February Foodways

I have some really, really exciting news to share.....lookee:

My shot is on the cover of the February's Country Living magazine!!!!!!!

February is the special Ohio Foodways issue.  I thought it would be fun to put some of the showcased foods on/around an Ohio-state shaped cutting board.  I am really pleased with the final shot (I took many).  The cutting board is really neat, and I think it makes the shot.  It's from AHeirloom, a husband & wife team out of Brooklyn.

I also have two foodie shots in the Food Scene feature - brownies and tiramisu.  Here's the link to the magazine (it's part of the Ohio Rural Electric Cooperative, by the way) & check out page 13 for those shots.

I'm thrilled to have had the chance to do this month's cover, but (according to the Bachsters) the best part was getting to eat all the yummy cheese and buckeyes and brownies and tiramisu when it was all done.  That was a nice perk, indeed.

-Cheryl

Book Nook - {on break}

Book Nook is still on break, but will be back next week!

In the meantime.....

Have you read any good books lately?

(The above shot is from Boy by Roald Dahl, which I just finished a few days ago......it was so good!)


-Cheryl

Ice Cream Sundays - {toasted almond & candied cherry}

I've got a question for you: if you were planning a vacation right now, and you had to pick between a trip to the beach or a trip to a big city, which would you choose?  Because your answer may very well determine whether you'd like toasted almond and candied cherry ice cream or not.

If you chose city, you'd love it.

The recipe comes from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop - love, love, love that book!  There are a few extra components here than in your standard ice cream recipe, like perfectly toasted almonds and sweet candied cherries (I made this late last summer when cherries were abundant in our grocery store).  The ice cream is full of flavor, thanks to the almonds and almond extract and the cherries.  But those are the things that make this a very busy ice cream, and you've got to do a lot of work just chewing each bite.  And just to make the taste profile even more complex, I decided to pair them with the almond butterscotch cookie cups, which were delicious but made the ice cream even crazier, busier and in-a-taxi-at-rush-hour-ier.

I loved the ice cream, but I started daydreaming about just making an almond-only version, and skipping the cherries and cookie cups.  In fact, I would skip the toasted almonds too, and just flavor it with the almond extract and almond-infused milk.  It would be smooth and creamy but have that wonderful almond flavor.......

Perhaps I'm a beach girl.

-Cheryl

Return to knitting

For some reason, I have not picked up any knitting needles since I finished Little Dude's birthday ninja.....that was in July!  Why have I been ditching my comfy chair and books-on-CD and hours of fun knitting and woolly creations to keep me and my family warm?  Especially the past few months, prime knitting season?  Why, I ask myself?  The answer is simple: dirty dishes!

Yes, it comes down to that.  Because sometime last Summer, probably around the time I finished the ninja, our dishwasher crashed & died.  And me, being the silly person that I am, thought we didn't need to replace it, I would just wash all the dishes by hand.  Dishes, might I add, for 5 people (one of whom relishes cooking everything homemade) and one spoiled dog who gets a gourmet meal cooked for him almost every night by DH.......but I digress.

So, I've spent much thought on my lack-of-knitting and it dawned on me, as I washed plate after plate, what the problem was.  Too much time cleaning, not enough time knitting!  To remedy this, I have made a point to leave any dirty dishes sit around until morning after the Bachsters go to bed.  That's my time, and I'm going to reclaim it back from the sink!  So, take that dirty dishes, and if you don't back down soon, there will be a trip to Lowe's in my near future!

Anyway, the project is a cowl.  I don't have any cowls, but I do have a handknit scarf made with single-ply yarn that looks like something the gourmet-food-loving-dog of ours dragged through the backyard.  So, I thought a nice cowl would be in order, and to make things more interesting, I'm creating the design myself.  So far, I have three rows done and they look nothing like I intended, so I'm wondering if maybe perhaps I might have made a wee little error somewhere, in which I can either just ignore it and see what it becomes, or "frog" it and start over....which would be the time consuming option, but hey, I'd rather do that than more dishes!

 
I promise to show you the cowl when it's all done!

-Cheryl

Book Nook - {on break}

Book Nook is currently on a little break & will be back in February.  In the meantime......

Let's hear it for our favorite libraries!  Ours are The Columbus Metropolitan Library and The Pickerington Public Library.  What is your favorite library?

-Cheryl

Ice Cream Sundays - {eggnog}

I made eggnog ice cream around the holidays, and promptly got busy with other things and left it sitting in our freezer for much longer than ice cream is accustomed to sitting and waiting around here.  So, this morning, discouraged by a photoshoot gone awry, I decided it was eggnog ice cream's time, and enjoyed it for breakfast (ahem).

The recipe is, of course, from The Perfect Scoop, which is the perfect ice cream book.  The flavor is  almost buttery and the first thing you taste is the fresh nutmeg.  Surprisingly, it's not "boozy" tasting at all.  Perhaps next time I need to ad lib on the amounts of alcohol that the recipe calls for.

Actually, now that I think about it, we had family over for a fun game night a couple of weeks ago and someone wanted some of our hard alcohol, but needed something to mellow it out.  We pulled out the eggnog ice cream, scooped a few scoops into a glass, and let him pour his own booze.  I imagine that was a very tasty, 21-and-over-only milkshake.

Next time I make it, I must try it with the recommended whiskey caramel sauce - perfect for game night (.....or breakfast).

-Cheryl

Book Nook - {on break}

Book Nook is on a little break, but will be back in February - promise!

In the meantime.......

This week's question: I recently read an entire book - Bridge to Terabithia - in one day (since I'm a pokey reader, this doesn't happen very often).  Have you ever read a book in a day & if so, what was the book?  Was it good?

-Cheryl