Heyyy, what happened to February and March??

Pfft, it took 2 1/2 months to compile even one!   Slow music year I guess…

1. Sleigh Bells – Infinity Guitars
2. LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk is Playing at My House
3. Le Tigre – Hot Topic
4. Yeasayer – Ambling Alp
5. The Xx – Crystalised
6. Cold War Kids – Audience of One
7. The Heavy – How You Like Me Now
8. Metric – Help I’m Alive
9. Caribou – Odessa
10. Spinerette – Baptized by Fire
11. Ok Go – This Too Shall Pass
12. Broken Social Scene – All to All

Because I can’t *%^%$#% go, I am sending my sister, cub reporter for WFBY news, to the 16th  Annual APC/Crisco® National Pie Championships here in a few days.

Four words:  Never Ending Pie Buffet

Please anticipate pictures that will make your saliva glands burst with happiness.

(If you want to attend on your own, it is being held at the Omni Championsgate in Kissimmee, FL.)

So, to recap, this weekend I have already made 8 half pints of blackberry jam and 4 half pints of strawberry jam.  Figuring that wasn’t quite enough abuse on my poor knee joints, today I made 6 half pints of peach jam…

Then used even more peaches for fried peach pies…

These were simply amazing, most amazing pastry dough EVER.  The recipe came from a cookbook I knew I had to have once I saw the title:  Screen Doors and Sweet Tea I’ll probably get all lawyered if I repost the recipe here, so just buy the book, mmkay?

And finally, today (appropriately enough, Pi day) saw my very first attempt – EVER – at pie.  Why?  Well, not a huge fan of fruit in semi-sweet bread, on the whole I’d just rather have a piece of chocolate, but it’s kind of one of those things you need to know how to cook, like turkey and french bread.  Oh, that’s just me?  Anyway, here’s the pie:

The crust recipe came from the above Screen Doors cookbook, and uses the French method frissage (demonstrated somewhere in that damn video, I lost patience about 30 seconds in…looks like she starts on it about 4:18 in the timeline there), which is feathering the dough on your countertop…taking an egg-sized piece, smooshing it with the heel of your hand away from you, then repeating with the remaining dough.  You’ll see some say, “Gasp!  Mon dieu!  Frissaging will destroy the gluten!”  Pfft.  Don’t overwork it and you’re fine.

See?

The crust was crazy-good, flaky and tender.  I am not a Granny Smith fan, so I used Pink Lady apples exclusively.  This made for a non-goopy filling, with nice tender-sweet apples.  Not the prettiest pie in the world, but tasted damn good for a first ever effort.

I think it was the unmistakable scent of spring in the air, but sometime Friday I suddenly needed JAM.  Strawberry, of course, being the kids’ favorite, and definitely blackberry, being MY favorite.  Fruit was purchased, jars were sterilized, and the jamming began.

The strawberry jam recipe I started with was this one by Ina Garten…I changed a few things though.   The end result was perfect, I think.   Sweet, berry-y (that’s a word!) and makes nice small batches.

Strawberry Jam

• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 small lemon, juiced
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 pints fresh strawberries, hulled and halved

Combine sugar, lemon juice and water in saucepan over low heat, stir until sugar is as dissolved as it is going to get.  Add the strawberries and bring to a slow boil, let it do this for about 20 minutes.  Scoop off the foam as it develops and discard.  Jar as you normally would, yields about 4 half pints.

And then came time for my beloved blackberry jam.  Hate raspberries, hate blueberries, LOOOVE blackberries.  I’m like the only one in the house who does, though, so MINE ALL MINE!!!

Blackberry Jam

My favorite one yet, I think, particularly “Lions.”  Enjoy!

1. Spoon – I Summon You
2. The Matches – Wake the Sun
3. Foreign Born – Winter Games
4. We Are Scientists – Can’t Lose
5. The Features – Lions
6. Editors – Smokers Outside
7. Hollerado – Do the Doot Da Doot Doo
8. Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition
9. Postal Service – Such Great Heights
10. Phoenix – 1901
11. Weezer – (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To
12. White Rabbits – Percussion Gun

Yes, we still live, hallooo!

Had dinner with some old friends last night at the tapas place Cafe Tu Tu Tango in Orlando, wherein Husband was entranced by the Sopa de Leon (a chorizo, chicken and chickpea soup), so today’s side project was cobbling together a reasonable facsimilie.   And here it is:

• 8 oz chorizo sausage
• chicken breast, cooked and shredded
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 celery stalks, finely chopped
• 1 can chickpeas, drained
• 1 32 oz can chicken stock
• 2 cans diced tomatoes, undrained
• yellow corn tortilla chips

Put oil in saucepan on medium high heat and cook chorizo 2 minutes.

Add onion, garlic and celery, sautee until onion is soft.

Add stock, tomatoes, chickpeas and chicken.  Add salt, pepper to taste and a pinch of sugar.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer for 20 minutes.

Thoroughly crush about three handfuls of tortilla chips and stir into the soup.  Let simmer for another 10 minutes then serve.

Busy, busy, busy.  Have a great holiday all!

1. Jackpot – Dizzy
2. Queen – C-Lebrity
3. The Appleseed Cast – Mile Marker
4. The Black Keys – Strange Times
5. Hockey – Too Fake
6. Heatmiser – Trapdoor
7. Band of Skulls – Patterns
8. Ladyfinger – Little Things
9. Glen Phillips – I Want a New Drug
10. Helicopter Helicopter – By Starlight
11. Three Legged Fox – Maybe I’m Sorry
12. Crash Kings – Mountain Man

Oh how I hate grocery store hamburger buns.  They’re either tough and chewy (from the bakery), or they’re wispy and insubstantial (commercially produced brands).  I make serious hamburgers, people, stuffed with cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon, they need serious buns!

Hamburger Buns

Ingredients:

• 5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 pkgs dry yeast
• 1 cup milk
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp salt

Stir together 2 cups flour and the yeast. In a separate bowl, heat milk, water, oil, sugar and salt to lukewarm in microwave.   Add all at once to the flour mixture, and beat until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Mix in enough flour to make a soft dough, 2 to 3 cups.  Mix well.  Dust a flat surface with flour, turn dough out onto floured surface, and let rest under bowl for about 10 minutes.

Shape dough into 12 slightly flat balls, and place on greased baking sheet to rise until doubled in size.

Bake in a preheated 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) oven for 12 to 15 minutes.

They were fantastic.  Firm textured outside, good crumb inside.  And they stood up to a cheese-leaking 1/2lb patty with no trouble at all.

I’d like you to know it is with heroic, er, heroism that I refrained from putting more than one Band of Skulls song on this month’s playlist.  Just buy the album, seriously.

Oh, and don’t watch that Morningwood video at work.  Trust me.

1. Band of Skulls – I Know What I Am
2. The Loved – House Painter
3. The Golden Dogs – Don’t Make a Sound
4. Florence and the Machine – Kiss With a Fist
5. Airborne Toxic Event – Wishing Well
6. A Modern Machine – You So Brightly Burn
7. Radio Radio – Ghost
8. Fielding – Ok Alright
9. The Von Bondies – C’mon C’mon
10. The Humbugs – As Long As I Matter
11. Morningwood – Take Off Your Clothes
12. Ben Kenney – Wrong

This was to have been July’s playlist, then it got hot, and we got laaaazy.  So here it is for October instead.  Even though it’s still freaking hot.

1. Owl City – Fireflies
2. Head Automatica – Brooklyn is Burning
3. Modest Mouse – Missed the Boat
4. Spoon – Don’t You Evah
5. Simply Red – Sunrise
6. Vampire Weekend – The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance
7. Matt & Kim – Daylight
8. Steve Earle – Conspiracy Theory
9. The Ting Tings – We Walk
10. The Limousines – Very Busy People
11. Puscifer – The Mission
12. Paramore – Ignorance

I promise there will be actual gardening content here at some point, but it’s October 11 and still 93 degrees.  We’ve got most of the garden beds solarizing under black plastic, will worry about planting when it’s less than murderous out there.