Planning on Canning?

Here is a neat Facebook page about canning and preserving that might give you some helpful ideas.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day January 2011

There is a reason they call it "the dead of winter."

There are some Garden Bloggers Bloom Days when I have to decide what to show you and what to leave out. Today, however, there are two things in bloom indoors and nothing, of course, outside. (The outside is basically white-- covered in snow-- in Ohio.)

Indoors we have my poinsettia, still hanging on from Christmas. I have actually remembered so far to water it each week and it is doing well but for a few leaves that have browned, curled and fallen from the base of the plant. Still, not to shabby.

And, as usual for this time of the year, my salmon amaryllis (variety unknown-- a pass-along plant from one of my favorite families) has begun to bloom just when I need something to cheer me up against the long winter ahead. The plant itself looks stressed, but the blooms have begun and more are coming.

Other than that, I'm getting along by reading seed catalogs and dreaming of the sun on my back and the dirt underneath my nails. I can make it, I can!

Food Porn

The Huffington Post Food Section has an interesting discussion today about Food Porn-- those luscious, almost-too-good-to-be-real photos you seen in some magazines and a lot of food blogs. There were a lot of very strong opinions expressed by the participants, and a lot of very... um...sensual comparisons of food porn with other porn.



What do you think? Do you like these images? Or do you think they are unrealistic and discouraging to those of us who are lucky if we get the food to taste as good as the recipe suggests, let alone look as good?



Me? I think that as long as you aren't anorexic and using the images as a substitute for really eating, food porn can't be bad. I like to look at photos of unblemished flowers and garden vegetables, too, but I don't actually expect my gardens to look like that. They just give me a goal to aspire to.

Daring Bakers October Challenge-- Doughnuts!

I'm baaack!

I wasn't taking part in the Daring Bakers Challenges for a while. There were lots of reasons, mostly centering on my expanding waistline, and the hot, hot summer. But now that it is cooling down, I'm back in the mood to bake. (The waistline will just have to fend for itself!)

The October Challenge was Doughnuts! The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

The doughnuts could be cake style or yeast raised, but they had to be deep fried. I did the yeast-raised ones, of course. Check out the recipe here. (A word of warning... the recipe makes 24 doughnuts and as many doughnut holes, so, unless you have an army of company coming or a family of teenage boys, cut the recipe in half!)

The instructions said to wait until the doughnuts were completely cool before glazing. Hello! Like I was going to miss out on warm doughnuts with oozy-goozy glaze dripping between my fingers! Not in this girl's kitchen! And it was a good thing I didn't listen, because, while the warm doughnuts were to die for, the cool ones were merely OK. I took some warm ones to work and the rest are getting fed to the chickens, who love them!

I made a simple glaze with powdered sugar and heavy cream, flavored with a little vanilla.

Red Celery?

A produce farm in Oviedo, Florida, has successfully developed a red celery-- well, red at the base anyway. They plan to test market it beginning in December in the west, northwest and southwest-- not in our area, in other words-- but we'll get it eventually. Will the red color get you to eat more celery? How about your kids?

Duda Farm Fresh Foods says the celery has the same great flavor and crunch, with a more interesting color. We eat with our eyes first, of course, but will our eyes tell us that this color just doesn't belong to celery? What happened to purple carrots? That was a development recently, but the carrots in my market (and on my table) are still orange.

Is the Ohio Valley ready for red celery? What do you think?

Cooking as Community

"...once upon a time, before every home had its own kitchen in which Mom labored more or less alone, cooking was itself a social activity, one that fostered community and conversation around the chopping board or cook fire long before the meal was served." Michael Pollan, in the Sunday New York Times Magazine.

A few months ago a few friends, my husband, and I got together and cooked a meal, intending to do it on a more or less regular basis. Predictably, most of the cooking was done by the women, with most of the men deciding the high road was to stay out of the way. The menu was ambitious for a group who were not accustomed to chopping, simmering and working in cooperation with one another. But the results were delicious and everyone enjoyed the meal and the experience.

When we tried to schedule another one, it never worked out. Life just got in the way.

Kitchens these days are being designed with huge islands where guests and family could, if they chose to, have a glass of wine and help with (or at least watch) the food preparation. In many cases, they remain empty as we call out for pizza or eat fast food more evenings than not.

What would it take to bring back that community, that shared food experience that used to be so common? And would life be more fulfilling if we did?

Why not plan to gather some friends and some ingredients and make and share a meal? And let me know if you like it. It's a beginning...

Flour Heaven

I got a box today filled with flour. 17 pounds of flour. I was in Heaven!

My local grocery stores carry all purpose flour, bread flour, and whole wheat flour. End of sentence. If I want to do a recipe with white whole wheat or semolina or buckwheat, well, too bad! So I bit the bullet and ordered flour from King Arthur. My mind immediately began to formulate my plan of attack. Homemade pasta, dessert bars with whole wheat pastry flour, semolina bread...

I think I'm not alone in my turning to breads, soups, and stews as the weather turns cooler. There is something about waking up to a day which calls for a long-sleeved shirt that says, "make some bread today." So I am armed with ingredients for the cool days ahead. Tomorrow, raisin bread.