Inspiration Saturday: Fredericksburg Peaches

This weekend's forecast promised the slightest of cold fronts, meaning that highs would be in the low 90s rather than triple digits.  Taking advantage of this relative coolness, today we went out to Fredericksburg to look at flowers, sample and buy jams, and most importantly, get some peaches.

I don't know if the idea of 'Fredericksburg Peaches' is a thing outside of Texas, but around here, once the season starts, stands begin popping up along the side of the road touting fresh, juicy peaches from that little town in the hill country.  Whether or not all of those stands are practicing truth in advertising I can't be sure, but it's not too far a drive to go out there ourselves.

So now we have a box full of fresh peaches just begging to be eaten, plus a slightly smaller box of bargain peaches that I've already diced for baking/cooking possibilities.  All of those possibilities are what's inspiring me today.

Do you realize how easy it is to make jam?  Maybe it's not what a purist would call a true preserve, but with this microwave recipe from Good Housekeeping, you can make a chunky spread in less than half an hour with peaches and just a few kitchen staples.  And it's infinitely adaptable, mix and match fruits and flavors to your heart's content.  I've actually already made some jam this afternoon out of some of today's haul, plus some frozen cranberries.  You might see them in a later post as part of a baked good.  Perhaps a thumbprint cookie?

Another super-simple peach dish is Roasted Peaches.  Because what can really go wrong when you add brown sugar and butter to anything?  No a whole heck of a lot.  And a scoop of ice cream melting into the hot sugary peach...yum.

But I also like the idea of doing something a little more complicated.  Perhaps Joy the Baker's Peach Cobbler Scones?  I like that they take a really homey dessert that's generally served family-style and turns it into something individual that would be really easy to bring into the office.  Then there's Peach Upside-Down Cake.  I love the magical moment when you turn upside-down cakes over.  I also love this totally non-traditional idea of making Peach Flan.  That would probably be a dessert that stays at home rather than going to klatch, but sometimes you just have to be selfish.

Do you have any favorite peach recipes?  Or is there any particular produce in your area that you look forward to coming in season?

As always, thanks to Woolen Diversions for creating this blog series!

Cubicle kitchen: Potluck Cookie Trio

I didn't set out to bring a smorgasbord of cookies to the potluck we had at work a few weeks ago, it just kind of happened.  You know how that goes?

It started with my wild and crazy desire to try to make an herbed shortbread.  After having experimented with that, I liked the results but didn't have enough faith in them to make them the only cookie I brought, so I went with a pumpkin shortbread that was seasonal and relatively safe.  And then after that I just coated some store-bought pumpkin sandwich cookies in candy melt.  Because I needed to complete the trio.

I didn't adapt either of the recipes sufficiently to reproduce them here, so just a little link love and my notes.

Potluck Cookie Trio
From the top going clockwise:

• Very Best Baking: Autumn-Spiced Pumpkin Shortbread
• No changes, these were delicious!
• Fudge-covered pumpkin sandwich cookies
• Very simple: I took storebought pumpkin sandwich cookies, melted some vanilla candy melt, and dunked the cookies into it, like I would have done with cake balls.  Messy, but effective.
• Food 52: Sweet and Salty Herbed Shortbread
• I used caraway seeds as my herb of choice
• The cookies ended up rather thin in my 7 x 9" pan, I could probably have doubled the recipe for a more average depth.
• Because chocolate makes everything better (especially weird baking ideas), I added a coating of dark chocolate to the squares.
• For those wondering whether caraway cookies 'work', I would say the results were mostly positive.  The seeds have an almost anise/licorice quality to them, so they lend themselves to a more sweet application.  It was most disconcerting to those who had an Eastern European background and associated it with cabbage or baked into bread.

Inspiration Saturday: All pumpkins are great, Charlie Brown

I thought I was the only one using the start of the school year as an excuse to declare it to be the fall season and start baking with pumpkin.  Maybe other bloggers live in climates where the weather isn't quite as counterintuitive to that reasoning, but the power of pumpkin seems to be stronger than I anticipated.  I've been seeing delicious recipes pop up on my feedly in the past few weeks, I can only hope that my Dark Harvest Muffins hold their own in this culinary company.

I don't like to repeat myself too much in my office treats, so I can't run into my kitchen and make all of these pumpkin goodies right now, but I'm saving them away for later, and passing them along to you in communal temptation:

• Girlichef: Pumpkin Cheesecake Popsicles: These straddle the line between summer and fall perfectly, and sound so delicious.  I'm tempted to tweak her basic recipe and put it into my ice cream maker for myself.
• Something Swanky: Pumpkin Nutella Poke Cake: Oh, that's not fair.  Combining the power of pumpkin with the addiction that is Nutella, and then pouring on sweetened condensed milk.  I don't know if I can make poke cupcakes, because full-sized cake can be a serving issue at work, but if it comes down to it, maybe this could be done as a non-pie Thanksgiving dessert.  Because the dessert table needs diversity.
• Very Best Baking: Autumn-Spiced Pumpkin Shortbread: When I think of shortbread, I think of a pretty dry crumb, so I would stick to the smaller amount of pumpkin suggested.  But I am intrigued by the idea.
• Sally's Baking Addiction: Mini Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Muffins: These look adorable, and after reading her recipe for Glazed Chocolate Donut Holes, I'm pretty sure I could just roll the muffins completely in the cinnamon sugar coating and call them donut holes as well.  Or make the glaze with cinnamon.  I can't get over how perfect donut holes would be for a coffee klatch, so it's likely that I'll make some form of these this year.

I've also already found and bought some pumpkin ice cream and pumpkin yogurt.  Think I'll be sick of it by Thanksgiving?  Don't bet on it.

For more inspiration, go to Woolen Diversions.

FO Friday: Cupcake notebook of deliciousness

I don't have a finished knitting project to show you today, but last week I sent off another of my notebooks. (Full disclosure: it was actually two weeks ago.  Last week I wrote this post, then didn't hit publish before going out to dinner.  And near-midnight didn't feel like it was really Friday anymore, so I saved it.)  This time I remembered to snap some pictures using my phone before I sealed up the envelope, thank goodness.  And speaking of goodness, I decided to fill this notebook with more baked goodness, themed around some of the notebook owner's likes.  I got to tap into my inner child and do some drawing and coloring, and then I found cupcake recipes to go with them.

First, I turned myself into a cupcake with a little introductory page:

It's hard to decide on what kind of cupcake I am.  I think I'm a magical Willy Wonka cupcake that changes flavors with my mood.  But for the sake of putting a cherry on top, I went with a Cherry Vanilla Cupcake from Gimme Some Oven.

Next was her first fandom, Harry Potter.  I've only ever read and seen the first installment, so this muggle had to resort to being inspired by a well-known scene rather than being able to pick up on details:

Even without being totally into the Potter-verse, I'm always drawn to the smart and sassy heroines like Hermione.  And with that hair, I felt like Malfoy was easily translatable into a sour lemon cupcake.  So here's my cartoon cupcake take:

For Hermoine, I included a Triple Chocolate Cupcake recipe from Annie's Eats.  Partly because Hermoine's wild hair could be represented with scrumptious chocolate frosting, partly because the notebook owner loves chocolate, so I had to include a chocolate cupcake.  And as I hinted earlier, Malfoy is a Perfect Lemon Cupcake from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.  I feel like a lemon slice pretty accurately mimics his hair, right?

Another page, another worldwide fantasy fiction sensation.  This time, it was Twilight.  Again, not one of my own obsessions, but I took inspiration from one of the iconic images of the series, the cover of the first novel:

Kind of cute, right?  I have to say, even when you don't see most of them, drawing hands always feels awkward.  The accompanying recipe is Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes with Cinnamon-Marshmallow Frosting.

And finally, she likes purple and butterflies:

I'm kind of proud of this one.  The 'wings' are dried slices of pineapple on top of Hummingbird Cupcakes.  The only theoretical difference between mine and Martha's being that the slices of pineapple are cut in half before being dried, so they look like wings rather than flowers.  I really want to try at least that part of the recipe for myself sometime.

For more FOs (maybe ones with knitting!), go to Tami's Amis.

Inspiration Saturday: How a snow bunny stays warm

I am notoriously cold all of the time.  Hot showers are the perfect ambient temperature, and walking out into hundred-degree heat in summer is a welcome relief from the excessive air conditioning of most places.  It's just unfortunate that snow and heat tend to be so mutually exclusive.  But on my ski trip last weekend I managed to make it through without blue fingers, thanks to a few warm things, some knit-related, some not.  And even though I'm back in Texas, where we expect a high in the 60s today, I'm still relying on a few of them.

Soup

Somehow, a warm bowl of soup seems more comforting than a warm plate of anything else.  Maybe it's that all-important slurp factor, which is so integral to my beloved ramen.  No ramen in Ruidoso, though, unfortunately.  But I did have a green chile corn chowder, minestrone, and Wisconsin cheese soup over the course of three dinners.  Plus those cup-o-noodles (with dried shrimp!) for lunch on the mountain.

And it's great to make at home as well, where you can just toss in whatever you have and layer flavors all day long.  Last night we grabbed a ready-made kit for baked potato soup at HEB, so that's clearly on the menu this week.  I particularly love split pea soup made in the slow cooker.  I've found that it's the perfect use for all of the random scraps of ham you have after all of the pretty spiral slices are gone.  Tossing in the bone is a bonus if you have it.  I also really want to try making my own chicken stock a la Recipe Girl one day.

Lana Del Ray

I have music associated with many memories throughout my life.  Back in the days before iPods, I would bring books of CDs with me to visit my grandparents over the summer, because I needed to have as many options as possible.  I usually end up with a theme for certain trips based on whatever I listen to around that time, and then whenever I hear it again, it brings back fond memories.

In the past, the Spice Girls' 'Goodbye' has been a ski song.  This year, I went a little less pop with Lana Del Ray:

It occurred to me that 'Born to Die' is probably not the best message while careening down a mountain, but the opening lines of 'Feet don't fail me now, take me to the finish line' are appropriate.  And the whole album has a strong but flowing rhythm to it that I like.  So there's my first ever music recommendation.  It might not keep you warm, but it could distract you from the cold.

Alpaca Berets

Most of the time, my need for warm fibers is superficial.  Like I've said, I'm countering air conditioning or what Central Texas laughingly calls winter.  But here is where the soft warmth of alpaca is really appreciated.  Even in a relatively loose-knit beret like this one I made a few years ago:

It's nice and warm without having to be a thick beanie.  I can't tell you the pattern, I received it in one of the Yarn Crawls, and it was full of errors anyway.  But I found this one from Michele Wang which is gorgeous, the Cables & Lace Beret:

Photo credit: Michele Wang

I love the way the cables and lace weave in and out of each other, gives it a great texture.  This isn't the kind of thing I'd wear on the actual slopes, but it would be perfect for walking down main street on the way to dinner.

Get even more inspired by reading Alicia's post at Woolen Diversions!

Cooking outside of the cubicle

The holidays mean getting a much-needed break from work.  But along with not having to deal with meetings, e-mails, and other office calamities, it means not getting to bake treats each week.  It's probably good to get a break from this as well, just to keep from getting 'burnt out'.  It also gives me a chance to do something other cooking for the holidays.  Specifically, savory.  Over the past two weeks or so, I've set aside my cake mixes and chocolate chips and done some different dishes in the kitchen I'd like to share.

I already told you about the cheesy muffins I made for the Yarnorama holiday party, which were delicious.  In that same post, I also mentioned the potato salad that is made every year, without fail, for Christmas dinner.  Even if, for whatever reason, it cannot be made for the actual December 24th evening, it is always a part of the belated celebrations.  Without giving away any family secrets, I can share that the salad basically consists of:

• Potatoes
• Mayonnaise
• Frozen veggies (corn, peas, carrot, etc.)
• Onion
• Boiled eggs
• Bologna sausage
• Pickles (and a little pickle juice)

All mixed together in correct, though inexact, proportions, and stored in the fridge.  Sometimes it's that last part that can be the most complicated, because we are talking about a lot of potato salad.  This year, it completely filled a 6 quart bucket.  We are serious about our potato salad.

Another serious issue: Brussels sprouts.  I might have an addiction.  I was basically uninterested in them for most of my life, but maybe a few years ago I rediscovered them.  And then I made them using this slow cooker recipe from Stephanie O'Dea, and they went from just another vegetable to bona fide craving.  I'm considering how to put dijon Brussels sprouts into some kind of tart shell or flaky pastry crust for a possible birthday cake.  I don't know what it is exactly, but I love them.  So those have featured highly in my holiday eats as well, sharing side dish space with the potato salad and being the first of the leftovers to disappear.

With my mom on Christmas day, we decided to tackle something other than the traditional turkey, and instead chose toad.  Toad in the hole, that is.  In the US, toad in the hole is usually a breakfast dish of toast with a fried egg in the middle (literally, there's a hole in the toast that the egg is cracked into in the frying pan).  In the UK, however, neither eggs nor toast are involved.  Instead, it is basically sausages baked into Yorkshire pudding in a casserole dish.  Having had this in the UK, Mom and I had attempted it only once before, to disappointing results when the 'hole' didn't quite rise around the 'toad'.  This time around, we followed this recipe with great results.  The only changes we made were to use chicken sausage, and we cut the links into quarters (once in half, and once lengthwise) to give more even coverage of sausage in the dish.  It was really good, and now I'm actually wondering about the possibility of bringing the two versions of the dish together with some divots in the casserole and semi-baking some eggs in the final few minutes in the oven.

But next week it's back to work.  And I'm already plotting my baked treat to start off 2013 right.  For now, I can only say: sprouts will not be involved.

Putting the lit back in this twit

I've been feeling a little guilty lately about the lack of 'lit' on this blog.  It's bad enough that I can barely share my knits because they are for secret swaps, but to also not be able to talk about what I'm reading because I wasn't reading felt duplicitous somehow.

The problem with reading is that it is a mono-task.  These days, there's a premium placed on being able to do as much as possible simultaneously.  While with the right pattern I can knit and listen, reading requires my full attention.  And somehow the months slipped by without my having finished reading a single book.

My younger self would be horrified.  I used to take a book with me everywhere, and devote any spare moment to poking my nose back into my fictional world, reluctant to be tugged back into the real one.  After college, it just seems like the tugs have been stronger, and escaping into a book has become something which takes a more concerted effort.  Despite several sincere attempts in the recent past, I kept allowing books to collect dust in favor of knitting, nail polish, and of course, the time-suck generally known as the internet.

But this week, I turned a corner by turning 149 pages of a book called World of Pies.  I mentioned it earlier this week, it's the book I found at Half Price and made a serious dent in while not being selected for jury duty.  It was just a dollar in the clearance section, and aside from having baked goods in the title, I was swayed by the fact that this copy had been signed by the author at BookPeople.  If you're in Austin and haven't been there yet, I can only conclude that you also have fallen into a terrible non-reading gap, because this is an awesome bookstore.  It's two stories full of books, and they have great author events.  I used to write about them weekly for Examiner, and would invariably end up wanting to read whatever book I was writing about.

While this book starts with a pie fair, the baking influence is more indirect throughout the rest of the novel.  It's the story of a girl growing up in the small town of Annette, Texas, and along with the kind of milestones you would expect (births, deaths, marriages, war, etc.), each event is marked with food.  A few pies, of course, plenty of cakes, and some muffins, brownies, and even a frozen salad for good measure.  Sprinkled throughout the story, the recipes for these goodies are also in the back of the book, so I might try one or two out sometime.

Along with the food, there was another comforting context I enjoyed while reading, though it won't apply to everyone.  Because author Karen Stolz is a local.  Even though she's from Kansas, she lives in Austin now, and her heroine Roxanne also resides in my fair city for several years in the novel.  There's something fun about seeing a place you know, like Barton Springs, whether it shoots across the screen in a TV show or movie, or shows up in the middle of a story you're reading.

Anyway, I enjoyed this easy read.  It got me back into the groove of reading, reminding me what it feels like to hypnotically turn page after page whenever you get the chance, and to cast furtive glances towards the cover whenever you don't.  I'll give myself a day or two to transition out of the world of Annette, and then hope the sugar rush will see me through the pages of another book.

On the rack: Southern Living (September 2012)

I don't read as many magazines as I used to.  Who does, really?  But occasionally there's nothing like flipping through the pages of a glossy.  Mostly I tend towards knitting magazines with pretty patterns in them, but I also like the 3 Fs: fashion, fitness, and food.  In a little mixed-media meta-ness, I thought I'd share my thoughts about various issues I pick up and let you know if I find something particularly worth checking out on the newsstand.

I've never read, much less purchased, an issue of Southern Living before.  Not out of any proactive statement against it, I guess nothing ever grabbed my attention enough that I really needed to.  But this one got me for one simple reason: I love apples.

Photo credit: Southern Living

Mmm, apples.  My appreciation for this fruit came later in life, just in the past year or so.  I even started cataloguing the different types as I tried them out, figuring out which were my faves.  Seeing apple recipes featured on the cover of this reminded me how close we are to fall, so I grabbed it.

There are some tasty looking dishes in here, I have to say.  I'm never really sure what I'll make next, I don't plan more than a week or so out for the office goodies, but I'm sure I'll have to feature something from this issue later this year.  Probably the Caramel Apple Muffins, since I love baking in cupcake tins.  Although the Caramel Apple Coffee Cake could be cupcake-ized.  I could even use my little mini-Bundt cake molds.  I also want to try making the Caramelized Apple Chips, sounds simple and delicious, though I'll probably skip the fancy mandolin and having it be a whole cross-section of the apple and just cut my own thin slices from segments.

Aside from apples, there were a few other recipes that sound worth a try in my own kitchen.  There was a page called Community Cookbook that had recipes from readers: Potato Skin Nests and Buffalo Chicken Rolls.  The first uses a cupcake tin, so obviously that's going on my list.  And I love Buffalo hot sauce.  The recipe is for either fried or baked, I'll do baked.  And at almost the very end of the issue: German Chocolate-Pecan Pie Bars. Umm, yum, that's a must-try!

I also found some of the stuff about gardening interesting, since I continue to harbor hopes that I could cultivate a green thumb despite seemingly perpetual drought.  Overall, I'm not clamoring for a subscription of Southern Living, but I'm glad I picked this up.  I don't know how much longer this will be available since it's from September, so October should be out soon, but if you find it, check it out.

Cubicle kitchen: No Pudge, Yes Coffee Brownies

Having just decried weight control instant oatmeal, I must admit to having used a ready-made mix that sells itself based on being 'light' for this week's baking adventures.  Behold, in a truly tiny pic:

For me, No Pudge Fudge Brownies were something I wanted to try because:

• I had heard of them through Hungry Girl, and I like to try some of the more gimmicky foods once in a while
• They only require one additional ingredient to be added to the mix, non-fat vanilla yogurt, which I already have in the fridge almost all of the time anyway
• They were on sale

Okay, so I took this box and followed the instructions like a good little baker.  I mixed the chocolate-y powder with the yogurt until it was a batter (much like any other brownie batter, a bit on the thicker side if anything), poured it into my parchment-lined 8x8 pan, spread it evenly, then baked according to the time and temperature on the box.

One thing I did do, because I'm 99% good little baker, 1% wacky rebel, was add instant coffee.  This particular box of mix was of a Cappuchino variety, so I thought I'd go ahead and give it a helping hand in the caffeine department.  I added a few spoonfuls.  After all, these were destined for a meeting, I wanted to keep everyone perky!

The result was moist, fudgy brownies with a definite coffee kick.  Again, I very much enjoyed eating the bits that stuck to the knife as I cut them into squares.  I've heard that you should be able to use the non-fat yogurt as your only add-in for any old brownie mix, but the one time I tried it, the results were tragic.  I might try it again, but in the meantime, I happen to have gotten an extra box of this mix anyway.  Did I mention they were on sale?

When life gives you non-diet soda, make syrup

The other night, I had just popped the top on my soda can, when I noticed: it wasn't diet.  Gasp!  I count all of my calories, and there's just no room for 160 of them to come from a drink.  Turns out, I had grabbed the wrong 12-pack in HEB, so I was stuck with 11 cans of something I couldn't drink (unfortunately, I think I drank one, but what's drunk is drunk).

I suppose I could have just given them to someone, but that's not the way my mind works.  I wanted to think of some way to cook with this stuff.  There are a variety of recipes using sodas as a sort of marinade for roasts, hams, etc.  Which sounds intriguing, but with the possible exception of Salt Lick BBQ, I find meat less tempting a treat than something sweet and possibly baked.  And so I wondered whether this root beer couldn't be reduced into a concentrated syrup.  Why not?  The idea is the same as with most reductions: heat to boiling, reduce to simmer, stir occasionally and remove from heat when desired thickness.  It was after all just sugar, water, and bubbles.

And some unpronounceable chemicals, which I couldn't predict the reactions of.  That lead me to search online for examples of successful results.  There weren't many, but there were a few.  And having nothing to lose but a little time effort, I poured a few cans' worth into a pot and set it simmering. 

The first time, I burned it.  My own fault, because I let it go too long without checking it, and as with any reduction, it's a fine line between done and done for.  The second time around, I knew to be more careful, and set five cans a-simmering once more.  I didn't keep an eagle eye on the clock, but it was between an hour and an hour and a half before it was  right where I wanted it.  Essentially, you want a syrup that's on the thinner side and doesn't taste like burning.  Just stop when you're comfortable with the consistency if you try this yourself.  I wasn't comfortable going any thicker because I didn't want to burn it again. 

I poured dark brown elixir into a glass jar, which I pre-warmed by filling it halfway with water and microwaving, then pouring out the water.  This was just to make sure the hot liquid wasn't going into a relatively cold container and causing disaster.  Out of the 60 fl oz that were originally contained in the five cans, I estimate that I have about 12-14 now.

I let this cool, and it's now resting in the fridge to be used as a soak for cupcakes, syrup for pancakes, etc.  The possibilities are endless.  Be on the lookout for root beer-infused treats in the near future!