Two-Fer

Back again so soon, eh? It'll be a quickie this time -- promise. This one is food related.

Food has been a sensitive subject up in these parts for the last five months. We spent the fall slogging through life in general. I just could not deal with grocery shopping or cooking (or living, really), and my husband, while very supportive, is really not a cook. It was also troublesome that one very specific food item would sound slightly palatable at dinner planning time, but in the amount of time it took to acquire that specific item, it would undoubtedly become mostly unpalatable. I had an intense relationship with Starbucks breakfast sandwiches in the first trimester, but our love burned hot and fast. I went through a short Velveeta/Rotel/Hormel chili queso phase, and most recently, had an intense affair with danish (but only Wegmans raspberry or cheese kuchen -- so good). (Danish still has my heart, but I had to break things off before he also got my ass.)

In short, while I'm still not in top form on the food shopping/preparation front, I am doing my best. I phone it in more than I would prefer, and grocery shopping often is more than I can manage, but there is dramatically more real food coming out of my kitchen these days. (Woo!)

Last night, I kind of winged it on a phoned in dinner and it was so easy and delicious, I had to share. I was yet again too sore at the end of the day to buy groceries, so I had Mark stop and pick up some pizza dough and deli ham. When I got home, I threw together a quick calzone and white bean soup from an Alessi mix. 

For the calzone, I rolled out the dough into a long rectangle. I sprinkled a good layer of Trader Joe's Quattro Formaggi shredded cheese blend down the middle. Next came a layer of ham (about 6 oz) and a layer of swiss cheese. I folded the sides of the dough over, tucked the ends in, and pinched everything closed. I flipped it over, gave it a brush of an egg wash, and threw it in the oven. I put it on parchment on a preheated pizza stone. I normally cook pizza at 525, but had preheated the oven to 450. I turned it down to 425 to make sure the calzone cooked through without burning. It took maybe 15-20 minutes, until it was a deep, golden brown and melty cheese started to escape. 

It was sinfully delicious -- the kind of meal that leaves us saying, "Damn, my brain wants more, but my belly is too full." We were both super excited to have leftovers for lunch today too. Stupidly easy and delicious? That is a win in my book.

I am hiding from the bathroom reno by cooking. Enjoy!

Posting two days in a row? Who am I and what has happened to my slacker ways?? Basically I'm hiding from my construction beleaguered husband, who claims he loves to do renovation projects around the house yet turns into a world class grump while in the middle of them. God forbid I actually take a moment to drink my coffee after making him breakfast; don't I know there is work to be done?! Guaranteed he'll be full of the the passive aggressives when he gets back from the latest Home Depot run because I'm still sitting, mug in hand, and not out buying a vanity. However, I need to shower before going out and he has turned off the water. Impasse! Luckily, he's almost always pretty great, tremendous wedgies in his cranky construction pants aside, and he happens to do a pretty nice job on these projects, so I guess I'll keep him.

It has been a very kitchen-y weekend so far. It started with Friday Pizza Night. My fridge is a mess, as I have been thrown off of my cooking game of late, and I wasn't sure what I would have to work with in the way of pizza toppings. After perusing the inventory, I decided to chop up some tomatoes and scallions and toss them with a little bit of EVOO, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I rolled out the dough and covered it in a thick coating of freshly grated mozzarella, then sprinkled on the tomato and scallion dressing. It went into the 525 degree oven until it was golden and bubbly, and OMG -- amazing. This is definitely going into the regular rotation.

The cooking continued last night, with another old family classic -- sausages sautéed in red wine. This is SO easy, and really delicious. I bought a half dozen sweet Italian sausages from the butcher and popped them into a sauté pan with a little EVOO over high-ish heat (about an 8 on my crappy electric stove (OH HOW I AM COUNTING THE DAYS UNTIL I HAVE A GAS STOVE IN THE NEW HOUSE) (APPROXIMATELY 146)). Pour in red wine, any kind you would be happy drinking, about 1/3 of the way up the sausages. It's going to be very bubbly, so just keep turning the sausages every minute or so until the wine is nearly absorbed. Once the wine is almost absorbed, add in another blob of wine and turn the heat down to medium. Cover the pan and let the sausages simmer until nearly cooked through, flipping them once or twice (about 15 or so minutes). At this point, pull the sausages out of the pan, turn the heat back up, and add in about 3/4 c of water to deglaze. Throw the sausages back into the bubbly sauce and keep flipping them to coat. Once it reduces enough, it will start spitting grease, so throw the cover back on and let the outside of the sausages caramelize a little. That's it! I served them with TJ's asparagus risotto and lightly roasted, garlicky haricot verts. Awesome.

The best part of the sausages is how good they are left over. My gram would make sandwiches from very thinly sliced sausages on lightly buttered bread (this is possibly a beloved childhood treat from Grandma that is actually gross to adults other than Gram's grandchildren, a la boxed chocolate cake with Cool Whip frosting). Today I decided to humor my resident construction worker with an egg scramble for breakfast. Mark hates eggs, basically. He will eat them as a binder for a whole mess of meat, cheese, meat, and more meat, and very much enjoys them this way and only this way. I never make them this way because, dude, how much grease do you really need before noon? Today I relented though. I took applewood smoked bacon from the butcher and laid it out on a baking rack on a foil-covered sheet pan. Stick it in a cold oven and turn it on to 400, bake for 20 minutes, flip, and cook 5 minutes more and it's PERFECT. Still flexible, yet fully cooked and crispy. While the bacon was cooking, I diced up some red potatoes and got started on home fries. I also sliced some of the sausages left from dinner. Once everything was ready to go, I stuck the sausage, chopped bacon, and potatoes into a big skillet and scrambled in some eggs. A dusting of cheese, and Mark's ideal egg breakfast was ready to go. Pretty tasty, but UGH. I feel mentally fatter already.

(OH MY GOD, THE NOISES COMING FROM UPSTAIRS ARE TERRIFYING.)

Next up is a sirloin and bean chili that my mom sent a recipe for last week. She claims it is fairly low in fat/calories while also delicious. I certainly hope so after the nutritional atrocity that was breakfast. I will report back...

Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee, lousy with humidity...

Hello! I hope everyone weathered Sandy safely. We did pretty well here. I may have lost my mind while shopping for Official Emergency Preparedness Supplies (AHEM:

ARMAGEDDOOOOON!)

but we never lost our power, and other than a small leak in the basement that had my husband out mid-hurricane with ladders and power tools (he is Darwinism at work, that one), we had no real damage. We are counting our lucky stars, and thinking of those who were not so fortunate. I hope we are all warm, dry, and safe at home with our families ASAP.

We have also been taking advantage of the snow day milieu by eating hearty comfort food and drinking our Emergency Preparedness wine stash. Apparently several days of darkness, whipping winds, and lashing rain tends to drive one to cook, you know? What with it being the height of apple season and our being stocked with Emergency Preparedness Apples, there was one obvious contender: my Nana's apple cake. Apple cake is a family favorite, and the smell alone brings me back to Nana's kitchen, with my little square of cake and a cuppa tea, as she'd say. This cake is so homey to us all that it was one of the first things my mom ever baked and mailed to me as a college freshman, and it was the first appetizing thing I could manage after having my wisdom teeth out last year. It is an edible hug, if you will, so hello: CLEAR WINNER.

There are some drawbacks to the apple cake, though. First, it is absolutely, 100% TERRIBLE for you. Two cups of sugar, three of flour, A CUP OF OIL. Yikes. It is also hiiiighly addictive. Like, if you make a 13x9 pan of it, it disappears because everyone grabs another little chunk every time they walk through the kitchen. This is particularly problematic when there are only two of you in the house. So I made some tweaks. First, I cut the oil back to about 2/3-3/4 of a cup. The cake is plenty moist to make up for it, and it's actually a little better with less grease. Second, I baked it in muffin form. It's a nice way to limit the serving size, and if I freeze the muffins individually, it guarantees that we'll heat them up for actual meals rather than constant little snacks for a few days. Still not healthy, but you know, moderation, etc.

Here's what I do:

1.) Peel and chop 3 cups of apples (I used Macintosh apples, which, with Cortlands, are my favs).

2.) Add two cups of sugar, 2 tsps of cinnamon, and 1 tsp of nutmeg to the apples. Mix and set aside.

3.) In a separate bowl, combine 2/3-3/4 c vegetable oil, 2 eggs, and 2 tsps vanilla. Whisk to combine and set aside.

4.) To the apple and sugar mixture, add 3 cups of flour and 2 tsps of baking soda.

5.) Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir until the dry ingredients are fully incorporated.

6.) The batter is going to be very thick and not at all drippy. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop the batter into a muffin pan that is greased in the cups AND on top with cooking spray (they spread like whoa).

7.) Bake at 350 for 40ish minutes, although I would suggest starting to check for doneness around 30 minutes; my oven is seriously in need of recalibration. I would also suggest taking the muffins out of the pan after only five minutes. I ... did not do this, nor did I remember to spray the top of the pan with Pam, so I was chiseling through the blanket of muffin top AND scraping each muffin top off of the pan. Holy unmitigated mess. Well, mitigated somewhat by the DELICIOUSNESS, but still super messy. I moved the muffins to a cooling rack and let them sit upside down, which really helped bring the muffins that had separated from their tops back together. The tops get really crunchy, so weight and structure wise, upside down actually works best. Once they cooled, I wrapped each one in plastic wrap and stuck them in a ziploc freezer bag. 50 seconds in the microwave, unwrapped, and voila! Hot muffin for breakfast. Genius!

That's it! Here is my messy pile of everything fall should be.

Pumpkin ain't got nothin' on my apple cake.

ALOHA!!

Hello! I am (sadly) (so very, very sadly) back home from my two weeks in paradise. I mean, seriously, LOOKIT:

This was Kua Bay, just north of Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, and I could -- no exaggeration -- see it every day of my life and still be blown away by how beautiful it is. We spent ten days on the Big Island and another 4-5 on Maui, and I wanted to weep like a small child when it was time to go home. This is, hands down, my happy place.

Siiiiiiiigh.

Anyway, I will put together some photos and a recap once I work my way through the MOUNTAIN of laundry, but in the meantime, let's talk Hawaiian cuisine, shall we? First things first, the mai tai is apparently the official tourist drink of Hawaii, and screw it, I adored all 9,386,582,643,592,750 calories worth of them that I consumed in my two weeks. Fruity rum drinks with little umbrellas in them are the epitome of vacation treat happiness for me, and man, did we try some good ones. Specifically? We were pretty much short term regulars at Kimo's in Lahaina, which has an amazing waterfront location, delicious drinks, and pretty good food too.

Of course I bought the souvenir glass. OF COURSE I DID.

We also discovered Coconuts Fish Cafe in Kihei. I am still devastated that we did not go there until our last day, because the fish tacos? HOLY HELL. They were insane. INSANE. Mark and I split an order, and despite being full, debated ordering another because they were so unbelievably amazing.

Obviously these were the top two entries on the "Must Recreate at Home" list. We were able to finagle a quasi-recipe for the mai tais out of our bartender, but at Coconuts? The chef kindly informed us that we could absolutely have the recipes: we just need $100k to open a franchise. HAAAA. Well, suck it, buddy -- I did pretty well on my own!

Here's what I did:

The Official Mai Tais of Casa Katy Did Not
1.) Mix up your juice blend -- 2 parts pineapple juice, 2 parts passionfruit juice, 1 part orange juice, 1 part guava juice. (This is where I was winging it -- he did not give us the juice ratios.)
2.) Fill your glass about halfway with ice. Add in 1.5 oz. of light rum, 1/4 oz. orgeat (I had to use simple syrup + almond extract, which wasn't quite ... it, so I also added 1/4 oz. of amaretto), and 1/4 oz. orange curacao.
3.) Pour your juice blend in to nearly fill the glass and give it a stir.
4.) Top with a 1 oz. dark rum floater and garnish with a wedge of pineapple and little umbrella.
5.) Fire up the "Seaside" setting on your white noise app and light a "Sun and Sand" Yankee Candle; enjoy a momentary glimpse of vacation.

(Of course I don't have a photo; I was too busy drinking.)

Poor Man's Coconuts Fish Tacos
1.) Acquire some firm Pacific fish, not Atlantic fish that makes my husband whine about how mushy it is, and marinate it. I bought Trader Joe's frozen mahi mahi fillets, and they worked beautifully to my shock. It smelled pretty fishy when I opened the package, but after washing them off? Smelled like nothing! Just as it should! I marinated them in a sesame/soy/ginger marinade that was delicious, but not quite right. Next time I'll do two things differently -- a spicy lime marinade and cut the fish into chunks before cooking.
2.) Prep the toppings. First up is coleslaw, the key to which is the coconut milk base for the dressing. I was totally winging it here, but I threw some coconut milk, a spoonful of mayo, and a dash of red wine vinegar in a big bowl, and whisked it together with salt, pepper, and a couple of shakes of Penzey's Forward! spice blend (which is probably what I would use for the fish marinade next time). I diced some green cabbage and red onion, chopped up some parsley, and mixed it all together with the dressing, and re-seasoning until it was good. Easy enough! The other topping is mango salsa, which was diced mango, minced red onion, chopped cilantro, salt, pepper, and lime juice. Super easy, really delicious.
3.) Throw the fish onto a foil covered sheet pan and dot the fillets with butter. Broil for 5-6 minutes, flip, and broil for another 5-6 minutes. I'm guessing the time will drop a little when I'm cooking chunks of fish rather than whole fillets.
4.) While the fish is cooking, prep the tortilla base. Coconuts uses two small corn tortillas, layered, and the bottom is very crunchy to support all of the toppings. I put a nonstick pan on medium heat and let the pan heat up. I sprayed one side of a tortilla with Pam and put it spray-side down onto the hot pan. I sprayed the other side just before flipping. Once done, I transferred tortilla #1 to a sheet pan and sprinkled a little bit of a Mexican cheese blend on top, then topped it with tortilla #2. When I had all 8 tortillas fried and layered, I topped the four stacks with a little more cheese and popped them in the oven to melt (conveniently it was also time for the fish to come out at this point).
5.) Time to assemble! Take your hot tortilla bases and give them a schmear of fire roasted tomato salsa. Add a few chunks of fish, a good sized scoop of slaw, and a scoop of mango salsa, and enjoy! Actually, enjoy with many, many napkins -- they're as messy as they are delicious.

I should probably go back ASAP in the name of research, right?

There you go! A little taste of Hawaii, minus the 18 hours of travel.

"Muffin" is just another word for cake, which is why they are SO GOOD.

Mark and I complement each other so well in many ways, but we are totally incompatible when it comes to sleep, specifically bedtimes and waking hours. I have to wheedle and cajole to get him to stay up until 10 at night, and he is up and out by 7 am during the week, and usually before 8 on weekends. I have ridiculous insomnia, so I am usually up until 12, and sleep until at least 7 during the week, hopefully longer on weekends -- and that's on a good night. If I go to bed at 10 with Mark, I almost always wake up around 3 or 4 and end up getting up to read or watch tv. HATE.

On Saturday morning, Mark was awake early, of course, and started bugging me to wake me up around 7:30, despite the strict "Do Not Disturb Before 8" rule in place on weekends. He was talking about being hungry, wanting breakfast, what could he eat, etc. (He's actually not an annoying small child; I am just an insufferable witch when decaffeinated.) I knew I had applesauce in the freezer and had offered to make applesauce muffins, which he loves, and I had been asking him to hand me a phone so I could find a recipe. He wasn't paying attention though, reviewing fantasy baseball crap instead of letting me find a recipe, and being the incomparably sunny morning person that I am, I demanded the phone immediately if he wanted his applesauce mother [effing] muffins. Conveniently, he is charmed by my decaffeinated ways, chuckled, and cheekily googled "apple sauce mother f*ucking muffins," resulting in these: Mom's Applesauce Muffins. HAAAA.

The joke was on him, though, because the muffins? They were FANTASTIC. They are also really great out of the freezer, defrosted in the microwave.* Not the healthiest breakfast, but a great weekend treat. I stayed relatively close to the recipe, but made a couple of tweaks that were key for me, since raisins and cloves kind of gross me out. Here's what I did:

Applesauce Mother Effing Muffins

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup applesauce, plus diced fresh apple to bring volume up to at least 1c

1 tsp vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

For the crumble topping:

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup quick-cooking oat, uncooked
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons cinnamon

1.) Cut 1 stick of butter into 2 cups of flour in a large mixing bowl until flour has a sandy texture.

2.) Add in the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt, stirring to combine. 

3.) Add in the beaten egg, vanilla, and applesauce/apples.

4.) Mix to combine and scoop into a muffin pan sprayed with Pam. (I used an ice cream scoop with one of the little scraper bars -- so easy!) Makes 12 muffins.

5.) In a separate bowl, make the crumble topping. Cut the butter into the flour, sugar, cinnamon, then stir in the oats, mixing until it's all crumbly.

6.) Top each muffin with a generous amount of the crumble mixture. (The muffins are really well coated in the crumble, and I didn't come close to using all of the crumble mixture.)

7.) Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, and enjoy!

*I wrapped each muffin in plastic and stuck them in a freezer bag. To defrost, I unwrap and microwave for about 45 seconds. Yum.

Cooking With Botox! (Part 2)

Previously on Cooking With Botox!, we covered the amazing fresh tomato sauce and mentioned that we canned it, mostly successfully.* I took lots of photos of the sauce making process, even edited them a little to improve my craptastic photography skills, and then dropped the ball completely when it came to documenting the canning process. Of course I did.

But! In an effort to document everything in case I ever decide to try this again (or, you know, just to prove that I actually did this once in my life), I made some jam yesterday and canned that too. Yes, I realize -- my marbles, I have lost them.

Onward! To nectarine jam! I love peaches most of all, but nectarines are delicious too, and as was pointed out in Canning for a New Generation, you don't have to peel nectarines. Sign me up!

I pretty much followed the recipe provided in Canning for a New Generation, which called for 4 lbs. of nectarines, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, and 3 tbsps of lemon juice. The notes mentioned how delicious throwing in some vanilla beans can be, so in went a half of a bean, split. Also, to make this as peach pie like as possible, I threw in a couple of shakes of cinnamon. It simmered for an hour or so, and looked and smelled AMAZING at this point.

Good, right? Here's the thing: it never really gelled, which is totally my fault. The recipe didn't call for pectin, but I bought it just in case, and then promptly forgot all about it. GENIUS. Anyway, it's more of a nectarine syrup with fruit. Tasty, sure, but I wouldn't necessarily spread it on toast. Moving on...

Ok! Time to can! So, did I ever tell you about when we renovated our kitchen? I desperately wanted to upgrade to a gas stove, but the gas line enters our house in the back, services the laundry and HVAC and dead ends there. The cheapest estimate we got to run a gas line into the kitchen was $4200, and that did not include repairing any of the drywall that they would be ripping out along the length of our family room ceiling, into the foyer, up the stairwell, and into the kitchen. HAAA, NO. As a result, I have a ceramic topped electric stove, which works well enough in general, but happens to be the one surface with which the cheap canning pots are not compatible. I was certainly not shelling out for a more expensive canner, therefore, this is my setup:

Elvis, is that you? "In the ghet-toooo..."

I was dubious, and it took awhile to come to a full, rolling boil, but it worked. (JOY.) So here's what I did:

I assembled clean jars in the canning rack...

...and dropped them into the simmering water bath for 10 minutes to sterilize.

At the same time, the lids and rings simmered on the stove.

Time to fill the jars. They were pretty tiny, so the funnel I used for the tomato sauce seemed a little much; I just tried to ladle carefully. Next, I used a wooden skewer to break up any air bubbles. (This seems to be the only thing I didn't photograph.)

I used a clean towel to wipe the rim of the jar, because apparently the food residue can prevent the jars from sealing.

Carefully fish a lid out of the hot water, trying to avoid sticking your finger in there too. Not that I did this myself, noooo.

Gently drop the lid onto the jar, making sure the gummy seal is positioned properly.

Fish a ring out of the hot water and drop it onto the jar, trying not to shove the lid out of place. Tighten the ring loosely, just as much as you can do using only your fingers.

Arrange the filled jars on the rack and gently lower the rack into the water.

Cover the pot and let it come to a rolling boil before you begin timing the processing. The recipe called for 5 minutes, but let's be honest, it was probably more like seven over here. (See: fear of killing loved ones with my cooking.)

Using jar lifters, remove the jars to a clean towel. Ideally, they would sit untouched for 24 hours, but here in my, um, let's call it an "outdoor kitchen," I used a towel covered baking sheet so that I could move them back into the house.

Luckily, within minutes of pulling the jars from the water bath, I was treated to a chorus of popping lids, sealing themselves onto all 12 jars. Hooray! We're going to have to start eating more blue cheese, biscuits, and other things you'd put syrup-y fruit on.

*You know, for now. We'll see if anyone dies after eating it.

Cooking With Botox! (Part 1)

You guys, I seem to have lost my mind and all semblance of youth: I HAVE TAUGHT MYSELF HOW TO CAN THINGS.

It all started so innocently. A couple of years ago, I started tossing all of my plastic containers in favor of glass. I started buying mason jars for storage of leftovers, freezer items, etc., because they were so much cheaper than my beloved Glasslock containers. Mark started talking about the strawberry jam his mother used to make. Then I started noticing a huge uptick in canning supply sales during my shifts at the store. Finally, on one of my trips to the Cape, my mom made tomato salad with Cape tomatoes, which are spectacular. I dreamed of loading up the car with them and making sauce at home, squirreling it away for dark winter nights. On my next trip up, I did indeed load up with tomatoes, and I did make the most amazing fresh tomato sauce, but I took the easy road (i.e. my usual road) and stuck the jars in the freezer. At that point, though, I resolved to figure this canning thing out, botulism be damned. I bought "Canning for a New Generation" and the Ball Blue Book (tell me my husband is not the only one to snicker at that title).

Between the two books, I was feeling pretty confident that I could figure it out, which was pretty convenient, as my sister called the next day to see if I wanted to split a 25 lb. box of tomato seconds from the farm share that delivers to her office. I said yes and made her promise to do the canning with me, and that was it -- no turning back.

My sister came over on Saturday morning and we got to work. We were working with (unbelievably delicious) Roma tomatoes, and we wanted to do a roasted tomato sauce. We decided to cut the tomatoes into quarters or sixths, depending upon the size, and toss them onto baking sheets with thin wedges of sweet onion and smashed garlic cloves. We kept the seasonings simple -- salt, pepper, and a drizzle of really good olive oil -- and roasted at 400 until everything was caramelized and delicious looking. (Oh my GOD, I wish you all could have smelled my house that day. INSANE.)

Core, slice, slice, slice, slice, slice...

...scoooop and transfer...

...season and grease 'em...

(the first of maaaany batches)

...and then roast. Can you smell this? HEAVEN.

Please try to refrain from eating them straight off the sheet. (This will be harder than you anticipate.)

Once the tomatoes were roasted, we scooped them into a large stockpot. We were staring at the baking sheets, trying to decide whether they were cool enough to lick the caramelized juices right off of them, when it hit us: 

Deglaze that shit, yo.

I grabbed a bottle of wine from the fridge and we threw the baking sheets right on the stove. Each sheet got a nice splash of wine, we scraped up all of the deliciousness, and then into the pot of tomatoes it went. Then it was time to blend:

We used an immersion blender and it was perfect -- quick and easy, with almost no clean up. We blended as we added each batch and it resulted in a really nice, smooth texture. It was so delicious that we really had no choice other than to stop for a lunch break:

OMG

Now, we had originally planned to get the whole project done in one day, but life kind of got in the way. My brother in law had made plans for the afternoon, so my sister had a hard stop time of 2:45. We managed to get the sauce completed and started to clean up the spectacular disaster that was my kitchen:

The Aftermath

This was the end of Day 1, though, and being the appallingly bad documentarian I am, I forgot to pack up the camera for canning day. I know, right? USELESS. Here's what we did in a quick run down:

• Simmered the sauce so it would be hot going into the jars.
• Brought the canning pot and a small saucepan to a 180 degree simmer. The jars went into the canner and the lids/rings went into the saucepan for 10 minutes to sterilize.
• We pulled the jars out of the water bath and lined them up on a clean towel. Each jar got a 1/4 tsp. scoop of citric acid powder.
• Using a large funnel, we ladled the sauce into each jar, leaving 1/2" headroom. 
• Each jar got a thorough swiping with a wooden skewer to break up any air bubbles and stir up the citric acid, and the rim of each jar was wiped with a clean cloth.
• Using the little magnet wand tool, we fished the lids out of the water bath and applied them to the tops of each jar. Next we fished out the rings and closed them gently to hold the lids in place. 
• Finally, the jars were loaded into the canning rack and gently lowered into the water bath. Once the water came back up to a violently rolling boil, we started timing the processing. The tomato sauce recipes called for 35 minutes, but we left them for closer to 40 (better safe than sorry?).

11 out of 12 jars sealed, which is a pretty solid first effort, in my opinion. And! It went so well, in fact, that I decided to try my hand at jam, and I even managed to capture both the cooking AND the canning phases this time. Spoiler alert: the jam did not thicken as I had anticipated, but it's tasty. I'm thinking it might be nice in place of honey on biscuits or spooned over a really piquant blue cheese.
I'll report back soon.

But I would be proud to partake of your pecan peach pie...

As a kid, I was really lucky to grow up in a large, close extended family. My mom's parents lived in the next town over; my dad's parents lived less than ten minutes away in our town. My aunts and uncles were, with a couple of exceptions, all in the Boston area. My parents were each the eldest of their siblings, and they were pretty young when they married and had me, so I had a gift that's pretty rare these days -- four young, relatively healthy, happily involved grandparents with whom I spent time regularly. I had all four grandparents well into my high school years, and only lost my mom's parents in late college/grad school. (We still have my wee grandma, thank god -- 88 years and 88 lbs. of pure dogged determination, that one.)

Anyway, as a result, I have so, so many memories of my grandparents, including this one that makes me chuckle every summer. I was probably 10 or 12 at the time, and my mom had made a late summer peach pie. We brought it over to my grandparents' house to share, and all through dessert, my grandpa couldn't stop proclaiming, "I LOVE peach pie!" He was so effusive that even my grandmother, who has never said an unkind word in her life, was rolling her eyes by the time we were done. I can't eat peach pie without thinking of him, and oh what I would give to hear that exuberant fruit-inspired joy again. I can't though, so once a year-ish, I venture into the terrifying world of pastry (GAH) and make one hell of a peach pie just because.

This year, I was inspired by Deb over at Smitten Kitchen. She posted about a super basic, no frills peach pie, and I was on board after the first photo. Well, sort of. I had some serious agita (we are talking about my Italian grandpa here) about the crust. You see, I SUCK at pie crust. I always over work it, or let it get too warm, and I end up with a tough mess, despite using absurd amounts of butter. My crust is never, ever flaky. I RUIN FLOUR AND BUTTER, YOU GUYS. I have used the frozen stuff before, but it has a distinct Not Good Taste to it. It's a conundrum, no? I talked to one of the chefs at work, and she suggested using booze in place of water when making the crust, because you have the liquid to work with when you're making the dough, but where the booze has alcohol, more of your liquid is going to evaporate in cooking, thereby leaving your pastry flakier. This sounds like a very plausible theory, and I was all set to try it (um, hello -- peach pie in a smoky bourbon crust?).

AND THEN.

I can't remember who suggested it, but I would like to kiss their face. Trader Joe's! They make frozen crust, and it is DELIGHTFUL. Flaky, lightly sweet, almost reminiscent of a shortbread flavor in the best of buttery ways, and 100% lacking in the Not Good Taste. I still need to figure out pie crust for myself (Grandma's dogged determination lives on!), but in the meantime? Man, is this good.

Here's what I did:

1.) I bought some lovely smelling, but not quite ripe, peaches and stuck them in a brown paper bag for two days. They were perfect and ready to bake with after that. I used seven, which was fine, but next time I would use a few more.

2.) I peeled the peaches by hand, because I have never trusted the "drop in boiling water" method. Do not as I did; I tried the boiling water method with tomatoes, and HOO BOY, is that easier. Regardless, peel your peaches, slice them thinly, and give them a nice squirt of lemon.

3.) Add the rest of the filling ingredients. I used 1/4 c white sugar, 1/3 c brown sugar, 1/4 tsp of cinnamon (nutmeg is an abomination), 1/8 tsp table salt, and cornstarch to thicken. For the cornstarch, I started with 2 tbsps, and kept adding until it felt right. I think I ended up between 3-4 tbsps total.

4.) Once the filling was ready to go, I placed the defrosted crust into my pie plate, pricking the bottom for no reason other than it's what I remember my mom doing. I have no idea if this is actually necessary. I scooped the filling in and flopped the other piece of crust on top, looping the top crust around the edge of the bottom and squeezing them together. I cut little slits in the top of the crust, then gave it a swipe of cream I had in the fridge. The final touch was a sprinkling of turbinado sugar. It did not look so hot at this point...

Yikes.

5.) I set the oven to 425 (although it desperately needs to be calibrated, so who the hell knows what it actually baked at), popped the pie on a foil lined sheet, and into the oven it went for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, I dropped the temperature to 375 (or whatever my oven considers 375 to be) and covered the edges with foil to keep them from getting too brown. It baked for another 30 minutes, at which point I removed the foil edge wrappers, and let it brown up for another 10 minutes or so. I called it done once it was all golden and gorgeous looking.

I probably should have held off a bit longer before digging in, but I simply do not possess that kind of willpower. I knew it was going to be a big puddle of mess, but I went for it anyway, and OH. MY. GOD. Even Mark, who claimed to dislike pie (I know, right? INSANITY ABOUNDS), is a convert. After inhaling a healthy slice worth right from the pan, he was all, "Huh, I guess I like pie!" You think?

I LOVE PEACH PIE.