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Bigger Than Dinner

The autumn colors have really taken hold here in North Carolina. The forests are alight as the leaves brighten and begin to thin. The drive between my apartment and my office is a breathtaking experience, and every morning becomes more spectacular.

Folks, we live in a beautiful country. And more than the stunning scenery, the fertile soils, and the glittering cities, the most beautiful part is that each of us has the opportunity to contribute to the leadership and policies that shape our nation.

No matter where your politics lie, I urge you to go vote today. Tune out the dizzying spin, find some reputable sources of information, and make a plan to get to the ballot box. Leave work 30 minutes early. Google map your polling place. Participate. Think carefully about what your vote means to you, your neighbors, and the millions of people that live and work around you every day. Then fill in the bubbles, slap on your free sticker, and encourage your friends and co-workers to follow suit.

There is nothing more patriotic.

Happy Election Day!

Fried Green Tomatoes with Pimento & Mint Jelly

Fancy Fried Green Tomatoes

I attended a wedding a couple weeks ago for two good friends I’ve developed since moving to North Carolina. A fairly significant portion of our friendship is based on a love of and fascination with food: we’ve explored North Carolina farms together, swapped recipes, and enjoyed a wide variety of Triangle restaurants. So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that their wedding included not one, but two meals, the first an Indian buffet to celebrate Varsha’s culture, and the second an elegant array of quintessential American cuisine to celebrate Eric’s.

I’ve heard people say that no one will remember the food at a wedding, that people have simply come to expect a good meal when they attend a reception. The food at this wedding, however, was anything BUT forgettable. We ate until we couldn’t eat anymore, and then after a few minutes, everyone squeezed in just a little bit more because the food was so. dang. good.

And my favorite treat was not an entreé, not a dessert, but one of the passed hors d’oeuvres for the second meal: a fried green tomato dressed up with a bit of pimento cheese and mint jelly. I was so impressed that after seeing a large pile of green tomatoes at the farmers market the next week, I snatched up a couple to re-create them at home.

Simple green tomatoes

Now work with me on this one. I was really, really skeptical when this tray came around. For one thing, I had never eaten a regular fried green tomato before. I don’t particularly like red tomatoes, so I guess I’ve never felt inclined to try a green one. Don’t worry, I now know I’ve been MISSING OUT for years. I guess I’ll just have to compensate for all that lost time by making these all the time.

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Baked Tortilla Chips

Homemade Baked Tortilla Chips

If heaven is real, then I really don’t think it’s made of puffy clouds and golden harps. I rather imagine it must be filled with endless tables, buckling under the weight of all the chips, dips, cheeses and crackers (all calorie-free, OBVIOUSLY) that a person could possibly want. Really, is there a better way to eat than scooping up succulent dips and salsas with crisp, salty shards of simple carbohydrates?

My obsession with chips is pretty severe. I’m hopeless at Mexican restaurants. Those continuously re-filling bowls of free chips and salsa at the start of the meal virtually guarantee that I’ll be in a food coma before my main course even arrives. I’m pretty shameless about them at potlucks and dinner parties, too. But unless I am hosting a party of my own, I actually avoid buying them: if I have chips in the house, there’s like a 70% chance that I’ll skip cooking dinner and simply dine on chips and salsa instead, strangely able to justify it by pretending they are vegetables. Sad, I know.

But I’ve found a little loophole. As long as I have corn tortillas in my fridge (which is pretty regular) I can make teeny batches of chips whenever I like! Satisfy my cravings without overdosing! Plus they are baked, which in the chip world, is code for healthy! (Right?)

Corn tortillas

It’s shockingly simple. Cut tortillas. Spray with cooking spray and salt. Flip over and repeat. Bake. Eat.

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Giveaway Winner – 30 Pounds of Apples 2014 Calendar

Another sneak peek!
Last week, I announced my most recent project: I published a calendar for 2014 full of some of my favorite photos from the blog! To celebrate, I hosted a giveaway to one of you!

And the winner is CathieJ!

As to her favorite month, she replied, “February. Both my husband and I were born in February. I also love to stay inside during the cold snowy month and indulge in my favorite things: crafting and baking.”

Congratulations Cathie! (Please check your email so we can arrange shipping.)
Thank you to everyone who participated. I hope you’ll consider ordering a copy of the calendar, available now on Lulu! Use the discount code FBC18 to get 18% off, or FREESHIP to get free shipping!

Apple Cider Maple Caramels

Perfect Autumn Caramels

Oh dear friends.

October is doing that thing again where it goes by too quickly. It’s my favorite month: the peak of autumn on most of this continent, and I may have mentioned once or seven-hundred times that autumn provides me the greatest joy of any season. A plentiful harvest of food to enjoy in the moment and store for the winter, repressed pigments unleashed in the forests in a glorious display of color, a chance to layer every article of orange, green, purple, and brown clothing I own in endless combinations for my daily attire (it is the only season I feel my wardrobe is remotely fashionable).

And of course, autumn recipes. This one in particular is the pinnacle of fall flavor unity: a basic caramel sweetened with maple syrup and punched up with a quart of apple cider boiled down to pure apple goodness. And now is really the best time to make them because it’s the one time of year you can buy fresh-pressed, unpasteurized apple cider.

Freshly picked apples

And while yes, the primary purpose of my annual expedition is a supply of local fruit to get me through the winter, the added perk is access to this incredible cider. Unpasteurized apple cider, contrary to its grocery store counterparts, is thick, opaque, and must be refrigerated. But it’s filled with the most incredible flavor: you can still taste which varieties were used to press the cider. Most apple orchards sell it, but you can also occasionally find it in specialty grocery stores or farmers markets. Get out there and get some!

I also had a bottle of maple syrup that I bought in Wisconsin. It seemed appropriate to add to this autumn candy, right?

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A Welcome Windfall

What’s this? A tiny assignment plaque stuck in the ground?


An assignment plaque for a community garden plot? Yes!

My balcony containers full of plants are doing… okay… but my odds of harvesting a significant portion of my own food just increased dramatically. I just made it off the waiting list and at the Briggs Community Garden! These forty square feet will provide me with the space, the depth, and the sunlight to finally try some gardening for real.

*gulp*

Okay so I have a bit of a learning curve to climb before I plant the garden this weekend. But I have high hopes. My fellow gardeners of the neighboring plots seem to be doing pretty well…

Here’s to helping things grow!

Strawberry Jam, Part II: Preserving

Soooooo, twenty-0ne pounds of strawberries. Now what?

I wish you could have seen the faces of other customers entering the strawberry field as I was attempting to tote these boxes out. Most of them looked at me with a bizarre look of pity. Like I’d gone off the deep end. And/or had a serious strawberry addiction.

In case you’re just now tuning in, I spent the early hours of sunshine last Saturday picking strawberries to transform into jam, and after arriving home with my loot, it was time to start preserving.

Freezing Fresh Berries

While most would agree that berries are best when eaten fresh & ripe, they also freeze really well. In my stubborn attempt to avoid purchasing produce when it is incredibly out of season, freezing berries opens up many possibilities to enjoy fruit when it’s snowy (or, in my current location, semi-cold and gray). Berries can be frozen in a syrup or juice, but I prefer to freeze them whole.

What You Need

cookie sheets (make sure they fit in your freezer… trust me on this one and test the space with an empty sheet before you start)
parchment paper
freezer
berries (if you don’t have those, you’re doing the wrooooong project)

It’s pretty straight forward. Sort through your berries and find the beauty queens. Freezing berries with soft spots isn’t the best idea, so find the nicest, firmest, most beautiful berries in the bunch. Wash them, pop off their tops and if you can, pop out the hull (the white firm spot right beneath the green leaves). Arrange them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper so that they aren’t touching. Then freeze ’em!

I froze one sheet for about three hours and another tray for twenty-four, so I’ll keep you posted about any difference between them when I actually use them on some dreary winter day in the future. Why did I not just freeze them in their container and skip the teetering tray of berries step? This way, I will be able to pull out exactly the number of berries I want rather than one giant clump of them fused together. Just planning ahead. For smoothies. Who needs ice when you have frozen strawberries?

Anyway. Moving on.

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Peppered Parmesan Squash Strips

Hot and bubbly

Summer produce is just the best, isn’t it? Each week, I have to hem and haw and force myself not to buy everything I lay my eyes on. It’s so easy to literally have my eyes bigger than my stomach… or my weekly menu.

But squash is something I buy every week when it’s in season. Sometimes zucchini, sometimes yellow squash, mostly both. And most summer meals in our house, coincidentally, contain these delicious and prolific veggies, so I try to mix it up and try new methods to cook them. This one is one of my new favorites.

Pretty yellow squash

Adding a bit of parmesan and pepper to thin strips of squash turns them into long, skinny chips of a sort. To help with that long and skinniness, I use a mandoline, a tool that I resisted for years (why not just use a knife) but now adooooooooore.

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Savory Honey-Glazed Nuts

I realize that I’m a few days late for writing a post about an easy party snack that takes very little effort, is tremendously delicious, and is great for sharing since it is HIGHLY addictive and calorie-dense. My bad.

But lucky for us, there are more reasons to celebrate and indulge coming right up. Valentines Day! The Olympics! Saturday!

If you don’t have a good roasted nut recipe in your arsenal, this is an excellent candidate. I’ve previously relied quite heavily on these little gems, but I’m glad to now have another that doesn’t scream “HOLIDAYS!” quite so loudly. You can use any mix of nuts you like: I had planned to only use cashews and tossed in pecans on a whim, but I now think I like the pecans even more than the cashews.

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Chèvre Stuffed Mushrooms

I used to be a mushroom hater. Didn’t want them on pizza, in stir fries, on cheeseburgers, or anywhere else.

But one night during my sophomore year in college, Brad made a batch of stuffed mushrooms. To be sure, it might not have been the best timing to be learning to eat mushrooms stuffed with rich filling: I think it was 1am before a 6am flight across the country for several week or something. But I was hooked!

Mushrooms are so mysterious. Yes, the plain little button mushrooms I used in this recipe are pretty basic, but truly, mushrooms flourish in uncountable shapes, sizes, flavors, and potency. They burst out of the ground sometimes for only a few days and often won’t do so until a perfect balance of moisture, nutrients, and and temperature occurs.

I’d love to learn the art of picking wild mushrooms. Some family friends of ours go every summer, high into the mountains, and return with buckets full of brilliantly-colored mushrooms for cooking, drying, and preserving. What a way to eat locally, to pick something wild and then eat it for dinner! It’s a hobby, though, that I would only want to do with an expert. The mushrooms we can eat are earthy, delightfully squashy, and a dimensional addition to many dishes. But the ones that we can’t eat can, well, kill you.

Perhaps another day I’ll be brave enough to pick wild mushrooms myself. This day, though, I picked my mushrooms straight from the produce section.

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