Bargain Ginger to the Rescue!

Another Market Basket special! Inspired by the basil oil I bought at the Home Store! There was a package of little bits of fresh ginger... the size that most people pass by when choosing the perfect chunk of ginger. They bundled these little guys together and put them on sale for $.59...

They said "BETHANY! BUY US!" and so I did. Sliced half, grated the other half, filled the jars with olive oil, and now I am ready for ANY ginger needs that might arise in the Dumas kitchen!

I LOVE GINGER!

Pork Roast

Asparagus. I love to shop at Market Basket in New Hampshire. They have a great produce section and even better prices. Most days you can find fresh asparagus for only $2 per pound!!

One of my favorite veggies to roast with a little oil, S&P = easy, yummy and healthy!!

GO GREEN VEGGIES!

When we were at Aunt Jeanne's for my birthday, she had a whole pork loin that she shared with us. We put it in the freezer for a couple of weeks, but broke it out on Saturday to have this lovely dinner we cooked together.

We also roasted some red and sweet potatoes. The sweets ended up turning into little candied treats. Again, just a little oil, S&P, so healthy and tasty!!

Finally, from the America's Test Kitchen cookbook, this is a brandy cream sauce. Apple, onion, LOTS of fresh sage and a little cream cheese. It was simple to prepare, and since it is cooked over low heat the onion keeps it's flavor and the apples didn't break down into the sauce.

After eating a heaping pile of this delicious meal - we ended up with the plate of leftovers below.

All ready to be thrown in the oven and reheated to perfection! I highly recommend this sauce. It would be great with chicken or pork. Only a few ingredients, most of which we have in the house always. Another way to use those apples we pick in the fall - or to have an excuse to buy some crunchy granny smith apples at the store. Also - we have fresh sage growing in our garden in the summer, so I could see this on a grilled pork chop on a sunny afternoon too!

Three treats

Bittersweet chocolate chips, sour cherries and toasted almonds.... yup this is the cookie dough!

I am trying to figure out the secret of a perfect chocolate chip cookie (without using shortening).

Tim says there is another recipe for the basic chocolate chip cookie that uses 3 sticks of butter and more flour. This is going to be my next attempt I think. They are never fluffy enough, and often spread out too far despite my greatest efforts to get the dough to the right temperature before baking, only beating the dough enough to incorporate the ingredients and getting the oven to the right temp... It is yummy to experiment with cookies!

This photo below is one of our favorite breakfast treats. Leftover taco filling, made into a breakfast quesadilla. Scramble some eggs and cook them like an omelet. Grated cheese, taco filling, the perfect disc of scrambled eggs, some avocado, more cheese and voila! A great use for leftovers - depending on your taco filing, this is a really healthy way to start your day. This time we used tempeh, broccoli and onion. You have to try this!

Finally, POPOVERS! This is my second attempt at making popovers - very simple to make, but still searching for the best baking times. If you have made them before, you know they are first baked at a higher temp, then you reduce the heat to finish the baking. I think that I need to reduce the high heat time. They have come out a little hard, and a little too brown. We will have to do this again!

You should know that we filled these - obviously you can see - with savory ingredients. Eggs, shallots and sausage in a scramble, dried cranberries and walnuts made into a big jumble, then stuffed into the popover. I actually ate this as a finger food - it would be perfect for breakfast to eat on the go if you only had someone to prepare all of the ingredients while you took a shower and got ready for work!

I met a customer at LLB yesterday looking for our popover mix - sadly we didn't have any. I ended up sharing with her how easy it is to make from scratch... 3 ingredients! While talking about eating popovers, she shared with me that she enjoys filling them with ice cream and then topping with hot fudge for a POPOVER SUNDAE! WOW! Maybe that will be dessert today? It would be even better with jam and ice cream... mmmmm.... I am daydreaming about dessert popovers.

Rosemary Shortbread Cookies

These little slices of heaven have brown butter, rosemary, ground & toasted walnuts and a pinch of cinnamon. They have been on my to-do list for months and I finally conquered this flavor challenge! Another SUCCESS!

Pasketti & Meatballs!

Ground beef and ground pork, the veal made me too sad to add it into the mix, even though the lovely Ina Garten recommends it.

You know, we always cook for two. But like my family traditions have always guided me in the choices I make, here with go, 3 dozen meatballs!

Dig in, get your hands dirty. It is always fun to get "hands on" while cooking. Brian is often my faucet assistant, taking a break from his grading to turn on the water and squirt the dish soap onto my hands. Important to remember that contaminating your workspace isn't safe! Keep germs in line!

We worked as a team to create this dinner. What a special time to spend together when you add love to the mix with dinner.

Brian joined me in the kitchen to seer the meatballs and make the homemade sauce. This is a first for both of us.

Lately, I turn on the computer and want to "surf the web" but I never know where to surf. Sometimes I look at LLBean.com, or facebook... I often cross my fingers that I'll open my blog to discover new followers or a comment on something I have created here...

Yeah for NEW FOLLOWERS!

I have discovered MarthaStewart.com, great ideas, recipes and a really easy to use website. It triggered my searching for other new food related sites, and lots of great new ideas as a result!!

So, below is the creation of the sauce. Onions, garlic, red wine, herbs, olive oil, and the little brown bits left over from the meat balls. It is so fun when you discover magic in the ease of creating one of your favorite foods in your own kitchen from scratch!

The great thing about making something like spaghetti and meatballs is that you never need to worry about setting the timer. The meat gets mixed and rolled... no time limit on this one. The ingredients get dumped into the pot for the sauce, and it simmers. Simmering until it is perfect. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, or maybe turn the pot down low, and start a movie.

This is a foreign experience as I am most often baking. Lately experimenting with yeast dough, and baking cupcakes, your timer is your best friend. Don't forget to start it, or restart it! Also, like an important science experiment, you need to accurately measure the ingredients... with this dinner above, we decided to add extra onion, garlic and some bonus herbs that we found at the store... delicious and only improved the flavor.

I LOVE COOKING!

Key Lime Pie... the cheaters edition... my favorite!

For Brian's birthday every year, we have Key Lime Pie! A few weeks late, but he is still excited!

You can see the homemade graham cracker crust I worked SO hard to bake. I was lucky enough to find a bottle of REAL KL juice! (No more squeezing those little buggers until my thumbs fall off!)

I know it isn't cheating when Brian LOVES it! But when you make a real crust, squeeze the little limes, add the zest, crack the eggs, bake the pie... it is just more like a true story rather than a fairy tale!

(My true story is that I have only made 1 homemade crust for Brian's pies in 10 birthdays... and I quickly gave up the squeezing thing when I found the magic bottle!)

A Brain Glitch... and The Hitch... hmmmm.

Living in Wells, Maine for the first two thirds of my life, I have had many touristy experiences. Southern Maine with the white sand beaches, fresh-fried-seafood stands on every corner, and homemade ice cream every 2 miles down Route 1 offers a certain kind of experience for a kid like me. (A chubby kid like me!)

We would hop in the car, Mom, Dad, Nathan, and I, off to where ever. Sometimes we'd travel west to Sanford, to avoid the crowd, other times to Aunt Jeanne's house to swim in the pool and BBQ. The less frequent, but most memorable were the trips into town when we would brave the crowd to enjoy the Southern Maine indulgences.

Big Daddy's. Scoop Deck. Billy's Chowder House. Maine Diner.

Congdon's. Need I say more?

If you've been to Wells, You have been to these places, driven past them when the wait is at least 2 hours. There are folks from Quebec and Massachusetts with sunburned faces, screaming children, and wacky tee shirts waiting in line to have the best of something in town.

In the car on the way to Aunt Jeanne's, I can't wait to play with my cousins but, I really want some black raspberry ice cream from Big Daddy's even more. The line was most often wrapped around the building and down the road which meant, no, another day Beth. Maybe next week. (Maybe next week?!?!)

Anyway, on those certain days when Mom and Dad had a true hankering for one of these special treats, we would brave the lines

and crazy tourists for a taste of heaven.

Going out to dinner at exactly 5pm when Dad got out of work. Going out for ice cream at 9pm when hopefully the lines have died. Nothing like looking across the picnic table at my Mom and Dad eating their ice cream, we are all smiling. Dad's is gone first... He got his last, ordered the largest, and it disappears in mere seconds. (One of my fondest memories... waiting for the moment when his ice cream has just vanished!)

In the mean time, I have dripped ice cream down my shirt and Mom has gone to retrieve one of those little Styrofoam bowls so I can dump my cone in and not loose it in the dirt!

These memories are so important to me. Mom and I would plan to make Dad take us out to Scoop Deck, but it was never very hard to talk him into it. Dad almost always wore his work uniform out on Friday nights, hungry, tired, and in a hurry to get the family fed, off we'd go. His customers would smile and introduce themselves every where we went. Mom has a knack for finding friends in strangers... and also knew almost everyone in Wells to boot!

Anyway, I guess I am struggling with the point here... I have yet to start the coffee!

There was a special place called the Hitch in Wells, right across the street from school. My memories are so vague, yet I know this is where I was introduced to carrot cake. I am certain of this fact.

I am pretty sure that this place was only open for lunch?

Really, not sure. My Dad never joined us, it was just Mom and me.

We would eat soup and sandwiches, and sit at the window facing route 1 where I could see the school, right across the street.

Did we go there on early release days? Maybe on Mom's lunch break before I started school? Was I in kindergarten, and only went to school for a half a day anyway? I can't tell you for sure. Why didn't Dad ever come?

It is so random that I can't remember any details, but the memory of the carrot cake was so profound. It is places like the Hitch that makes Wells so special. It is the fact that despite the glitches within my mind, I still know, unconditionally, that they had the best damn cake I had ever eaten.

From the moment I tasted it, I remember wanting to have it again. I know we went there just for cake sometimes.

I know that because of the Hitch I have worked toward a masterpiece of carrot cake. You won't be surprised to know that I have found it. Here it is. Perfection.

Two stories. Who knows where I was going with this?

Here I guess:

(I better quit before things get worse!)

EAT CARROT CAKE AND BE HAPPY IN LIFE! We only get one chance - so they are right when they tell you to eat dessert first.

Also - if you want a second cupcake... have one... what if you die tomorrow never feeling fully satisfied with your carrot cake consumption?