Strawberry deliciousness

I made jam! Well, actually it was more like preserves. Well, wait. I'm not totally convinced it wasn't a compote.

This is much more confusing than I thought it would be.

It is not Strawberry Wine, despite the fact that I wanted to sing that song a lot today.

Anyway, I made this. Whatever this is.

And it made me oddly happy. Like, look-at-me-'I can make stuff and be self-sufficient and don't need Publix for everything' kind of happy. Also the kind of happy that can let me forget about termination letters and angry staff managers.

I hesitate to call it preserves only because I couldn't manage to find canning jars in this town, so it had to go in a combination of freezer bags and storage containers; to me jam comes in a jar. Ten years ago the thought of having a canning jar shortage would have been more than my brain could have comprehended. My family owns what some may call a disturbing amount of canning jars. I try to tell myself that the reason I used mason jars to decorate for my wedding (we put tea lights in the jars and set them around) was to give it a bit of country charm, but in reality it was just because I knew we had a bazillion of them and it would be cheap. With me, practicality beats creativity nearly every time.

I can't imagine we will need as much of this strawberry goodness as I made anytime soon, but you can be sure I will be trying to put this stuff in whatever I can find. I already bought vanilla ice cream and plain yogurt and you can bet we'll be having pancakes and waffles more than normal.

It was as simple as can be and as long as you have 30 minutes and are resigned to the fact that your stove may be sticky for days, you're set to go. It's even pretty while it cooks.

I used the following:

4 cups of fresh strawberries cut into chunks

2 cups of granulated sugar

4 tbs. balsamic vinegar

I'd like to pretend I know a lot about balsamic vinegar and when you use high quality and all those fun things, but I don't. I just buy whatever doesn't make me feel slightly ill when I look at the price and make sure it isn't the cheapest, either. It worked just fine.

Enough about that. I just put all the ingredients in the pot and keep them on medium heat and let them reduce. This took around 30 minutes. I did two batches. In the 2nd batch, I used about 1/4 c. of pectin and included it when I was almost ready to remove it from the heat. I let it boil another minute or so, then removed it from the heat to cool. I didn't notice a huge difference, but it did help it set up a bit more. Either way is fine, and if you're like most folks in the world, you probably don't have pectin sitting in your cabinet. Don't let that deter you; just cook it a little longer.

I think you could also cut back on the balsamic if you wanted to add some orange zest or even juice. Rhubarb would also be great with this. Now that I think about it, I might need to buy more strawberries. Just for research, of course.

Pepperoni Nostalgia

I miss pepperoni rolls.

For those of you not from The Mountain State, the snack food that I speak of is very simply a homemade roll stuffed with pepperoni, and normally some type of cheese. For this, pepper-jack is my favorite. Sadly, I've never met anyone without West Virginia ties that has any inkling as to what I'm talking about.

I also miss ramps, morel mushrooms, and venison, but don't let me fool you. Growing up, I wasn't overly thrilled with any of these things other than going digging for the ramps because it gave me an excuse to wander through the woods; and I always liked morels because they're fantastic. If you haven't tried them, you need to. I hated other types of mushrooms as a kid, but I got pretty excited when dad would bring a bunch of these back after he came home from turkey hunting. They go on the under-rated list. More on that at a later date.

Anyway, back to the pepperoni rolls. Most of the pepperoni rolls I had when I was young were from a gas station. We would be driving to some destination, probably the home of a relative, and I would get cranky (as I tend to do when I'm hungry) and dad would show up with a pepperoni roll. To this day you would be hard-pressed to find anyone that loves gas station treats more than my father and I, but their pepperoni rolls weren't the best. They were normally stale and the pepperoni was never evenly distributed. They're best served hot and this was long before there was a Sheetz every hundred miles or so to provide the great selection that they do today. I also miss Sheetz. This post is quickly getting depressing. whew.

Over time, my mother, who was much less impressed with this local delicacy, decided that she would make them with her sourdough bread recipe. This bread recipe by itself is on my 'top 5 foods of all time' list, so when you add pepperoni and cheese, it's like winning the lotto. This is a particularly special event because the bread is so time and labor intensive that I would need two weeks off from work to undertake such a project. Ok, I'm being a little dramatic, but not as much as you might think. It's intense.

I tried to make them once on a whim before a football game. They were awful, and I don't throw that word around loosely. My now brother-in-law asked sincerely what had happened to them. This is not the same brother-in-law who moved to Atlanta and contacted the Sheetz people at 2 in the morning to let them know that he missed them and they should move south so that he could have that part of home back. It's comforting to know that I married into a similar type of crazy. Anyway, I have no idea what possessed me to introduce those pepperoni rolls to the general public. They should have been kept behind closed doors; actually, behind the closed lid of a garbage can.

In the last few weeks I've found myself thinking about them a lot. My good friend in NYC even took a crack at them and fed them to her construction crew on a preservation project. Afterward, we had a long conversation about her efforts. Multiple facebook friends have even posted about pepperoni rolls in general in the last few weeks. The whole thing is almost eerie. Let's face it though, I'm not craving stale gas station bread and greasy pepperoni. I just miss my parents, and my friends, my family and everything else about home and all the wonderful things there that made me who I am.

It might be time to try making these little jewels again. I'm still not brave enough for the sourdough, though.

Is it spring yet?

Isn't it strange how your mood and tastes change with the time of the year? The impact of weather is severely under appreciated. I can say that because I lived for a year and a half in a city that constantly looked like the setting for a Xanax commercial; hence the move.

I'm home in bed today with a head cold, but it's the first nice day (weather-wise) in what feels like months. Head colds are pretty miserable (minus the reading and dvd watching in bed), but the window being open to let in the fresh breeze certainly makes it more bearable. And while I'm sure we're not out of the proverbial winter woods just yet, spring has always been my favorite season and I'm just as excited about it this year as ever. We moved here in October, so we basically missed all the pleasant fall weather with all the unpacking, house projects, taking observation of the fact that we just uprooted our entire lives, etc. I'm excited to get out and go exploring when the weather motivates me to do more than burn candles and drink tea while watching re-runs of Frasier. Not that I mind; tea and Frasier are two of my favorite past-times. And no, I'm not a 70 year old woman.

Anyway, this isn't really food-related at all, except for the fact that it reminds me how excited I am to start using the grill again and have more fresh veggies readily available. On a somewhat related note, I have started trying to grow my own herbs. To fully understand the magnitude here, you have to understand that I have the opposite of a green thumb. I have a 'kill your plant in 2.4 seconds' thumb. People say things to me like "oh just get basil and parsley, they're impossible to kill". Well, the last basil I had died in less than a week, and I have had this batch for nearly 2 weeks, and despite watering it NEARLY EVERY DAY, it's drying up. The cilantro also looks like I've been keeping it in a dark closet for months after it was attacked by a wild animal. Maybe I should take it as a sign that I'm supposed to support the local farmers market for my fresh herb needs...

The battle of the brownie

I had high hopes of coming to you today with a fantastic brownie recipe. I was pretty excited about it. Much to the dismay of the entire southeast, there was a rather large winter storm coming up the coast and I was going to stay in Friday night and make brownies. However, when I got right about here:

I realized that we only had one egg in the house. Who runs out of eggs?

I refused to go out in the 'blizzard' to get eggs (even though it wasn't that bad, but I've heard people down here drive like the world is 4 minutes from ending when it snows, so I refused to leave the house). I improvised, and while the results were quite tasty, they weren't really share- with-the-online-community good.

Taste = 9

Structure, appearance, ease of eating = 3.5

Turns out yogurt, baking soda, and oil will get the job done, but sometimes you just need an egg (or 4).

Anyway, all was not lost. It was the annual Valentines day weekend pizza cookoff in our house. I'll give you a moment while you reflect on how cheesy this is, no pun intended. Ok, sorry, that was bad even for me.

Pizza is a very specific thing for a lot of people and sparks a lot of heated debates, so I won't bore you with the exact details of how and why I made the pizza they way I did, but I will say that I've tried about 10 different types of crust techniques and I really enjoy what the Breadman breadmaker does it with it. It's been hit and miss with stand mixer approach (great taste, poor texture, or vice versa) and even the Alton Brown method, which normally requires a large time investment- but at least works, has let me down before. This stuff seems solid.

On a more personal note, we're not really boxes of candy, inflatable balloons, and stuffed animal type of people. Kudos to those that are, though. Let's face it, you keep an entire seasonal market of merchandisers alive. We're pizza cook-off kind of people, but in an attempt to be more valentines-day-like, I rented Love Happens. Turns out this wasn't so much of a love story as it was a story about coping with death, which is not very valentines-day-like at all. In the future, I think we'll both be fine with sticking to the pizza. The movie was good though, Jennifer Aniston rarely lets me down; it just happened to be cry in your pizza sad. Which was unfortunate, because it was quite good and didn't really need the extra salt.

For the love of...cheese (and risotto)

We should probably just get this out in the open now. I adore cheese...and milk, and butter, and cream. Really, all things dairy put a spring in my step. Unfortunately, they also put inches on my waist and make me sad when I shop for jeans, so I have to control it. Kind of like my love of deep fried anything. I've been told I'm hiding a fat person somewhere inside me, and I can see why one would believe such a thing. But seriously, I love dairy.

In college, my roommates gave me the nickname MooMooMoneybags. The MooMoo because I would normally drink a gallon of milk in 3 days all by myself and the Moneybags because I was a line-dancing waitress so I could break a hundred dollar bill at any given moment. This was no small thing for a group of college students.

And no, I'm not going to give any more details about that whole line-dancing thing at the moment.

Anyway, I'm convinced that I would be a dairy farmer except for the fact that sick animals make me irrationally nervous and no one will bank roll me the ridiculous amount of cash such a thing would require.

I say all this because I've really used restraint with the recipe today. I wanted to use a stick and a half of butter, 3 kinds of cheeses, and 2 cups of cream, but I didn't. If I didn't have concern for our waistlines or cardiovascular health, we could easily be the Buttertons. Anyone remember those commercials? I think I was the only one that thought the food looked good, not gross. All dairy over-kill aside, this risotto is delicious. I normally don't pat myself on the back so openly because it's not flattering, but I have to be honest about this one. You're going to want to try it, and soon. I've even caught myself eating it cold out of the frig. Hmmm, maybe I'm sharing too much here.

Mushroom Leek Risotto

1 1/2 c. medium grain rice

4 tbs. butter, divided

1/2 c. dry white wine

6 c. (at least) chicken broth

1/2 to 3/4 of a medium onion

3/4 c. asiago cheese

3/4 c. heavy cream

1 3/4 c. leeks (sliced thinly)

3/4 c. baby bella mushrooms

sea salt to taste

Melt butter in a pan over medium high heat. Add onions and cook for approximately 5 minutes. Add rice and allow to cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add wine and allow to cook away, approximately 3 minutes. Add warm (but not boiling) broth, one cup at a time until the rice mixture has absorbed most of the liquid, then add the next cup. Stir frequently (preferably with a wooden spoon) during this process. There's no hard and fast rule as to how long this will take, just play it by ear. Like any risotto, the key is to pay attention and keep stirring. The adding of the liquids will take around 30 minutes (give or take 10) depending on the heat of your stove, the heat of the broth, etc.

While the rice is cooking, place the leeks and heavy cream over medium high heat and allow to cook for approximately 15 minutes until the leeks are cooked and the cream has slightly reduced.

Once the risotto is creamy and thoroughly cooked, add asiago cheese, remaining butter, mushrooms, and leek mixture to the risotto.

If you want to be fancy, sprinkle some fresh parsley for serving. I served it with broiled salmon but pork tenderloin would be good...or steak...or chicken. You get the idea.

Almond Joy

I love weekends. It's probably safe to say that most anyone that works Monday-Friday would agree, but I mean it. I really love weekends. Waking up on Saturday morning knowing there's no rush. Having time to have a legit breakfast. No panic when, for some unexplainable reason, it took 10 extra minutes to get your hair dry, so now you're late for your 7:30 meeting. Anyway, you get the idea.


With most of my family and friends up north snowed-in this weekend from the giant snow storm, or as the DC Metro area so artistically coined it "Snowpocalpse", I found myself missing the feeling that comes with these winter storms. Don't get me wrong, my interest with snow decreased drastically as soon as snow days were no longer a part of my winter schedule, but just like most other things from home, I do still miss it from time to time. So, this afternoon I found myself baking away--just as though there was 36 inches of snow in the driveway. In reality, it was just a light mist and in the high 40s.


Anyway, back to the good stuff. I tried an almond cake the weekend. I've found myself trying more cakes lately. I always thought that I didn't like cake. Turns out, I just didn't like boxed cake. I was pretty adamant about this, too. To the point that Tim and I decided to have cobbler at our wedding. The guy looked at us strangely when we insisted on peach cobbler and not cake, but seriously, most of it is not good. However, I can promise you that this one is. On a related note, I won't be winning any awards for presentation anytime soon and I can say that with confidence. If I ever end up in a food competition (which I can't imagine the ridiculous string of events that would have to occur to make this happen since I have no interest in competitive cooking) I will lose because I will receive a big fat zero in presentation. I like to tell myself that it motivates me to actually make it taste good. If the package is ugly, you better have something fairly impressive inside.


The almond cake I made this weekend is a spot-on example of this.



Fortunately, it looks like this pretty quickly.




Basic Almond Cake

2 sticks plus 3 tbs. of unsalted butter, softened
1 tsb baking soda
2 c. sifted flour
1/2 tsb sea salt
1 1/2 c. sugar
8 oz almond paste
4 egg yolks
1 tsb. almond extract
1 c. milk
1 tsp white vinegar


Cream butter and sugar in a stand mixer until light and fluffy (paddle attachment works best). Chop almond paste into small pieces and add one at a time to fluffy butter mixture until combined. Then mix for approximately 6 more minutes. Add the egg yolks, one at a time until incorporated.
Combine milk, vinegar, almond extract, and baking soda in a small bowl and then add to the main mixture.
Combine flour and sea salt and add to the mixture a little at a time, just until combined.

Pour into a well-greased, parchment paper-lined 8" or 9" pan, depending on your preference for thickness. Either works fine. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, depending on the size of pan. I have noticed that the time on this cake seems to vary, just be sure to check with a knife or fork before removing. If it comes out clean, you're ready to go.

For serving, some basic whipped cream or powdered sugar would be fine. The cake is rich enough that it doesn't need much and it's very moist. Also, you could sprinkle some demerara on the raw batter before it bakes. It creates a nice sweet, crunchy crust when done.

Try it...you might like it

Well, here we go.

I'm here for the following reasons:

-I like to write
-I don't do enough of it
-I just moved to a new city, so my activities are minimal
-To get my mother/friends off my back

Anyway, this is kind of scary and blank, as I guess most new things are.

A bit of background:

I am a West Virginia native and work in the corporate world, but don't run away, I promise not to write about that (at least not much). I chose my field for practical purposes, not because of passions (does anyone chose business for passion?), so this blog is for the things I enjoy. Mainly humor and cooking. I'm far from home, which I hate, but in a place that I still manage to love--and that's enough for now.


Alright...we're off!