Gingerbread block workday #1
This Sunday we officially kicked off the construction of the gingerbread block. We managed to get the walls for the first building in the block cut and sculpted. The lovely Jessika Creedon stopped by to help, and she also took some pictures. So here’s a little eye candy for those of you who are eager...
Olive Oil Granola
Premium granola makers seem to be popping up like morels after a spring rain. And these fancy-pants granolas do have some benefits to tout. Interesting flavor combinations and top-notch ingredients make granolas in this style simultaneously decadent, wholesome and satisfying. But a small bag of bakery-style granola can set you back six or seven bucks–...
Carrot Pie
My first pie of spring will be rhubarb custard, but those little rhubarb shoots are taking their sweet time, irrespective of my whining. Where to look for pie inspiration when relegated to last year’s apples and root vegetables? I ran across a turn of the century recipe that suggested using carrots to make pie, much...
Flaky Pie Dough
I’ll be the first to tell you that this is not a special pie dough recipe. You can find all sorts of fancy recipes proclaiming the wonders of particular flours, cream cheese or even vodka. (Many of these use shortening or margarine, ick.) Don’t get me wrong, some of these are excellent recipes that work...
Black Cake
Ultimately there are only a few ways to save money in your food budget– eat lots of cheaper foods, eat less expensive foods, don’t waste valuable trimmings, make things yourself. Usually my posts fall into the eat cheap foods and DIY categories. But were still in the thick of celebrating the new year, and even...
Homemade Vanilla Extract
If you read the “ingredients” section in any book with a pastry chef’s name on the front, you will likely find a discussion of that chef’s preferred vanilla bean, complete with a discussion of its unique and superior qualities. Now let me first state that there is a marked difference between vanilla beans from different...
Vanilla
Vanilla– how on earth can I pretend to write about kitchen economy and still write about vanilla? Famously the second most expensive spice (first place goes to those electric little threads of saffron), vanilla is very expensive in all its forms (whole beans, paste, extract and powder.) It is possible to save money on costly...
Seeded Granola
I have done a lot of fussing with granola recipes. I wasn’t able to find one that I liked (crunchy, clumps that don’t dissolve at the sight of milk, not too sweet). So I was forced to fiddle until I found a method that I liked. The procedure I’ve arrived at is, admittedly, not the...
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