stuff about artstuff.

Snow, Tomatoes, Bacon, and Other Happy Things.

When it looks like this outside, it's always nice to cozy up with some yummy comfort food, isn't it?

A friend was telling me recently about a food truck that grills amazing sandwiches and they are all served with this amazing tomato jam. Tomato jam. I could not get those words out of my head after our conversation. I must have tomato jam. I must make tomato jam. What can I put tomato jam on?

My obsession led me to the Interwebs. And, as I usually do to the dismay of friends and relatives who would like a simple answer to "may I get the recipe for (that thing you just made)?" I read dozens of recipes for tomato jam, picked ideas from each I thought I'd like, and wandered into the kitchen with loose notes scrawled on a scrap of paper. I'm doing much better: at least I keep the notes now, so I have something to try to share if it works.

All recipes I found called for a ton of sugar, although there were a lot of comments about the recipes being too sweet as written. I feel better when I avoid processed sugar and mostly use maple syrup or raw honey to sweeten stuff. I thought maple syrup might be just the thing for the blend of spices and flavors. Most of them cooked it slowly on the stove top, but there was one recipe that roasted it in the oven (so sorry, Genius Recipe Author, that I forgot who you are). This is how I like to cook. I roast just about everything in the oven: vegetables for soup, tomatoes for sauce, bacon to add to other recipes, whatever.

So, you know my thing. I'm not a food blogger with a fancy camera who creates (or follows) exact recipes. My measurements are loose, at best. But when there's something this good I think you should try, I'll share it here. Do your own thing with it! I bet a vegetarian version with onions and garlic instead of bacon would be pretty amazing, too. Have fun, be creative, and I hope you love this as much as I do:

Oven Roasted Tomato and Bacon Jam:

1-1/2-ish pounds tomatoes, cut into small chunks (even sad beige woody wintertime store-bought ones will work)

1/3 to 1/2 cup maple syrup

1/2-ish cup cooked bacon, cut into small chunks

The juice of 1 lime

2 T freshly grated ginger root

1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced

Cinnamon (I used a couple heaping tablespoons because I'm using up an ancient jar I found in the back of my cupboard and it's not very cinnamony; you'll probably be fine with even 1/4 as much)

Generous sprinkles each of ground cardamom, cumin, and allspice

A small pinch of ground cloves

Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fully line a 9 x 13" cake pan with parchment paper, up around all edges. Spread tomatoes across bottom of pan. Top with bacon & jalapeno, sprinkle with spices, and pour maple syrup over all.

Roast for an hour or two, pulling out once or twice to stir. You want it to get nice and browned and caramelized: not too soupy and pale, but not too dry and dark. After cooling slightly, if you like, scoop into a bowl and dip an immersion mixer into it a few times to break up the larger chunks. You could also pulse it gently in a food processor, or just leave it chunky.

This was soooooo good, you guys. Sweet and savory, tomatoey and mapley and spicy and of course, bacony. Gah! I served it with oven fries on Superbowl Sunday. Guests spread it on just about everything else, too.

It was heaven with the snowy-day poutine we made with the leftovers the next day.

And a few minutes ago, I stopped at the fridge and ate some on a piece of cheese. True story. It would be awesome on any burger or sandwich. One guest even suggested eating it on pancakes. What will you put it on?

It's cold outside! Cozy up and enjoy some amazing tomato jam on something. I think you'll be glad you did.

xoBeth

 

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Pinterest, I Love You.

I mean seriously. You just made my life so much easier. I'm so excited about this one I had to come right in and blog about it, crappy photo quality and all. As far as life-changing pins go, this is right up there with that magical peeling-garlic-in-seconds-by-shaking-it-in-2-bowls thing.

I have been on a pomegranate kick lately, it is that time of year after all. I'll admit that one of the things I've always sort of liked about eating them is that it's so complicated that it becomes an event in itself. You know, like artichokes or sunflower seeds. A project, an accomplishment, with delicious food as the prize. I'll admit that my sometimes-love for these impractical high-maintenance foods are really just leftovers from my childhood: you know, when we had more time to play with our food.

But in the real and grownup world where things are supposed to happen on a schedule, I have spent a lot of time seeding pomegranates that could be spend doing other things. And my kitchen usually looks like a  murder scene afterward. I'd been seeing a lot of tips online for using that underwater method but hadn't tried it yet because frankly it looked like it might just be a just a different flavor of messy and complicated than I already had. But the other day I noticed this pin and visited this awesome blog and wow, like that garlic thing, this one is a life-changer.

Do you have a pomegranate in your house? If you do, run to your kitchen and do this right now! I mean it. You'll be so happy. That is if you're even half as easily excited by things like this as me.

By the time I was making dinner this evening I had forgotten what tool she had bapped her pomegranate with. I chose this wooden thing that shall hereby be known as the Pomegranate Bapper. I know, you'd think that someone who pretends to be such a foodie and who spent so many years in professional kitchens might know the real name of this, rather than that round poundy smashy bappy wooden thing; but that doesn't matter any more because it's the Pomegranate Bapper.

I remembered she said to bap it fairly hard. This is true, a gentle tap may dislodge one or two seeds; you need to really lay into it. You know, this was a very naughty pomegranate and it needs to be spanked.

In less than a minute, you've got a nearly-empty hull and a lovely bowl of seeds. You'll have to pick a few pieces of membrane out of your bowl, but that's it. I dug the last 9 or 10 seeds out of each half by hand, just for old time's sake. And I learned after the first couple baps that the closer you hold the fruit to the bowl while bapping, the less murder-scene-ish your kitchen becomes in the process. It hardly looks like anyone died in here at all. How awesome is that?

You should check out the blog post where I learned this: since it's a for-real food blog she has much prettier photos (!) and there are links to yummy looking recipes using pomegranate seeds. I sprinkled mine on a pretty amazing salad and look forward to adding them to just about everything I eat for the next few days.

Thanks, Pinterest!

Nailed It. No, Really I Did.

So how often does this actually happen in real-life:

I'm here at the computer and take a peek at Pinterest while waiting for a big file to upload.

I see something that looks good, get up right that second, make it, nail it, and eat it.

No, really.  I did that.

I suppose it's not that impressive of a feat considering the recipe has 3 ingredients and takes 5 minutes, but still.  You fellow-pinners know that immediate follow-through on a pin is a rare event, maybe even just an urban legend.  So I figured it's an event worthy of an actual blog post.  Yeah, I realize I have important art-related things I should be blogging about but haven't gotten to yet - but seriously: saw it, made it, nailed it. I mean, really.

So I just had to tell you: I highly endorse this yummy little concoction by Kaitlin of the Garden Grazer.

Of course I had to add a bunch of cloves of fresh garlic to mine (burp, excuse me) a little salt and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes, and wow.  Love.  What had motivated me, though, was that whole sandwich she shows in the photo - how happy was I to check on my little sprout factory and see that my cute little alfalfa was grown just the right amount and ready for sandwich duty at that very moment?!

You may notice my sprouts look a little surprised to be here.  I did sort of sneak up on them, after all, before plopping them on top of this delicious little monster of a sandwich.

Go make this and eat it now!  Really it's just that easy.  And delicious.

 

And while I'm on the subject of yummy food type stuff I've been enjoying, do you remember when I started experimenting with simple syrups a couple years back after getting the SodaStream, and shared my ginger-syrup recipe?  Well, add another favorite kitchen appliance to the mix and I've found my ultimate ginger beverage, and this time it's raw, sugar-free, and loaded with healthy goodness.  I just throw sort of equal-ish parts fresh organic ginger root and raw local organic honey into the Vitamix and, wow.

This may have the depressing appearance of creamed squash and chicken baby food, but drop a dollop into a glass of sparkling water and you've never had a nicer ginger soda.  Or add to a cup of hot water with a little fresh lemon juice or ACV, a dash of cayenne pepper and you've got a super-healthy (and yummy) detox beverage.  And do I even need to mention that experiments are in-process to create the perfect gin-and-ginger cocktail?  I didn't think so.  I'll keep you posted.

 

And finally, after almost a year of just looking at it sitting on a shelf (don't even ask) I finally used my little veggie-spiralizer and ehrmagherd!  So easy and zucchini "pasta" could be my new favorite thing.  I zapped this in the microwave for just a minute and it was perfectly al dente.  What took me so long?  Oh yeah, I said don't ask. 

I keep seeing people say things on Pinterest like "really, I don't even miss real pasta when I eat this" and stuff like that, and I always sort of want to call BS just a teensy bit.  I was sure I would like it, but come on.  It's a vegetable, not a noodle. 

Well, I get it now.  They haven't been lying.

My favorite-little-Italian-joint-in-my-neighborhood-that's-no-longer-there (sadly, sniff) served up an uh-maaaa-zing Puttanesca with tuna that I ordered pretty much every single time we went.  Yes, other specials always sounded delicious but Tony's special Pasta al Tonno was what I always craved, and miss the most.

Well, it's not Tony's but I think I may have come pretty close.  This was spicy and garlicky and olivey and capery and homey and rich; the finely-grated Parmesan bound the sauce to the zucchini "noodles" perfectly and between every bite I had to stop and say "oh wow that's good".

Do you use a veggie-spiralizing gadget, and if so what's your favorite thing to make with it?

 

That Cake.

I realize that the price for spending my birthday away from civilization is that I'm going to have to make my own birthday cake.  To be fair, I should add that if it were important to me, Husband Guy would figure out a way to make cake appear on my birthday with no effort on my part wherever we were, but I'd rather just make myself a really good cake - I guess I'm sort of weird that way.

I had been wanting to try a chocolate cake with salted buttercream frosting. But I wanted it to be as simple as possible, and small since there were only 2 of us to eat it (and we would finish whatever size cake I made, believe me). After wandering around Tastespotting a while, I stumbled onto not only a pretty picture of moist looking chocolate cake, but the words "ridiculously simple" and "foolproof" and I soon knew that this was going to be the cake. Stir n Frost from scratch! Always a fan of a good oxymoron, the mere concept of this cake was way too intriguing not to try.

But that buttercream idea: I was stuck on it. I already had a little jar of salted caramel sauce Husband Guy hadn't been able to resist on a recent visit to our neighborhood fancy-schmancy market and I was determined to use it somehow.

I found a couple good looking recipes online for salted caramel buttercream, but Husband Guy suggested that the little extra tang of a cream cheese frosting might be the perfect thing to compliment all that caramely salty sweetness.

Yeah. This is a man who knows his cake.

So instead of looking further I just sort of invented a salted-caramel cream cheese buttercream. Buttercream frosting isn't rocket science - that's one of the reasons I love it so. Well, that and, er, butter.

I mean, duh.

This is basically Beth Dunham's recipe for Cockeyed Chocolate Cake (from the awesome-sounding 1960 I Hate to Cook Book) except I had forgotten to bring oil so I melted butter in its place, and I changed up the topping part at the end. Husband Guy calls it Crazy Cake. I still call it Stir n Frost. Whatever you call it, oh man, this cake is yummy.

CRAZY CAKE: THE BIRTHDAY VERSION.

(Adapted from Beth Dunham's version of the I Hate to Cook Book Cockeyed Chocolate Cake)

 The Cake:

Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 9" square cake pan. Gather together the following ingredients:

1-1/2 C sifted flour

3 T unsweetened cocoa powder

1 t baking soda

1 C sugar

1/2 t salt

5 T melted butter

1 T white vinegar

1 t vanilla extract

1 C cold water

Sift the dry ingerdients directly into the greased cake pan. Tap the sides of the pan so the ingredients settle into a flat layer. Use your fingers to make 3 grooves in the sifted dry ingredients. Pour melted butter into one groove, vinegar into another, and vanilla into the other. Pour cold water over the whole thing and combine with a fork. Keep stirring until the mixture is lump-free. Bake at 350F at the center of the oven for 25 minutes.

If you don't have a pre-made salted caramel sauce like I did, while your cake bakes I'd suggest making this one, or this one, or this one, or just go here and find a new favorite, but hurry because you've got a cake baking!

After baking for 25 minutes, remove the cake from the oven and while it is still hot, spread salted caramel sauce over the top. I used all but 1/4 C of a 7-oz. jar on mine. Return the cake to the oven and continue to bake for 5 more minutes until the sauce has melted into all the cracks, crevices, and weak spots and gotten a little chewy-gooey around the edges.

Remove from the oven and let cool completely before frosting. Try to keep Husband Guy's fingers off the cake while it cools. If he's not at your house when you're making it, you'll be fine - just let it cool then.

The Frosting:

1/4 C (1/2 stick) butter, at room temperature

1/4 C cream cheese, at room temperature

2 C powdered sugar

1/4 C salted caramel sauce

Beat the butter and cream cheese on medium-high (I used a hand-mixer because that's what we have at the cabin!) until fluffy. Reduce speed and slowly add powdered sugar, a little at a time, until it's fully incorporated. If you're using a hand mixer, try not to blow powdered sugar all over the kitchen like me. I suppose this would be good advice whatever mixer you're using. Add salted caramel sauce and beat on medium-high until it's super light and fluffy and looks like irresistable frosting!

When your cake is cool, spread with this frosting and dive in. Birthday candles optional (I forgot to pack them). I had originally planned on sprinkling a little sea salt on the top right before serving, but I forgot, and it was perfect anyway.

This cake - ehrmagerd, this cake. It really is foolproof. And so good. We ate the entire birthday version at the cabin, and since coming home I've already made the original version with that awesome coconut crumble. I was short on white flour so substituted whole wheat pastry flour for part of it, and it was still really good. See? Foolproof. Sorry, no photos of that one - but it looked pretty much just like this for like a minute, then we ate it.

Be warned: this is a dangerous cake. Dangerously simple to make, and dangerously simple to finish.

Beach Birthday.

Earlier this month we finally enjoyed our long-awaited vacation to the beach, and it was the best birthday present I could have dreamed of.

Walks on the beach every morning.

Hours spent painting fun little stuff at my favorite table with a view,

a friend on my right

and a friend on my left.

Then in the afternoon, when the sunlight started to turn golden

and the shadows grew long

we'd go for another walk,

make something yummy to eat,

and watch the sunset

which would look something like this

or this

or this.

When the light started to fade from orange to pinks and purples it was time to watch bats

then paint again until I was sleepy.

Seriously the best way ever to wrap up my first half-century on the planet. I'm feeling grateful, blessed, and totally ready to tackle the next half.

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Well, Hello Beautiful.

Summer just got real this week.

Happy happy happy happy happy summer.

What happy summery things have you been enjoying so far?

Yay for Goodies from the Garden!

...it's what's for lunch!

This is what I've been waiting for all these months

and it's only going to get better from here on out.  I can't tell you how much I've looked forward to just heading to the backyard when my stomach growls, or as a refreshing alternative to our pathetic "I dunno, whaddayou want for dinner?" back-and-forth. 

The earliest crops, planted back in March, are just starting to be ready for munching.  Lettuces, onions, chives, peppery greens: this is what spring is supposed to taste like:

My little sprouts (this is a new adventure for me!) probably could have grown another day or two but after nibbling on a pinch this morning I couldn't resist tossing a few on top.  Crunchy and tasty - I'm super excited about sprouting all the bags of different seeds I just bought.

It'll be a few months before I'll have tomatoes growing here, but the season of cardboard tomatoes is over and yummy organic heirlooms are starting to show up from warmer places.

A little Tofurkey on top (yeah I realize I may have lost a few of you on that one) and it's a super quick and easy lunch in the middle of a busy day.  Yum!

Ok, time to get back to work.  What goodies are you starting to enjoy, now that it's spring?

Mmm, Gingery.

Ever since getting our SodaStream (several months ago) I've been threatening to start experimenting with simple syrups, infusions, and tinctures using goodies like herbs from my garden.  Threatening, but not actually getting around to it until a couple weeks ago.  My first experiment was (not exactly from my garden, but) a recipe for ginger syrup I had saved to Pinterest a while back, and it was awesome.  This particular recipe is more gingery than sugary and it packs a little heat, which I personally love.  Super simple (why haven't I done this before?) the house smelled heavenly, and it tasted soooooo good.

Well, that's all past-tense, because we quickly finished the first batch off.  A couple weeks of ginger ales, cocktails, and detox teas - so much gingery goodness.  Already gone.

I need to hurry and pick up some more ginger and get experimenting - I'm thinking I'd like to try a honey-based ginger syrup.  Then, decide what's next: I've been on a lavender-flavored-everything kick lately (I know, late to the trendy-food-party, whatever) but then a friend put the thyme or basil syrup bug in my ear yesterday - hmmm.  What do you think?

Lingering Summer

It's been such an amazing summer around here this year.  I have been away (and in traffic!) more often than usual the last couple months, so time spent here at home and in my studio is just that much sweeter.  Meals straight from the garden, afternoons spent drawing at my backyard table with Molly by my side, busy days spent in the studio with Ted above and Molly below.  Unusually long stretches of sunshine, the smell of rain on the sidewalk in between.  Busy, but soaking it in . . . every sweet breath of it.

What Summer Tastes Like.

This picture pretty much sums it up, doesn't it?

I realize I just got finished telling you how I eat so many raspberries standing in the garden that there are never enough to bring inside to do anything with.  That is usually the case, but this year I seem to have just a few more than usual.  I credit all those cute fat little bees I've been seeing out there.  Thanks, bees.

The other night after completely gorging myself standing in the raspberry bed, I realized I had only made a small dent in the day's so-ripe-you-gotta-get-em-today-or-it's-too-late ones.  I rolled my overstuffed belly into the house for a bowl and carefully picked a suprising (to me) amount more.  It was getting late, it was still warm, and mostly I was feeling sort of lazy - but I really wanted to do something with them.

I briefly considered baking or cooking something, but then remembered having seen a lot of really yummy looking berry frozen yogurt recipes on Pinterest, and I thought I'd even seen some non-dairy ones using coconut cream (I've been on a major coconut binge lately, I just can't get enough).  But for all those pretty little images in my head of beautifully-photographed 2- or 3-ingredient frozen fruity goodness just thrown into a cute vintage bread pan and frozen, I didn't seem to actually have pinned any of them.

Whatever.

So I improvised.  My usual kitchen theory is that if the stuff you put together is all fresh and delicious enough on its own, rarely is the end result going to totally suck.  I'm not saying you can't ruin perfectly lovely ingredients (oh, and I have) it's just my excuse for being a lazy cook and fortunately for those I cook for, it usually works out alright.

So, here's what I did, in case you'd like to try it yourself:

I threw 1-1/2 to 2 cups freshly-picked, cleaned raspberries into the Cuisinart

added 1 can coconut cream (the can has already gone off to recycling so I can't tell you what the measurement is, but it's the "standard" can-goods size can from Trader Joe's)

and about 1-1/2 cups nonfat Greek yogurt

I whirred that together and then started adding honey a little at a time, to taste.  I wanted this to be tart-sweet, not overwhelmingly sweet-sweet.  It may have been about 1/4 cup, but really this isn't rocket science - it's just making something taste good to you.  I could have probably added a lot more berries, but I didn't.  Next time I might try a more berry-heavy version, just to see which one we like best.

I poured it into a glass container and threw it into the freezer.

Don't ask me why I didn't get out the ice-cream maker for this.  Ok, you can ask, and I'll even give you an honest answer: it's been so long since we've made ice-cream that I'm a little frightened at how deeply the inside-part of our ice-cream maker is buried in the basement chest freezer, and I was too lazy to go digging for it.  This was just another example of how Past-Beth is sort of rude and thoughtless to Future-Beth, because it was probably just as much work cutting the rock hard, frozen finished product into slices and processing it a second time in the Cuisinart for that fluffy ice-creamy texture (and of course washing all its parts a second time) as it would have been to dig through the stuff in the deep-freeze for the ice-cream maker thingy in the first place.

Although, it's probably good to have learned that post-freeze processing does result in a nicely-textured goody, as if it had been made in a real ice-cream maker.

Either way, the result was what I had hoped.

Tart-sweet, smooth, creamy, frosty, and raspberry-y.  A hint of coconut goodness but not overwhelmingly coconutty.  And actually pretty healthy.  What's not to love?

Even better with more raspberries on top.

Although I still don't seem to have that whole sitting-down-while-eating-raspberries thing down yet; I couldn't resist scarfing the whole bowl while standing at the kitchen counter.

Hope you're enjoying the yumminess of summer wherever you are!