Meyer Lemon Marmalade, Lemonade & Limoncello

School is closed today because of inclement weather. First things first: I made biscuits and got to sample the meyer lemon marmalade that Amy and I made two weekends ago.

I've never made marmalade before, but it was really easy and the meyer lemons were fun to work with. They're so beautiful. Amy picked out the recipe from Food & Wine.

 

Amy sent me home with some leftover lemons and suggested that I made limoncello. I'll post more about the limoncello when it's finished (the peels are resting for a couple weeks in the alcohol). The limoncello only uses the peels of the lemons, so I saved the juice to make mint lemonade (total treat..I never make lemonade).

No major plans today except doing some cleaning, crafting and some planning for next week's classes. We have very little snow outside, but I might be able to make a miniature snowman.

Copycat Costco Kale Salad & A Trip to Charleston

Last week I traveled to Charleston to visit my friend Danielle and her family. We had a great time of hanging out, eating delicious food, and going downtown. Her oldest daughter turned three while I was there and her baby was trying out new foods (I got to witness avocado). :)

 One night we stayed in and put together dinner at home. She had some kale salad that came from a mix from Costco that was delicious. It reminded me of a Whole Foods one, but better. I replicated it at home. It's so so good. I was happy to find a recipe for poppyseed dressing that uses honey instead of sugar too. 

For the salad:
Several kale leaves, sliced thin
Several brussels sprouts, sliced thin
Several broccoli florets, chopped fine
Cranberries
Sliced almonds, sunflower seeds, or walnuts

For the poppyseed dressing:
3 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbs. honey
2 tsp. dijon
2 tsp. poppy seeds
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 Tbs. red onion diced small
3 Tbs. vegetable oil (I used grapeseed oil)

Whisk all ingredients for the dressing together except the oil & onion. Slowly whisk in oil. Stir in onion.

Toss to combine & enjoy.

Veggie Soup With Chanterelles

My parents moved back to their hometown of Rimersburg, Pennsylvania this summer. Their food situation is pretty much a fantasy to me. My grandmother, uncle, and now my mom upkeep my grandmother's large gardens and orchards. My uncle also raises bees in hopes to make honey, my dad and some of his brothers hunt more deer than they have room for, and a couple of the uncles are really into mushrooming*.

The gardens give my (huge) family far too much produce and fruit to keep up with, so my mom does a ton of canning. I saw my parents at Thanksgiving and mom brought everyone crates of canned veggies and fruit. One of the highlights were a couple of jars of chanterelles.

I don't know what pulled this soup together so well, but this is hands down the best vegetable soup I've ever made. I followed a recipe something like this. Mine has carrots, portabello and chanterelle mushrooms, sweet potato, celery, onion, zucchini, jalapeno, and garlic. I used low sodium organic chicken broth as the stock. I sautaeed the veggies in a few teaspoons of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter. I let them brown well and added a bunch cippolini onion & rosemary salt one of our other grandmothers gave us. The broth turned out rich and delicious. I hope this wasn't a fluke. I'm crediting the butter, cippolini onion salt, and chanterelles (and their juice from the jar). It's delicious.

*My uncles got really into mushrooming several years ago. They're known to pull off the side of the road and look around for mushrooms anytime they're going anywhere. My favorite story is when one of my uncles took another out in the middle of nowhere to his "chanterelle spot". They walked pretty far into the woods and when they found some, my uncle said, "listen, don't you dare tell anyone about this spot!" and the other responded, "well I don't know where the hell we are so don't you worry".

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

omfg, these are so good. A close rival to my favorite coconut oil chocolate chip cookie recipe.

 Really good chocolate chip cookies are dangerous in our house..they are usually all consumed within 2 days. I cut the recipe in half and sent some home with our friend Greg to help save us from eating a dozen cookies in a day.

 I turned in my final grades on Friday, so the past couple days have felt like non-stop celebrating. Gouda & crispy prosciutto burger for lunch? YES. Delicious IPA at 2pm? YES. Buy a bottle of champagne while at the grocery store? DUH.

 I'm looking forward this week to lots of crafting, baking, seeing Neil Degrasse Tyson on Tuesday (!!!) with family, tagging along to a metal show, and seeing Mark Kozelek (where I'll probably cry the entire way through the show like last time).


Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 2 1/2 dozen; can easily be cut in half

1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup  sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips

1. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Continue to cook until the butter turns golden brown. Stir or swirl pan occasionally. Watch the butter closely - it burns easily. When the butter is golden in color and has a nutty aroma, it's done. Pour into a shallow dish and allow to cool in the fridge until soft (no longer melted).

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper.

3. Beat the (softened) brown butter and sugars with a mixer. Add eggs (one at a time) & vanilla extract.

4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the wet ingredients and mix just until combined. Add the chocolate chips.

5. Spoon onto your cookie sheet leaving a couple inches between each cookie. Bake 10-12 minutes.

hi

Eek, this is one of my longest streaks without posting. I've been busy with work and visitors the last couple months (and a couple of music festivals happened after my last entry..). We've been spending time this month with a friend from Italy and Eric's bandmates. In a week, Eric's family from Florida will be in town too. I would say that all the visitors coming and going has helped us to keep our place cleaner than usual, but that's not really true. :/

 One big project we did in the last month was plant rye seed in our yard. It was a surprising amount of work to turn over all of the soil in our tiny back yard, but it looks great now.

Other happenings: Eric got a full time job offer at a company he's been doing contract work for. I'm so happy for him that he found a job he loves (at a really cool startup). (!!) // I've been "training" for a 5 mile race that I'm doing with a bunch of my family at Thanksgiving. // My first batch of homemade Kombucha is just a couple days away from trying.

homemade lara bars

Oh god I love lara bars. They're my favorite breakfast, although we hardly ever have them at home. I'm guilty of eating them in grocery stores when I'm really hungry and having to have just the wrapper rung up at the register.

A former student of mine brought me back dates from Saudi Arabia. They are the best dates I've ever had. I still have so many that I've been making lara bars some mornings. My favorite is to knock off the cherry pie bar with just dates, dried cherries and walnuts.

 To make: put equal parts dried cherries, dates and walnuts into a food processor. Whirl. Done. (The cherry pie bar actually has almonds in it, but I prefer walnuts anyway.)

 I'd like to try making their banana bread version soon using this recipe (roasted almonds, banana chips & dates.) Excited to hang with my friend Jeremy that's in town this weekend and watch the last episode of Breaking Bad (eep!!). Happy weekend!