Portland Farmers Market

Today I went to the farmers market! To be specific I went to the Montavilla Farmers Market and it was super cute and packed with happy people and their families. All of us there to stock up on healthy goods to fill our bellies.
As we drove down Stark St to the market I notice a cute older couple walking down the street carrying a big bag of produce, greens bursting out the top... the man and woman each held one side of the bag, walking along together splitting the burden of the market booty. It was so cute! And I knew I must be close to the market :)

Its the peak time of year for the farm stands. There is so much to mention! The crunchy sweet juicey bi-colored corn...

the peaches that were so incredibly perfect (who doesn't like a taste test!!)

the cherry tomatoes in colors that I didn't even know had been introduced into the realm of cherry tomatoes (I grow the little orange sun gold, but purple? that is new to me, and utterly delicious!)we bought some delicious goat cheese and a loaf of bread (Tim also got some sort of cinnamony potato donut for himself at the bakery while I was purchasing a flat of black berries to make into jam) and some green zebra tomatoes that we sliced up and had for brunch... sooo tastey

and I made the most amazing market salad:

• golden beets really thin (got to use my mandolin which sadly is a rarely used kitchen toy in my house)
• onions shaved thinly as well
• fresh basil (the bundle from the market was so huge! bigger than my plants I'm growing!) cherry tomatoes, both orange and purple :)
• olive oil and vinegar, salt and pepper

and then later I made black berry jam with Maggie. We made jam and syrup... we had a LOT of berries!

Late Night Cookies

Late last night I made the best chocolate chip cookies ever! The recipe is from the most recent Cooks Illustrated Issue - I swear this magazine is my ultimate favorite magazine. I've had a subscription since the mid 90's. I love the hand illustrated black and white drawings and the geeky overly thorough investigations into all their different recipes. Its awesome.

Okay - so I made their "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies". Late night cookies are not good for my belly, but hey, sometimes sh*t happens and this is the kind of stuff that makes me giggle!

They turned out spectacular. The recipe claims the following:

"We set out to perfect the back-of-the-bag classic with a cookie that was crisp at the edges, chewy in the middle, and full of rich toffee flavor."

The Easiest Pie Recipe Ever!

I have recently discovered how easy it is to make Key Lime Pie... drum roll please... its a can of sweetened condensed milk (nummy) some of this key lime juice and some egg yolks. Period. Thats it. A little graham cracker crust and bam - Key Lime Pie. If I had known how easy this pie is to make - I would have been showin' up with Key Lime Pie at any given notice. Honestly, its so easy, and incredibly inexpensive.

Heres the recipe (taken from the side of the Key Lime Juice bottle):

• one graham cracker crust
• one 14ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup Key Lime Juice

Combine the milk, juice and yolks until creamy (I simply used a spoon and stirred till it was all combined, didn't take very long), pour into the pie shell and bake at 350degrees for 15 minutes. Allow to stand for 10 minutes before refrigerating.

If you like Key Lime Pie - you gotta try this. Honest. Pick up a pie crust and a can of sweetened condensed milk at the store, or and keep your eye out in the juice section, or the baking section, I forget where I found the special key lime juice... it was cheap too... I think it was the juice section of the grocery store.

Go do it! You'll thank me.

Winter Crafty Goodness: Making Cinnamon Ornaments

Mary blogged about her fun times making cinnamon ornaments and the idea was planted in my head to try and make some myself. Cinnamon Ornaments!

Here's my how to on making these wonderful smelling decorations:

What You'll Need:
- equal parts applesauce and cinnamon (I used 1 cup each)
- ground nutmeg and clove if you have them
- Elmers Glue
- oven or dehydrator
- plastic straw
- rolling pin
- wax paper
- cookie cutters
- cookie pan

The process is odd but easy. Mixing up all the cinnamon into the applesauce takes a bit of persuasion, and then the dough isn't very cookie-dough like... but its relatively easy to work with. Use the wax paper to roll out the dough pretty thin (1/4") so it won't take too many days to dehydrate. And the plastic straw is for cutting the holes so you can hang them. Then bake them at 250degrees for a while, flipping them once. If I had a dehydrator, that'd be the way to go... but I don't... so I just left mine out to sit for a couple of days before I decorate them.

Don't eat them - they won't taste good, they just smell good.

The whole house smelled so good as I made these! My brother said he's gonna sleep walk during the night and eat some. When I opened the oven the smell of cinnamon was so strong I could taste it!

Now I need some puffy paint so I can decorate them.

Sugar Cookies for Rainy Days

In the spirit of this rainy fall Portland weather, last night I made Butternut Squash Soup and Brown Sugar Cookies. Ummmm. Yummy.

This is the best Brown Sugar Cookie recipe I know - its goooo-ooo-oood. You don't even have to wait for the butter to soften, you brown the butter in a pan (which is so yummy!)! I had to share.

INGREDIENTS
14 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks)
1/4 cup granulated sugar (about 1 3/4 ounces)
2 cups packed dark brown sugar (14 ounces)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus 2 tablespoons (about 10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:
preheat oven to 350F

1. brown 10tbs of the butter in a pan on the stove (keep an eye on this, stir often as to not burn the butter, get a nice dark nutty brown on the butter) then take off the stove and add the remaining 4tbs of butter to the pan (this will foam up and replace some of the lost moisture, as well as cool down the butter). Set this aside to cool for 10-15min

2. combine 1/4cup brown sugar and 1/4cup white granulated sugar in a shallow dish (like a plate or a pie pan) and work out any lumps in the brown sugar. Set this aside to roll the cookies in before baking.

3. combine the flour, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl. Separately mix the 1 3/4cup remaining brown sugar and salt with the butter. Once the sugar has mixed in thoroughly, add the egg and yolk and vanilla to this mixture.

4. combine your wet ingredients (the sugar, butter, egg mixture) with the flour. Once stirred together so that there are no pockets of dry flour, divide the dough into two pieces. Set one aside.
6. pinch off small pieces of dough (you will make 12 out of this 1/2 of the dough - 24 cookies total) and roll into balls. Toss the balls in the sugar mixture you made in step 2, then space them out on a pan to bake. Bake 10-15min (check for doneness- take them out when they have sorta cracked on the surface but the center still seems uncooked, this will result in a great finished cookie once cooled)
7. When the cookies are done, cool them for 5 minutes on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Take the other half the dough (you can even prep the other 12 little cookie balls as the first batch cooks) and make the rest of the cookies.

Enjoy!

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