I love the colors of this pickles. The natural light in my kitchen always made my kitchen picture looks so beautiful. I got most of the veggies from my local farmers market. The recipe is from smittenkitchen.com and her beautiful pics inspired me to make it myself. This recipe is delicious and get in a salad.
Look what I got in the mail.
But what should be my first bake from this book? I was inspired by what was in the refrigerator, cherries, and ricotta I’ve was saving for cannoli pound cake from Smitten Kitchen (one of my favorite pound cake recipe). It would be Ricotta Cherry Scones.
The only problem I was missing a few ingredients: superfine sugar, creme fraiche, and dried cherries. Once again, I’m winging it because I’m just too lazy to run out to the market. I decided to use regular sugar (I’m sure it would come out better with superfine, but with the limited space in the kitchen, regular sugar would work out fine). I happen to have sour cream, and that would be my replacement for creme fraiche. And I had a small amount of dried cherries but not enough. So I made up the rest with blueberries and golden raisins.
One great takeaway from this bake is pitting cherries with a stainless steel straw was quick and easy. Don’t spend your money on pitter. The straw worked out great.
As I measured out the wet ingredients, I had just a little bit left of ricotta and sour cream. I just dumped it in. I can’t stand waste or leaving just a little bit to go bad in the refrigerator. Well, I will end up adjusting the flour at the end to thicken up the batter.
Oh, I forgot. My mom told me to use the blueberries that we had hanging around.
With all this improvisation, I got a baker’s dozen instead of six. Haha. I was a little worried this would be a total fail because I went off so much. But in the end, these turn out delicious and light. I would add more zest next time. I think it would make it even better. I can see how an all cherry version would be so delicious. I used Joanne’s suggestions and froze half the recipes for another time. Definitely a make.
Since I got back haven’t had a chance to cook or back. One, lazy and still not in sync with my work schedule and living schedule. Two, it’s too hot and humid for me. I’m just melting. But I need to start and suck up being a sweaty mess.
Looking for meals that I can cook for my folks. A few food restrictions to adjust to–Diabetic and blood thinner. I think they need a bit of more spice in their diet. I’ll try a couple of the meals I made for friends in the past year: Fish Stew and Spicy Lentil soup
The Fish Stew I made for the Hawaii girls
I want to try out some new recipes but it’s so hot in the afternoon. I decided to use mom’s crock pot while awaiting the arrival of my favorite kitchen appliance–my electric pressure cooker. Thought chili in a crock pot would be easy and plentiful so we can share what we made with a few of mom’s friends. Found this recipe that I’d like to try https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2017/01/11/slow-cooker-taco-spice-chili/. I like this recipe because it has sweet potato, corn, and black beans with an added bonus of quinoa. I’ll think I’ll try it this week.
I’d like to try out that mango jam recipe again but I think I missed mango season. I will just have to make what in season or what my parents want to have. First up, Kiwi Apple jam as requested by my mom. It’s her favorite. I’ve been making this recipe so long that it kind of morph into my own. I’m having my parents do the prep on the kiwi and apple and I’ll do cooking up.
The spices make this jam-cinnamon, ginger, and clove
I’m also getting some Calamansi limes from a friend so I think I can make up a lime curd soon. Calamansi is a little lime with orange inside. It’s tart and fragrant. I use Ina Garten recipe that I’ve made 100s of time change out the flavor from lime to lilikoi to grapefruit to raspberry. Just a slight adjustment to the sugar depending on how sweet the fruit is. I think adding the zest of the citrus makes the jam taste so good. This is mom’s favorite. I love the grapefruit and turn into a grapefruit curd tart.
My parents like a little snack in the evening. I always had bananas in my freezer so I could whip up a smoothie or a loaf of banana bread on short notice. Here it’s a little different. No bananas in the freezer because they eat almost every day. Also, they eat apple bananas which are firmer and tastier. Not sure how it will influence the texture but flavor will be great. Might need to look for another type of sweet bread. Carrot? Zucchini? Hmm. Need to think about it.
chocolate marbled banana bread. Delicious
Here’s one that I made this year. Everyone liked it. And it looked great. A smittenkitchen recipe.
UPDATE: I found the link for the scones. Here it is: https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/buttermilk-cheese-scones
Purging, sorting, dumping. Sigh! Purging, sorting, dumping. Putting your house on the market is a lot of work.
I need some distraction and I’ve been baking for the crew at work. Made scones–Gruyere and Swiss and dried cranberry served with some homemade mandarin marmalade.
It was very hard to resist right out of the oven
Ugh!! I can’t find the recipe I use for this scones? And I want to make it again. Oh well. . .
I wanted to share a recipe and I decided to share one of my favorite quiche recipe–smittenkitchen.com Leek and Mushroom Quiche that I change with what I have in my kitchen. I posted in my old blog Rainbow Swiss chard and Comte Cheese version.
Not the best picture, doesn’t do the quiche justice
Enjoy!
Princess Hot Flash 