Yesterday's harvest was not bad at all. Lots of eggplants. I almost waited too long and one had some brown spots inside. I made Moussaka (without meat). So good! But a lot of work since it involves so many steps before you can finally put the pan in the oven: broiling peppers and peeling them, broiling eggplant, frying potatoes, making toamto sauce, assembling the whole thing. But it was worth it. And we will still have leftovers tonight.

I am getting the roof ready for my first attempt at fall planting. It seems a bit too hot still for anything tender to grow. But a late harvest of some beans, cucumbers, radishes and greens would be nice.

I am contemplating setting up a very simple passive hydroponic system. Nothing complicated or mechanical. That way I wouldn't have to schlepp so much soil up there, and since I would drain the system in the winter there would be less weight with the added snow-load.

I am still a bit skeptical whether it will actually work. I will set up a few very simple containers as a trial.

I got some new tart apples at the market. Tonight I will make some apple jelly. Maybe scented with some lemon balm or lavender. Or lemon verbena. I can't decide. Maybe some of each. Or maybe just plain.  10:43:22 AM    

I have been absorbed in my work and the weather has been bland. I don't feel I have much to report. Yesterday I made a very successful "Spinach" pie. Did you know that a traditional Greek Greens Pie calls for seven different types of greens? There has to be just the right balance of sweet, bitter, sour and aromatic. I came close. I had seven different kinds: spinach, dandelion, collards, wild arugula, and wild broccoli rabe, with plenty of dill and some fennel greens. The "wild" greens are not really gathered from the wild, unfortunately, but they are overall smaller and have a more complex flavor. They have started to show up at the Green Market. I will get more this weekend. So healthy and yummy. The only downside is that it takes forever to wash these heaps of greens.  1:32:33 PM    

Wednesday morning the NYT Dining section was spread out on the breakfast table. Fingers pointed at a photograph of a heaping plateful of crunchy spring-green vegetables with a few rosy strips of animal protein thrown in. "Look at that," said my husband, "Pork." "Ohh, baby corn." "Sugar-snap peas," said the children, of course followed by "Mommy, can you make this?" "Hmm, said I, "Looks good, if it weren't for the pork." "Oh come on, those who don't want meat can eat around it, and the children would love the baby corn." I could see where this was going. "And it's a stirr-fry. It only takes 15 minutes." "That's preparation time, they don't tell you how long it takes to chop everything. And it is one of Nigella Lawson's recipes. Her recipes never work out. And it calls for oyster sauce."

So they talked me into it. I was yearning for crunchy veggies and spring dishes, and I was going out anyway, so I could pick up everything I needed. I had my doubts about the Oyster sauce. I don't like to use ready-made ingredients, even if they have exotic names.

I shopped at a place called "Garden of Eden." It is one of these places where the produce is displayed in wicker baskets and plastic grapes hang from the ceiling. There are no right angles and the aisles go this way and that way and are generally never longer than 2 feet. The produce was actually reasonably priced and good-looking. I am sure they get you with the prepared Deli-stuff though.

When I came home I marinated the meat and went ahead and prepped the veggies. Chopping was done in 15 minutes, and then I went and did some other stuff, until close to dinner time.

The verdict: It was ok, but not wonderful, just as had been my experience with all of Nigella's recipes I have tried. I got over myself and used the oyster sauce, having carefully compared ingredients and selected the brand that seemed to have the least artificial stuff in it. But I still don't see why one "needs" it.

It was kind of fun though getting the various ingredients together. And now I will even more appreciate the tried and true family-favorite Broccoli-Tofu stir-fry. It takes 15 minutes, prep time included.  11:31:52 PM    

I also made Banana Bread tonight, with Birdie's Macademia Nuts. This is the most extraordinary Banana Bread, and there is no chance it can be reproduced because I threw all sorts of things in that were in arm's reach.

More about that tomorrow.  11:41:30 PM    

Fortuitously, the theme for this month's Is My Blog Burning Event was cupcakes. And cupcakes were definitely on my agenda. The recent Birthday around here not only involved baking a cake but also various other goodies to be shared with little friends who were not at the actual party.

By Monday we were all a bit sugared-out and not much in the mood for buttery frosting or anything too complicated and involved. After some UN-style negotiations we settled on Marble Cupcakes.

These were my first Marble Cakes in cups. I used my basic White Cake batter, jazzed up with some orange zest and juice. For a more grown-up version, I would add to the batter some finely chopped candied orange peel and decoratively sprinkle some over the finished cupcakes.

They were very tasty and looked pretty cute, in an understated sort of way. We decided not to do any fancy frosting or glaze and instead let confectioner's sugar snow on them. Perfect! (The only negative feedback I received was that there weren't enough cupcakes for all of the teachers ...)

Recipe

2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup sugar
5 large eggs (or 1 cup if using smaller eggs)
zest and strained juice of 1 organic orange
4 cups flour
pinch of salt
5 tsp. baking powder
1/2 to 1 cup milk
6 Tbsp. cocoa

Yield: ca. 18 medium cupcakes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pans with liners.

Measure flour, salt, and baking powder into a bowl and stir with wire whisk.
Measure cocoa into a small bowl, add half the orange zest and stir with wire whisk.

In a large bowl cream butter with an electric mixer on high speed, add sugar and half the orange zest, mix until white and fluffy. Add eggs, one by one, until fully incorporated.

With mixer on medium to slow speed, add some of the flour mixture, half the orange juice and some milk, alternating between flour and milk until all the flour is incorporated. Add enough milk to end up with a batter that will drop from a tilted spoon by itself.

Set two thirds of the batter aside. With mixer on medium to slow speed, add cocoa with orange zest, the remaining orange juice and enough milk to achieve the required consistency.

Spoon white batter into muffin pans, a little more than half full. Spoon the dark batter over the filled pans. Carefully hold muffin liner with one hand and, using the narrow handle of a teaspoon or something similar, draw a circle through each cupcake, ending in an upward motion and bringing some of the white batter up to the top. If the surface is very uneven, you may smooth it out a bit.

Bake for ca. 20 minutes. At the end of the baking process watch like a hawk. Take the cupcakes out as soon as a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool, take out of pans and dust with confectioner's sugar when completely cooled off. Enjoy!

  2:42:36 PM    

I also made cupcakes to send to the birthday girl's preschool tomorrow. Originally, she had said the wanted the cupcakes to be same as the big cake, white with pink flowers, but by today we were ready for some change. Negotiating with a four-year-old is always interesting. At first she wanted pictures on the cakes, and while I am sure some enterprising person is able to do this, I am not. When I suggested chocolate, she said some chocolate and some white. Although the concept took a while to sink in, we finally agreed on Marble Cupcakes. They came out really cute, in a minimalist sort-of-way. Any kind of icing seemed a distraction, so we just let confectioner's sugar snow on them. Snow-Cupcakes!

I will post about this venture in considerable detail, picture and all, since I have decided to poke my head out of my cosy little corner and participate in the Is My Blog Burning Event which this month happens to be cupcakes.

And yes, I know, there is something else I need to write about, I am not ducking out of "IT" ... just didn't have much computer time lately.  12:24:47 AM    

On the occasion of the upcoming 4th birthday of my daughter on Saturday I have a lot of baking to do. There is the cake, of course, then there are cookies for the Saturday School, and there are cupcakes to be sent to preschool on Monday.

The layers for the cake are baking as I type this, I will assemble them tomorrow, probably in the evening when I have peace and quiet. The dough for the cookies is in the refrigerator. We will bake them tomorrow after school. The girls "need to" help with this. I made a simple dough for butter cookies and we will cut them out and decorate with sugar sprinkles. I will make the cupcakes on Sunday only. And I will not do anything else on Sunday (at least that is my plan).

The Birthday Cake is a conservative affair. Children are creatures of habit. She wants the same cake I made for her second birthday. We took a picture of that cake and in her mind this has become the quintessential birthday cake, the Platonic idea of a birthday day that sums up what a birthday cake should be. By now I have been making that cake a number of times, both for her and for her sister, and I guess is I will be making that same cake until they go off to college, if not longer.

It is a fine cake, vanilla with Seven-Minute-Frosting or "Italian Meringue" if you want to give it more allure. It is Martha Stewart recipe. (Thanks, Martha, you made it into our family history). By folding fold raspberry jam into the meringue you get a very pretty and pink filling. On the outside, the cake is covered with white Meringue. I just slather it on and then I make little indents with the back of a spoon. It looks very fluffy and festive. Then I put some of the pink filling in a Zip-loc bag (in lieu of a pastry bag), and maybe add a few drops of beet juice of it is too pale, and dab on dots that form little flowers. This is not fancy decorating at all but it looks very pretty and girlish. The last cake for my older daughter only had pink polka dots. I can't remember now why that was, but it still was cute.

The layers are done now. One is perfect, the other one a bit lop-sided. Such is life. I am going to bed now. I am not feeling too well. The almost-birthday girl has been under the weather as well complaining of a sore throat and an earache. I hope she will be better on Saturday.

I promise I will post a picture of that cake and the miscellaneous baked items.  11:53:49 PM