deensiebat

Delicious-looking picture + "best I ever made" comment = piqued curiosity. Details?

Canned plums in syrup: (although I kept jokingly telling people that they're pickled eggs). The skins all burst, despite being pierced multiple times -- I guess they were just pretty thin-skinned (it was a backyard tree of unknown variety). Can't wait to taste them after they've sat in the syrup for a few months...

Wow those teensy plated desserts look lovely. We went the somewhat homelier (yet still delicious route): chewy chocolate chocolate chip cookies: Vegan, too. But they don't taste like it.

Leisurely weekend breakfast: yeast-raised whole wheat waffles. Adapted from the great Marion Cunningham.

Aw thanks. I can't get enough of photographing the red tomato dishes offset by the green grass. I think it's pretty with the small tomatoes that we grow, but if you have some large tomatoes, it looks especially dramatic with the thick wedges fanned over the top. Tomato paella is delicious for dinner, but I think leftovers, topped with a fried egg and a bit of Romano or Idiazabel cheese, might just be my favorite breakfast.

Tomato Paella:

I couldn't resist this image of our Stupice tomatoes (the only ones that thrive in our not-sunny-enough backyard) all lined up to be broiled for Charred Tomato Chile Salsa:

To deal with the beginning of the onslaught: chocolate zucchini cake

Lucky friend!

Some friends and I had a preserving party a few weeks ago, and turned 80 lbs of Robada apricots from this: to this: We had the stove going for about 10 hours. Whew! Details on bulk canning extravaganza here.

Just strained off this batch of limoncello, which had been infusing for 3 weeks: Crazy yellow! Some friends and I made a ridiculous amount of apricot jam a few weeks ago, and I decided we might as well use the zest of all of the lemons that we were juicing. Added bonus! Last time I made KatieLoeb's delicious recipe, but this time I went with grain alcohol, after loving a version I tasted at a friend's house. 1 bottle grain alcohol, zest of 12 lemons, 1.5 bottles water with 1.3 cups sugar. I know it's supposed to age for a few more weeks, but man it looks so good now.

Cooling cocktail for our continued hot days: the sueño. Muddled cucumber, rosemary, lime and simple syrup, shaken with tequila, topped with tonic. From last year's Food and Wine Cocktails, and perfect for this heat. Like a piney margarita!

Aw thanks. I drool over your dinner (and breakfast) pictures all the time. I just got a digital camera, which has naturally led to (re-)launching my food blog. Sadly I don't have any pictures from our best pizza experiment, a few months back: simple Neapolitan dough topped with asparagus, goat cheese, chili-flake anchovies, and, post-oven, lemon zest and pepper. Until next spring, I suppose...

Cauliflower sale + vegan appetizer request + fond memories of a SoHo Italian bakery = pizza cavolfiore. Pizza bianca dough (partly whole wheat) topped with caramelized cauliflower, olive oil, coarse salt, and fresh rosemary. Best budget/vegan eating I've had in a while.

Oooh! Looks great. One to try when I get back to the summer side of the world next week. Are you getting local peaches yet? Is there a recipe for the infused nectar or should I just wing it? Any particular favorites for the wine? ← Peaches are up in the Pacific Northwest -- I think mine were from Washington, in fact. I posted my take on the recipe on my nascent blog, but it's pretty easy to freestyle: 2 cans peach nectar, 1 cup basil, zest of 1 lemon. Heat to a boil, let cool and strain, mix with a bottle of white wine and the juice of that lemon. Throw in a chunked-up peach, and some basil sprigs. The original recipe called for dissolving sugar in the infusion, but I really don't think it needs it at all. As for wine, the peach flavor and aroma totally overpower it, so go with something dry and cheap.

To deal with the Pacific Northwest's current heatwave: Peach Basil Sangria, adapted from an old Gourmet recipe. Basil and lemon zest infused peach nectar, lemon juice, white wine. Peach chunks and basil leaves for some pretty, ice for some cold. Delicious.

I cooked up some of KatieLoeb's delicious rhubarb syrup for a batch of rhubarb mojitos. Hello, Spring!

i just candied a bunch of carrot ribbons to make a martha stewart-worthy cake decoration, but now i've got a few cups of carrot-flavored 3:2 sugar syrup. are there any cocktails i can make with this? the bugs bunny? any help appreciated.

i put up my first-ever batch of nocino in july (just nuts, grain alcohol, and a vanilla bean), and strained, diluted, and sweetened it in late october. unfortunately i've never had the genuine article, but this is so tannic and harsh and kind of medicinal that i can't imagine it's the way it should taste. i just sipped again, to see if time had mellowed it, but nope. will it improve? were the nuts under-ripe? let me know if there's something to be done to salvage this batch, or advice for avoiding the same fate with a future batch.

yeah, in retrospect gloves seem like a much smarter approach. i've got to attend a wedding in 10 days, so hopefully the stains will be gone by then. they show no signs of fading the day after, despite repeated scrubbings. oops. i'm hoping the booze and preserves will be worth it.

i just put up my first batch of nocino, and discovered that all that talk about stained hands is for reals: i also started a batch of green walnut preserves, which involved peeling 75 walnuts, so i probably had more sustained exposure than the average batch of nocino requires.

has anyone made a rhubarb liqueur? i've been using a rhubarb syrup in cocktails (thanks, KatieLoeb!), and am looking for a way to bottle the flavor beyond the spring. i found a recipe in a book that calls for 4 cups rhubarb (thinly sliced), 3 cups vodka, and 3 cups sugar, all aged together for 2-4 weeks, strained, and aged another month. that seems really sweet... it also seems like most other techniques call for steeping the vodka and flavoring, and then sweetening later to taste with a sugar syrup. hm. any experience/feedback/recipes appreciated.

the flavor did get muted somewhat, but it still made a nice contribution. i also noticed that a lot of the recipes i saw online were just simple syrups with a few stalks thrown in -- i made my version much heavier on the rhubarb.

small containers seem like a good idea. thanks! i liked it a lot, but i'm a pretty big rhubarb fan. a favorite combination was with gin, soda water, and lime. i also tried concocting a cachaca cocktail, but that was a less successful combination (but it did allow us to use the word "caparhubarb," which was almost reason enough to make it again).

i made rhubarb syrup for cocktails last spring, just boiling it in sugar water til mushy and straining. but it got moldy really quickly (and yes, i stored it in the fridge). ew! it's more convenient to make larger rather than smaller batches. is there any way to improve its fridge-shelf life? mix in some vodka? cut down or increase the sugar? suggested proportions? or just keep up with the small batches?