Craft:Along January

Wow, look at this, I completed something! Things are looking good for this year's adventure. I am so glad that this month had a choice between making something and baking. I chose to make the delicious Lemon Drop cookies. I was really excited to make these because the title sounded simliar to one of my all time favorite cookies, Sugar Cane Lime Cookies.

I thought the sugar made them a little too sweet for my taste. I liked them without rolling the cookies in sugar before baking them. But I did really really enjoy the lemon sugar. Problem was after I made this, I had extra cream cheese and 3 zest-less lemons! So I made this quiche and lemonade too. YUM. Although this is a LOT of quiche for two people!

NaBloPoMo: Day 25

Yes I realize this looks gross, but how do you eat frozen persimmons? I love the fresh ones, so I decided to try to freeze then and then eat them in the summer. Apparently there's some trick to it...

NaBloPoMo: Day 18

Ohmygod I love this stuff. And I can't believe I'm dedicating a post to Nacho Cheese. SO good. They sell this stuff in bigger jars too, which I don't buy because yes, I'll finish it all. You can't tell but this jar is pretty much empty. I do love nachos though. Especially Taco Bell Nachos. Mmmm. Did you know that there is a site for people who love nacho cheese? Genius.

NaBloPoMo: Day 8

Mmmm... I'm missing summer already. I'm using up my CSA vegetables... only 3 weeks left until the end of CSA season! Oh how I'm going to miss having fresh tomatoes and cilantro!! This salsa came from this recipe from Anina. I love it. I especially love the cilantro. Unfortunately I didn't have lime in the house at the time, but it's still soooo good!

Play with ME!

Last night I picked up my second CSA bunch, and I am very excited. I also have to say that the radishes (not beets, doh) from last week were delicious! They taste like daikon (japanese white radish) and I definitely had a light bulb moment there... Oh and I had the collard greens the way Jan suggested, fried in bacon fat with more bacon. SO GOOD. Now that I'm not scared of them, maybe this week I'll try a healthier option. Or not. :) Here is this week's haul:

Thankfully the only think I really don't know what to do with is the kale. I'm sad there's not cauliflower this week though, I had wanted to make cauliflower gratin!

Here are my mystery quilt squares all cut up. Actually, I had run out of the super dark fabrics, so I'm visiting the quilt shop today. And here is how Lucy reacts to my taking photos of things on the floor...

CSA! CSA!

I got off the waiting list of my CSA, and now am a proud trial member! I picked up my first box of veggies today, and I have to say I'm very excited.

I cut off the greens of the carrots, beets and cauliflower and threw them into a pot for soup. Not really sure what else to do with them. I tried the strawberries and the carrots, and they taste very different from regular veggies. Somehow, they taste sharper, and more concentrated?

In any case, I joined the CSA because I want to eat more veggies, and experiment more. Which I'm already seeing, as I have no idea what to do with the beets or the collard greens...

Bread Help!

Alright, so I finally made the no-knead bread. It was nice and crunchy (and a little burnt, my bad) but was still good. The dough was a little flavorless, but I dipped it in balsamic vinegar and olive oil anyway so not a problem.

Then I decided to try and make the Master Loaf from this book, but here's where I ran into problems. My loaves are tiny! Is this normal? I expected them to be about the size of a dinner plate, and maybe 3 inches high. Mine are probably closer to a 6 inch sphere. Photo with a navel orange is for scale. Still nice and crunchy though, and probably a good size for dinner for 2. It was SUPER super salty, so maybe next time no salt? Anyone else have problems like this? FYI, I used bread flour instead of the all purpose flour, and followed the book's instructions and decreased the amount of flour by 1/4 cup.

In more exciting news, Lucy finally got spayed. We have her running around in a t-shirt so that she doesn't lick her stitches. Short corgi legs! She keeps wiggling out through the neck hole.