Canning Confession

I like pickles.
I know some people that would die of shock if they heard me say that. But let's be clear. I like my pickles. They're pretty delicious and I might have eaten a whole jar by myself for a snack. While I was making dinner.

They took a good 3 weeks before they were ready. The pickled okra are fantastic as well—also a 3 week wait. I tried to eat some okra (just to test them) before the 3 weeks and they were really tough and I couldn't really bite through them.

We're in vinegar heaven.

Canning: part 3

I finally had some friends over for a little canning party on Saturday. It was a lot of fun and we ended up meeting at the Greenmarket in Grand Army Plaza to pick up some fresh goods before hand. We made these spicy okra, these spiced pickles and another batch of more traditional pickles via a mix that Caitlin brought. We also ended up with too many okra for what our original mix made so we decided to make some okra with the spicy pickle mix. I'll let you know how everything turns out!

The zucchini pickles from 2 weeks ago are really amazing, by the way. They are very mustardy, which I love. We still have a big jar left but I can't wait to make more.

We had every intention of making jalapeño jelly as well but found fruit pectin to be a little difficult to find that afternoon. I got some and we're all set to try our hand a the jelly later this week. (I'll share the recipe then!)

your mom's a pickle! or, Canning: part 2

Over zealous and unprepared. That's what happened when I went to the farmer's market on Sunday afternoon. I wanted to do some canning this week. I had some old salsa & peanut butter jars but apparently those aren't safe for true canning. (the kind that lasts for years...)

J starts school (his second year of teaching!) next week, we're leaving town on Friday for Labor Day weekend in Chicago — this translates to: busy week, not a lot of time for frivolity or canning adventures. In an attempt to not loose the zucchini I got I decided to do these zucchini pickles tonight. The farmer's market didn't have summer squash so mine are all zucchini. I also haven't picked up the proper jars yet so I'm hoping that since these are going in the fridge and will be consumed within the next few weeks that we'll be safe from some of the frightening food poisoning that I've been reading about. I have to say, the process was simple and so were the ingredients and they smelled amazing! I can't wait until we get back from Chicago to try our pickles!
On a somewhat unrelated note, we got a surprise in the mail earlier this week. Our dear friend, Winston, has returned to Texas (after living in NYC for the past 6 years) to start a farm. He sent us some good ol' Texas dirt & a Lone Star bottle cap. I put it on display in a mason jar with the letter he sent us and the Bob Hope stamp off of the package for our own little Winson time capsule of sorts. Thanks Winston, we miss you too!

*p.s. my 6 year old camera may have bit the dust. I've been using J's camera for over a month now, it's not going so well. Any recommendations on an upgrade. Something better but not super fancy?

Part 1 of (hopefully more than 1!)

I've been doing my research, scouring the farmer's markets and NYC Greenmarkets... I've been reading and collecting recipes and tips. This year will be my first adventure into canning. My Grandma Decker's basement always had a rack of shelves under the stairs (& I'm sure much more than that when she was raising her 13 kids on a North Dakota farm!) with homemade sweet pickles, jellies, jams, and other delightful preserves that she or my Grandpa had grown.

I'm thinking that I'll be doing some of these summer squash & zucchini pickles (I'm notorious for hating traditional pickles.) Some more traditional spiced kirby pickles for J. Possibly some peaches and this recipe for spicy okra. My Aunt Connie has a Jalapeño jelly recipe that I'm trying to track down at the moment as well.

I've never tried anything like this before and I found the How-to section of Fresh Preserving to be the most helpful resource so far.

If you have any recipes or advice please do share. I need as much help as I can get!

*typography adapted from a recent article on Home Canning that I worked on for my day job.

Summer Fest 2009

1. I love food. I love shopping for it, preparing it, smelling it, eating it!

2. I love finding new seasonal, delicious recipes to make with J and share with our friends and family.

3. I love sharing these ideas with others... like minded or not. Maybe I can help them see that cooking at home doesn't have to suck. Or that eating seasonal isn't really a burden, it's a blessing!

4. I love MattBites. I find Matt to be insightful, hysterical & a real source for inspiration as an at-home cook & especially because I'm a designer for a food magazine! His food photography & his husband's styling skills are some of my all-time favorites.

All of these things said. I'm really excited to keep up with Summer Fest 2009 to learn what other bloggers and foodies are doing with Summer's bounty! (They'll feature herbs, stone-fruits, beans-and-greens, & a whole week dedicated to tomatoes... yes please!)

*Do yourself a favor and read Matt's post on herbs in cocktails. I already bought my rosemary to make a Rosemary Salty Dog. A Greyhound is one of my all time favorite beverages but I rarely drink them anymore having moved on from vodka + juice combos. I can hardly wait to get home and mix things up with a new take on an old friend!

joy.

Insipred by rockstar diaries... a list of 10 things that make me terribly happy:

10. fireflies at camp
9. the silence of fresh snow at night & the glow it creates
8. waking up with my husband
7. sitting outside with blankets & coffee
6. the first time I wear a scarf in the fall
5. the first time I wear a sun dress in the spring
4. holding babies (animal or human)
3. red wine
2. old friends
1. my sisters

Once I got rolling I found this little exercise to be really refreshing & I didn't want to stop. So here are a few more for good measure!

the smell of fall // fires in the backyard, or camping, or in a fireplace // going thrift store shopping... alone (I find this incredibly inspiring) // falling in love with a new album // wearing J's flannel shirts // the smell of my friend Lacey's bedroom! // listening to Patty Griffin and baking, alone. // hugging my dearest friends... for a long time! // a great massage // sitting around the coffee table with all my favorite ladies... in pj's! // linen. // perfectly folded laundry // a little sunburn // salty beach hair (or Guad hair) // Martha's Vineyard. // getting water from a stream. // waking up with the sun // seeing the sunset over Manhattan from my roof. // listening to & smelling rain though an open window while I shower. // opening all of the windows after a spring rain // italy // paris in the rain // driving off of the caprock on a roadtrip listening to good music // hand lettering // embroidery // sewing. // OUTDOOR SHOWERS! ... that's a good one to end on!

*if it's gloomy where you are I recommend writing your own list, it does help! photos by me.

Scanwich!

Happy Monday!

I hope you had a beautiful weekend.

We went and played at the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday night – it was awesome! And instead of doing work yesterday (like good kids) we maybe had an afternoon beer, ate tofu dogs & ice cream instead! Yay for warm(ish) weather!

*scans via Scanwich. So rad. Make this veggie-girl hungry every time!

at long last...

Yes, I'm alive...busy, but alive.
some projects coming soon(ish).

*please forgive questionable photography. I literally held my computer up above the cake to take the picture with my fancy new MacBook. (thank goodness I didn't drop it!)

Pistachio cake by my friends at Baked.

Christmas Dinner // Island Fish Stew

About 3 days after I graduated from high school I traveled to Martha's Vineyard with 2 of my friends, we lived in an old lady's attic for $25/week...for the whole summer. It was HOT. We had no way to do laundry. The only laundromat was out of town & we didn't have a car...so we did laundry maybe 3 times in 3 months. We each worked 2+ jobs that summer. I did everything from working at the Black Dog General Store in Vineyard Haven to working in a fancy Brazilian restaurant right on the water, to babysitting & yard work. It was wonderful. We were always tired but the vineyard was something that certainly set the tone for the way I would plan all of my summers – go away for the whole summer & work your tail off while you do something totally new and different.

[maybe that was an unnecessary preface to this recipe. oh well, I like sharing stories.]

J & I spent Christmas in Boston's fabulous, Italian, North End. I literally felt like I woke up Christmas Eve in Italy...everyone was speaking Italian (even J with his theatric & throaty "Ciao Bella's!") and the area had a wonderful old-world charm. We went from tiny shop to tiny shop searching for all of the ingredients for our Christmas Dinner – Island Fish Stew in the Black Dog: Summer on the Vineyard cookbook.






*If you can't read the recipe fully & would like it, just leave a comment or shoot me an email, I would be happy to get it to you!

Best Pizzeria in Bklyn!

On a whim (& per some friend's recommendation...) J & I ventured 3 stops on the F train Sunday night to Lucali's Pizzeria in Carroll Gardens. We waited in the cold for 30+ minutes, but the wait was very worth it. J was raving about his "food euphoria" for hours after we left.

There are 2 things on the menu: pizza pie or calzone. The atmosphere with the huge, built-by-hand brick pizza oven is simple, rustic & warm.

Thanks J for a lovely night out!

*I didn't take pictures because it was so dark in there but found this one on yelp by I.C. O....that's the owner/mastermind, Mark, behind the counter. You should see him in action!

Sushi on Sunday

My dear friend, Beth, gave me a sushi-kit for Christmas...(ahem, last year, cough)...& we busted it out for the first time tonight. With the help of some vegan sushi recipes from the Post Punk Kitchen it eliminated the risk of preparing raw fish at home.

*you can probably tell by rice stuck to my fingers...& J's "angry sushi face" that our efforts were successful & oh so very yummy!

note: we live above a sushi restaurant so the smell of it (mostly the smell of old rice) in the apartment at any given time has proven to be a bit of a turn-off as of late...until tonight!

Fashion + Chocolate = Love

So maybe a friend of mine is a stylist, & maybe she got a friend & me in backstage at a fashion show. But not just any old fashion show in NYC, the Chocolate Show. The costumes had to be 40% chocolate. It was amazing to watch the models with a stylist, designer & chocolatier(s) getting ready!

Pretty much 100% of Xena & Lara Croft's costumes (above) were chocolate, including their weapons & parts of their boots. The Xena model said the animal medallions on her belt were made of pure sugar but were as heavy as metal!

Some of you may recognize Jaslene from America's Next Top Model (Wonder Woman). The annual event had a super hero theme this year...

*thanks Brandi! We had too much fun!

Secret's out!

Friends, believe it or not, but I have a day job (sometimes it's more of a crack-of-dawn job).

Thanks to the Baked Blog, the secret's out – I've gone back to my roots where tasty, homemade treats & espresso collide. Stop by & say howdy sometime!

photo by Renato Poliafito of Baked...on his trusty iPhone!

Worth the wait!

You may remember this post with the brief lament at the end about my constant search for a scalloped-edge cookie cutter. My search is finally over! J & I stopped in one of my favorite neighborhood consignment stores Saturday evening and this little beauty was just sitting there waiting for me! An antique for $2, I could not be happier! Now, I'm off to find the perfect recipe to try it out on.

Does anyone have any pumpkin or spice cookie recipes that they want to share? please!

Matt Armendarez + Martha

Ooh, can you just imagine my delight when Matt posted his spot with Martha on his blog! (We have no T.V. so in the rare instance that there is something I want to see it's difficult.)

I can't wait to make these Alfajores cookies!!!

O Fall, how I do love thee!

I'm getting jittery just looking (and drooling) over these lovely fall images at Matthew Mead. It seems everyone has been feeling autumn's arrival...(even if it's just with football games, for my Texas friends!) I was at Target yesterday and it's just evil the way they have the Halloween candy displayed in giant monster-mouths! (Did I say "evil" because I meant awesome! I did resist, for the record.) It's only September people, can't we hold off on the Halloween stuff for a few more weeks!?

I'm thinking a fun, fall-inspired project is on the horizon...not sure what (I am liking the funky wall art above via Matthew Mead)...but with this much excitement I must do something!

What are you doing to celebrate the fall, even if you can't feel it yet? Are you working on any fun recipes or projects?

*I already bought a pie pumpkin for baking and cooking...I would cook with pumpkin year around if it wasn't kind of faux pas.

top image by me.
bottom image via Matthew Mead.

Holy Heavenly // ANZAC cookies

If you haven't already noticed, I'm a pretty big fan of 101 Cookbooks. I love the recipes & the photography is killer. I have yet to make anything too complicated (sometimes the ingredients were difficult to come by in Lubbock, but I made some substitutions) and it's always worth the extra step or ingredient. She really sticks to healthy and whole foods as well which is great if you want something not-as-southern-as-your-mom-made-it & usually always vegetarian or even vegan. I made these ANZAC cookies tonight for my dinner. (yes, I said dinner.) ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, you can get the cookie-lore here for a little background info. What I'm trying to say is I highly recommend this recipe. They were filling, fantastic & I didn't feel the urge to eat the whole pan. I also didn't use the orange blossom water that she suggested, I substituted with a little vanilla.

(Don't worry Mom, I ate the orange that I used for zest with them so that's not all I had for dinner!)

note: I can't & wasn't about to compete with Heidi's incredible photographs of her cookies. (besides hers are heart-shaped & mine were blobs.) So here's a shot of our lovely Kitchen Aid mixer, (a wedding gift) in pink for the Susan G. Komen Foundation...and the great evening light in our kitchen.

Thoughts on Sunday...

So, I've been at this blog for about a month now. It was slow going at first but I had only been married a few days & was living in a city I had never been to that I now call home. I'm getting used to the city...well, not so much the city as my neighborhood. (Brooklyn is big you see and New York City is bigger. I'm really loving it, by the way.)

I have made it a goal to post once a day (except weekends) for the past week or so, I've succeeded...somedays I even posted twice. I feel that things have been sort of random and sparatic so I'm going to try to write out some goals and a more focused posting schedule, saavy? (I do better with goals when I share them with people, it helps hold me accountable...aren't you lucky!) If you have any thoughts/suggestions/words of wisdom/requests please let me know via comment or email: kd.mcnamara85@gmail.com let me know what you want to see more of and what you're not really into.

thank you for sticking with me this far my lovilies, I hope to be making more improvments soon. thank you in advance for your feedback!

ps. sorry about the photo, we aren't exactly the cutest couple in the world! this was taken July 7th, 2007, just after our dear friends Whitney and Mark got hitched! (we miss and love you guys! xo)

Labor Day Cocktail // Michelada

While I know that some people have known about these yummy concoctions for awhile, they are fairly new to me. They would be perfect for a Labor Day weekend get together...or while sitting on a lawn chair by yourself indulging in some sun and a good read.

I've seen a few different variations of this drink but this is my favorite thus far. I really love to have them with fish tacos, kind of a match made in heaven.

ps: if you haven't noticed, you can drag & drop (copy/paste, you PC users) the recipes to your desktop and print them for your collection...just fyi.

Swiss, French, Chocolate!

Since I can't seem to shake the Swiss design infatuation. I decided to share another of today's obsessions. Brownies. I made them last night and can't stop eating them. all. day. Here's my family's recipe. (when my mom makes them, they're so greasy [read: perfect] they will soak though a paper plate...no lie! I don't know how she does it!)

If you will please notice the use of the Swiss typeface, Frutiger, paired with the French typeface, Didot, just to give it a little French flair.