Blueberries

 

 After picking nearly 12 pounds of blueberries at 7 a.m. yesterday morning, we turned a few of them into a summer berry tart. 

 As of 7 a.m. this morning, only a few slices remain. 

Happy Biiiiiirrrrrthday, Dear Husband...

My husband is quite the accomplished chef. He used to do a majority of the cooking at our home until I got knocked up, and now for some reason I seem to do all of it. (That is most definitely the topic of another post, however.) I've been the baker in the family--except for cake which is back under his expertise.

This year, for his birthday, I decided to surprise him by making a cake. I made this one, but with blackberry flavoring and using blackberries for most of the coloring and using the blackberry mint jam we made last summer for the filling. I also made a whipped cream frosting, which turned the whole thing into a kind of blackberry shortcake.Quite delicious and amazingly successful for my first layered cake ever.

We devoured it over the weekend when my family was in town visiting. My dad's birthday was also this weekend so we had plenty to celebrate.

Happy birthday, husband! I love you bunches and you're worth every minute of the many, many hours I spent on your cake.

Blessings of Food

Husband loves to cook. He caters events on the side and every week be makes a meal for 30 or so people from the local university for their meeting. He's rarely happier than when he's aproned up, buzzing around the kitchen, tasting little bits of this and that.

This works out well for me, as you can imagine. 

The last few months have been horrible. I've been swamped at work, so much so that I often want to walk out at nine in the morning and crawl into bed at home because I'm drowning under the weight of what must be done right away. I'm teaching a class--for the first time ever--and find myself woefully unprepared for the task. My jewelry business is requiring massive amounts of time and the to-do list continues to grow. The organization for which I am chair of the board of directors is having a big event in one week. The house is messier than I like it and I have dozens of half-finished projects laying around. I'm so overwhelmed that simply functioning is becoming more than I can manage on some days.

But. But. The point is that I stumble downstairs each morning to find porridge ready or toast buttered. I have hot coffee or tea in a to-go mug by my purse. Many times I find a lunch packed and placed IN my giant purse ready to be carted to work. In the evenings I mumble something that I have a craving for and an hour later (or often less), it shows up, nicely plated, in front of my computer or on my studio desk. It's a miracle. And it's delicious.

I married a cook. And it's the best decision I've ever made. 

Tomato Onslaught & Salsa

Remember when I talked about our tomato tree? It's now a tomato forest.

 A couple of days ago I went out and picked a big basket full of little red cherry tomatoes. Yesterday I picked another bowl full and I expect I'll get a bunch tomorrow.

Husband doesn't like little tomatoes so I've been trying to eat them all myself (not counting the three big containers we've given away so far), but there are really only so many tomatoes one girl can eat. Since none of our big tomatoes have ripened yet we've resorted to making cherry tomato salsa with cilantro and pepper from our garden.

Cherry Tomato Salsa
Handful or so of cherry tomatoes
Half of a sweet onion
Half of a garden salsa pepper or jalepeno
Handful of cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste
T sugar

You can cut it up by hand, of course, but we've been throwing everything in the food processor and blending it together then grabbing a bag of chips, some of my homemade guacamole and the salsa and watching back episodes of Mad Men.

Garden, part 1

The first pictures I remembered to take of our garden this year.

Since I took these photos about two weeks ago the tomato has turned a lovely shade of red and been eaten. The green pepper is sitting on the counter and we took a bag of zucchini to Husband's sister this weekend.

Yummy!

Summer BBQ

Today it's raining. AGAIN.

But last night was just cloudy and a bit breezy. Warm enough I could wear pants, sandals and a tank top and only be a little goosebumpy.

 So we barbecued on the little gas grill and ate on the patio. Tofu kebabs with sweet onions and mushrooms and red pepper and zucchini (not yet from the garden) marinated in a yummy teriyaki sauce.

It was my idea, but the Husband made it.

And then we took the puppies for a long walk. It was a tiny slice of summer but it should hold me over until all this stupid rain goes away. 

A Spring Picnic

Finally! A day warm enough for an outdoor picnic. I forgot to take pictures of the actual picnic, of course, but we joined friends up on a bluff looking over the fields and valley for yummy bread, fresh fruit and veggies. And these--which were our contribution to the lunch.

 Creamy lavender-flavored something-or-other than Husband made topped with strawberries. Ah-mazing! And yummy chocolate and mint. And the crust was super. I stole the crust and chocolate recipe from here.

The Best Tart EVER

I'm having a super-strong craving for this tart:

I'm not a fan of wedding cake so we chose to have this fruit tart at our wedding instead. The super thing about this was that the giant tart was for us and we got equally delicious small tarts for everyone else.

We got married in Port Townsend, Wash., (six hours from where we live--a very good and very bad idea!) and a couple of months before the wedding we went over to check on a few things. We stopped at this little bakery-hole-in-the-wall and I ordered a fruit tart and coffee.

Oh. my. goodness.

I had never tasted anything so amazing in my whole life. So there it was: one easy wedding decision out of the way.

Today has been dreary and cold and this whole week and pretty much sucked. So I'm dreaming of vanilla bean custard and fresh fruits and flaky crusts.

Merry Christmas!

We are celebrating Christmas this year in Seattle with my sister and my parents. Husband's sister also lives in Seattle so tomorrow we have Christmas with his sister and her husband and parents.

Right now all I can smell is the monkey bread my brother-in-law is preparing. Yum!

Wishing you all a wonderful day...

Photo of my brother-in-law from my mom's iPhone from last night's tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve.

A tradition of cookies

 One of my favorite things about the Christmas season is making Christmas cookies.

We used to make huge batches of them. Most to eat ourselves and a few to give away.*  My mom--who makes cookies unlike any others I've tasted--would make the dough and put it in the refrigerator to cool and set (and I would steal pieces of the dough while it was in there). Then, we'd spend hours making the perfect cookies. Elaborate, fancy, beautiful cookies. My mom's were always the best. Mine always seemed to take the longest. And my sister hated doing cookies. I don't know why, but we never could get her to do her part. My dad came to do his required one cookie. Listening to Christmas music while the tree twinkled and we decorated and ate cookies and drank cider... that was Christmas.

The last couple of years I've had a cookie decorating party for a bunch of friends. This year with everything else going on we didn't make time. So I made a small batch at the first of December but had friends over the next day who ate them all.**  I tried to make more earlier this week and they flopped. I don't know why, but they were terrible. Before we could throw them away the dog ate them--which is a whole 'nother story.

I'm looking forward to Christmas at my sister's house in Seattle. My mom promised to have un-decorated cookies waiting. And I can't wait.

*C'mon... it's Christmas. Eating cookies was an institution at our house.
** Yes, I'm whining. I'm very territorial about my cookies.

All Waffles Should Taste Like This...

My mother-in-law likes to send us periodic packages filled with little treats or gifts. She recently sent us a box with some fall-colored pot holders, a couple bags of these great organic walnuts she gets somewhere near their home, a decorative thing for baking pies, and this:

the Williams-Sonoma Spiced Pecan Pumpkin Pancake and Waffle Mix

It's delightful. Truly. This makes some of the best waffles I've ever had... and definitely the best pre-mixed ones. Ours has just run out so I looked online but I guess they only sell it for a really short time in the fall. Makes me wish we didn't live in the sticks and could get to a Williams-Sonoma with less than a 4+ hour drive.

I hope she sends more next fall. I'm hoping for a dozen tins.

Lions and Elephants, oh my!

Today I have been embarked upon this marriage adventure for two months. By this time on our wedding day Husband and I were arriving in Seattle for a night at a lovely hotel (thanks to my parents-in-law) before heading out to Barbados early the next morning. We were tired and talkative and MARRIED.

To be honest, I’m not really a romantic—that’s Husband’s role. But, much to his surprise, I remembered this mini-versary. I think it’s because two months feels significant somehow. One month just flew right by. This second month has been quieter, slower and more MARRIED.

In honor of me remembering (which I think Husband found more noteworthy than the actual day) he made my favorite treat--chocolate chip pancakes. In animal form. Yum.

Off and running

So. I got married. It's been about a month and a half... or has it been a lifetime? Everything is different and yet it's startlingly the same.


During the wedding-planning process I found an abundance of wedding eye-candy blogs and a few more realistic wedding-dissecting ones. Now I see blogs devoted to babies and decorating and other worthy ventures. But only a few from the lovely ladies in the middle--newly married and navigating this new, complicated miracle that is our life.

And I want to join them. It seems like a fitting time to start a new blog about our life. But not just our life: life in general. Married life, specifically. And our puppies. And food (mmmm, how the mister and I love good food!). And whatever else seems appropriate.

So. Here I go!