garlic scape butter

Are you growing garlic in your garden? Well then snip off those garlic scapes and make yourself some garlic butter.

1 lb unsalted (soft) garlic butter
8 c. (very approx.) chopped garlic scapes

Put the scapes in a cuisinart. Chop 'em up, add the soft butter and blend.  Dump onto a sheet of waxed paper and roll up into a log. put in the freezer. The amount of scapes you put in depends on your tolerance for garlic. If you have a bit of a sensitive stomach, add fewer scapes. Scapes can be used in place of garlic in any recipe, they have a more mild flavor than raw garlic. I plan to slice off a pat of scape butter anytime I'm in need of a little garlicky, rich flavor...pasta dishes...inside twice baked potatoes...grilled fish....

banana espresso cake

Adapted from vanillasugar


2 c mashed very ripe bananas
1/4 c brown sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/4 c plus 1 T milk, whole or skim, whatever, or half and half if you are feeling naughty
1 T instant espresso
1 egg
1 c flour
1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour, if you don't have pastry flour, regular whole wheat is fine (or use all white flour)
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 t salt
3/4 c chocolate chips


beat banana, sugar, butter, milk, espresso powder and egg together until well blended. sift dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, including chocolate chips, stir briefly, just until blended through. 
350 deg oven. Bake for 20 minutes, rotate pan and bake for another 15-20 min. Total baking time: 40 ish minutes. 
enjoy..........yum...............

Iced Coffee...how to

With summer upon us...pass the coffee, make mine iced. This method for making iced coffee will not disappoint...guaranteed! We diverged a bit from the original recipe found here...


12 oz ground coffee (medium grind)
8 c room temp water


combine coffee and water in a giant pitcher. stir and cover. let sit for 20-24 hrs. strain with a fine strainer and dilute to your liking. I  think 1 part coffee, 2 parts water is a fine ratio...the concentrate will stay good in the refrigerator for 10 days! (yes, 10!)

cliff bar...adaptation!

A friend adapted my cliff bar recipe above...these look awesome. She used dried cherries, roasted almonds and almond butter. YUM. Thanks Florie!!!

homemade cheez-its

I wish I could take credit for these little delights. But I can't, so I won't. But I can vouch for the fact that they are delicious and next time I'm going to 5x the batch so I can have a bunch on hand. I used a combination of mozzarella and cheddar cheese. 

The recipe can be found here. I prefer the length of this ingredient list (n=6) to that of the cheez-it ingredient list (n=20)...don't you?...

the easiest (and fastest) bread you'll ever make...

This recipe is from Juila Child's book Baking With Julia. It's so easy and fast. You just gotta try it!


1 1/2 lbs russet or red potatoes
4 tsp salt
1/2 tepid reserved potato water
1 T active dry yeast
2 T olive oil
2 T dried or fresh rosemary
4 3/4 c unbleached all purpose or bread flour


cook the potatoes: cut into quarters, don't peel 'em!, toss into 2 quart pot, cover with water and add 2 tsp of the salt, boil until soft, reserve 1/2 c of the potato water, drain potatoes and cool on baking sheet. potatoes must be dry before they are mashed. when potatoes are cool, stir yeast into reserved potato water, if it's cool, warm it up in microwave for a couple seconds, it should be warm. mash the potatoes, add the dissolved yeast water, olive oil and mix. add the flour, rosemary and the remaining 2 tsp salt. this will seem like an incredibly dry dough, but have faith and keep mixing! I don't even use a wooden spoon at this point, I just mix with my hands, it's easier to get everything incorporated. 


First Rise: cover the mixing bowl with a kitchen towel, allow dough to rest at room temp for 30 min.


Shape the dough into either 2 torpedo loaves or 2 rounds, after shaping, place on floured baking sheet or onto the counter, cover and let proof for another 30 minutes. 


Preheat oven to 375. prepare oven for hearth baking (watch this video, it's 1 1/2 min.), place your baking stone in oven and on the bottom of the oven, place a baking sheet (this is where you will pour the water).  


gently place (either with your hands of with a baking peel) the dough onto the baking stone, pour approx. 1 c water into the steam pan and quickly close the oven door. this will create the steam you are looking for.


bake 45-50 minutes, the loaves should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom and the interior temp should measure 200 F.

Kale Quesadilla with Ann's Barn Raising Beans

The centerpiece of this dish are the beans. They are so delicious, but I didn't want to take a picture of a bowl of beans, so I made a quesadilla with them...YUM.


Ann's Barn-raising Beans

1 1/2 lb dried red beans (soaked overnight or for 6 hours or so)

1 large onion chopped

1/2 c cilantro

1 1/2 tbs chili powder

2 tsp salt

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp thyme

2 bay leaves

4 whole cloves or 1/2 tsp ground cloves

6 cloves of garlic minced

6 c veggie stock

Put soaked beans into crockpot with all the other ingredients, cook at whatever setting allows the mixture to simmer, the high setting on my crockpot works for me. When the beans are cooked (mine took 12 ish hours, but it depends on how long you pre-soak the beans, longer soaking time = shorter cooking time), remove the lid and let some of the liquid cook off. Turn off when the consistency thickens.

Proceed with quesadilla making...I like a little somethin' green in my quesadilla...kale from the garden needed to get eaten so that ended up being my leafy green of choice. 

The key to a good quesadilla is a hot cast iron skillet, butter instead of oil, salt and good cheese. I assume you all know how to make one, so I won't elaborate, but be sure to include a good serving of these beans in there, you won't be disappointed. They would be awesome on nachos as well...