, afghans, scarves – I even remember that I used to take my knitting to Red Sox games (in retrospective, I suppose that was a pretty geeky thing to do but like then, I cannot put the work down!  I am obsessed.)  In the course of one week, I have knit one afghan, started another, crocheted a potholder (yes, I am starting with the basics but I am practicing changing colors), started another, and my personal favorite – knit a pincushion, then felted it (my first!).  I love it.  Very Dr. Seuss-esque.  

My goal is to get decent enough to 'yarn bomb' cookware.  

Blueberry Jam and My Preserving Pan

July for me means it is time to make Blueberry Jam and Mint Jelly.  Unfortunately, the mint in our garden has been taking a beating from both the heat and some kind of bug so nix the mint jelly this year.  But Blueberries are such a “Jersey thing”.  If you drive down into South Jersey on Route 206 toward Hammonton you will see endless blueberry fields and stands selling blueberries and blueberry plants. 

And Blueberry Jam is so easy to make.  After the summer, opening a jar of Blueberry Jam takes you right back to those hot July days.  For the past twelve years I have been a total jamoholic.  I started a journal and began teaching myself how to make jam (I could not find a class to take at that time).  That first year I made 34 different jams and jellies; this year I am at 4 including taking (for the first time) the marmalade class in England.   At this point, I have collected over 25 books on preserving and jam making, but overall my favorites are always the British recipe books.  They are so much more authentic.

Over the years, I have learned a few things – but most important has been investing in a good preserving pan (one where you are fairly certain that you won’t burn the jam or have it spill over the sides of the pan when the jam is in the rapid boiling stage – all of which I have done.  Cleaning up jam off a stovetop is no fun task).   

My favorite pan is the one I bought from England back in 2000 when you could not really find a decent pan in the United States.  Today, you can find great pans (sometimes called Maslin pans) at William Sonoma, Lee Valley and Amazon, to name a few. Here’s to the summer of 2012 and another fine batch of Blueberry Jam – almost always guaranteed to be made in sweltering summer heat when the lilies are in bloom. 

A Heat Wave, A Watermelon and Some Time on my Hands

This weekend was bloody hot with temperatures hovering around 100 degrees. Lucky for me,  I had a watermelon sitting on the counter looking for something to do.  I could, of course, just cut it open and eaten it.  That would have been too practical and healthy.  Instead, a business colleague of mine was in town, visiting his sister who was celebrating her 50^th year as a Salesian Nun (Wow!) so I decided to break out the Cuisinart Ice Cream and Sorbet Maker (a ‘red’ beauty snagged by my husband Irv for $2 last year at a Catholic School Rummage Sale – I just realized the Catholic connection here as I am writing this – karma) and make sorbet.  Perhaps I gilded the lily too much, but instead of simple Watermelon Sorbet (last year’s attempt ended up all over the ceiling after I opened the blender lid while it was running – I think I still see the pink dots up there), but…

Watermelon-Jersey Strawberries with Sea Salt and Pepper Sorbet

1 ¼ cup sugar

1 ½ cup water

3 cups fresh watermelon puree

3 cups strawberry puree

Juice of one lime

Sea Salt and Coarse Ground Pepper

In a medium saucepan, bring the sugar and water to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer until the sugar is dissolved completely.  Set aside to cool.

Put watermelon chunks in a blender or food processor (keep the lid on!).  Pulse to chop the watermelon and process until it is completely pureed.  Press the watermelon through a strainer to remove the seeds and extra pulp.  Aim for three cups of strained watermelon puree.  Put strawberries (fresh or frozen, I had some local strawberries that I had frozen) in a blender or food processor.  Pulse to puree the strawberries and process until completely pureed.  Aim for three cups.   Combine the purees with the juice of one lonely, soon to be happily married lime and cooled sugar syrup.  Chill in refrigerator for one hour or many more.  Pour into the freezer bowl of your hopefully bought-at-a-yard-sale ice cream maker and whirr away.  Add sea salt and coarsely ground pepper as it is whirring and making all kinds of noise.  Eat right out of the freezer compartment or put the sorbet directly into a container (better yet, a snagged - unused please - Whole Foods take out soup container) and freeze.  Serve when the temperature is too hot to sit outside, but you still want to sit outside because it is summer.  Nobody complained about the sorbet (just the weather).   Enjoy!

Bringing Home Baby tashtego

This June we welcomed tashtego into our hearts and into our yard.  This cause for celebration gave me the impetus to try and make a very large paella on the grill using charcoal (enough for 20). 

tashtego sailing in the back yard

 It was a bit dicey -- I forgot that you had to level the grill (I had it on cinder blocks so it was up higher), and oh, the coals burned so fast it almost stopped cooking in the middle (remedy: lift pan,  add more charcoal!).  A little burned on the bottom (again, remedy:  take off the grill before it burns), but great all the same.

Simmering paella

The almost finished paella

Bringing Home Tashtego and Finding a Rusty Rooster

In mid-May Irv and I went to Olympia Washington to bring home our new baby - a 19 foot wooden sailboat built by Grapeview Point Boatworks.  The weather in Olympia was (unusually) spectacular - sunny and 80+ degrees.    She is, by any stretch of the imagination - a beauty.

Tashtego in South Puget Sound Bay

During the course of one afternoon, I had a chance to walk around downtown Olympia, and lo! and behold! I found A Rusty Rooster......as you can see from the photos, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  A beautiful day, a great boat, and an antique store with vintage cookware piled high to the ceiling!

Timpano At Apple Blossom Time

Timpano Pan

Somehow the spring managed to completely evade me.  So much activity that today I am trying to catch up.  In April, my friend Gary joined us in a "Timpano Challenge".  My husband Irv had stumbled upon a cookbook at a Rummage sale that had the recipe for the Timpano in the movie Big Night - one of Gary's favorite movies.  Since I managed to both find what could be used as a Timpano pan in my attic (but I actually ended up buying a smaller one on Amazon) I thought why not - who best to try to make a Timpano but Gary.  So the challenge!

The outer pasta shell came out divine!  Gary truly is a master pasta maker.   Next came the assembly -- a combination of layers of meatballs, pasta, hard boiled eggs, salami, cheese, rigatoni and sauce.  Finally, the finished product!

Watch the video:  vimeo.com/40561326

Fondue Love

Last Saturday night I threw down a ‘fondue challenge’ to my sister Debbie to put on an entire fondue dinner from start to finish.  We have been talking about this for months, ever since we (she) starting going insane at rummage and yard sales looking for fondue pots large and small.  One of my fondest memories of last year is looking for my sister among the masses at the Trinity Church Rummage Sale in Princeton NJ, only to find her on the floor diving through boxes then rising up like a fish jumping out of the water with both a fondue pot and a Mongolian hot pot – victory!!  I can only say she more than rose to the occasion on Saturday.    The evening started out with my sister setting the table with all of her vintage finds along with yodeling music (my contribution!).    

Ebelskivers, Ebleskivers, Aebleskivers

After visiting one of our local thrift stores, my husband came home with this pan which I immediately recognized as ‘that pan that makes those things that I can’t pronounce’.  He thought it might be for eggs, but thank goodness for the Internet because I never would have recalled that it was an “Ebelskiver” pan for making small Danish pancakes.  Who knew that in some places (for example, Minnesota, California) they have actual Aebleskiver (danish word) Days?

I had to give it a try.  It was not as easy or simple as the cookbooks and several videos make it seem to be.   First off, they should tell you not to spill the batter all over the pan (in every video, everyone is very neat). Second, turning those things isn’t that easy or smooth – I used a bamboo skewer but if you are a bit clumsy they don’t turn over that quickly (I am not that good with regular pancakes, so why did I think that this pan would be a snap).   Third, if you want to put filling in them you have to work FAST – otherwise they burn too quickly before you have time to fill with batter, fill with a filling, then fill with batter again, cook then turn. I am sure if I spent a week at it I might get the hang of it.   In the end, they tasted – well, like pancakes.  I might try to make a savory version (filled with cheese and perhaps a bit of sausage?).  I’ll have to experiment, after all, isn’t that the fun of accidently finding a pan like this? 

I found this video about how to make them the non-clumsy correct way --www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWxISl1dpyI&feature=related

(and the restaurant was featured in the movie "Sideways")

Little Ruby Berries

Lovely Red Currants

While I was in the grocery store last week, I came across some California Red Currants and decided to try and make some red currant jelly.  Let me say I have never made jelly where you cook the fruit and suspend it to extract the juice.  I have been wanting to make currant jelly but here on the East Coast, there is hardly a currant to be found.  Irv and I found some red currant bushes at a local nursery a couple of years ago (very rare).  We planted them and while one promptly died, the other suffers from the high heat and humidity in the summer. The berries, when there are any, are usually anemic looking but tasty enough for the birds to eat as soon as they ripen. Oh well. Unable to grow my own, I thought I would experiment with these (very pricey!) ones from California.

Cooking the Currants

Extracting the Currant Juice

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting

3 Guys, One Pan and a Flan

My Dream Flan Pan

I love signs

I should have stopped for the Scotch Egg.....

Making Marmalade in England

Jam on the Hill, The Smithy, Oakham England

Seattle in January

My husband Irv and I just returned from a trip to Seattle (weather:  cold and rainy but thank goodness we just missed the snow). We did get to eat at some great breakfast places - Kelly's in Gig Harbor (see photo of sublime eggs benedict with crab cakes there), Streamliner Diner on Bainbridge Island (see photo of the nice use of fiesta ware), and Geraldine's in the Columbia City neighborhood in Seattle (every place we went, the counter had these tiny pots of seedless jam.  Great pots and great jam - you would never see these in New Jersey on the counter!)

Seedless Jam