French Peasant Beets

A coworker of mine recently purchased a Rebel T2i, same camera I have, but chose to get the 50mm lens rather than the standard 18-55mm, the kit lens, and I have been seething ball of jealousy since seeing his first few pictures. Such clear quality in such low light! Every picture I took of these beets was met with disgust and so, after a quick check of my bank account, I gave in to desire and ordered a 50mm lens for myself. Can't wait!

No 50mm lens yet, but Picasa has instagram-style editing now!

For now, however: last Christmas I was given the Food52 cookbook, "140 winning recipes from exceptional home cooks" - a collection of winning recipes from Food52's weekly contests. Have you visited Food52 yet? Please take the time to pop over now. Amanda Hesser, of the immense and amazing The Essential New York Times Cookbook, and Merrill Stubbs, who assisted Amanda with the ENYTC, created Food52 first as a vehicle to create the "first crowd-sourced cookbook in 52 weeks" but it has since grown to a community where cooks of all caliber share recipes, tips, debate food news - there's even a real-time hotline to help you along any recipe's journey. Seriously, check it out.

Pickled Grapes!

Hello there! I know it's been a while - like "one year" a while - and even before I disappeared I had trouble keeping up with regular posts. What can I say? Adjusting to life back in the States was difficult, especially the whole "working and writing a cooking blog" part. And some other parts, too, but that is for another post on another day. Today, though, is about pickles, sweet, delicious pickles.

I first noticed this recipe from Smitten Kitchen while living in Kuwait, where fresh grapes were either unavailable or expensive enough to keep thoughts of recipe experimentation far from my mind. These days in Texas, however, grapes of all varieties are dripping over produce displays and I thought to myself, "Yes."

Blueberries Two Ways

Continuing with my current berry obsession I bought 5 pints of blueberries from HEB the other day because they cost $1.67 each. 5 pints of blueberries - local blueberries - for less than $10! I am only surprised that I didn't go and buy 20. Nevertheless, I was left with 8 cups of blueberries sitting in my fridge, twice as much as I needed for my open-face blueberry - my concession to patriotic desserts. Also, one of my favorite pies to make if only because it is so simple. You prebake a pie shell - homemade or store-bought, I don't judge - then add your slightly cooked blueberry filling. Chill for a couple of hours and slice into berry heaven. The filling takes less than 15 minutes to make and once you've tasted you'll wonder why anyone would bother buying canned blueberry pie filling, anyway.

 The remaining blueberries left me in a bind. Sure, I could leave them to be eaten as snacks or with yogurt, though I had no yogurt, but without fail some of them (most of them, likely) would go moldy before I (or Seth) had a chance to finish them. I hate to let food spoil. And yet I'm not much of a breakfast person in that I don't care for breakfast, at all (I'd rather wait for lunch) so blueberry pancakes were out. I could only see one way out: I had to make another dessert. Le sigh, my life is so very difficult.

Happy 4th of July!

Though my last post was on willful ignorance, specifically of international and national news, I simply have too much American spirit - in the form of patriotic Crown Royal and tequila, just as the Founding Fathers intended - to write about anything other than: Happy Fourth of July! Go watch 1776 and be merry!