kitchen bliss

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Jen

jenjoycedesign© kitchen bliss

Sun streaming in, warming and brightening a corner where pizza dough rises every Friday late afternoon, as always. Trying to keeping the counters clean, if in the very least to boost morale in these pandemic days, and feeling a little more relaxed today while sheltering in and waiting for the next rain storm.

Yesterday, apple butter . . .

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So, if you’re considering making some yummy apple butter with things you already have in your pantry, to serve along with some fresh baked bread because you don’t want to bother going to the stores, try this . . .

Jen’s Apple Butter:

1 large jar of applesauce, 1 bag of dried apples, and sugar & spices to taste (I used raw turbinado sugar, a little cinnamon & allspice) . Just enough water to cover dried apples, and cooked over a few hours until the dried apples break down into little tasty clumps.

Make small batch and preserve in sterilized half-cup jars.

Bergamot

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Jen

Earl Grey tea

I noticed this particular blend of Earl Grey tea has blue flowers. Blue flowers? Not knowing what flower this could be, I did a tiny bit of research on Earl Grey tea, and of bergamot too, wondering if those petals could be bergamot flower? My findings enlighten me to the fact that there are actually two kinds of bergamot in the botanical world! First, the European grown Bergamot Orange , botanical name is Citrus Bergamia.

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Second, the North American herbal plant Wild Bergamot, also known as Bee Balm, botanical name is Monarda … e20b82df1129d9ef5b8e8e91d7e1a0cb
This was confusing to me, because the herbaceous bergamot has a purplish flower, which some of the Earl Grey tea blends have. Now, reading up on ingredients in Earl Grey blends, I found that the dried petals in my tea could very possibly be cornflower petals ! HHDL_Garden_Cornflower
The type of blue flower petals in my tea blend is still a mystery, however, there is no debate that the signature flavor of Earl Grey tea is the citrus kind of Bergamot, the essential oil which is extracted from the aromatic skin of the sour fruit.

I have also discovered that Earl Grey tea is one of the most varied blends of tea, and that “Earl Grey” as applied to tea is not a registered trademark, thus numerous tea companies produce their own blends of Earl Grey tea, using a wide variety of tea leaves and additives. Aside from black tea, obviously, ingredients vary enough to make me dizzy; there is foremost the essential oil of the citrus bergamot, but may also citrus rind, licorice root, lavender, mallow flower, monarda flower, cornflower, jasmine, rose petals lemon grass, vanilla ~~ just to name a few ingredients I have found so far. What are the ingredients in your favorite Earl Grey blend?

All very well & good! Actually, the reason for my curiosity is that I have been thinking about making Earl Grey ice-cream lately, among other forthcoming tea-inspired ideas, so I finally did, and here’s how I made a small sample batch, including a little photo slideshow…

Heat to scalding, 1 cup of heavy cream with 2-4 tablespoons of your favorite Earl Grey blend in the cream — no need to boil.
Add 1/2 cup sugar, and let it sit a couple of hours at least, to get the Earl Grey flavors exuding into the cream.
When completely cool, stir well, and strain through sieve, then and add 1 cup milk.
Churn freeze & enjoy!

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Served up in a little espresso demitasse,

and let me tell you,

the ice-cream is every bit as fragrant as the tea,

absolutely delicious …

Earl Grey tea ice-cream

… and I think that the Earl himself would approve!

The Earl Charles Grey, 1764-1845

moody monday

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Jen

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Emma and I are moody.

When feeling under the weather (on the eve of a birthday)…make candy!

Emma wants some …

( See her nose? )

Honestly, I have not gone on a candy-making jag in years. I used no recipe, just tossed ingredients ( about a cup of org. sugar, a bit more than half cube of salted butter, a glob of corn syrup, and a dash of cream) in a small saucepan over a low flame while cold-water testing until it was right. Poored in a buttered pyrex dish over a bed of chopped toasted almonds, then sprinkled more on top. I ate a ton of it, it shook off the blues, and then I felt better.

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Oh, and knit something really amazing !!! Anyway, the rest of it is just cozy, dark drizzling dank gorgeous wintery day, while drinking coffee, munching butter toffee and knitting. I will be home in my hermitage for the week just working on forthcoming design. 🙂

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Sweet As A Rose

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Jen

This morning a lovely fragrant rose bloomed in the garden, and promptly I cut it off to put it in a vase on the table of the big open room of our house hoping to make the house smell lovely. Now, usually that is fine enough, but being a bit of a striving dessert chef, my tongue could just taste that fresh fragrant blossom. Yes, perhaps in a bath of whole cream, and barely sweetened with some fine crystals of organic sugar. My creative inner cook loves a challenge, and my nose and mouth can be jealous friends.

While this blossom was still opening it’s amazingly fragrant coral pink petals, I got out copper pots & spoons, and began to whistle a tune while a steam bath started to tremor. And this is how I made my rose ice-cream. . .

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I broke off only petals of a very fragrant variety of (organically grown) rose flower into bath of full cream ~~ about a cup, in preferably a glass or stainless steel bowl. Heated over simmering water as a double boiler, and when cream was very warm, added about a half cup of sugar (less is more) , stirred and let cool until room temperature. All that lovely rose essence leeches out into the full cream as the fat and the sugar really help the process. After it cooled to room temperature, I strained the petals out of the cream and added a little whole milk, not quite doubling the volume. Into the churn freezer it went.

I must say, it would be perfect if I learned how to sugar preserve rose petals and garnished with them. As the summertime drones on with mercury rising, its a real treat to be enjoying a little taste of rose ice-cream !

The End Of Summer

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Jen

My nieces came to visit and we migrated into the kitchen without a blink.

What do you do when you have to cram a lot of fun into a short 24-hour visit?

Have a lot of fun… a lot…. and do weird and crazy things.

Like make carrot ice-cream !!!

You know what? It was actually really good !

Here’s what we did:

In centrifugal juicer, we extracted juice from carrots until we had about 3/4 cups carrot juice, then added about 1/4 cup sugar, and 1-1/2 cups cream, then churn in the icecream maker.

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The Autumnal equinox is approaching in a week, and it is my absolute favorite time of year. When October comes along with the marine fog pouring over the ridge I always feel so cheerful. And when the first soft rains wash the dust off of the parchment dry landscape, it comes back to life, and then I feel ecstatic. Like a cougar ready to pounce I am anticipating earnest work ahead on the woodland knitting trail that I have been contemplating well over a year. Autumn is my happiest time, and my most hard-laboring time.

Just that I will spend the next week, the end of summer, first finishing this…

(Not the cup of tea, but the sweater ) 😉 I am making good progress on the Autumn sweaters for my nieces, with the first one finished and the second more than half way done. Soon I’ll be at the yoke joining sleeves to body, then it’s usually done pretty fast from there.

I am pretty well certain that I will be finished with both of the sweaters by the equinox, which is one week from today… and the photo shoot with nieces wearing them is scheduled for the first weekend in October ~~ so my fingers are crossed, and I’m so excited ! For this last week of summer I knit while the sounds of grape harvest surround us on the mountain , rattling gondolas towed behind tractors on the rugged dirt roads and chatter of jovial pickers are heard in the breeze.

Three Days

Posted on December 22, 2013 by Jen

One of my weird kitchen concoctions ~~ hot pepper chocolate.

I have been home alone on the mountain with Emma and The Ravens for four days now. Jeff is returning tonight, from Mexico where he has been visiting with his daughter in Cancun since the nineteenth, visiting ancient Mayan ruins and enjoying a lovely warm beach. Here, I’ve been very busy with holding the fort, and working on this lacey thing . . .

But really what I’ve been working hard on while alone in the house, is my traditional gift of Christmas to Jeff, but I dare not show you a thing until Christmas morning. In the mean time, still serving up my Spiced Chocolate drink if you’d like to stop by ~~I’ll whip one up for you ! If you can’t make it over, I understand, but you’ll have to try this at home ! Here’s how :

Jen’s Spicy Bittersweet Chocolate

(For two servings)

With a mortar & pestle, crunch up a couple of cinnamon sticks, and dried chile flakes or a whole small chile pepper ~~ to taste, what you consider ‘barely hot’ , or ‘really hot’, it is up to you.

(( Optional: a few cardamom pods, and a ‘petal’ from a star anise pod, a dash of grey sea salt ))

Simmer in a pan with about 3 cups of water for about 20 minutes, take off heat and melt into it a few ounces bittersweet chocolate, whisking while it melts.

More chocolate is nice… as much as you feel to balance against the heat of the peppers. I don’t add more sugar, as the idea is to be bittersweet and spicy hot… which is really delicious. However, nobody is stopping you from sweetening it up :).

Whip up a small bowl of cream, again, barely sweetened.

Strain through sieve into cups and pile on the whipped cream , sprinkle with something… like nutmeg or cinnamon… and enjoy !

Wishing You All and Yours lovely days of these fresh first winter days (or summer) and Happy Christmas sentiments.