Because I Can

Dear Amanda. This summer I made:

• Strawberry Jam
• Raspberry Jam and Jelly
• Blackberry Jam and Jelly
• Triple Berry Jam (Blueberry, Red Raspberry, Black Raspberry)
• Blueberry Jam
• Champagne Blush Jelly
• Peach Jam
• Spiced Honey (lemon wedges, cinnamon sticks, cloves)
• Canned Raspberries
• Canned Peaches
• San Marzano Tomato Sauce 
• Basil and Garlic Tomato Sauce

Mostly it was good. In retrospect, it was delicious. Overall it was an Experience.

Once roasted romas exploded all over the kitchen floor and Dad almost killed me.


Mostly it was good.

Much love,
Celia

PS-Also, this wonderful wonderful girl named Abby made me cross-stitched covers for some of my jars.

Boil 'em, Mash 'em, Stick 'em in Cakes

Dear Amanda,

I had the Hobbit on my mind, hence the title. Read like Sam.

I am now unloading all of my summer/fall photos I neglected to organize before. I was on a pumpkin spree for a while--pumpkins did very well this year at the farm. This posts features pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, but also created, but not documented, were:

• pumpkin bread
• pumpkin cookies
• this list seemed longer in my head

The pumpkins were very satisfying to bake and then scoop out their tender fleshes.

Yaaay baby cake!

My Sammy-cat really liked the cream cheese frosting. I had to fish her out of the bowl. I'll miss you Sammy-cat. <3

Much love,

Celia

Quiche Cousins

Dear Amanda,

So, I bake pies. Lots of pies. And, thanks to Aunt Linda and Uncle Craig's birthday gift card to Target, I now possess a piemaker. Father tells me that I have been "taken in," but struggling with cup-pies in muffin tins wasn't really working for me. This is more efficient. I made dinner tonight. We had pie, followed by pie, and ended with pie.

 

I hadn't planned on pie, so I just grabbed random things from the refrigerator. The result?

  

The cousin of a quiche? Mini pies with potato, onion, ham, cheese, spinach, egg, and roasted red pepper. Basil leaf on top. For dessert? Raspberry preserve pies with chocolate.

Much love,

Celia

Lemon Gift Pie

Dear Amanda,

I have titled this post Lemon Gift Pie because: 1) it was my first creation using my, totally badass, new KitchenAid Artisan mixer! That's right followers, be jealous. 2) it was the first creation using the fluted pie dish that I got Mom for Christmas. That's right, I used Mom's pie dish before her. Erm, not sure how to excuse myself there. At least she got pie.






Anyway. This was my first attempt at a lemon meringue pie. I decided to make something that would show off my new mixer to its best advantage. The egg whites whipped so quickly!!!

So, it looked perfect. The meringue was perfect. The crust was flakily perfect.

The lemon filling never set up. And I have no idea why. Isn't that supposed to be the easy part?
So, in truth, I made lemon meringue soup. It was like a heavenly cloud of meringue floating atop a lemony lake. I need to reread the recipe, because I'm still not sure what I missed.

Much love,

Celia

PS-My mixer is so badass.

Breadbreadbread

Amanda,

I finally got my hands on some new yeast. To prove to myself that I hadn't lost my bread magic I decided to make this French-style country bread. I also used the Silpat you gave me for Christmas--I don't know if that was a proper usage or not, but I wanted to try it out.

The bread came out alright, but not nearly as crusty or hole-ridden as the recipe claimed. I am not sure if I went wrong somewhere or if they were simply exaggerating. It might be better if you leave the starter overnight--I only waited 2-1/2 hours. And I didn't use bread flour, because I didn't have any. Hmm. Now I sound like a bad baker. The knife I used to slash the top also was not sharp enough.

Well, it was good to dip in my soup. And eat with cheese. And dip in olive oil and seasonings...

I am going to try some cinnamon rolls again tonight.

Much love,

Celia

Return of the Undergraduate

Amanda,

I live! I have made so many goodies since my last post, but unfortunately failed to obtain documentation. But now I'm back. I bought a new pan on a whim yesterday and couldn't resist immediately trying it out. So I present: miniature bunt cakes in three forms. Normal bunt cake? Eh, ok. Mini bunts? Adorable. And much more versatile.

I started with a Martha Stewart recipe for Strawberry Jam Cakes. The cakes to the left are obviously not strawberry jam cakes. I used the recipe for the batter and then altered it by rolling them in cinnamon sugar.

Cinnamon-sugar mini bunts.

For the bunts on the right, I piped strawberry jam into their centers after baking and topped them with real whipped cream. (One can never get enough real whipped cream. I was caught in the act of piping the remaining cream directly into my mouth.) The bunts on the left I baked with the filling inside and then topped with cream.


Left: Closed strawberry jam filled bunts. Right: Open jam bunts.

Yum! I brought them into work this morning to ease the transition back into 8:30 AM meetings. They made it into the office tour Kassel gave our new employee:
Kassel gesturing to shelves in the office and explaining procedures, turns to main table: "Celia bakes things. They go here." Interrupts tour to microwave herself a jammy bunt.

Much love!

Celia

Not baking stuff

Celia,

I got a little crafty this Christmas and wanted to share:

I started by making this guy to hold our holiday cards. I got a frame (well, and the picture that went in it) at a thrift store, removed everything but the frame, painted it gold, strung some gold wire along the back, and decorated it with some gold garland. Then I got some little jewelry-making clips to clip on the cards. Voila! I like it. It is far better than last year's method, which was standing the cards up behind the menorah, which was asking for a house fire every time anyone breathed during Hanukkah evenings. I would also like to know why our menorah can't hold candles worth a damn.

Where it actually lives, in the mudroom.

 I don't do a huge amount of decorating, but this area is the focal point. I have a small tree that I decorate, and some candles and an awesome reindeer. Also a lovely cat. Can you tell that his right ankle is shaved for an IV? Poor kitty. All I really want for Christmas is a healthy cat.

I got really, really excited about wrapping presents this year, and did them up fancier than usual. Observe:

These two are both for you. So is that green one to the right (by the plug - oops!)

Can't wait to see you to give you those presents in person!

Love,

Amanda