Some Things That Have Happened Lately

 I've decided that Winona Ryder circa Reality Bites is my new style muse while my hair grows out  (awk)

I went to a fabulous wedding at the Boston Public Library last weekend where I ate some delicious cake: 

I turned 27 on Tuesday (ugh)

I got my first sewing machine (!)

I had Oleana's version of Baked Alaska for the first time (fancy)

 More later.

Eating My Way Through The Big E

Confession: Prior to Monday, I had never been to the Big E. Well, maybe I went when I was a baby, but that totally doesn't count. Apparently I did a lot of gnarly stuff as a child that I have no memory of, like attending a Maplethorpe show and climbing to the top of Mt Washington. Anyways, BIG E. Every year I'd say something like "Oh, we should go" and then make excuses for three weeks until it was over. "Oh well. There's always next year," I'd say. And on and on and on. Not this year, people. This year I made it. And oh what a fair it is. So many useless crap on sale, so many deliciously horrible things to eat. Come join me:

Hmmm...that seems a bit like overkill

Lil' Sebastian Jr!

Elephant is sooo siked to get some carrots!

In the Maine building I got a mini chocolate-covered whoopie pie (duh) from Wicked Woopies

Then we moved on to things on a stick...

 ... and a bone

I call this one "Girl with a Turkey Leg"

Time to make the apple cider donuts!

 I had to include this because it is the cutest thing I have ever seen

 ...and this is the scariest

Ok, back to food! Behold: Baked potato from Maine.

I enjoyed both Opa Opa's watermelon beer and it's Western-inspired tent

 Let's all go to the Clydesdale Parade!

The ubiquitous Big E cream puffs that I didn't have

And, the piece de resistance: Deep-fried oreos. I think I'm in love.

Gone Sconing'

Ugh. It's been a loooong week. School is well underway and my students' first paper is due next Thursday. I feel a bit like a mother bird teaching her babies to fly, fly away. I've also been sending out my own writing for (hopefully, eventual) publication. On the home front, I've been trying to go to the farmer's market at least once a week instead of getting fruits and veg at the grocery store, which has made cooking a bit of a challenge, albeit a fun one. I was hoping to pick up some raspberries or blueberries this week for a scone recipe from my ubiquitous Babycakes cookbook.  

I should first say a word about my love for scones: UhhhIlovethem. Generally, any treat associated with tea time is gonna be a favorite with me....But, I feel bad when I eat them because they tend to be filled with butter and sugar.  (mmm butter-sugar-filled scones) So, I've wanted to try the Babycakes recipe for awhile, since I'm one of those people who, instead of 'going without' something, just tries to make it slightly healthier. 

Side note: For awhile in college I used to make brownies from scratch using the One Bowl Brownie recipe from those Baker's Chocolate bars and experimented with using less sugar. The recipe calls for 2 cups and I eventually worked my way down to just 1 cup, though I think the sweet spot was something like 1 1/3 C. Tooootally worked. Plus, the chocolate flavor was way more pronounced! 


Anyways, back to the scones....Sadly, there were no berries at the farmers market. All they had were stone fruits and apples. Good for snacking, not so good for sconing. I decided to go ahead with the recipe anyway and use the remnants of a bag of frozen berries, even though the recipe calls for fresh. But hey, sometimes you gotta use what you have on hand. I used a cherry/blueberry/raspberry medley from Trader Joe's and simply defrosted them in the microwave while I made the scone dough. After draining the berries I folded them into the dough, as instructed. It was admittedly more wet than I would have liked, so I added some ground flaxseed to the mix and hoped for the best. 

The results? Pretty good! There were plenty of juicy berries through out the scones without any soggy spots. You can find the recipe here. Just sub fresh berries for frozen, if you prefer. I think I might have ended up with a cup and a half of frozen then defrosted berries....

Now that Fall is upon us I'm hoping to hit up some local fairs in the coming weeks, because what's the point of living in New England if you DON'T go to fall fairs??? Answer: none.

Mixtape Memories

I recently jumped on the Spotify bandwagon after reading this awesome article about stalking people's playlists. I then realized that I hadn't made a playlist or music mix in F-O-R-E-V-E-R. This was slightly depressing because I spent a decent chunk of my mid-teens to early 20's making mixes for myself, for friends, and for guys I wanted to bone. Of course, the irony of making a mix for someone else is that most of the time it simply screams "LOOK HOW AWESOME AND COOL I AM. I HAVE GREAT TASTE IN MUSIC. DON'T I??"more so than including anything the listener would actually like. I  got a dose of this recently because my Ipod adaptor in my car broke so I've been listening to some of the mix tapes I made and received back in high school. They are both awesome and embarrassing, as only time capsules from another era can be. I'd highly recommend it.

Somewhere along the line (roughly around the time I got my first mac) I got lazy and started letting iTunes do the mixing for me (Damn you, Shuffle and Genius!) Now, I am by no means a technophobe but part of the art of making the perfect mix has disappeared. Remember how long it used to take to make a mixtape? How you'd have to sit there and listen to every song while it recorded and then allow for the proper amount of silence in between each song pass? How you'd curse yourself if you got distracted and let the next track bleed over before scrambling to press the STOP button? Or maybe you added wrong and the last thirty seconds of Train In Vain got cut off and now your whole afternoon just went down the shitter because Tommyistotallygonnathinkyoureaposer? Ah, those were the good old days....

For the past few years I've mostly just done an End of the Year mix that catalogues all the notable songs I listened to for whatever reason. It's like an audio scrapbook of bands I discovered, songs I couldn't stop listening to, or the soundtrack to memorable moments. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a song can be worth a thousand more. 

Anyways, Spotify made me realize how small my original scope of mixes had been. I had only been doing it since about 2007, but I could totally take it further! Enter 2006 mix, College mix, and High School mix. I figured I should probably do them now, while I still remember. Maybe it took a couple of hours that I'll never get back, but it was nice to revisit my younger days and track how my musical tastes have changed (Man, I really loved The Get Up Kids for awhile) and what has remained steady favorites over the years (Peter Gabriel, I love you even more now).

Emily vs The Pie Maker

As I mentioned a few posts ago I was recently given a personal pie maker by my cousin Katie as a bridesmaid gift. Since then I've spent far too much time making and consuming small pies. I've never been a big 'pie' girl, or rather, I've nearly always been disappointed by pie crusts because they tend to be bland, crumbly and not worth the excessive calories and fat. As such, I've always been more partial to fruit crisps, which combine the goodness of pies without the crusts. However, when one is given a mini pie maker, one puts it to use.

It has definitely taken a few tries for me to make pies that aren't either a little burnt or too undercooked (hint: never listen to mini pie recipe bake times...), but I've come up with some new insight into pie-making along the way.

First, it's crust time:

If you aren't like me and actually have a rolling pin and a food processor I'd suggest checking out this recipe for a twice-baked crust via the New York Times. I've read great things about it on various food blogs across the internet. 

Since I lack the proper equipment I decided to give frozen pie crusts another chance via Trader Joe's brand. They were surprisingly tasty, although rather fragile unbaked. Definitely my go-to frozen pie crust from now on. But the real revelation came with my mini pie maker's explicit instructions not to use traditional pie crusts to top the pies. Instead, you are instructed to use puff pastry.

Now, hands down the best pie I ever had was at this family restaurant near Bryce Canyon, Utah. The filling was good but it was the crust that really stood out: So light, so flaky, so tasty! Naturally, they had it printed on their menu that they didn't under ANY circumstances give out their recipes, but you were more than welcome to buy whole pies, etc, etc. Using puff pastry on top of these mini pies was the only thing that has ever come close to those Utah pie crusts. I'm not sure how it would work out on a regular sized oven baked pie, but I'm definitely going to try it out.

 Hmmm, I'm clearly still trying to gauge the proper cooking time....

Now for the filling:

I kept things pretty simple since I was admittedly more focused on the crust, but I discovered that Trader Joe's jarred Morello cherries are a pretty decent substitute for fresh berries and definitely better than anything that comes out of a can. I simply added a little vanilla and some sugar to the mix. 

In addition to my pie press, I was given a little recipe book which included a a yummy and incredibly easy sounding S'mores pie.  You simply layer a pie crust with graham crackers and chocolate, then top with marshmallows and stick under the broiler until toasted.

Awww a little S'mores pie fresh out of the broiler!

All in all, the pie maker got me to explore an area of baking that I had heretofore written off. Though I do wish I could still zip up my skinny jeans...

Will Work For Produce

Last week I helped my friend Joey of Just Grow With It sell some of his delicious organic fruits and veggies (along with some mouth-watering pies) at a craft fair/market thingy. 

It was a lot of fun and in return I was given a bunch of free produce including a yellow cucumber (yep) and  some things called 'fun' tomatoes. I quite like this method of payment and wish it could be extended to other areas of my working life: Finished grading papers? Here's a basket of strawberries! Wrote an article about your mom dating? Have some baby eggplants!

I used the yellow cucumber and the fun tomatoes to make a yummy chopped salad with feta, fresh basil, olive oil, and S&P. The cuke was extra crunchy--way more than the green ones and less watery with a nice, firm texture. Best part? The salad still had a nice crunch the next day.