Cherry Clafoutis

Every time I see cherries in the store, I want to make this easy, delicious, French dessert. Unlike American "pudding" style desserts, this is softer, creamier, and barely sets. I suppose you could use frozen cherries, just make sure they are 100% thawed to room temp.

1 1/2 lbs sweet cherries, (frozen is okay)
2 cups milk
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 tbsp butter, cut into pieces

a little bit of sugar for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 425.

pit the cherries with a pitter, or by squeezing the pits out. I suggest doing this over the sink, or outside. Also, don't wear white when pitting cherries! keep any juices that accumulate while pitting. pour pitted cherries into a large greased baking dish or large greased pie plate.

put the milk on the stove over medium heat until it is just about to boil.

While milk is warming, blend the eggs, sugar, flour, and extracts in a large bowl. When the milk is hot, pour it over the egg mixture, and blend well. (if the eggs start to cook a little, that's OK.) Pour the eggy milky mixture over the cherries in the baking dish, and dot the top with the peices of butter. bake at 425 for 30 minutes, or until just set.

the Clafoutis will continue to set after it's been removed from the oven. sprinkle the top with a little bit of sugar, and let cool to warm. Then cut into peices or spoon out. serves 6.

peachy deliciousness!

it's that time of year when the last of the early summer crops are coming in, and the bulk of the summer crops are coming in, and the beginnings of the late summer crops are coming in. What does all that mean? unusually good prices at the farmers market, and the prices will only get better as more crops come in. this is good, as my tomato and pepper plants doesn't get anywhere enough sun.

and i just can't say no to peaches. they're just so deliciously peachy. but what to do with a dozen peaches???

i'd never made a peach cobbler until last weekend, but i do remember thinking "how hard could this possibly be?? you dumb all your fruit in a pan, put some dumplings over it, and poof, cobbler!" and yes, it really is that easy.

the dumpling dough recipe is the one right out of joy of cooking:
1 1/3 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
5 tbsp cold butter, cut into peices
1/2 cup milk

mix first 4 ingredients in a bowl. then cut in butter with a pastry blender. when it looks like coarse breadcrumbs, slowly stir in the milk until the dough comes together in a biscuit dough like consistency.

now for the fun part! i used peaches and pecans because it's what i had, but use what you have on hand. preheat oven to 350.

pit and slice 6 or 7 peaches. roughly chop about 1/2 cup pecans. put half the peaches in a greased square baking dish, then half the pecans. sprinkle some cinnamon and brown sugar on top. put the rest of the peaches, and the rest of the pecans on top, again with a little bit of cinnamon and brown sugar. now spoon the buiscit dough on top. it doesn't need to look pretty. leave about 1/4 inch at the edges, so it doesn't bake over the edge of baking dish. bake at 350 for 45 minutes, then let cool for about 10 minutes.

nothing much new in book news, i'm too busy peachgasming.

They'd be so much happier if they had fruit tarts.

the summer of the re-reads continues. sitting on my bedside table is the first two books of George R R Martin's Song of Ice & Fire series. I'm half way through the first one. maybe by the time i finish all four (again!), the fifth will be out? yeah right!

Reading A Game of Thrones for the second time, i'm picking up on all the dropped hints, the quick mentions, Old's Nan's stories. . . everything i missed the first time, because i didn't realize in an 800 page book, George R R Martin doesn't waste a single word.

- a single sentence describing some physical characteristics of Jon Snow's mother
- Ned Stark's comment about "Arya growing up to marry a King and be a Queen" (he says something like that
- a quick introduction to Gendry
- the thin line between "ward" and "hostage"
- all the subtly brilliant foreshadowing.

So sure, I know what's going to happen at the end of this novel, I know what's going to happen at the end of all four novels in the series. But the characters have no idea what's coming. The Stark children, so innocent, their parents have done a wonderful job of keeping them away from the corruptions of the King's court, the concerns of knights and lords. The Stark children haven't a clue what the real world is. they have no idea the pain and suffering in store for them. they might see it as pain and suffering, but isn't that just a form of growing up?

on a happier note, my house is exploding with fruit. Everything in the produce dept at the grocery store looked so good, i couldn't help myself from buying as much as possible. The next morning, i made the mistake of going to the farmers market, where nearly everything looked even better. peaches, cherries, snow peas. . . what am i going to do with all this food? Ok, other than the snow peas, can you say "Fruit Tart"!

you'll need:
3 cups sliced fruit (take skins off, remove pits or seeds)
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
Pie/Pastry Dough (that recipe is enough for two pie crusts - so, cut it in half, or make two fruit tarts.)

preheat oven to 400.
prepare the dough, and roll out to just larger than a dinner plate, and transfer to a greased cookie sheet. don't roll it out too thin!! mix fruit, suage, and cornstarch in a bowl, and using a slotted spoon, put the fruit mixture in the center of your dough, spreading it to about 2" from the edge. if it's mounded in the center, that's OK. fold the edges of your tart up, covering a little of the fruit. if the dough doesn't want to stay where you put it, "glue" it in place with some cold water and pressure. bake for 20-25 minutes until edges are browned and fruit is bubbly. cool completely before serving, to set the juices. if desired, warm slightly before serving, and sprinke with confectioners sugar.

if you are feeling really ambitious, you can make little shapes and designs with your fruit. but ambitious kicked me in the butt the other day, so i think i'm just going to dump it all in. then i'll test it on my co-workers.

oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I made gloopy cookies.

well, they looked gloopy, and kind of gross, but tasted so good I've eaten like five of them so far, and I want more!

My hubby asked me to make him some oatmeal raisin cookies. I don't much care for oatmeal raising cookes (I'm more of a butter/sugar cookie girl myself), so I found a recipe, and started mixing.

Quick classic oatmeal cookies (adapted from the recipe in The Joy of Cooking)

preheat oven to 350. grease a few cookie sheets, or use nonstick cookie sheets.
in a medium bowl, combine the following:
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

in a larger bowl, blend the following:
2 sticks softened butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/4 sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

once that's well blended, add the flour mixture and blend well. again. now add:

1 1/2 cups chopped raisins
3 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

mix it all up till it looks all gloopy and gloppy. spoon heaping tablespoons onto the cookie sheets, and press down a little with the back of the spoon. you should get 10-12 cookies per cookie sheet, and 40-50 cookies total. bake at 350 for 6-9 minutes, until just browned on top, and slightly firm. remove to racks to cool.

yeah, they look a little gross, but they are really yummy. i think next time i'm going to try this recipe with currants, or dates, or something other than raisins. just to see what happens.

got a handful of reviews up, my first official Manga reviews!
Blame!, Volume one. I couldn't figure out why this series has this name, since our main character, Killy,  is just a guy trying to survive, and only kills cyborgs. turns out the word blame is a mistransliteration of the word blam, the sound Killy's gun makes when he blows away all those H.R. Giger-esque cyborgs.
Psychic Power Nanaki, volume I. this one was just so-so. has the potential to be a viable series, or just fall into iffyness. characters are pretty reminiscent of people already seen from this author. Is he pulling the same crossover stunt that CLAMP is known to do? can he pull it off?
St. Lunatic High School, Volume I. cute, and zany. I've read better, and I've read worse. i hope the author takes this beyond the "monster of the week" theme.

shadowmarching the wrong way?

been travelling more. was down in Atlanta for 2 days, then back down for southern southern GA in two weeks. nothing much exciting in Atlanta. that airport is really bizarre! a super nice lady at the MARTA station helped me get a ticket to get to the airport. everyone down there talks funny and calls me "hon".

finished Tad William's Shadowmarch. it was okay. felt stilted, predictable, patterned. most paragraphs consisted of 2 run on sentences, followed by a confusing and drawn out simile, followed by a line of dialogue. Williams made a habit of listing out what the characters were doing - "He got out of bed and walked across the room. He put on his chainmail whatever and called the guard, who was standing outside. he left the room and walked down the stairs." Okay, so it isn't quite that bad, but parts of the book are close.

I need to see which was written first, Shadowmarch or A Game of Thrones. In Shadowmarch, the family is in a northern province, on the borderlands of where the "fairyfolk" live. And were not talking cutesy fairies with wings here, we're talking the creepy ones who steal your kids and burn your farm. A human enemy is rising in the south, threatening the northern provinces, there is talk of an alliance through marriage. I was waiting for someone to say that famous Game of Thrones line: "They're marching the wrong way". Twin regents Briony and Barrick (and what's with there being twins in every single epic fantasy series? ok, dichotomy and balance, i get it already! who was the first person to decide every epic fantasy series needed a set of twins?) are trying to keep their northern keep of Southmarch safe and under control. these kids have been running amock through the keep for 15 years, yet none of the nobles seem to know if they can be trusted? and the kids don't seem to have a clue who to trust? they weren't stuck in a convent for the last 15 years, so maybe they are just dumb. or unaware that their dad is the king. and being held hostage down south.

maybe i'm being harsh. Maybe i'm getting jaded. maybe i've just been really spoiled reading some really good shit lately. Because if you're looking for something fantasy-ish (we do have plenty of active magic, and a pretty cool bizarre religion and culture in the way down south) with action and battles and swords and some wizardly, and crypts and secret passages, and intrigue, and the like, you'll have a good time with Shadowmarch. you just might not be all that impressed with it.

Many, many hours stuck on airplanes and in airports let me catch up with one of my perennial favorites, The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. this is one of the few books i can say lived up to all it's hype. gents beware, this is totally a girly book. told from the points of view of four daughters who travel with their parents on a mission to the Congo in the 1960s. One girl is a princess, one is a tomboy, one a learning disabled mute, the last one but a babe. This book is beautiful, and a tearjerker. I've read it before, so i know what's going to happen: who gets to come home to America, who stays in Africa, who dies. and i start tearing up about 10 pages ahead of time. ladies, if you've never read this book, get it. you will like it. you will see yourself and everyone you know in it.

let's see. . . glazed apples. like caramel apples? or like candied apples on the stove? i got a recipe for Tart Tatin, which is like an upside down apple pie made with candied apples:

Tart Tatin:

first, you gotta make the pastry part:
2 cups flour
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup butter, cut into small peices
2 or 3 tbsp milk (and not that skim stuff!)

blend sugar & flour. cut the butter in with a pastry knife, and blend till mixture look like coarse crumbs (this is like making regular pie dough!). add the milk one tbsp at a time, and blend it in till the dough holds together. depending on how humid the room is, you might not need all the milk. wrap dough tight in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge.

now you gotta make the "inside" part:
1/2 cup butter, at room temp
1/2 cup sugar
3 lbs apples, peeled and wedged
2 tbsp lemon juice

with the stove turned off, spread butter on the bottom of a heavy skillet (the kind of skillet than is oven safe). pour sugar over the butter, then layer apples on top of that. sprinkle with lemon juice, and put it on the stove, over medium to high heat. you want the sugar and butter to melt together and carmelize the apples. shake pan (but don't stir up too much!!) occasionally. after 20 minutes, take it off the heat, or your apples will burn. as this mixture is cooling, roll out your dough on a floured surface. and preheat your oven to 425. you need the dough to be a little bigger than the top of the pan, it's OK if it's pretty thick, but make there aren't any holes!! lay the pastry round on top of the pan, and tuck the edges in. prick lightly with a fork (this is so the steam can escape, but you don't want gigantic fork holes). bake 20 min at 425. the top of the pastry part should be golden. have a friend help you turn (flip!) the pastry out onto a platter. the inside is really hot! be careful!

and if you just want the carmelized apples, i suppose you could skip the pastry part, and have the carmelized apples with vanilla icecream and mint sprigs.

Just Desserts

I haven’t posted enough desserts. Scratch that, I haven’t posted enough easy desserts. If you can’t make this one, you shouldn’t have a kitchen. I’ve know this recipe since I was about 8 years old.

Rice crispie treats
1 stick butter
4 cups mini-marshmallows
6 cups rice crispies.

Melt the butter in a large pot over low-med heat. Add the marshmellows and stir well. Remove the pot from the heat, and stir in the rice crispies. Once it is well blended, pour into a large rectangular baking dish. Using wax paper, press down on the mixture so it flattens out and filled the bottom of the dish. Refridgerate till firm, cut with a pizza cutter or sharp knife. Enjoy.



See? Wasn’t that easy? Damn. . . I need to go buy some rice crispies. Cuz now I really want some rice crispie treats! I know. . . books will distract me! Until I can find some healthy snack that doesn’t involve butter and sugar.

So I went to B&N over the weekend, hoping to find Fullmetal Alchemist volume 6, which appears to be out of print. Looks like I’m going to have to hit e-bay. It does appear, however that B&N is about the double or triple the size of their graphic novel/manga area. Take that you crappy romance section! I love manga. I spend more money on this crap during the year than I spend on clothes. So no FMA, but CLAMP is putting out 3 volume omnibus editions of some of their most popular Manga, and I am now the proud parent of xxxHolic, volumes 1-3! For $14! How can you beat that??? Damn you CLAMP, and your witty snarky romances, your intense fashion sense and your fabulous artwork! You sucked me into Tokyo Babylon, and now you’re doing the same thing with xxxHolic! Although I have no idea how to pronouce xxxHolic (ex-ex-ex-Holic? Ex-holic? Triple-ex-holic?) it’s a really fun story. Yuko is a witch of sorts, and she’ll grant you any wish you want, provided you really want it granted. Her price can be all sorts of things: your time, your memories, a portion of your soul. The more you want the wish to happen, the higher the price. Did I mention she’s got a set of soul-less freaky twins who work for her, a house full of goodies, and a wicked fashion sense? What I would give to Cosplay her! The CLAMP ladies have a fun habit of overlaying their plot-lines, as in Yuko mentions things that happen in Tokyo Babylon, and there is a LOT of crossover from their new baby, Tsubasa. Ladies of CLAMP, you’re going to get me to put out tons of cash to catch up on Cardcaptor Sakura, Tsubasa, and the rest of Tokyo Babylon and xxxHolic, aren’t you?



If you skipped that paragraph because you’re not into Manga and you have no idea what I was talking about, this paragraph is for you. I’m also reading The White Plague by Frank Herbert. I’ve never read this before. I’d heard all sorts of bad things about it, but I’m quite liking it. it started out all fast and furious, mad man tries to get his revenge on the world, especially on those IRA nuts whose bombs killed his wife and children. Herbert’s characterization is strained, I know he can do better. When he’s talking about lunatic John O’Neill, he does a great job developing him a serial killer. And I kinda of want to feel bad for O’Neill, since now he’s got this split personality thing going on. But he’s such a damn bastard. And the worldwide plague thing is interesting. What else would force governments and peoples to work together, than a global plague that only kills you if you are of a certain nationality, and has 100% mortality in females? The conversations between government officials are fascinating, as they prepare to write off entire corners of the globe, just to save pockets elsewhere. Herbert, you are a master of the big picture. White plague? Kinda like black plague, except it turns your skin white, ‘steada black.



Also the plate for the next few weeks: still digging through that Cthulhu short story book. I’m finding that as much as I enjoy short sf/horror stories from the 20s and 30s, I don’t think I enjoy 300 pages of them. Question of the day: is Cthulhu over rated? And I got more. . . manga! From the library!

attempting to focus. . . .

so, instead of giving one sentence on a zillion books i'm nose deep in, i'm going to try to focus on only one or two (ok, maybe three) that i'm intimately involved in. I'm going to attempt to focus.

food for thought? no pun intended.

i recently blew through Stephen Lawhead's Silver Hand, the 2nd book in his Song of Albion trilogy. Can i still love Lawhead, and not love ever page of this book? The beginning and the end were brutal, exquisitve, unremorseful and painfully human. the middle. . . not so much. Tegid's conveinent "inner sight" started to get gimmicky for me. Tegid's a great character, and i'm happy we fleshed him out more, but a)he started to get on my nerves after a while, and b) i haven't got past the Llew/ Simon thing, and want to get back to that, like right now. there is a great interview with Lawhead at the end, where he's asked how he feels about writing about good vs evil, and he says it's fine, but he's not writing about good vs evil, he's writing about the nature of sovereignty. nice. i just got the 3rd book, The Endless Knot from the library, and hopefully that gets back to Llew & Simon. i'll let you know.

also on the book pile is China Mieville's King Rat. I think this was his first break out novel? or maybe his first young adult novel? it is definately YA, and offers a dirtier, grittier look at the classic "young man finds out he is of royal blood, and has to win his kingdom back from the usurpers" plot line. for a YA book, this sure has lots of swear words! i must be really old fashioned. if i get a book from the young adult or kids section at the library, i'm shocked (just shocked i tell you!!) everytime i run into shit or fuck. and i trust the library, so i must just be old fashioned. King Rat is a lot of fun, especially since i've read newer Mieville stuff, i'm seeing where it all got started. You read any Mieville? what do you think of him?

over at Havenland, we're getting started on our March/April book club book: The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell. so head over there and join the fray, cuz i don't want to type all that stuff twice.



did i do an OK job focusing on just a coupla books? cuz i got way more from the library. more than any normal person should ever read in 3 weeks, not to mention a handful of manga.

mmmm..... pie. somewhere on this page, i gave a recipe for apple pie filling, but i didn't tell you how to make the pie crust. if you don't want to know how much fatty butter goes into a divine pie crust, quit reading right now. if you're just looking for an excuse to screw your diet, read on dear reader, read on.

this makes two pie crusts, or a top and bottom for a covered pie. you'll need:

a really big bowl
plastic wrap
a spatula
a pastry knife. a pastry knife is one of the best $8 investments you can make. seriously. it's 8 bucks. go buy one.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 sticks very cold butter. keep it in the fridge until you're ready to use it. it really does make a difference, as i learned the hard way, last night.
1 tsp white sugar
1 tsp salt
some ice water. yes, put water in a bowl, and put some ice cubes in there to keep the water super cold.

the trick to an awesome pie crust is to have your butter super cold, and your water super cold, but neither one should be frozen, or have any ice crystals. i don't know the science behind why this works, but trust me, it works. i'm sure Alton Brown has done a show on it.

mix the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. cut the butter into pieces, and blend it into the flour with the pastry knife. keep cutting the fat with the pastry knife till all the big peices are gone, takes 5-10 minutes. some of your dough should be the size of a small pebble, but most of it should be the consistency of corn meal. dribble about 1/3cup ice water on top of the dough, and cut the water in using the sharp side of the spatula, till the dough forms small balls. if this doesn't happen, add maybe a tbsp more ice water. keep blending it, and the small balls should be able to stick when you press them together. the dough should still look pretty rough, and it shouldn't be overly greasy.

divide it into two parts, press them into a disc, wrap tightly with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

now you got to roll it out. have a cup or so of flour ready at the table. keep your surface floured well, or the dough will stick, and that's just a disaster. as you roll it out, set your pie plate on top, so you know when it's big enough. you don't want to roll it to thin. once you get it rolled out, form it into the pie tin, and put that in the fridge for a few hours. roll out the second disk, this is the top of your pie. once you get that rolled out, it can sit on a cookie sheet in the fridge.

after the crusts have "rested" for a few hours, fill the bottom with whatever you're filling it with, lay the top on (cut vents!!!! cut vents!!!), seal it with cold water, pinch, and trim, and you're ready for the oven! oven temp and time depends on what's in the pie, and if it's pre cooked or not. good luck!