Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Spring CSA Week 1

I've had a grin on my face all day.  Because...

Today was the first day of the year for our veggie CSA!

We got a newsletter beforehand telling us what to expect, and since I saw bok choy and harukei turnips on there, I decided to set the rice cooker before we went to pick up, because I could throw together a mean stir-fry with those field-fresh veggies.  After doing that, the kids and I headed to the farm...which happens to be about 5 minutes away, smack dab in the middle of the Chicago suburbs.

Here's what we got:

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Drink Your Citrus!

Some of you may follow From Scratch on Twitter or Facebook, and you might remember that I was experimenting a couple of months ago with making my own limoncello and blood orangecello.  Which was one of those ideas that could either turn out awesome or a horrible failure, with very little in-between.

I'm happy to say that, at least as far as the blood orangecello goes, it was a huge success!

So, I'm proud to share my method with you, so that you too can get a delicious, orangy (or whatever flavor you decide to try) buzz from your own homemade liquor.

I started by googling "homemade limoncello".  I know, total creative genius.  But, as it turns out, there are at least 487,000 different recipes on the internet in English for "homemade limoncello".  Huh.  So, not as easy as I thought.  Some of these called for Everclear.  Which my well-stocked liquor cabinet does not have.  And I was feeling too thrifty (i.e. cheap and lazy) to go out and buy some.  We did, however, have an overabundance of vodka, as a couple of friends of ours always seem to come over with a new bottle, drink a couple of drinks, and then leave the rest at our house.  Some of the recipes mentioned that you could substitute vodka for the Everclear, so good to go there.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Jelly From the Weeds

I love that saying that talks about how you can think of a field of dandelions as a field full of weeds, or you can see it as a field full of potential wishes.  Not that I want that field to be my yard, personally, but it makes me smile to think about it when I see a field of dandelions somewhere else.


Dandelions also make me think back to high school, where they were the focus of a well-intentioned school project gone awry.  You see, in my advance literature class one year, we divided up into groups, each group was to read a chosen novel and then create their own project to present the novel to the class.  When I saw the title "Dandelion Wine", it called to me.  Baby, I was born this way. So, spearheading my group, I instigated several courses of dandelion edibles that we would serve as our final project.  This was back in the day before Google, so I was largely dependent on some Native American cookbooks hidden in our library.  We had crispy fritters made from dandelion greens and cornmeal, a lightly dressed dandelion green salad, candied dandelion flowers, and, the grand finale, our dandelion wine...which was a few bottles of sparkling grape juice that we shoved dandelion flowers into.  I mean, you can't being alcohol into school, duh.

Monday, May 13, 2013

The Balance

Something bothered me the other day.  Since I have a blog, and simply because I can, I'm going to work through it here.  Sometimes I just need a sounding board to bounce my thoughts off of.

It all started when a friend of mine posted a link on Facebook about lies that moms are told.  You know the kind of article.  Witty, funny, but still true enough that you feel like you've got a slightly new perspective on life...but one of the points really hit me wrong.  "Life is about balance."  As a lie that moms are told.  I think that the point the author was trying to make was that you shouldn't try to juggle everything possible, but instead, maybe focus on what matters most to you.  Which is not invalid, I guess.  But saying that life isn't about balance seemed so wrong to me.

I guess part of it is who I am, as a person.  I'm very much about balance.  I like fun, I like work.  I enjoy time alone, I love to be around others.  I pinch my pennies, but make some indulgent purchases.  And the article hurt me, because one of the things that I, over and over, tell friends of mine who are looking for advice, or who are in a hard spot in life, is "You'll find your balance, it'll be okay.".  So, have I been lying to them all this time?

Thursday, May 9, 2013

The Best Things You Probably Aren't Eating Yet: Quince

Quince.  It's a great scrabble word.  Also handy for crosswords and alphabet games.  And, in addition to all of that, it's actually a pretty decent fruit as well!

Quince is not easy to find, but even if you do, you might simply pass it by.  It looks like a lumpy pear, or a weird yellow apple.  I happened to spot them in the "exotics" section of the produce area at our grocery store the other day, and I may have freaked a few other shoppers out with my yelp of excitement.  I wasn't sure what exactly I was going to do with them, but I knew that I had just come across a quince recipe a few days earlier, so I sniffed the quince, fell in love, and scooped up 4.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Blueberry Oat Muffins

I'm a big fan of muffins.  Besides being basically a slightly healthier version of a cupcake that somehow has gotten mass approval as an acceptable breakfast option, they are also fairly quick to throw together.  If I am on my game, I can have them ready to go in the oven by the time the oven preheats.

These blueberry oat muffins are a family favorite.  The juicy pops of sweet-tart blueberries and the chew of the oats is a great combination, and a tried and true breakfast combination, also delicious in breakfast cake.  These muffins are so moist and flavorful that you don't need to worry about buttering them up, which is good, because they have a tendency to crumble easily.

So here we go.  Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Melt 1/4 cup (one half stick) of butter.

While the butter's melting, grab a 2 cup measure and make 1 cup of sour milk by putting a tablespoon of white vinegar in the measure and then adding milk until you get to 1 cup.  This is a quick substitute for buttermilk, if you need it in a recipe and don't have it on hand.  Otherwise, sub in the same amount of yogurt or sour cream...they all are pretty interchangeable in baking recipes.  Creamy with a tiny bite of sour.

Add 1 cup rolled oats to the sour milk and mix it.  Let it sit while you move on.

In a large bowl, mix 1 cup flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Go back to the milk/oat mixture.  Add one egg and the melted butter.  Make sure that either the butter is cooled or that you mix in the egg first and then slowly add in the butter...you don't want to scramble your egg.  Mix.

Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and combine until everything is just moistened.  Don't overmix muffins!  They'll turn into hockey pucks, which are NOT delicious.  

Take 1 cup of frozen blueberries and fold it in. 

Scoop into greased muffin cups (or paper lined tins).  I like to use a cookie dough scooper, like a small ice cream scoop, for quick muffin cup filling.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Sometimes, if you're lucky, your muffins will turn out resembling Grumpy Cat.