Teaberries

Tomatoes and Focaccia Pizza

What a fabulous and relaxing weekend. We went to the Farmers' Market Saturday morning and came home with a tote full of tomatoes. Aren't these tomatoes beautiful? 

 

I love these little orange babies, so of course I had to make a flatbread pizza with them. 

Here are all of the ingredients you'll need. 

This pizza is so simple - just make your dough and smush it into the pan. 

Add some olive oil and toppings. I used fresh mozzarella, fresh purple basil, and cherry tomatoes.

Voila! Delicious focaccia bread pizza! This made about 4 lunches for us - it was very filling!
 
 

Focaccia Bread Pizza

*Adapted from Simply in Season

1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
fresh basil leaves, chopped
cherry tomatoes, halved
4 cloves garlic, minced
½-1 cup cheese of your choice (I like fresh mozzarella)
olive oil

Combine water and yeast in bowl. Mix in whole wheat flour, olive oil, salt and sugar. Add all purpose flour and knead 8-10 minutes. You may need ¼ cup less or more, so use your judgment. Place in greased bowl and allow to rise 1 hour. Pat and stretch to fill oiled jelly roll pan (approx 10x15 inches).  Drizzle oil on top of the dough and spread on garlic cloves. Place cheese (shredded or sliced) on dough and incorporate tomatoes, cut side up around the cheese. Sprinkle on basil leaves and drizzle with a little olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes.
 

 

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Homemade Pop Tarts

I hate pop tarts. They're slightly mushy and fake and gross. I just don't like them. I especially don't like generic pop tarts. At one point in my life I remember liking toaster strudels, but I think that was mostly because of the sweet icing. In fact, I think I would eat the icing packets and eventually toss the strudels. 

Anyway, several months ago I saw a recipe on Smitten Kitchen for homemade pop tarts - and I thought to myself, "those might be good!" I starred the post in google reader and decided to come back to it later. Now you probably know that I've got blueberries coming out my ears ... and now I have blueberry spice jam coming out my ears. So what better to do with blueberry spice jam then make pop tarts?! Now let me preface that by saying that I had tons of things on my "to do list" for last night, such as: making more blueberry spice jam, making blackberry sauce, about 4 loads of laundry, and my kitchen floor is desperately in need of being cleaned. But instead, I decided to go with my feelings and throw together some pop tarts!

It is a pretty simple process if you aren't afraid of working with dough. Which you shouldn't be. Dough is nice. In fact, I sometimes eat dough. I know, thats weird. Anyway, you mix up your dough, divide it into two pieces, and roll them out into rectangles. Then you slice up each half into 9 equally sized pieces. 

The you brush on some egg which will make the pieces of dough stick together. A pastry bush is really helpful here, but you could use your fingers or a paper towel if you don't have one. 

The you put a dollop of jam on each piece (keeping it in the middle - you don't want that jam escaping!)

You put another piece of dough on top and seal it up! You'll want to poke holes in the top so steam can escape. I don't think my holes were deep or pronounced enough because I ended up with "billowy pillows instead of flat toaster pastries". 

Of course I had to get creative with some of the pastries. This one has a "W", and I made one with mountains!

And voila! Home made pop tarts! Matt sampled one straight out of the oven (which I wouldn't recommend because that hot oozing jam is just a recipe for disaster) and said that they tasted like pop tarts only better. I just finished eating two for breakfast. My verdict: absolutely tasty. 

You can find the complete recipe at Smitten Kitchen. 

P.S. - Did you notice the tablecloth I was using to roll out the dough? Well, my mom has quite a few red and white checkered tablecloths that my grandmother had used for years when rolling out dough. I had asked my mom for one several times, but I don't think she was ready to part with even a single one. Instead, she finally found one for me at a kitchen shop, and it works like a dream! So far I haven't had problems with pilling or lint. 
 
 
 

 
 
 

Granola Recipe

Did I mention that we've picked 30 quarts of blueberries the past few weeks? I think I have a time or two. You can read about my blueberry spice jam here. One of the ways we eat up fresh blueberries is with yogurt and granola. Now, most of you probably know that I am not a morning person - by any stretch of the imagination. Making it to work on time is a big deal, and we never make breakfast on weekday mornings, however by about 10 am, my stomach starts rumbling. Granola is about the easiest and quickest thing for me to throw in a jar before work and bring to the office. 

How simple and delicious does that look? I keep a big container of granola in the pantry, so all I have to do in the morning is scoop some into a jar, add berries, and grab yogurt out of the fridge. Matt doesn't mind his yogurt going into the granola at home ... I prefer to add it when I'm ready to eat so the granola doesn't get soggy. I like to put it into a wide-mouth pint sized jar with the white plastic lids. Easy-peasy. 

P.S. - don't you love that framed bird artwork? Matt brought that back for me from his recent trip to Denver, CO, and I am just in love with it. 

This recipe originally was given to me by an inn owner in Valle Crucis, and I thought I had posted about our trip to the inn, but apparently I didn't because I can't find it. I'll have to do that soon, because it really is a fabulous place. So, with no further ado, here is my granola recipe adapted from the Inn at Little Pond Farm:

Granola

4 cups rolled oats

2 cups sliced or slivered almonds

½ cup coconut oil

1/3 cup maple syrup

1/3 cup honey

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 cup dried cranberries

1 cup pecans

1 cup walnuts

½ cup sunflower seeds

¼ cup wheat germ

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix oats and almonds together. In a separate bowl, mix the oil, honey, maple syrup, and cinnamon. Pour the wet mixture over the oat mixture and stir to combine. Spread in thin layers on sheet pans and bake for 8-10 minutes. Stir occasionally and watch that it doesn’t burn.

Once the oat mixture has cooled, add cranberries, pecans, walnuts, sunflower seeds and wheat germ. Store in an airtight container. 

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Blueberry Spice Jam

Sorry that the blog posts have been few and far between lately. We've been extremely busy the past two weeks, and I've been falling into bed exhausted at night. The blueberries have definitely been keeping me busy. 

Here is a picture of the lovely orchard where we go picking. Doesn't it just look so idyllic?

The bushes at the top are always more full with ripe berries because its quite a hike to get up there and not as many people make the venture.  

Can you believe all these ripe delicious berries?! They practically fall off the branches into the buckets. 

The frosted blue ones taste the best! It takes me about an hour to pick a 5 quart bucket, which costs $8! That makes it totally worth my time. 

So far, we've gone to the orchard twice and have picked more than 30 quarts. I'm sure you're asking yourself what someone does with that many berries ... because I've been asking myself the same question lately! I've used 9 quarts for berries, frozen about 18 quarts, and we've eaten about 3. We've been making blueberry jam, blueberry waffles, blueberry muffins ... and eating them by the fist full!

 
This is what my kitchen looks like when I tried to make jam for the first time. It was a total disaster. You can't see the countless berries that I spilled on the floor then accidently stepped on. So, be prepared to make a little mess if you're going to attempt the jam. 

Being my first time making jam and all, I had to figure out what was going to work best. I started out trying to use my food mill to crush the berries - turns out the berries were too big to fit well and just spun round and round the mill and made a really big mess.

Then I crushed them with my pastry blender. That was relatively effective, but my arm got pretty sore, and it took a long time. 

Then I had the genius idea to whip out my mini food processor. I had to do quite a few batches, but it was still much faster and much less messy than the other methods. 
 
This is the pectin I used to set the jam. It has instructions inside the box for making freezer jam and jelly as well as cooked jam and jelly. Thats how I learned, and my recipe below is an adaptation from Sure Jell. 

  So I mixed the berries, sure jell, lemon juice and spices together and brought it to a rolling boil.

Then I mixed in the sugar and brought it to another rolling boil. I love how the color of the blueberry skin comes out when it cooks - its so beautiful and deep!

After you've cooked it, following the directions completely, lower it into your boiling water for the suggested time. 
 
And voila - blueberry spice jam! Only 1 of my jars didn't seal, and I was pleased with that for my first attempt. I've since made another 8 pints, and they all sealed!

The jam is fabulous on toast - in fact I ate 4 pieces of toast with blueberry spice jam for lunch yesterday!
 
 
 
 

Blueberry Spice Jam

*adapted from Sure Jell

 

4 cups crushed blueberries

4 cups sugar

1 box pectin

juice from 1 ½ lemons (approx 3 tablespoons)

3 teaspoons cinnamon

¾ teaspoon nutmeg

 

1.     Bring boiling water canner, half-full with water, to simmer.

2.     Wash jars and screw bands in hot, soapy water; rinse with warm water. Pour boiling water over flat lids in saucepan off the heat. Let stand in how water until ready to use. Drain well before filling.

3.     Crush berries, one cup at a time. If using food processor, pulse to chop, do not puree. Jam should have bits of fruit.

4.     Measure exact amount of blueberries into 6-8 quart saucepot. Stir in lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pectin.

5.     Measure exact amount of sugar into separate bowl.

6.     Bring mixture to full rolling boil on high heat, stirring constantly (boil doesn’t stop when stirred).

7.     Stir in sugar quickly. Return to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and skim off any foam.

8.     Ladle quickly into prepared jars, filling to within 1/8 inch of tops. Wipe jar rims and threads and cover with two piece lids. Screw bands tightly, and place jars on elevated rack in canner. Water must cover jars by 1 to 2 inches; addd boiling water if needed. Cover and bring water to gentle boil. Process jam 10 minutes* Remove jars and place upright on a towl to cool completely. After jars cool, check seals by pressing middle of lid with finger. If lid springs back, lid is not sealed and refrigeration is necessary.

9.     Let stand at room temperature 24 hours. Store unopened jams in cool, dry, dark place for up to 1 year. Refrigerate opened jams up to 3 weeks.

 

*Adjust processing time according to altitude

• ·      1,001-3,000 feet – additional 5 minutes
• ·      3,001-6,000 feet – additional 10 minutes
• ·      6,001-8,000 feet – additional 15 minutes
• ·      8,001-10,000 feet – additional 20 minutes

 

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Weekending

What a fun and fast weekend we had! My in-laws came to spend the weekend with us, and it was packed with fun activities!

The Farmers' Market was bustling with all kinds of activity on Saturday! I scored all sorts of delicious things - green beans, carrots, sunflowers, new potatoes, and two things of ravioli from The Pasta Wench. Our favorite is the goat cheese with sun dried tomatoes ... so delicious!

On Friday, we harvested the very fist zucchini from our garden and used it in some stir fry. We've been having some issues with cucumber beetles attaching our squash and zucchini, but I'll fill you in on that later. Needless to say, zucchini is even that much more delicious when you have to work hard for it!

My father-in-law's birthday was Sunday, and I really wanted to cook a special and delicious cake for him. I ran across a recipe for this Deep Dark Chocolate Cake with Cloudburst Frosting on Posie Gets Cozy. Man, was it delicious! It might possible be one of the best cakes I've ever made. It was so deep and chocolately - one of the secrets is substituting a little bit of coffee for the water - it brings out the intense flavors of the chocolate. I'm not going to get into the fact that I actually had to make the cake twice ... it was due to baker error by not using large enough cake pans, and it only resulted in a disaster of baked on chocolate in the oven ... not really worth mentioning or harboring hard feelings over. Yes, I'm still a little bitter.

The frosting was a traditional southern frosting that is typically used on red velvet cake. You actually make a roux with flour and milk that you incorporate into the butter and powdered sugar. I was a bit apprehensive about this icing because I've attempted to make a similar recipe before, and it was a total disaster, that ended with several knife stabbings in the cake. Thankfully, this one was DELICIOUS! I mean, I can't even begin to tell you how good it is. We've almost polished off the entire cake. Like Alicia mentions in the recipe, the cake is most delicious if you refrigerate it a few hours before eating. 

One of the major highlights of the weekend was going blueberry picking! I think I probably look forward to blueberry picking more than Christmas or my birthday or pretty much any other thing. There is nothing like fresh, organic blueberries, right off the bush. Sunday was the first day that our favorite orchard was open, and we were there bright and early! Old Orchard Creek is only about 50 minutes from our house, and I quite enjoy the drive. Unfortunately, I was concentrating so much on picking and eating berries that I didn't get any pictures, but you can check out the post from last year. I even wore the same shirt to go picking, so you aren't missing much by not having pictures from this time! Matt and I picked 10 quarts each (for only $16!), and I'm sure we'll go back several times before the season ends mid-August. Oh how we need an additional freezer ... 

After picking berries, we had a little lunch picnic at Jeffress Park and hiked down to Cascade Falls.  

It is such a nice and short little hike, and it felt great to be outdoors. 

By the way, we finally broke down and got a little window ac unit. It has been unbelievable hot up here, and while I know it doesn't compare to the temperatures of some other cities, we don't have ac in our house, so its hard to get away from the heat! Since we're having visitors two weekends in a row, we decided to get a small unit to cool down the guest room. We spent most of yesterday afternoon hanging out up there ...