strawberry jam forever

Our CSA had flats of strawberries available this week, so we took advantage of them and filled our fridge with quarts of farm fresh berries. You just can't buy berries in the store that taste like berries straight from the farm. Tiny little buds filled with sweetness and ripened on the vine. Drool.

We had so many that we decided to try our hand at canning strawberry jam through the method we learned at a canning and preserving class we took at CCAC. (If only I would have paid attention as a child when my mom and grandma would can in the summers!) So we used the recipe in the Ball Blue Book for regular strawberry jam and got to it!

(Dutch oven of jam cooking down, stock pot of sterile jars, canning pot full of boiling water makes for a very full stovetop.)


So then what do you do when you have one leftover quart of ripe strawberries? You make shortcake.


There is a test in my family when someone is first given the family shortcake, to see if they are a Freeman or not. Mark is not a Freeman. Here is his non-Freeman shortcake. Notice the element that makes it "not Freeman."


I, on the other hand, am a Freeman. A strawberry shortcake purist who thinks the gift of the shortcake and fresh berry topping needs to be enjoyed unadulterated. Behold, the best summer dinner in the world.

foodie book roundup

I realized that it had been some time since I've talked about any of the food books I've read, and since this is one of my favorite genres of books, that list is always growing. Here are a few that I've read recently and would recommend.

The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love - by Kristin Kimball
This is a memoir by a woman who gave up her life as a journalist in NYC to start a farm from the ground up with her husband. It's beautifully written and tells the story of the nitty gritty reality of running a farm. Her descriptions of meals made lovingly from the fruits of the work of their own hands were captivating.

It also made me glad that we participate in a local CSA which helps small farms survive in the day and age of horrid factory farming and industrial agriculture.



Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms - by Nicolette Hahn Niman

Niman is ironically a vegetarian. She is an attorney who worked for Robert Kennedy's Waterkeeper project, and in her work began to discover the ugly truth of factory farming -- not only what it does to our food, but the animals, the water supply, and the environment in general, as well as the livelihood of farmers and industry workers. This book is partly a description of her own journey of discovery, but also gives practical advice on how we can make a difference and vote with our forks. Her husband was the founder of Niman Ranch, which raises animals in humane and sustainable conditions. This book is just one of the many voices that convincingly argue that we can choose to take back our knowledge of where our food comes from and how it is made, and make both practical and moral/ethical decisions we can live with based on that knowledge.


Fannie's Last Supper: Two Years, Twelve Courses, and Creating One Amazing Meal from Fannie Farmer's 1896 Cookbook - by Christopher Kimball

Christopher Kimball (of America's Test Kitchen and Cooks Illustrated fame) lives in Boston, and made it a project to discover as much as he could about Fannie Farmer and about how cooking and daily life would have been in her time. The book is devoted to the preparations for a 12 course, turn of the century meal that he and his staff prepared for a group of guests, in almost exactly the same way Fannie would have cooked such foods herself. His team even made their own gelatin from calves feet! Along the way Kimball discusses American culinary history, as it pertains to the different types of cuisine he was preparing and testing, using Farmer's famous cookbook as a reference. You would have to be really interested in food history and culinary arts to want to read the entire book, but it was truly fascinating, and I appreciated Kimball's dry wit. I'm glad that this book did not let me down, since I am such a devotee of ATK and Cooks. (The most foolproof recipes you will ever find, hands down.)

Also in my reading list since 2011 were two books about Julia Child. One, her memoir My Life in France by Julia Child, and the other, As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto edited by Joan Reardon. If you have any interest in Julia Child, these are both fantastic books. We sometimes forget that people who become celebrities (especially those that unlike the Kardashian sisters are deserving of their notoriety) had lives and relationships of their own. The book of letters was a fascinating glimpse into a friendship, and also a time where letter writing was important and something that people considered was a worthwhile expenditure of energy. I wish I had that patience. Of course Life in France is also a gem, describing her life and perceptions of living in France with her husband Paul while working on the manuscript for Mastering the Art of French Cooking. If you read and enjoyed or saw the movie Julie & Julia, these books are far superior. Definitely give them a try.

Next on my food-related book list is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver.

candy bar cupcakes part 2

Time for Snickers cupcakes. I made these for my dad's birthday; his favorite candy bar has been Snickers for as long as I can remember. First up, photos of the cake; peanut brown sugar.




Side note - my gramma Taylor used to have one of these nut grinders when I was little. One of my favorite things to do was have her give me some walnuts or peanuts to grind in the little yellow nut grinder, even if we weren't baking anything. We got a similar grinder recently and it grinds those nuts better than a food processor could ever hope to.

This time the mug was Boston - procured on our honeymoon last fall.

Into the oven, and onto the stickiest and messiest topping I have ever made for a cupcake or dessert. Peanut butter marshmallow nougat.



Cake is done!


On to the chocolate frosting!


Assembly!


A note if you make these cupcakes. They are delicious. But approximately 5 minutes after I took this photo, I noticed the toppings starting to slide all over the place. The marshmallow nougat likes to spread out under the weight of the chocolate frosting and the residual heat from the cupcakes (though I thought they were totally cool!). By the time I was done frosting them all, the first few had disintegrated. By the time they got to Erie for my dad's birthday, they were a disaster. So use the nougat sparingly. And only when the cupcakes are 100% cool. Allow for some spreading. But make them. Because they are delicious!