Flavors 518

Today we checked out Country View Diner in Brunswick, and let me tell you about lemon meringue pie. We were all set to leave after having some tasty sandwiches, and I spotted a mountain of meringue in the dessert case. I had to have it. I got a piece to go and this slice of pie has to weigh like a whole pound and seems like easily 6 inches tall. Also, there's an extra crust on top of the lemon custard part, and I'm pretty sure the meringue has marshmallow fluff mixed it with it. This pie is impressive - a force of lemon to be reckoned with. Is it socially acceptable to have pie for dinner?

My husband went out of town last week, and I decided to make all the things he doesn't really like. I had a whole bunch of eggs from a lady at my great new job who raises these kinds of chickens that produce different colored eggs. Aren't they beautiful? I was browsing at Penzey's at Crossgates where I spotted some spearmint and thought making some mint chocolate chip ice cream was a great idea (both of our sets of parents can't get enough of it, and he's always saying how he doesn't get why people love the flavor so much). I have to say that I really really love Penzey's, and I love that they came to our area. I really want to support them. I love that you can go and stick your nose on into all their spices. I love their cocoa powder for making cakes. I love their green goddess salad dressing base. Their staff is always really friendly, knowledgeable, and often inspirational ("Hey, you like tacos? I will tell you what to try!"). Also, their ...

You know it is spring around here when the Jim's Tastee Freez opens up again! We tend to think that the Kurver Kreme is a little overrated. We haven't been to all the places in the area (we still want to visit On the Farm in Latham), but we really like the Tastee Freez. My husband loves the Boston Shake ( see also Mr. Dave's post from three years ago - probably where Scott got the idea to try it to begin with), which is vanilla soft serve in a chocolate shake. On this particular day, they had pistachio soft serve. I can't be sure that any real pistachios were included in the concoction, but it was refreshing and delicious with a nice mild flavor. I'll never understand why pistachio flavored things have to be green. I was raised with green pistachio pudding, and then eventually went to Belgium where their amazing white pistachio ice cream sort of blew my mind. But this green stuff made into a marshmallow sundae - I also enjoy. Working on a college ...

I know you are dying to hear about what I did for my birthday. Like any good birthday, I dragged it out to a birthday week and a half. First, it turns out that I share my birthday with Yoko Ono. I have, funny enough, been attending a Yoko Appreciators Group, Air Talk and they instructed all the members to bring in anything they could imagine to decorate a cake with. I bake a tie-dyed chiffon cake with cream cheese icing. The whole thing became way more riduculous than you could ever imagine.   Did my coworker find a picture of me on the internet and glue it into John and Yoko's bed-in? Yes, yes she did! That seems like some kind of love right there.  On my birthday, I went to work. My boss handed me some delicious homemade triple chocolate cookies at lunch, which was way sweet of her. I was feeling very contemplative and tried to imagine what I could say I learned in 31 years. I think most of all, things change in life. You might define who you think you are based...

My friend Sandy is a total cake-making genius. What I mean by this is that she does awesome things like putting a drop of cheesecake oil in her frosting and creating cupcakes that are unbelievably light and fluffy. I've gone to parties where I end up taking 4 cupcakes home, and they don't make it through the night. She has recently branched out on her own and created "Chaos and Buttercream", and she has a website! Check out her amazing and beautiful cakes here!

This morning I was successful in getting off the couch from my watching Alias on Netflix, and we made our way to the Troy Farmer's Market . We got some great items, and saw a lot of cool people. I'm a huge s'more fan, and when I saw these at the DreamPuff Marshmallows booth I could not resist. I took it home and put in a 350 degrees oven for about 5 minutes. This is a ridiculously delicious item!  I really enjoy making marshmallows ( last year I mailed them out to half the people I know ). But I will admit that they make a big mess in the kitchen, so I am happy to buy the DreamPuff ones (usually at the Book House ). I also made some graham crackers for the food swap last month, using this recipe . Homemade marshmallows are way, way better than the commercially made ones. The texture is fluffier, and they just taste way better. Homemade graham crackers have a more nuanced flavor and a softer texture. Therefore, homemade s'mores are a brilliant idea. What is al...

We're really enjoying all the perks of summer this week. Do you know what the best part of summer is? Farm fresh tomatoes! Can't be beat. I never loved summer like I love summer with still warm from the sun, big as your head, tomatoes. We make a panzanella or caprese salad and forget all other foods exist. I love The Berry Patch in Stephentown, NY. They also sell their produce at the Troy Farmer's Market . Then, today we went to a potluck picnic in the Washington Park. It is always difficult to know what to bring. I discovered that we had almost a whole thing of sour cream in our fridge because the strawberry cake I made only required about a tablespoon out of the whole container I bought just for that. I had seen on Shutterbean a sour cream bundt cake , but I thought I would look through a bunch of cookbooks before I decided. Then, I noticed in my Joy the Baker cookbook a very similar recipe that required even more sour cream (bonus!). I made that and people went n...

Last night, we had over our new friend and her husband, of JessJamesJake fame, who I met at the All Over Albany party . I thought it would be a good time to use our pasta machine and I totally pimped out my husband's cooking skills ("Do you guys want to come over and eat his pasta sauce?" "Scott, you are going to make some pasta sauce for some people who live around the corner from us!").  The good thing about having people over is you can make desserts that you wanted to make, but thought were too decadent for a house with two people in it. I bought the new Pioneer Woman cookbook when I went and saw her speak in NYC in March. We wanted to make the coffee cake, and this one she posted in 2009 is pretty similar to the one in the book except you'd swap out the instant coffee crystals in the filling for cream cheese, and put a different icing on top (more of a ganache), but the cake is the same. I made some doughnuts from that book back in March. Anyways...

As part of Tuesdays with Dorie , using the book Baking with Julia I made the pecan sticky buns. My husband is allergic to nuts, and I was either going to leave off the pecans, replace them with sunflower seeds or just skip this one, but he suggested I go make them at someone else's house. It is quite an intimidating recipe. Check out some chatter about it here . You can read the recipe on Eat Drink Man Woman Dogs Cat and Cookies on Friday I started the brioche the night before. I thought it would be most powerful to use the dough attachment on my food processor, but by putting the ingredients in before the dough blade, some brioche dough got between the bowl and the blade causing my usually all powerful food processor to stop and overheat. I had to finish up the beating of the dough with my hand mixer. After I overheated half the appliances in my house, I couldn't believe how beautiful this dough was looking. I woke up at 6 am and completed the assembling and rolli...

As part of Tuesdays with Dorie using the book Baking with Julia,  I made the Hungarian shortbread. You can read the recipe on Cher's blog and also on 1smallkitchen . Check out some discussion about the recipe here . I used strawberry rhubarb jam that I bought at the shop at Indian Ladder Farms . Check out how my shortbread turned out. Great paired with coffee or tea.  I even packed some up to mail to my dad for his birthday.  Here's what I thought about the recipe: I listened to the bakers who thought we should bake the bottom layer for 10 or 15 minutes before applying the jam. That worked out well. My husband and my coworkers all approve of these cookies. I think you can tell whether people are just saying something is good, or if they really really like something. "Whoa, those are good! Seriously!" as opposed to "Thanks for making them!" One of my coworkers particularly like the crumbly nature of the topping. My hus...

My friend at work was telling me about the baby animals at Hancock Shaker Village . She also said the cafe was amazing, so I really wanted to go. I loved seeing the baby animals in past years at Indian Ladder Farms , but my husband was not as impressed (though he may deny it now - in his defense it was a cold and rainy day that I wanted him to stand around and listen to me say "look how cute the little baby ducks are!!"). So it was good my friend Elizabeth agreed to go with me. Here is the part where I say to you "Look how cute the animals are!!" Here is the Round Stone Barn that holds the animals:  Then we went to the Village Harvest Cafe. My friend really recommended it, and they grow their own vegetables so it sounded like a great choice. Here is the menu . I had the "Open Faced Roast Beef on Grilled Farmers Bread with Shaker Mushroom Sauce, and Crispy Shallots", and lots of hazelnut coffee that I really enjoyed. The mushroom sauce was ...

Tonight we had a very healthy dinner of cod with lemon quickly sauteed and roasted purple potatoes. We also had some Benzinger white wine, where we visited on our honeymoon . Then I started paging through some cookbooks for dessert, since it is the weekend after all. Check out carrot cupcakes above from Ad Hoc at Home (one of my all time favorite cookbooks).  Things I think about this recipe: There is no beating cream cheese frosting. Seriously, is there anything better? No, I don't think so. Oh my goodness. What is the difference between cupcakes and muffins? I didn't find my paper baking cups until after I was baking them, and my husband was shocked I was just baking them in my muffin pan that I had rubbed with butter and drizzled with some flour. He said he thought the difference between muffins and cupcakes was the paper baking cups. I think the difference may be the texture. You can just yank muffins out of the pan without losing half of it, but cake you want to...

As part of Tuesdays with Dorie , using the book Baking with Julia I made rugelach. You can find the recipe here and here . You can read many comments from other bakers talking about their rugelach here . Check out some pictures of mine, and I'll tell you what I thought about them! Since my husband is allergic to nuts I just completed left those out of the recipe. Also, as far as the spread in the middle I had some prunes, but I underestimated the measurement of them and ended up using two cups of dates and one cup of the prunes. This sort of date/prune butter concoction is great. It would be great to eat on toast, or to take in cans to a food swap . After spreading on the date/prune mixture, and sprinkling on a brown sugar, white sugar, and cinnamon mixture on the dough I made and rolled out, I included some cranberries and cherries. The tip on page 10 on the book to steam dried fruits under simmering water worked out great. I have never thought of that before, but it real...

Today I went to a food swap in Troy. I am sure from my own experience organizing a cookie exchange that getting that all organized is not as easy as it looks. I got a New York state cookie cutter at The Hungry Fish Cafe this weekend and decided to make a speculoo cookie recipe from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspa n . Check out what I made, and I'll mention what I got for it! Check out the packaging I made and the signs for my table display: There were over 40 people there at the Oakwood Community Center in Troy. It was super fun. You can't believe the creativity and skill people show in what they come up with to make. I did notice that the people who made alcoholic things were most popular. It seems like if you made infused vodka you get to choose between all the canned tomatoes. Also, I could not have expected that there would be so many vegans! It was weird that it kind of felt like speed dating or a high school popularity contest. The girl w...