Quick Question

Is there such a thing as cake rehab? If there is I need to be admitted immediately.

CSA Program

I haven't had a chance t o post in a while, both with my computer being a butt and also because my parents were in town for a week. After working a 9 hour day and then spending time with my folks I really couldn't muster up the desire to sit down and write. Unfortunately I think there were a lot of yummy things made while my parents were in town that have gone undocumented, I didn't even bother to take photos. I will try to be more attentive this week. I hope that the 10 hours of sleep I managed to get last night will start me off well for the week.

I wanted to tell you about something cool I just joined. It's an organic produce CSA called Full Circle Farm . CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. With this program I pick up a box of delicious fresh produce weekly at a pick up site two blocks from my house. There are three different box sizes that you can choose from and I get the small box for $30 a week. Let me tell you that it is an amazing deal. I used to waste so much money at the grocery store with produce, because even though I would have a list I would easily stray from it and buy things that I didn't need. I always had produce that went bad. now I just rely on what's in the box for my weekly produce and unless I really need an important ingredient for a dish I no longer buy produce at the store. The small box contains a good deal of produce. It is listed as the best option for a family of two but I think that it could easily work for up to four people, especially of you get a box weekly. Everything I've gotten so far is fantastic and delicious. What I also like is that you can make exemptions in your box, so I will never be receiving beets or mushrooms! You also have the option of substituting items from the box as well as buying extra items, like more produce or coffee, tea and eggs. It really has made shopping very easy for me.

This week I will be receiving all of this in my box:
1 bunch Rainbow Chard 1 bunch Red Radishes
1 pint Cherry Tomatoes 1 bunch Opal Basil
0.34 pound Salad Mix (Cut Greens) 2 each Bi-Color Sweet Corn
1 each Cucumbers 3 each Peaches
1.5 pounds Yukon Gold Potatoes 3 each White Flesh Nectarines
1 each Kent Mangos 0.75 pound Santa Rosa Plums
1 pound Farmer's Choice Of Summer Squash

I also added a few extra things to my box because I LOVE FOOD. It's great having the produce list 5 days before your box is ready because it gives you the chance to modify your box contents as well as plan your weeks menu.

If you are interested in joining please let me know and I can give you a code to get $15 off of your first order.

Side Dishes

I find that I very often neglect side dishes. I get very excited about the main attraction and don't even think until the last moment as to what would go well with it. It's not that I don't love a good side dish. I mean I am crazy for mashed potatoes and veggies cooked in any way shape or form. Maybe it's because I am both cheap and lazy. No maybe about it.

I think the hardest dish for me to come up with an accompaniment for is hamburgers. Hamburgers are so delicious and big (the way I make them) that really they don't need anything with them, but I always feel this sort of obligation to keep them from being lonely on the plate. Remember, cows have feelings too.

My two new favorite side dishes for grilling season are Mayo-free cole slaw and Grilled Potatoes. What I love about both of these dishes is that there are endless variations.

With the Mayo-free cole slaw I use 1/2 head of green cabbage, 1 red bell pepper, 1 yellow bell pepper, and one onion. I slice it all very thin and put it in a bowl sprinkled with salt and pepper, 1 tbsp sugar, and a 1/2 tsp of crushed red pepper flakes. You set it aside while you make the dressing. In a sauce pan combine 1/4 cup of olive oil, 1/4 cup of distilled white vinegar (apple cider vinegar would be good too), 1 tsp of mustard powder, and 2 tsp of lime juice. Bring the ingredients to a boil then allow to simmer for 5 minutes. Pour the dressing over the cabbage and refrigerate for at least two hours.

You can easily change it up with any seasonal ingredients that you want, as well as spices.

The potatoes are cooked in small foil packages (do not fill with more than 1/2 cup of potatoes in each package or they will take forever to cook) with olive oil, garlic, paprika and italian seasoning on the grill for 20 minutes. You can add anything you want to these potatoes. Cumin would yummy. Or curry. I also think some shallots would be delicious. You can seriously put whatever your heart desires on these potatoes and they will be fabulous. Unless of course you put something gross. But if you can ruin potatoes, there is probably no hope for you and you should make sure to have take out on your speed dial.

Plum crazy

It has been hot in Seattle. Really, ridiculously hot. All I want to do is bathe in a bowl of ice cream or sit in ice water all day. The other night I made David take me to Ikea because a. there is air conditioning there and b. there is frozen yogurt at the end. I say at the end , because to me Ikea is like a ride. Fun and a little terrifying, with some of the longest waiting time on earth. Speaking of rides, I keep having this reoccurring dream that I am on the Pirates of The Caribbean ride at Disney land and that the drops are waaaaay longer than I remember them being. This is a problem because I am a wimp and HATE drops. I will not go on a roller coaster no matter how much you try and convince me. Anyway, weird dream and I don't know why I keep having it. Is it a sign that I'm supposed to go to Disney land or that I shouldn't because I might die on an ocean adventure?

Even though it's hot I still love the summer (do you like how I went off on a tangent and didn't even try to connect it to anything? that's what it's like having a conversation with me). One of my favorite parts of summer is all the amazing seasonal fruit. For some reason this year I haven't been baking a lot of fruit desserts. Most likely because my schedule has been crazy and also because of the heat.


My favorite fruit to bake with is the plum. I love plums and I love them even better when they are baked with sugar and other deliciousness. I've tried many plum recipes through the years and my very favorite is a torte from Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters. The cook book is hit or miss for me but the plum cake/torte is one of my very favorite summer treats. It's simplest to make and yet has such a smart flavor profile. Tart plums in vanilla cake sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Mmmmmmm.

Esther Pullman's Plum Torte from Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 1/3 cups sugar divided
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
12 italian plums pitted, or 3 large plums pitted and cut in eighths
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Coat a 9 inch spring form pan with vegetable spray and dust with flour. Cut a parchment paper or wax paper liner to fit the bottom of pan. Insert the liner and coat with spray and flour. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Cream together butter and 1 cup of sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Beat in eggs. Add dry ingredients then vanilla. pour the batter in the pan and arrange the plums on top. Sprinkle with the lemon juice. Combine the remaining sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle over the plums. Bake for 55-60 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan.



Another easy way to use plums is as a condiment for pork. Pit and dice about 4 plums. Put into a sauce pan with 1/3 cup of red wine and 3 tbsp (or more to taste) of Worcestershire sauce. Add a pinch of salt and sugar and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let simmer until you have a jam like consistency. Serve over the top of grilled pork (I used a shoulder steak sprinkled with garlic powder and paprika).

Vino Fly Trap

Sorry it's been a bit between posts, our internet is being a punk and making me angry.

I love this time of year in Seattle. It's beautiful, maybe one of the prettiest places in the country. Everything is green and lush with flowers hanging off of fences and porches, exciting landscapes and views. I love living here. I'm in a city and yet I have a view of a lake and trees and a city from my front porch. Heavenly.

The one thing I don't like about this time of the year are all the damn fruit flies everywhere. They annoy the crap out of me! I went to have a glass of red wine the other night and as soon as I placed the glass on the coffee table, a fly landed and started swimming in it. I took it as a sign that I did not need to have any wine that evening and decided to turn the glass in to a fly trap. I left the wine out over night and by the morning there were eight flies in the glass. So if you hate fruit flies I recommend leaving a small amount of red wine (no sense in wasting too much) out to collect them all.

Bacon is the new power food

You've heard of sweet potatoes and blueberries as power foods, but what about bacon? Sure the first two are power foods because they are healthy and do wonderful things for your body, but bacon, BACON can be added to anything! Even sweet potatoes would be more powerful with bacon.

I have been a bacon lover for, let me think about it, FOREVER. I can't get enough of it. And even though I usually start disliking things once they become trendy, bacon is a whole other story. I'm down with bacon appearing as a star in every restaurant. The more I see people using bacon in interesting ways the more inspired I am to use it. In Portland, OR there is a donut shop called Voodoo Doughnuts that makes a maple bacon bar. It's a delicious, spongy yeast donut (my favorite doughnut texture) with a strip of bacon on top. So good! After eating that doughnut for the first time I was inspired to come home and make maple bacon ice cream. I used a David Lebovitz recipe for the maple ice cream and added tiny pieces of crisp bacon at the end of the churning. The bacon adds the salty/sweet factor without being overwhelming. There is a lovely bit of smokiness that really compliments the maple flavor.

I spoke of bacon brownies and eventually there will be a recipe for them, once I find the brownie recipe that works the best. I will also be adding many bacon enhanced recipes to this blog as they are concocted. I have many many ideas forming. For now, I will leave you with the idea of BACON S'MORES RICE KRISPIES TREATS. They will make you happy.

Why being lactose intolerant sucks

Cheese. Ice cream. Pizza. Lasagna. Do I really need to explain further?

I believe that I was 11 or 12 when it finally became clear that I was lactose intolerant. I know I cried about it, but I also remember being really happy that I finally knew why I was always sick. I had horrible stomach cramps probably since the age of 7, and we could never figure out what it was from. My mom also had the same symptoms, and it wasn't until a woman at church told her she must be lactose intolerant that she was able to figure it out. Once we knew about my mom we were able to figure out that I had the same problem. Of course this was after years of doctors appointments, tests, upper GI's.

Being a lover of food it is really difficult to have dietary restrictions. I hate having to check labels and having to tell people if I'm going to eat at their house for the first time. It's always super awkward. I don't know why but I always feel like such a whiner or something. I hate being that person who says "Yes, I would love to eat your dinner as long as it is free and clear of this list of things" (insert handing list here). For a good while I stayed away from gluten, but have luckily found out that it's not that bad of an issue for me. I think most people have a hard time with gluten, but luckily I don't have celiacs. I would shoot myself if I couldn't eat dairy and wheat! I mean, I think it's pretty obvious that I love cake!

Lucky for me there is Digestive Advantage to allow me to eat dairy. I don't take it on a regular basis because it's kind of expensive and I need to double up the dose. So I save it for special occasions and then I binge on dairy until I.....well, you know what cheese does.

I LOVE goat cheese because I can eat it whenever I want. Being lactose intolerant just means that I can't have cow's milk but I can have goat's and sheep's. YAY! I could live off of goat cheese, red wine, bittersweet chocolate, bacon and avocado. It's that good.

Recently I have been hearing a lot about halloumi cheese. I had never come across it (or maybe I just didn't notice it) until I bought Nigella Express. She has recipes using halloumi and since then I've been seeing recipes all over the place using it. Halloumi is a greek cheese that is a blend of goat and sheep milks. It has a very salty flavor and is super cool and fancy because you can grill it and it won't melt. We had it for dinner the other night when we made hamburgers, yet again. I really liked it. I also happen to enjoy salty food so for people with a distaste for the salty, it might not be your thing. Another reason I like it is because it kind of squeaks when you chew it. As if there was a mouse in your mouth, but that would be a different texture....gross and very unnecessary. Please don't associate that with the cheese. The cheese doesn't deserve that.

Anyway the moral of the story is dairy is good/amazing so if you aren't lactose intolerant have an extra scoop of ice cream tonight in honor of me!