Woodland Cake

I bought these fun holiday stencils at Michael's, in the Martha Stewart section of course, and I love them! My woodland stencil didn't turn out perfect, but it's still pretty. You gotta go easy on the powdered sugar, but in a very even layer. I think that's the key. They also carry stencils for cupcakes. Happy baking!

Fall Already?

Often you'd find me standing at the kitchen counter eating leftovers out of a tupperware container or eating something delicious chef dad has made, but sometimes I actually make dinner myself and even dessert. And of course that's a happening so I sometimes document it too. (I even pulled out our Canon for this, though most of these pictures are with my iPhone.) Today it was so chilly when I walked Lois to nursery school that I thought it would be a good comfort food day. Pot roast. Being from the southeast US, I almost can't believe I made pot roast in August. But I did, and it was yummy, so were the little heart tarts. Well, the pot roast was better, but the tarts were still pretty good. I did something wrong with the pastry dough. Pastry dough is a beast. I've never gotten it right, though I've only tried a few times. It's all about the butter I think, or mostly anyway. The heart tart recipe is from The Gentle Art of Domesticity by Jane Brocket, a wonderful book for anyone who values, cooking, crafts, family, and home. Now to clean up this explosion that is our house. Everything looks pretty in neatly cropped photos, but around the edges, woah, what a mess!

The finished pot roast tasted much better than it looked in pictures! Tea and tarts looked better. 

Food for Thought

Today I found a treasure of a book at the Goodwill while stopping in for a few minutes with my grandma. It's The Horizon Cookbook and Illustrated History of Eating and Drinking through the Ages by William Harlan Hale. At first glance it reminded me of one of my favorite books--Art and Wonder: An Illustrated Anthology of Visionary Poetry--so I was drawn to it immediately. This book, though, is all about food. Since Lois was born I find myself thinking about food often and in a way I didn't before. When I refer to my baby feeding chart (at 4 months begin cereal; at 7 months begin yogurt; at 8 months finely milled meats), I wonder what people did hundreds and hundreds of years ago when they didn't have the handy Earth's Best feeding chart and a Whole Foods down the street. I know women nursed much longer than most women do now, but children had to start eating food at some point, and I'm sure mothers didn't always have many options. I'm so grateful to live when I do--a time when I don't have to grow or hunt for my own food to survive. This book takes you back through history when people did. From the evolution of markets, to the search for spices, to the bottling of bubbles, to the art of porcelain, to the ceremony of dining throughout the ages, this book is a gem for anyone who likes history, art, or food. It also has an extensive recipe section in the back. Most of the images here show pages with artwork, but the book is filled with more text than art. So far it's a scrumptious read, especially for the thrifty $2.50 price tag. You can click on the images to view them larger.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Yesterday we went to the Swanton organic berry farm to pick strawberries. It was so much fun! It was really neat to see the strawberry farm and see all the pretty, ripe berries dangling from the plants. They even had cute radio flyer wagons you could use for picking (we didn't fill up a wagon--that's a picture of someone else's wagon) and for toting the little ones around. Lois had a good time sitting in a wagon, squishing a few strawberries. It was a bit chilly outside, but that beat the alternative. The drive along highway 1 was really nice too. We saw a lighthouse, lots of surfers in the ocean, and cute roadside produce stands. Last night Andrew made strawberry shortcake with yummy homemade biscuits and whipped cream. And we have some custard based ice cream chilling in the fridge, ready for the ice cream maker! Strawberry ice cream later today, yum.

Alicia's Tumbprints

We made some delicious cookies last week--Alicia's mom's thumbprint cookies. My mom often made thumbprint cookies when I was growing up, so I wanted to try this recipe with her because I love thumbprints, and I love Alicia's blog. Oh my gosh, I cannot tell you how good they are! You'll just have to make them yourself to know. Amazing. That's about all I can say. I think the key to getting them right is the butter because some of ours came out a little flat and deflated looking (how you handle the butter can make or break cookies, among other things). And I think what made them taste extra special is the almond extract. If you don't have holiday baking fatigue yet, I highly recommend making these. We left some out for Santa. He liked them too.

What's Cookin': Omnivore, Books on Food

Y'all know Andrew loves to cook (and I love to eat!), so when we heard an exclusively cookbook bookstore was opening in our neighborhood, we were really excited. Omnivore, Books On Food, has a great selection of both new and old cookbooks. Their selection of rare, antiquarian books is especially impressive. Looking at the old bookcovers alone is enough to entertain me! They just opened, but they already have a full calendar of events coming up. If you live in San Francisco, it's a great new place to check out. Go to their web site for more information. Here are a few pictures.

The Best Blueberry Muffins

Update: go ahead and make the sweet and rich version if you decide to make these. I know I'm heavy handed on the butter and was on the sugar last time as well. A friend made the light ones and thought they were a little dry. The extra egg in the richer version might help that.

Well at least these are some of the best blueberry muffins I've ever had. I've made them a number of times and always love them. The recipe comes from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. He mentions that he doesn't especially like sweet or rich muffins so this recipe is light on the sweet and rich. He does provide a recipe for the sweet and rich ones, which have three more tablespoons of butter, one more egg, and 3/4 cup of sugar rather than 1/2 cup. He also lists a variety of variations on the basic muffin recipe so that you could, for example, make banana nut muffins, spice muffins, coffee cake muffins, savory muffins, etc. You'll need the cookbook to make those, though, since I'm just listing the blueberry muffin recipe here.

3 tablespoons melted butter or canola or other neutral oil (plus some for greasing the muffin tin)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest (optional, but I like it)
1 egg
1 cup milk, plus more if needed
1 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a standard 12 compartment muffin tin. Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl. Beat together the egg, milk and butter or oil, and add the lemon zest to the wet ingredients. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it. Using a large spoon or rubber spatula, combine the ingredients swiftly and add in the blueberries, stirring and folding rather than beating, and stopping as soon as all the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter should be lumpy, not smooth, and thick but quite moist. Add a little more milk if necessary. Spoon the batter into the muffin tins, filling them about two-thirds full and handling the batter as little as possible. Bake 20 to 30 minutes, or until the muffins are nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the center of one of them comes out clean. Let rest for 5 minutes before taking them out of the tin. Serve warm. Yum. Don't forget a little pat of butter.

Cherry Pie!

The pie was delicious! Andrew preferred this one he made with sour cherries and bing cherries to the one a few weeks ago that he made with just bing cherries, but I think I liked the other one a tad bit more. Just a tad bit though! The recipe came from Cooks Illustrated, and I think it's pretty perfect.

Life is a Bowl of (sour!) Cherries

Yesterday we went to the Alemany Farmer's Market, which is becoming our regular Saturday morning shopping trip. Fresh fruit, veggies, eggs, bread, honey, olive oil, flowers--we can get it all there. And every once in a while we find something really exciting like sour cherries. They are very sour! Andrew's been on the lookout for these for a few weeks now and was really happy to see them at the market yesterday. He brandied some of the cherries for Manhattans, and the rest are going to go in a cherry pie along with some bing cherries we picked up. We'll see how it turns out. Two weekends ago Andrew made the best cherry pie I've ever eaten, using just bing cherries. I think it was the best any kind of pie I've ever eaten, and I can't imagine him topping that, but maybe the sour cherries will do it. Here are a few pictures from yesterday morning.