It's That Time Again

Time for purple-stained fingers and hours spent under a fruit tree. Or crouching in a strawberry patch. Over the last few weeks I have collected many yogurt containers full of mulberries, serviceberries, sour cherries, currants, and strawberries, and all of them have been foraged from street trees or the yard of my friend Katrina (sad news: Katrina and her husband decided to move out of their house on the corner and I will miss her so. Also, now I will have to beg and plead with the new owners to get access to the fruit trees and the strawberry patch!).





Most of the berries went straight into my belly and the belly of friends (I brought four pounds of fruit on the plane with me to St. Louis last weekend to share with Jaja). The rest I cut up, mixed with granulated sugar, and froze. It works quite well; the sugar keeps the berries from sticking together too much in the freezer and you can scoop them out to eat on top of yogurt or ice cream whenever you want!



I also made this incredibly simply biscuit recipe with the serviceberries. It was scrumptious, I suggest you try it out.

Serviceberry biscuits

• 2 c flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3-4 Tbs Crisco
• 1 c sugar
• 3/4 c milk
• 2 c berries

Mix together dry ingredients. Cut shortening into it with a fork, until course crumbs. Add milk, mix. Gently add berries, mix. Plop onto lightly greased baking sheet and bake at 450 degrees for 12 minutes.

Yum.

Thrift Report*

*shamelessly stolen from Carlene at Knitsquirrel.

Here are the amazing things I picked up at the antique store during our bramble jam weekend:

• Chicken dish towel
• Sifter - Julianne Moore uses an identical one in The Hours!
• Grandma and Grandpa mugs - part of a wedding gift
• set of Pyrex bowls with a mushroom design on them - "Forest Fancies" design
• linen ribbon with an apple tree print - broke my own rule

These purchases are shockingly color-coordinated.

Vicarious baking

My oven has been broken for a few weeks now and I'm going into baking withdrawl.

So instead of a hit of the good stuff, I will have to be satisfied with showing off my aprons as a kind of vicarious baking.

Here's my number one workhorse apron, given to me by the lovely Jaja as a housewarming/welcome home to Philly present. The full coverage and sentimental value means that this one gets the most use.



This hilarious one I got at an estate sale in New Jersey a few years ago. I never use this in the kitchen, it makes me think of sexy housewives cooking in nothing but high heels. Plus, stuff would go right through it.



A tried and true fifties apron, stolen from my parents' house. I think this belonged to my grandma (Mom, correct me if I'm wrong).



One of my favorites, bought at a thrift store in Pennsylvania during college.



A lovely, too-good to use apron, given to me as a going away present by my friend Sarah in Davis.



A Christmas present from my friend Metthea. It's reversible, and those "mittens" on the side? Potholders!



This is where my aprons live, right where I can most easily access them in the entrance to the kitchen.



On a separate note, thanks for all of the congratulations on the job! I'm pretty excited about all the things I have cooking right now (wordplay!) and I hope to soon bring you all up to speed on the community garden project. Now go enjoy your working ovens and mail me some cookies, like Aunt Emmy always does.

It's a Cake Stand, Baby

My wonderful room-mates (well, one is now an ex-room-mate, sniff) got me this fabulous cake stand for my last birthday. I love it to death and it gives me an extra reason to bake (so I can fill it with yumminess).



We've had a lot of carrots coming to us via the CSA box recently, and I finally got around to making these carrot-spice muffins which were delicious. The recipe comes from the blog Fatfree Vegan Kitchen, though I used full cream yogurt and sugar so the muffins were neither fat free nor vegan.



Here's another glamour shot of the cake stand. It has a belly full of coconut birthday cake from last fall. Aah, domesticity.

Beet it, just beet it

This post by Cookiecrumb over at I'm Mad And I Eat inspired me to post a picture of one of my favorite aprons. I have a ton more back in NJ, but only two of them made their way out to CA (this will soon be rectified and I will show you all the amazing aprons I've inherited from my mom and grandma).

And here's a pic of some beets that I scrubbed and cooked the other night. I tried an idea from my friend Kim; cooked beets in Annie's Mac n' Cheese. It was pretty good, and the pink color was satisfying (sorry no pics, it wasn't really that attractive, despite the color). It certainly was easy to prepare, but I think I'll continue to look for beet recipes. Any suggestions?



My family is coming to visit for a whole week on Friday, and we're visiting the Sonoma Valley this weekend. This means two things; pretty pics of vineyards and bubbly coming up, and I can show off that weaving project (the Mother's Day gift), after I finally give it to my mom.