Strawberry Galette

The weather has finally been improving, and it's getting warmer (if only slightly), and the sun has been out (I'll take two days of sunshine a week!).  Things are looking brighter, and I can't wait for spring to really arrive with full force. For now though, these mild improvements are a very welcome change.  Since this past weekend was the first that kinda sorta resembled spring (aside from the crazy howling wind on Saturday), there was nothing better than embracing a new set of seasonal flavors.  In my mind, nothing says "spring is here!" quite like the arrival of fresh strawberries.  Fresh, colorful, and beautiful, strawberries are one of my all-time favorite fruits.  There's nothing more disappointing than eating fresh strawberries in winter, simply because they don't taste like anything.  So when an abundance of strawberries arrive at the grocery store and farmer's market, and they really taste the way they're supposed to...it's just a wonderful thing.

Strawberry Grapefruit and Pomegranate Smoothie

I've reached the point where I just can't wait for winter to end. I know there's still a long way to go until spring arrives, and I'm not asking for warmer weather necessarily. I just want a little more sunshine in my life and some vibrant flavors to accompany it. I've got the wintertime blues, and they're hitting me hard.

My blues were only made worse by the fact that I had a horrible cold during my three-day weekend. Instead of relaxing and having fun in my extra day off, I spent my time buried in tissues and counting down the minutes until I could breathe through my nose again. Talk about timing! I felt that my body needed something fresh in its system in order to feel a little better, and there was no better way to do so than with a healing smoothie. I blended up a fruity concoction and while it didn't cure my cold, it definitely made me feel a whole lot better for a few minutes. It was just what I needed.

Lemony Dutch Baby with Mixed Berry Sauce

We did it, we did it! We made it all the way to Friday.  The weekend is here and it's time to have some fun, do nothing, bake some treats, and sleep in.  Sleeping in...HA!  As if I do that on the weekends.  I mean, I guess waking up at 8 in the morning on weekends instead of 6:30 is slightly better, but I really just long for a lazy, lazy, lazy Saturday or Sunday where I wake up at 11 am, that critical hour where it's too late to really eat breakfast but too early to eat lunch.  The only obvious solution to such a critical dilemma is to simply make something delicious and special for breakfast, and pretend it's a substantial lunch meal anyway.

That's exactly what I chose to do last weekend (minus the waking up at 11 am part).  I woke up at my normal weekend hour, and just wasn't in the mood for breakfast.  I'm not sure why, because I've grown to really like having breakfast every morning, but this past Sunday I was just not feeling it. Maybe I was lazy, maybe I wanted to change up my routine, maybe a bit of both.  Whatever my reasons for not having breakfast that day were, I found myself at the critical 11 am hour hungry and in need of food.  I hadn't had breakfast, and it was too early for lunch, so I did the only reasonable thing and made myself a Dutch Baby for lunch.  I wouldn't call it brunch, because there was no lunch element to this meal, aside from the time it was consumed.  This was pure breakfast for lunch.

Strawberry Pie

Happy July, everyone!  The Fourth is the day after tomorrow, and I can't believe it's already here.  It seems like just yesterday that  New York was covered in snow and super cold temperatures, and yet here we are in the middle of summer.  I'm not complaining though!  New York had a rough winter, and I was so sick of the cold and snow by the time it finally ended.  The lovely weather we've been having recently has definitely helped me to forget about the chilly winter season, but I know that before long, the hot and humid days of summer will arrive and I'll be ready for the arrival of cooler weather.  Until that happens though, let's celebrate summer!  

The Fourth of July is one of my favorite parts of summer, and what's more American than celebrating the Fourth with some pie?  I love a good pie, and experimenting with pie is one of my favorite adventures to have in my kitchen.  Every time I set out to make a pie I learn something new that I try to write down to remember for next time.  Making a good pie has been an extensive learning process, filled with some really bad pies and some really stellar pies.  Like all good things though, good pies take practice, and I'm willing to keep working on mine until I get them perfect!

Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Mixed Berries

It's almost here, it's almost here! It's almost the Fourth of July! With this holiday now less than a week away, it's time to whip up some delicious and summer treats in our favorite shades of red, white, and blue.  For me, red and blue mean BERRIES.  Artificially dyed treats like cupcakes and cookies dyed in unnatural shades of colors really weird me out (pastel is ok, but super bright and fluorescent is just not ok), so strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries are my way of getting my red and blue fix.  Actually, the ultimate red, white, and blue dessert for me would be a simple bowl of strawberries and blueberries topped off with a dollop of freshly whipped cream.  It's the easiest thing in the world to make and it screams summer.  

I thought that I would take a cue from my ultimate easy summer dessert as a starting point for a simple and refined approach to a Fourth of July dessert.  Berries with fresh whipped cream has turned into panna cotta with macerated berries; it sounds fancy, but it's still a really easy dessert!  In Italian, panna cotta means "cooked cream," and that's literally what this dessert is. Panna cotta is traditionally a mixture of heavy cream, milk, sugar, and gelatin that gets cooked together, poured into a mold or cup, and then left in the fridge to chill until solidified. It's a very straightforward dish, and takes very little effort and time to prepare.  Essentially, if you can prepare a batch of Jell-O, you should have no problem making panna cotta.

Mini Berry Flag Tarts for the Make and Takes Blog!

Can you believe that we're at the end of June already!? I can't.  I'm in denial that we've already reached the end of the first month of summer.  Sure, there're two months left, but that seems like such a short amount of time, considering that there's all kinds of summery activities that I still need to do.  I still need to get my hands on a Mister Softee cone, an Italian ice from Ralphs, a burger from All American, and a Long Island lobster roll.  I can't let summer get by without these four things escaping from me (there's more, obviously, but these are my priority). While I'm still going to have to come to terms with the fact that it's practically July, I'm actually really excited about Independence Day next week.  A holiday that celebrates cookouts and barbecues and berry desserts and has fireworks at the end is my kind of holiday!  

I have a few themed desserts for the Fourth in mind, but I'm starting out with something super simple.  Having intricate desserts is nice and all, but sometimes, we just need something we can put together fast, with minimal effort and without needing to heat up our kitchens.  These mini berry tartlets do just that.  Little mini phyllo shells are filled with a delicious white chocolate filling and topped off with fresh berries.  They're incredibly simple to make, and when arranged in our iconic stars and stripes, are the perfect dessert for the Fourth of July (or, if you're a World Cup fan, for tomorrow's game- USA! USA!).  Head on over to the Make and Takes blog for the full recipe and more photos.  Enjoy, and happy summer!

Strawberry Lemonade Iced Tea for the Make and Takes Blog!

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend!  Mine was pretty uneventful, but I did get to eat some yummy barbecue, enjoy the nice weather, bake a ton of treats to share with you all in the upcoming weeks, take my GRE exam, and fulfill a major Shake Shack craving that I'd been trying to suppress for weeks.  Maybe my weekend was more eventful than I thought!  Now that we're officially in summer mode, I can't wait for more weekends like this.  I'm super ready and super excited for summer to start!  It doesn't seem like it'll take too long- the weather has been absolutely gorgeous these past couple of days, I've already gotten a bug bite or two, and I'm already feeling like I need to turn the air conditioners on in my house.  Yep, sounds like summertime goodness to me!

To celebrate the arrival of summer and barbecue season, I thought a refreshing summer drink was absolutely in order.  I love love love freshly made home-style iced teas and lemonades, so I knew that my first refreshing summer drink had to incorporate at least one of those...but then I decided to just use both!  I matched up lemonade and iced tea with a strawberry simple syrup and seltzer water to create a fizzy, beautiful, sweet and refreshing drink.  It's incredibly flavorful and takes so little effort and time to prepare that it's the perfect drink to keep as a staple in your summer barbecue party arsenal.  I loved it, and I'm sure I'll be making it and many variations all summer long.  Head on over to Make and Takes for the full recipe!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Cobbler

I can't explain to you how happy I am to finally be sharing the recipe for this strawberry-rhubarb cobbler.  No, it's not that I've been waiting and waiting until the perfect moment to share the recipe.  It's also not because I made it several weeks ago and just forgot to share it.  No, my excitement has nothing to do with that.  I'm mostly excited about sharing this recipe because I was able to simply make it.  You wouldn't believe the amount of trouble I had finding rhubarb this spring.  My local supermarket typically carries it for a super short time in the spring and you just have to be lucky enough to be in the supermarket at that time to buy it, but this year, they just weren't carrying it.  In fact, none of the markets near me were stocking rhubarb.  I called several stores to ask if they had any rhubarb, and while a few of them actually said yes, by the time I made it over, it was all gone.  This meant that in the ten minutes it took me to get from my house to the store, some lucky person grabbed the last of the rhubarb.  I was getting frustrated and disheartened.  I'd been searching for the stuff for three weeks and just couldn't seem to catch a break!  My craving for rhubarb-anything wasn't going anywhere though, so I knew I had to keep trying. 

Fortunately for me, my mom decided to help me out with my rhubarb search, and she actually got lucky and found it!  I don't know how she did it, but I was so glad.  The search was over!  I came home on Saturday night to five beautiful stalks of ruby red rhubarb sitting in pitcher of water on my kitchen counter, and it was an amazing sight to see.  It was also perfectly timed, because my mom was having her best friend come over for dinner on Mother's Day, and she goes crazy for anything with rhubarb and strawberries.  Now that I had secured the rhubarb, it was time to figure out what to do with it!

Double Berry Crumb Bars

Happy Friday, everyone! Happy May, too!  Apparently, there's lots to be happy about.  The fact that we've finally reached the weekend, the sun is actually shining, and we're just a month closer to reaching summer are all things that make me smile, and hopefully they make you happy too. Hopefully everyone has something awesome planned for their weekend.  I'm having the Fried Chicken Dinner at Momofuku Noodle Bar, and I am SO SO SO excited about it.  I've been wanting to go for the longest time, and the fact that I finally, through sheer luck and persistence, managed to get a reservation at a normal dinner hour.  The trick is, in case anyone is interested, is to literally be sitting in front of your computer at 9:59 AM and keep hitting refresh until reservations open at 10, and then click as fast as you can.  It's nothing revolutionary, but it worked.  In addition to my Momofuku adventure, my sister is coming home from college for the weekend, and we have planned to have a muffin and pancake extravaganza.  Muffins, pancakes, fried chicken, and Momofuku desserts are some of my favorite things ever, so this weekend is looking like it will be something really, really great. 

If you're still figuring out how to make your weekend into something really great, I have a really good suggestion for you.  This weekend is supposed to be BEAUTIFUL out (at least Saturday in New York is), so why not plan an easy casual picnic and whip up some Double Berry Crumb Bars for dessert?  I have loved the idea of picnic meals for as long as I can remember, and I'm going to make sure I have as many picnic outings as I can during what's left of spring and all of summer.  They're so relaxed and casual, and there's something so great about enjoying a meal outside under a nice breeze.  Picnic meals require special foods that are easy to transport and easy to serve, and bar cookies are one of those items that fully satisfy both requirements.  Brownies, blondies, and lemon squares are classic bar cookie favorites, but I wanted something different that really screamed, "SPRING IS HERE!"  There's no better bar cookie for the job than one that is really just a berry crumble pie in disguise.  I'm talking about a bar cookie with a buttery shortbread crust, a juicy and fruity center layer, and a sweet, buttery crumb topping.  Hungry yet?  I sure am!

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

Well, just when it seemed as though we were making great strides in the spring department, the weather suddenly decided to turn cold, gray, and rainy once again.  Spring is such a tease!  I recently made great strides in updating my closet with some new spring time additions (aka, I ventured out of the stereotypical architect black-gray-neutral wardrobe and bought things in COLOR!), yet I've been finding myself having to resort to wearing my old clothes because it's a bit too cold to wear my new ones.  At this point, I'm ready to just fast forward through spring and get to summer.  I'm already having intense cravings for stone fruit pies and crostatas, refreshing paletas in every flavor imaginable, and tons and tons (and did I mention, tons) of freshly churned ice cream.  I neeeed warm summer weather and summertime desserts, but right now, I'd settle for a 60 degree and slightly overcast day!  That can't be too much to ask for, right?

Apparently though, a 60-degree and slightly overcast day is a lot to ask for, because it was 45 and rainy yesterday!  As underwhelmed as I feel about spring right now, a berry-filled dessert will almost always do the trick to make me feel a bit more positive about the current season.  I'm a huge berry person; I always have been.  My parents often bring up the story that when I was really little, maybe 3 years old, I went through a phase where the only things I wanted to eat were minestrone soup, strawberries, and orange juice...and that was it.  I guess living off of strawberries for a period of a few months really did something to me, because I can still eat all the strawberries in the world without thinking twice about it.  I typically like to eat strawberries, and most other fruits, fresh, but every now and then I feel like I just have to bake something with them.  These strawberry shortcake cookies are the product of such a moment in time. 

Buttermilk, Berries, and Mascarpone Cream Cake

If you've been keeping up with my last few posts on the blog or been stalking me on Instagram, you will have certainly come across a few hints at "an awesome/extravagant/amazing/anything-but-simple/delicious" layer cake.  I'm normally a simple and easy snack cake kinda gal, but every now and then I get a craving to get totally fancy and overly-complicated and spend the better part of my day in kitchen making a single cake.  It doesn't happen often, but the mood struck a few weeks ago, and all I could think about, were layer cakes.  I became obsessed, and it was becoming problematic, because I just couldn't shake the thought.  The only way to fix the situation was to go ahead and actually make myself an epic cake, but I was holding myself back because I was faced with the same problem that always stops me from making layer cakes in the first place.  What the heck do I do with a giant layer cake once I'm done photographing it!?

I generally don't make layer cakes often simply because I just don't know what to do with them in the end.  If there's no birthday party or big family gathering happening during the same weekend, I'm stuck with a giant layer cake in my house, and that's not a good thing.  My dad doesn't like frosted cakes, my mom usually thinks 85% of the things are too sweet, and well, as much as I love cake, I don't love it enough to eat an entire cake by myself (my pants and other clothes thank me for this).  Fortunately, however, my latest layer cake craving just so happened to coincide with news that my close friends/former roommates from college were having a potluck style housewarming dinner, which for me, meant only one thing.  CAKE.  I had the perfect opportunity to make giant cake, and there would be lots of people around to eat it.  These types of occasions don't happen all too often, so I knew that my contribution for this potluck party just had to be cake.  I didn't know what kind of cake yet, but there would be cake.

Strawberry Shortcake

Hello and happy Friday, people!  I hope everyone has had a lovely week and is ready to start their weekend!  I haven't had a chance to really put together any sort of concrete plans, due to the upcoming super duper mega snow storm that is supposedly going to hit at some point in the weekend.  Given that there is a very strong chance that I'll be snowed in at some point, I've gone ahead and planned out a list of the things I want to bake during the weekend (what better way to spend a weekend where you're snowed in, right?). Most of the things I have on my list have chocolate and the colors red and pink involved in some way. While I typically tend to ignore the upcoming holiday that falls smack dab in the middle of February, aka exactly a week from today, I know that not everyone shares my Valentine's Day apathy.  Before we jump to any conclusions, I'll set it straight that I am not bitter because I don't have a Valentine (I do, and I've had him for the past four years).  I just feel like it's a silly excuse for a holiday.  I don't really get what the magic or importance of Valentine's Day is, if there is even any at all.  Regardless, with Valentine's Day there's always ridiculous amounts of mini fun size chocolate and pink M&M's (these are the best things ever), and perfect opportunities to make all things red velvet.  Any holiday that comes with a promise for chocolate, pink M&M's, and red velvet cake means that it deserves at least some acknowledgement, right?  I know I already have holiday edition candy in my kitchen cabinet, so it looks like I do celebrate the holiday, even if it's by myself in my kitchen.

Anyway, that was a lot of somewhat incoherent rambling (I apologize for this, but I'm running low on sleep).  Since it turns out that I do celebrate Valentine's Day, at least in the food sense, and I know that lots of people out there also celebrate the occasion, I have to share a few themed treats, albeit subtle treats.  This strawberry shortcake is one of those subtle treats.  There's no chocolate, pink M&M's, or red velvet anywhere in this cake, but that doesn't matter.  What this cake does have is a lot of love, and that's what counts, right?  You see, this strawberry shortcake is THE cake and dessert that comes to mind when I think of my mama.  My mom has had this recipe for strawberry shortcake since before I was born, and I've been eating it ever since I was old enough to eat cake (age two I guess?).  My mom always made this cake during the summer, and since my birthday falls at the end of June, I celebrated many birthdays with a thick slice of strawberry shortcake.  Despite being a major chocolate freak (this was my birthday cake last year, in case you need a refresher), I don't think I'll ever be able to say no to a slice of my mom's strawberry shortcake.  It's so good that it's been requested dozens upon dozens of times, not just by me, but by my entire family as well.  I think it goes without saying that this is my actual favorite cake of all time.  There's just a lotta love and memories all rolled up in this cake.  

Strawberry Soda Floats

I'm a huge ice cream fan.  I don't know if that's been made perfectly clear to you guys yet, but now you know.  I'm a major ice cream fan.  The kind that is both obsessed with finding the craziest, most delicious, and most unusual ice cream flavors I can find, yet is also obsessed with finding the perfect PLAIN chocolate, or the perfect PLAIN vanilla, or the perfect OLD-FASHIONED butter pecan.  It's important to have a balance of crazy and classic, or at least I think so anyway.  Every type of ice cream has its own time and place for being most appropriate.  Scoops of perfectly creamy vanilla ice cream are pretty much required to sit on top of warm brownies and pies.  Nothing beats sweet and crunchy rocky road ice cream whenever you've had an annoyingly awful day. Sometimes, you just need a really tall Snickers and Pretzel milkshake for whenever your silly mood strikes. I get those mood swings every now and then, and they've always demanded some kind of crazy, slightly-overly-sweet treat to remedy them.  The kind of treat where, once I finish, I find myself thinking, "wow...did I really just eat that?" and then I tell myself that whatever I just ate was so good, that it was totally worth it.   

While I've always been a milkshake kinda person, soda floats were not something I was ever a big fan of.  The ice cream to soda ratio always seemed to be in favor of the soda portion, and that soda, typically, happened to be root beer. There's no easy way to say this, so I'm going to be perfectly blunt and just say it.  I HATE root beer. There's not many foods or flavors that I can honestly say I dislike, or even hate, but root beer is one of them.  I really just can't stand the stuff, and I don't understand how it's as popular a drink as it is. Just thinking about root beer brings back a funny taste to my mouth.  I remember the very first time I tried root beer.  I was on a class field trip in elementary school to some kind of old-fashioned farm from wayyy back in the day. On the field trip, we were offered what I thought was homemade Coke.  I took a big sip, and immediately realized that what I was drinking was most definitely not Coke.  It was a major disappointment, to say the least, given that my family hardly ever drinks soda and any opportunity to drink soda was a special treat.  I tried to give root beer a chance a couple of times after that, but I always ended up regretting my decision.  I really just don't like it. 

Strawberry and Blueberry Hand Pies

Things are a bit weird around here. For starters, I'm bundled up in my fuzziest sweatpants and hoodie and am sitting underneath a mountain of fuzzy blankets as I'm writing this.  The weather has been crazy these past couple of days, and it's been cold and then hot, and then super rainy and super windy, and then suddenly, it's a perfectly calm day, only to be interrupted ten minutes later by gray skies and heavy wind.  I don't know what's going on with the weather, but what I do know is that it's brought out all the pollen in the world, and I'm dying because of it.  Sheesh, two days of not taking my allergy medicine because it was packed away while I was packing up all my belongings to move back home from school has left me in a serious funk.  My allergies are driving me nuts, and wait....move back home from school?  

Yep.  I'm home for good.  

It's so crazy to think that I'm actually finished with college.  I don't think it's really sunk in yet, because it just feels like I'm home for summer vacation right now, but I know that sooner or later, it's going to really hit me.  I'm both happy and sad about finishing my time at Columbia- I know that it was a huge accomplishment to get to this point, but at the same time, I feel like a huge part of my life is just missing right now.  Leaving campus for the last time on Thursday morning felt so indescribably strange, because I knew that there would be no "next year."  Nevertheless, as bittersweet as this time is, I know that I've gained so much from my time at Columbia, and I'm so excited to see what comes next!  

Mini Strawberries and Cream Eclairs

I woke up on this lovely spring morning (so happy I can finallllyyyy say that), with a plan.  I had planned out the night before to wake up early, run to the library, and sit myself down to do work for three hours on my independent study project.  Then after that, I was going to get lunch, grab a coffee, and go to class.  During my time at the library, I was supposed to write this blog post about strawberries and cream eclairs, and learn a thing or two about prefabrication.  Note that I used the word "supposed." I use that word because, of course, my plan didn't actually work out.  I did wake up early, and I did get to the library right when it opened, but then that's where the plan fell apart.  After I did my fifteen minutes of online procrastination (you know, Reddit, Foodgawker, etc), I kinda just lost it.  

I kinda lost all the motivation I had to do work and be productive.  My productive spark just died, and I could feel it.  I developed a splitting headache while sitting at the library, and no matter what I did, I just couldn't focus on anything or read the several books that were sitting in front of me. My body just wouldn't let me, as much as I was trying to force myself to do work.  So then, I decided that the only thing to do was to try to sleep this headache off.  Rather than walk back to my room and sleep in a bed like a normal person, my laziness (and also my desire to eventually get some work done) got the best of me, and I decided to just take a nap right where I was, right at my desk in the library.  Yep.  I was the girl who was passed out in the library, and it was only 9:30 AM.  #senioritis

NY Style Birthday Cheesecake

Exactly one year ago, I published a post where I documented one of my very first experiences with deep frying. I made a batch of classic, old-fashioned yeast doughnuts, fried them up, dipped them in a chocolate glaze, and then covered them in rainbow sprinkles.  I called them Birthday Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts, and they were published for my little sister's birthday, as per her request.  Today, my little sister is definitely no longer that little, as she's turned 18 (holy crap, she's an adult too now...I suddenly feel so much older...).  To continue with this sudden "tradition" of dedicating a birthday post for her, she requested nothing less than mini everything bagels, to be photographed in an assortment of styles, ranging from a mini bacon egg and cheese sandwich, to being sandwiched with homemade strawberry cream cheese.  Now, I'll give her that this would have been such a fun project to work on, and the photos could have looked really awesome with all the different ways I could have used the mini bagels, but really...mini everything bagels?  Homemade strawberry cream cheese?  Multiple photo sets and sandwiches?  

Ain't nobody got time for that.  I certainly don't, at least. 

This is not to say that I won't ever make mini everything bagels and photograph them in different applications. Not at all.  I love everything bagels, in all sizes, and I do love a good photo challenge, so these will definitely grace the blog at some point, just not when I'm trying to be an efficient baker and bake up a decent sized batch of recipes to bring back with me to school.  I explained this to her, and she reluctantly agreed, instead suggesting that I make her a NY style cheesecake, as seen on Smitten Kitchen, but with a strawberry sauce instead of cherries.  Even though I'm not a huge fan of cheesecake, I agreed, as this seemed like a much more reasonable request.  I knew exactly which cheesecake recipe she was referring to, as it was one that we had both been eyeing for at least two years.  Yes, two years.  It took me two whole years to finally agree to make this recipe for my sister, and while it may have initially started out as only a way to appease her for not making her bagels, I'll be the first to say that this recipe may have changed my mind about cheesecake.  Maybe not about cheesecake in general, but I'm now going to be willing to eat NY style cheesecake a bit more often.  This recipe was life-changing, if we want to be dramatic.  If we want to be a bit more down to earth, this recipe was just really damn good, and was able to make me, a non-cheesecake loving person, consider taking a second slice.  

Healthy Jam-Swirled Silver Dollar Pancakes

There are certain things about being home that I love, and don't love.  There's mostly good things, I promise though.  I love being able to cook in a fully equipped and fully stocked kitchen, I love being home for delicious home-cooked meals, driving my dad insane with my sister, and getting to take a break from the hustle and bustle of school and Manhattan (although after a couple of days, I do start to miss it pretty terribly...).  Being at home is great, but it does come with its downsides.  

Number 1- I never get any school work done, because baking, taking photos, and editing photos is time consuming, and just plain more interesting. 

Number 2- My eating schedule gets a little wonky.  You see, I like to wake up early and get my baking started literally the second I get up.  I can't be wasting precious moments of daylight, inspiration, and creativity on making myself an omelette (although it probably wouldn't hurt if I took ten minutes aside to make myself some breakfast), and then there's the inevitable necessity of sampling of my less-than-healthy (but delicious and hard to resist) food....  

Number 3- I get lazy about working out, which is a problem.  I love working out, and at school, I have no problem with fitting in 5-6 good workouts a week, but when I come home...that's a whole other story.  I just have a hard time getting myself to exercise on my own when I'm home for some inexplicable reason that is completely beyond me....ugh.

Summer Strawberry Buttermilk Cake

I've recently gotten addicted to the show Lost...you remember that show, right?  Yes, I know that I'm only several years late, but that's alright.  I don't usually watch very much television, and my excuse for this is that I'm always at school, and I don't have time, or access, or I'm busy working in studio at night, so keeping up with the latest shows has never really been a priority for me.  I did start watching tv shows on Netflix, like Breaking Bad (I cannot wait for the next season this summer) and Mad Men (I still need to finish catching up on this!), but my most recent obsession is Lost.  I haven't been able to stop watching it; I haven't actually done anything today except watch it on Netflix (I really just need to find out what the deal is with the Others, I HAVE to know).  I don't know how people managed to watch this show while it was actually airing; I can't imagine having had to wait a whole week in between episodes! 

Needless to say, I had to pry myself away from Lost for a brief moment to finish writing up this post.  I had actually started it a couple of days ago, editing all the photos and stuff, but then I got on the whole Lost thing, and things just went downhill from there, because I just needed to keep watching episode after episode.  In any case though, I managed to get away from Netflix for a few moments- a good thing, because I have something delicious that deserves just as much attention as Lost.

Mini Strawberry-Rhubarb Pies

Every now and then we think up an idea that at the time seems brilliant and amazing, and no matter what, we HAVE to go through with it.  This happens to me all the time.  Last summer, I got the idea of making a sour-cherry lattice top pie stuck in my head.  I just HAD to make one.  Mind you, I had only made like...one pie before that in my life, and it had a crumble for the topping; it wasn't even a double crust pie!  I'm not really sure how I figured that I would be able to put together a lattice crust given that I had practically no experience with pie dough.  Other fun factors that added to this situation was that I decided to try a completely brand new pie crust recipe, despite having made a pie crust successfully before.  I'm not sure why I didn't choose to simply reuse that recipe that I knew worked, but I just HAD to try out a new recipe for some reason.  To make matters even more fun, I also didn't have a cherry pitter...and I still don't (this fact will change soon, I'm sure). I decided to give myself the added pleasure of pitting about 2 pounds of cherries by hand.  These were clearly all great decisions on my part.  

Strawberry Ice Cream

For as long as I can remember, I have been a lover of all things strawberry.  Strawberry jam, cake, or just served with whipped cream, I loved them.  My mom actually tells a story that when I was really little I went through a phase where all I ate was minestrone soup, mushrooms, and lots and lots of strawberries.  What an interesting assortment of food...but in any case, that was legitimately all that I ate for like, a three month period or something.  Apparently it was just a phase, although I still really like minestrone soup, mushrooms, and strawberries in particular.  I don't think that'll ever be a phase.  Strawberries are delicious in just about everything!

Everything except ice cream.

Wait, what?  No strawberry ice cream?  Are these not photographs of strawberry ice cream?  Yes  these are photos of strawberry ice cream, and yes, I meant it when I said that I like everything strawberry except ice cream.  I honestly don't know why.  It's such a classic flavor that seems to be loved by the majority of people that I've met, as it is delicate and light, and not nearly as heavy as some of the rich chocolate ice creams that I happen to crave 99% of the time.  Strawberry ice cream never did much for me I guess.  My dad happens to love strawberry ice cream, so when there was a pretty nice sale on strawberries at the supermarket, I figured it was time to make some ice cream and get over my anti-strawberry ice cream self.