Strawberries, strawberries and more strawberries

I bought 2lbs for the restaurant and 2lbs for home on Wednesday. I'd mentioned on vacation if WG saw fruit that looked good and at a good price to buy some and I'd make something with them. The last resort being jam. Well, I guess that really stuck in his mind. He calls me on Friday and said "you bought strawberries?!" I guess he was looking in the refrigerator and noticed the strawberries. "I just bought 4 (2lbs) containers." said with a bit of a panic in voice.

So guess what I'm doing this weekend. Making jam (4lbs), sorbet (2lbs) and hand pies (.5lb) and the rest just to eat [for my breakfast and WG dinner--he's been eating fruit for dinner for months] or I could make some strawberry ice cream for home . . .hmmm

He's a couple of picture of the fruits of my labor. 

4lbs of strawberries jamming = 4 pints and 1 half pint of jam 

2lbs of strawberries = very intense cooling experience

.5lb of strawberries = 7 hand pies waiting for the oven

Cooking up some savory goodies

Got these beautiful carrots [red, orange and yellow, I'm a sucker for these kinds of veggies] from the farmers market, with some red and orange beets,  swiss chard [my favorite)] and a delicata squash and decide to make up some savory goodies for my lunch this week.



Starting out roasting the some of the carrot and beets with olive oil, Herb de Provence, salt and pepper. 

I used only 1/3 of the bunch of carrots, so I decide to try making a carrot salad asian-style with the rest.

While the carrots and beets are roasting, I'm caramelizing onions for a zucchini and caramelized onion tart. Someone from work gave me a giant zucchini that I need to use and I found this recipe from One Perfect Bite. 

I found my way to One Perfect Bite while I was looking for instructions to make dried apricot jam in crock pot. I bought a big container of dried apricots a while back and I thought I better use it up soon. And loved the apricot jam made this summer. So that's also cooking away at the moment.

The onions are done now and I'm off to make some crust, making up 2 crust, one for the tart and one for an apple sour cream crumb pie from Martha Stewart. Yes, I got some apples from the farmers market. [my eyes are bigger than my stomach]


My kitchen smell amazing at the moment. I'll post some pics of the finish products later. 

I'm thinking of trying a stuffed delicata squash with swiss chard [and probably the leftovers of the giant zucchini] and cheese. But that's tomorrow's project. I have a ton of baking and cooking on my list for tomorrow. It's perfect weather for all this cooking. I'm taking advantage when I can. 

I know this all sound way too much for one person. But I have all of this great veggies and fruits from the farmers markets and friends that I need to use up. I guess I'll make someone happy when I surprise them with a sampling.

So I tried a new look

And I just didn't like it and I have gone back to the simple template minus all the orange. I guess I have to come up with my own design.  I've thinking about for a while. And since I've trying to get better at html and css, I guess this is my chance. Stay tune for more rounds of changes [ha ha, just like work].

Since I have your attention I wanted share what I've up to. Nothing earth-shattering, just my normal stuff I've been fitting in between work and the restaurant. The hardest part is to remember to take the pictures [and figuring out the new camera. not liking how the images look].

Knitting

I've trying to make a few things for me [haven't finished anything yet this summer]. Love colors of Koigu PPPM and bought some this earlier this summer in green/orange/pink combination, kind of neon. Making a shawlette, in a kind of simple lace pattern. Thought it was complicated enough to keep my interest and easier enough that I would be lost if [always] put down for a while. I already ripped the whole thing apart once. Second try, I'm using stitch marker to keep track better [yes, I'm using paper clips as markers--at least they're the color ones]. I hope it works.

Cooking

Jam! Been making it all summer for the restaurant, family, friends and a little bit for me. I've been using it in my breakfast yogurt. Luckily I still enjoy doing it. Although this last batch of peach jam, was a bit labor intensive [no more non-freestone peaches for me]. Got 5 half pints and 3 minis. It was really good. I think the combination of the slight tartness of the non-freestone peaches from my friend's tree and the super sweetness of the yellow peaches from the farmers market is what made it so delicious. Just finished a batch of strawberry--customers favorite. And will make another batch of plum this weekend. The last batch of plum I made was so sweet and good. The plums were at the perfect moment to make the jam. I just got some italian plums, I hope this batch turns our just a good or better.



This is a picture of the special dessert we been serving at the restaurant. Strawberry sorbet and Orange "Guri Guri" with fresh fruit. One of the many things that I've been using my ice cream maker for this summer: Ice cream, sorbets and "Guri Guri"  [hawaiian-style sherbet]. I think this hot and humid summer had a lot of influence for that. Most of it has been for the restaurant, but I made raspberry ice cream for home with some farmers market raspberries. Been trying to find the time again to make some ice cream for home. Yummmm!

Not to much baking since my family left in the beginning of the summer. Just the staples for the restaurant. I been dying to try out some recipes. Since the weather is getting cooler, it probably a good time to try it. On my list, a chocolate chip cookie that's been calling me, a cinnamon cake with gooey chocolate frosting [which I made this weekend and is sooo delicious] and blueberry cake that I hope taste as good as it looks [I know off season but just found the recipe and it looks so good]. 

Watching
With all this food making there is a lot of time spent waiting for thing to be done and I've been using that time knitting and catching up on movies and TV that I've missed out on [late joiners to netflix--streaming]. Currently watching Breaking Bad. Once I catch up with that, I'm going to start Downton Abbey. 

Monday is a early night, no dinner [yah!] and that's movie night for us. Don't remember what was the last thing we saw in a theater [I think it was Avatar]. So far we've seen: Drive, Mao's Last Ballet Dancer, Captain America, and Super 8. I know they're so old movies but remember what I last movie we saw.

Reading
Like my knitting, I have many books and magazine articles going at the same time. This is the reason why it takes me so long to finish reading a book. But this is what been keeping my interest these days. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, to inspire me to get moving. Just started Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale, thought it would be fun summer reading but been slow out the gate. Hope I it gets going soon. And sitting on my night table next to the bed is Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern [End of night reading in bed is bad for me. Always fall asleep and need to re-read the same paragraph over and over]. 

What I've been really reading is my collection of NYT magazines. Brought a bunch with me on vacation and I'm almost caught up--just 2 more left in the house. Then all them get sent off to my Mom who really enjoys them. The Sunday NYT goes to the restaurant and there must be a fan of the magazine there because for the past several weeks there is no magazine to be found. :(

Well that's it for now. Not bad for a post I started about the design of my blog. One day, I'll tackle that but for now, why fix something that's not broke--sort of.

Today I made . . .

4 1/2 pints of apricot jam




My 2nd attempt @ an pan. This time with homemade an.




Raspberry ice cream-raspberry from the farmers market.




And working to finish up a burping blanket before baby Gingersnap arrives.

The things you can accomplish when you have some free time. Only if all my weekends were like this.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

From one obsession to another

Now that my quince obsession has been quenched (sort of), it has move on to another, making jam. It has all the fitting of something I would obsess about--something old-fashion, long and somewhat complicated process, handmade and can be experimental. So now I'm a bit jam crazy.

The funny thing is I don't usually eat jam or jelly, too sweet. But I like using it in cookies or recently have been using it as filling for my cakes and cupcakes. I've been envisioning what groupings I can make with cake flavors and jams.

My jam list is beginning to grow. So far I have: quince [done--need to wait for next year], raspberry[done last weekend for holiday gifts], blackberries were a good deal @ costco and some kind of citrus fruit [I have grapefruit in refrig and I just bought meyer lemons] marmalade.

My Quince Obsession

UPDATE: I just realized I never said what it tasted like. When it was cooking up, the smell was very wine-y and intense. The taste is very hard to describe--sweet, wine, port, prunes are few words that come to my mind when I taste it. But the taste isn't intense like what the smell when it was cooking up. Texture is a little chunky. I can see how it would go well with some cheese as the Spanish would do.

has been quiet, in the background of my ever crazy mind since I heard the story on npr [Reading up on it, find bath products scented with it, never in the stores, never getting to the farmers' market to see if they have any]. I recently spotted a lonely scrubby quince tree near my route to the restaurant and have been plotting how I could pick me some [on private property, no where to park without getting noticed]. So when someone at work told me she got some from our office fruit/veggie people, I jumped at the chance to buy some.

If you never heard or seen a quince, it looks like a bumpy pear/apple in a yellow green color as you can see above. It's scent is incredible when it is ripe, can be almost too sweet of a scent. It can't be eaten raw, tastes horrible. But has lots of pectin in it, to make it perfect for jams and jellies. Now I have  2 lbs in my hands and I will cook up some jam this weekend to add to vanilla cake or maybe some Earl Grey Tea cake with vanilla buttercream.